So last night I was siezed by AN URGE: I wanted to make a D&D character. I have no real plans to play in a campaign. I just wanted to make a D&D character. Specifically, an assassin/magic-user multiclass, who mostly uses her magic in the service of getting behind people unobserved, stabbing them in the back, and getting away again before anyone can react.
I ended up grabbing a torrent of the 5th edition Player’s Handbook (if I actually start playing I’ll buy it for real – hell, if I could have bought a PDF for like $10-20, I would have, but WOTC only wants to sell me a physical book) and staying up until like 2AM flipping through it on my iPad , taking copious notes in a previously-empty black sketchbook.
The one thing that really stood out for me about the 5th edition – besides it being really really pretty with a ton of gorgeous, gender-inclusive art (and a paragraph that explicitly includes queer and trans characters!) – is its explicit insistence on storytelling hooks. Players have to choose a background of what they did before becoming wandering adventures, as well as picking an “ideal” the character aims for, a “bond” with something in the past, and a “flaw”. All of these are obvious places for the DM to hang stories. Much better than “well I rolled up this collection of stats, what happens now”. Hell, just deciding on a class offered story potential – I decided to pass up the “Arcane Trickster” rogue specialization in favor of a dual-class rogue-assassin/warlock (Arcane Tricksters cast magic, but only illusions, and a lot of the spells I wanted weren’t illusion). The warlocks are a species of magic-user who get their powers from A Deal They Made, whether with the Fair Folk, the Netherworld, or Tentacles Outside Of Space And Time.
Admittedly for all I know they could have started playing with the idea of ‘bake story hooks into character creation’ as early as 2nd Ed, as the last time I owned D&D books was 1st Ed AD&D, but whatever. I like it. Solely going on ideas from the Player’s Handbook, I ended up with a half-demon lady whose non-adventuring gig is “entertainer” (mostly dancer and tumbler), but who also kills people on the side, and has made a dubious deal with some Lord or Lady of the Fair Folk that results in her having magical power. There are a lot of blanks left to fill in, but I feel like the system is designed to evoke answers for these blanks – for instance, one of the starting items of an entertainer is “some token of a lover” and I’m wanting to put that together with “made a deal with the Fair Folk” and have her doing various dubious jobs to try and get back the lover who the fairies stole. Which, well, I mean that’s something that could drive an entire story, isn’t it? A hell of a lot better start than what I remember getting out of all the steps of character creation in 1st Ed back around 1983.
(also if I ever do actually play her I am going to beg the DM to let me take the bard cantrip ‘Vicious Mockery’ because I totally want to deal in INSULT SWORDFIGHTING now and then.)
Edit. I drew her over breakfast. Are you happy yet, brain? Can I get back to work?
