As mentioned in the last challenge post, I haven’t been a player very often, but I do play open-world computer games like the Elder Scrolls series. Looking back over my style of play across both types of gaming, I seem to have avoided the rigidity of the character class system.

In Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind, I stole, I fought, and I cast magical spells as the need arose. I generally found the thieving skills to be the most useful and always seem to focus on them first.

In D&D, I’ve also gravitated towards the ‘Rogue’ group of character classes. My first PC was a gnome illusionist/thief who was trying hard to tell everyone he was just an illusionist, but was secretly trying to steal their shit. Thankfully, they didn’t stab me and throw my corpse down a flight of stairs.

My second character was a human thief in my brother’s short-lived campaign back in the 80s – he abandoned it for reasons unknown and I can barely remember much about it (except a bunch of gnolls turned to stone and embedded in a wall underground – shades of Han Solo’s carbonite period).

And my latest character, Ghath (meaning ‘sickly’) was a half-elven Bard. I wanted to try something that none of my players had done before and see how it would work out. Trying hard to stay in character (unlike my Elder Scrolls adventures), I decided Ghath’s burning ambition was to become a famous playwright, telling tales of heroic deeds, tragic downfalls, and doomed lovers. Reasonably capable of taking care of himself in a fight, he joined a brave group of adventurers who had been hired to investigate the sudden cessation of communications with a remote village (a summary of the adventure can be found on Shichitenhakki’s blog here). Despite the technical difficulties of remoting in to their game from the other side of the country, I had a blast playing Ghath. With the DM’s knowledge and approval, I was playing him as a person who goads others into a dangerous course of action to see what happens, so that Ghath could write a play about it.

One of the party (a thief) was looking to buy a hand-crossbow but was complaining about the price. I suggested that he might perhaps pay the merchant the full amount and then rob him as he left for home that night. “Surely that’s precisely what a master thief would do!” He thought about it but decided it wasn’t a good idea.

As the party was heading north across a large sea on the final galley before winter set it, I suggested that we pretend to be buyers for the merchants in Parsanteum, taking their money with the promise of buying rare goods in the northern city of Karjolat. Except that we were getting off the boat before Karjolat and would keep the money. Again, no takers. Probably a good thing as there would have been bloody repercussions when the party returned to Parsanteum.

But it was enormous fun for me and the other players didn’t cotton on to it. Unfortunately, the technical difficulties were insurmountable given the poor bandwidth I had at the time. So I passed Ghath on to the DM for him to manage. Interestingly, after the adventure was concluded, Ghath rose to the status of the Bard of Parsanteum, being the most successful playwright in the land. He was rich enough and famous enough to act as a patron for other adventuring parties to seek their fortune – so long as they returned and told him of their adventures.

So yeah, I kinda like playing low-lifes – rogues, thieves, cut-purses and actors.

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