The Play's the Thing, Part V

Originally published June 25, 2014

In my continuing series, I discuss The Play's the Thing, a player advice column by Robin D. Laws that ran in Dragon Magazine in the early years of D&D 3rd edition. The point of the column was to help players improve their games for their own enjoyment and that of their fellow players. In addition to reviewing that advice, I'll be providing my thoughts on how it works in actual play.

Decisive Moments

Issue 287, September 2001

Few characters remain unchanged by their stories. Conan (the movie version) goes from vengeful child to thief to hero. Frodo is slowly corrupted by the Ring. In the Underworld series, Selene goes from loyal werewolf hunter to hunted rebel. Often the strongest tales are those of protagonists who change, grow, or fall to darkness in the course of achieving their objectives. Doing the same thing for your character in a campaign not only injects some dynamism and realism into the game, it can also reinvigorate your enthusiasm in a character.

There are several reasons to have your character undergo a change.

First as the game evolves, your character might evolve with it. Your character might simply be growing up, moving from high school to college like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or feeling the chill as they move from adulthood to old age. Or perhaps the campaign's plot takes a dark turn as the villain gains the upper hand, bringing about a (hopefully short) age of darkness. You might want to explore how your naive warrior of light adjusts to this new grimmer world.

Alternatively you might want to breathe some new life into an existing character. Maybe your character finds religion or a higher calling. Alternatively they might grow corrupt, more blood thirsty or vengeful. Or perhaps they change their outlook slightly like the thuggish warrior learning the value of stealth and taking levels in rogue or a character gaining an interest in the occult and studying magic.

The crucial element in each of these cases is to decide is why your character is changing. What event triggered this decisive moment?

In many cases the cause will be clear. A growing darkness leads to pessimism or new approaches to countering the evil in the world, an ongoing romance causes them to want to be a better person or provider, or a series of botched hunting rolls leads a vampire descending fully into a monster.

Other changes might require you to find a suitable turning point for your character. You might choose to wait for the right moment or adjust your plans to account for the specifics of the game. Alternatively you could collaborate with your gamemaster (GM). Many GMs would be happy to work with you to present an event that defines a change in your character.

In my games, I've often worked with my players to arrange for important changes in the characters' stories. This has especially come up in my Mage: the Awakening games when it comes to Legacies. These are sort of specializations or occult organizations that the character can join for further power and development as a Mage. They are also intensely personal and a one time choice for the character, as they involve the Mage shaping their very soul. In such cases working closely with the player to determine what Legacy is a good fit for them becomes very necessary. Then I as a GM can introduce the potential mentor in play with the knowledge that the player and character will be interested.

When collaborating with the GM, don't get too specific about the event. By leaving some room for the GM to decide the exact catalyst for the character's change, you also open up the possibility for some surprises on your end. Like in the example above, the player and I would discuss the Legacy to have present but I as GM would then create the teacher as well as how those around the character perceive this Legacy.

On the other hand, I understand a player's interest in avoiding contrivances. For some players even knowing an option will be available later on can ruin the suspense and their enjoyment of the game. The downside of avoiding collaboration is the frustration of waiting for the right event to come across in the course of play. Luckily for me, I find the players most interested in avoiding contrived events are often the ones who can most easily find their own moments to shift and change their characters.

One type of change to point out (because it is common and dangerous) is the spiral toward darkness. This is most common to see in World of Darkness games where a character steadily (or precipitously) slides into violence, cynicism, depression, and immorality. Typically brought on by the character losing what ties him to the world or seeing evil consistently triumph, it is also a cautionary tale for GMs: don't murder everything a character loves unless you like your protagonists to be identical to your antagonists. For players note that it is a hard cycle to pull out of and at its bottom lies a hard place of remorseless villainy and monsters. It's hard to sympathize with such a character.

I personally love to see characters change and develop. I've written before on how I build my characters with a central question in mind. As a GM, seeing a character change and surprise me is a rare treat that I love to see. Done well even your fellow players will enjoy the change.

Decisive moments cause the character to question who they are, leading them to change something fundamental about themselves. Events could point out their flaws or destroy an aspect of the character's moorings, like a mentor. But ideally they nudge the character to change in a way that seems natural.