Post by WildKnight on Sept 4, 2014 7:20:20 GMT -5
It used to be my battle cry in Dungeons & Dragons. "Die all, die merrily." When we were out of spells, down to our last few HP, had burned through all of our potions and scrolls, backs against the wall with the hoard pressing in... I would look at my buddy Scott, and he would already be smiling, because he knew it was coming. Die all, die merrily. There might have been a way out. Surrender, some sneaky Wizard escape... but we were heroes, darnit, and we were going to go down like heroes. Scott always had my back, no matter how hopeless it seemed. He, too, was willing to go down swinging. A lot of the time we got buried (but hey, that's what resurrection spells are in the book for, right?). Sometimes we triumphed. Sometimes, we beat the odds and won the day. At the end of the day (if you'll excuse the cliche), once you cut through all of the arguments about alignment and ends justifying the means, isn't that what heroes do? Win? Isn't it the triumph over adversity that we remember?
Last night I was playing D&D with my sons at the FLGS. We were six 1st & 2nd level characters struggling to survive in a city being assaulted by Dragon Cultists. We'd been fighting through the night, and we were battered and beaten. We had no more healing magic left, no resources to speak of, and most of us were going to go down if we got hit by one more kobold. And then the dragon showed up. This huge blue lightning-breathing monstrosity, flying over the battlefield in all of it's majesty, supporting the Cultists. It was clearly time to run. I'm a seasoned D&D player now, 20 years strong in the business. A battle hardened veteran who knows all the ins and outs (which somehow doesn't stop me from playing a Bard...). The party did the right thing. The smart thing. We ran. That creature had to be at least CR 12 or 14, no way the module intended us to stand and fight, right?
My 11 year old son (playing a Barbarian, of course) Hunter climbed up on the wall and threw a javelin at the thing. And he critted. I kid you not. He rolled a 20 in the clutch, as if the cosmos knew. The whole table was getting annoyed with him. They wanted to get on to the next encounter that we might actually survive and get XP for. The dragon killed a bunch of archers on the wall, and he looked to us for support. He asked us to get up there on the wall with him. Only one guy, the Ranger, a player I don't even know, went up there with his bow and took up the fight. The rest of us did the smart thing. Hunter stayed four more rounds, until he ran out of javelins, but by then it was too late... the dragon was out of guards on the wall to kill, and breathed on the heroic Barbarian (the Ranger had relented and retreated when he noticed that they were the only two left on the wall). Our Dragonborn Fighter solemnly collected the Barbarian's body (which we later learned was not in fact a corpse, but merely a VERY unconscious body), and commended his heroism.
We later found out that per the module, if the group had done 40 HP of damage to the Dragon, it would have left the battle. Hunter did the "dumb" thing... that was exactly what he was supposed to do. I couldn't see it because I had dissected the game as a set of numbers, not an opportunity to be a hero. On the way home I explained to him that you have to work with your group and go along with the consensus, but deep down, I felt a growing sense of pride in the young man. He didn't worry about the numbers, he concerned himself with the soul of the game, and he invited me to do the same. I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't get up there and do my part, because I was afraid of losing my carefully crafted character.
Next time, I hope I do better.
Last night I was playing D&D with my sons at the FLGS. We were six 1st & 2nd level characters struggling to survive in a city being assaulted by Dragon Cultists. We'd been fighting through the night, and we were battered and beaten. We had no more healing magic left, no resources to speak of, and most of us were going to go down if we got hit by one more kobold. And then the dragon showed up. This huge blue lightning-breathing monstrosity, flying over the battlefield in all of it's majesty, supporting the Cultists. It was clearly time to run. I'm a seasoned D&D player now, 20 years strong in the business. A battle hardened veteran who knows all the ins and outs (which somehow doesn't stop me from playing a Bard...). The party did the right thing. The smart thing. We ran. That creature had to be at least CR 12 or 14, no way the module intended us to stand and fight, right?
My 11 year old son (playing a Barbarian, of course) Hunter climbed up on the wall and threw a javelin at the thing. And he critted. I kid you not. He rolled a 20 in the clutch, as if the cosmos knew. The whole table was getting annoyed with him. They wanted to get on to the next encounter that we might actually survive and get XP for. The dragon killed a bunch of archers on the wall, and he looked to us for support. He asked us to get up there on the wall with him. Only one guy, the Ranger, a player I don't even know, went up there with his bow and took up the fight. The rest of us did the smart thing. Hunter stayed four more rounds, until he ran out of javelins, but by then it was too late... the dragon was out of guards on the wall to kill, and breathed on the heroic Barbarian (the Ranger had relented and retreated when he noticed that they were the only two left on the wall). Our Dragonborn Fighter solemnly collected the Barbarian's body (which we later learned was not in fact a corpse, but merely a VERY unconscious body), and commended his heroism.
We later found out that per the module, if the group had done 40 HP of damage to the Dragon, it would have left the battle. Hunter did the "dumb" thing... that was exactly what he was supposed to do. I couldn't see it because I had dissected the game as a set of numbers, not an opportunity to be a hero. On the way home I explained to him that you have to work with your group and go along with the consensus, but deep down, I felt a growing sense of pride in the young man. He didn't worry about the numbers, he concerned himself with the soul of the game, and he invited me to do the same. I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't get up there and do my part, because I was afraid of losing my carefully crafted character.
Next time, I hope I do better.
