The Dragon’s Breath #8

26 March 2003

Playing the Numbers II:
Of Dice and Dialogue

By Scott Holden-Jones

So, your dwarf paladin has 14 Strength, 10 Dexterity, 14 Constitution, 8 Intelligence, 13 Wisdom, and 13 Charisma. Now, should all dwarves simply be modeled after Gimli, and we’ll leave it that? (<ahem> That’s a rhetorical question.)

In terms of creating an interesting and unique character from these numbers, where does one begin? The stats above are pretty typical for a dwarf paladin, given the standard spread of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 and the dwarf’s racial modifiers. How do we make this dwarf paladin different? Well, as you may have noticed in the first part of this article, I tend to approach character creation in gaming as I would approach the construction of a believable character in a play.

As I mentioned in Part I of this series, I’ve found that the best place to start once I have the basic idea, background, and personality worked out for a character is to develop a handful of phrases that he or she commonly uses. In real life, we all have these "pet phrases"; we don’t use them in all circumstances, of course, but the ones we use regularly do tend to say a lot about us. At this stage of character creation, don’t worry about how your character’s actual stats might affect these things — just get some ideas for common phrases jotted down on paper, no matter how convoluted or simplistic. Having at least some idea of the character’s background helps at this point, but don’t worry if some things are still a bit vague.

Here’s how our sample character might start to shape up. First, being a paladin of Clanggedin, Lord of Battle, he is an extremely pious dwarf, but, not being too bright, he is thoroughly dogmatic. He is a firm believer in folk wisdom over cerebral pursuits and intellectualization and feels that the sharp side of an axe is often the best solution to many of life’s problems — despite his considerable congeniality (for a dwarf), he is not an advocate of undue diplomacy. Let’s assume that for our relatively tight-lipped, ready-for-action, yet conservative dwarf we come up with the following four common expressions:

1. "By Clanggedin’s Beard!" (A good oath or curse is always a good place to start, unless, for instance, you’ve decided that your character is always level-headed and doesn’t curse.)
2. "Where there’s a will, there’s a way." (Don’t be afraid to start off with clichés or idioms we commonly use ourselves. We’ll adapt them to the character in the next step of this exercise.)
3. "You go, I go." (Taking quotations from movies or other sources can also be a useful trick; however, you might want to avoid the ubiquitous Star Wars, Monte Python, and Simpsons references, among others. Instead, keep these kinds of quotations at least relatively obscure.)
4. "Bless me." (Simple, but to the point.)

Now, the next step is to take a closer look at these bare statements and to see if we can’t find a way to personalize them, given the character’s background. At this stage, it might be useful to see how the character’s mental attributes could influence our choices, but only in the barest of terms — i.e., is he smart? is he wise? is he charismatic? Also, we should keep in mind any general traits or tendencies we’ve decided upon in the initial stages of character creation.

With these things in mind, and perhaps with reference to our paladin’s mental stats (Int 8, Wis 13, Cha 13), let’s see how we can alter the four statements we’ve chosen above.

1. "By Clanggedin’s Beard!" This one seems to work just fine as is. We’ll leave it alone.
2. "Where there’s a will, there’s a way." In essence, this one works, especially given our character’s penchant for folk wisdom. To make it more suitable to the setting and to distance it from our contemporary vernacular, though, we might try reordering the phrase and maybe changing one or two words to give it a new angle. Try "There’s a way when there’s a will" or "A strong will makes a short way." If that still doesn’t cut it, try thinking of some kind of metaphor or analogy appropriate to the character in terms of race, class, setting, etc. — for instance, a dwarf might say "Hard will, soft rock" or a dwarven adage might run "The will of ages brings down even the greatest mountains." Try several different versions until you get something you like, and if that fails, simply go back to square one and find a new phrase to adapt.
3. "You go, I go." A great line from the film Backdraft, this one might suit very well the unthinking integrity of a relatively unsophisticated dwarf paladin. It could be used as is, but in that case it might be applicable in only a few situations (even though this particular phrase is ambiguous enough to be used in a great number of contexts — picture the party rogue trying to convince the paladin to let her go ahead to "check out" the "trapped" coffer of jewels: "Ha! You go, I go."). Still, if the phrase seems too limited in its usefulness, make a little change or two. For instance, simple inversion might work: "I go, you go." In fact, the basic form of the statement (two simple parallel sentences, each with a short intransitive verb) could become a template for any number of concepts or situations: "You move, you die"; "They leave, we attack"; "You stay, I go." Remember, a dwarf with an 8 Intelligence isn’t going to use big words or engage in witty wordplay. Generally, once you get used to inhabiting the headspace of the character, such statements will begin to roll naturally off the tongue.
4. "Bless me." Again, this phrase is elegant in its simplicity, totally appropriate to the character. Yet maybe you want to complicate it a little, since it could apply to nearly any character — it’s so simple that it doesn’t have any "character." So personalize it. Try "Khalzad, Father, bless me"; or perhaps, "May the blessing of <insert name of most appropriate dwarven saint> fill my <insert applicable body part for task at hand>" — for instance, "May Domni’s blessing fill these hands," where Domni was a famous dwarf priest revered for his great healing powers. Be sure if you take this kind of route that you spend a little time making up some names of saints ahead of time, and then mark what that saint’s area of influence might be as it comes up in the course of play so you can use it again consistently. Consistency is important in establishing and maintaining character.

You might still wish to fine-tune some more at this point, possibly with reference to the character’s other stats and skills. That’s fine. Just remember: no playwright sits down to write and says to herself, "Hmm . . . I wonder how much this guy can lift? Oh, and is he agile? How high can he jump? How many people can he beat up at once, I wonder? Maybe I should devise a system of relative numbers, in order to quantify these things . . . ."

Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution just aren’t terribly important in constructing a "real" character. This isn’t to say physical attributes may not have some bearing on the character’s personality or behaviour — once you have the more important internal aspects worked out, that is. For example, a person who is very strong or agile may always have excelled at sports and similar physical activities and may thus have a certain brand of self-confidence as a result. Yet athletic aptitude and self-confidence are only two tiny portions of what makes up a person.

If there’s one thing in life we can use to help us in creating unique characters, it’s this: no two people are the same, and no environmental factor or physical attribute will affect any two persons’ perception of self in precisely the same way.

Next Week: In The Dragon’s Breath #9, Scott concludes his 3-part article by switching to the DM’s perspective. Looking for some tips on how to use stats to create a memorable and accurately portrayed villain? Come back next week for "Playing the Numbers III"!

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