eroes visiting the Castle are most often fearless daredevils seeking glory, treasure, power and so on. However, many of them do not seem to be the brightest crayons in the box. You certainly know from your own experience this specific tendency when creating characters in various RPG systems. The emphasis goes into a single category of characteristics, mostly ignoring others, trying to maximize, for example, combat abilities a character. In the old Fallout games this resulted in an indestructible strongman unable to partake in any dialogue because he could not verbalize his thoughts or understand what anyone said to him.
During RPG sessions some players take it as a point of honor to show and highlight as much as possible the “flaws” of their characters. Hence, troll slayers are ostentatiously crude and obnoxious at the least appropriate moments, and Sigmarites respond to logic with torches and pyres.
In Drach Tales, we touch upon many such stereotypes. In the first act, we have a “classic” Ulrican and a “classic” troll slayer. The Ulrican’s answer to everything is “By Ulric!” and the slayer sees only gold and reasons to fight. Stereotypes may be harmful at times, but they are certainly also funny.
In addition, the Ulrican also relates to the stereotype associated with a certain group of players. I refer to them as “bouncer extras”. You know them well. A player comes to play RPGs and after character creation is done, does not say a word for an hour or two. Then suddenly, when everyone has forgotten that he is sitting there, a muffled “I stab him!” comes from a distant corner of the room. Even if it’s not the best idea at the moment and even if the character is wielding a hammer.
This and other session humor will often appear on the pages of Drach Tales.
Coming up tomorrow – scene 3 teaser!