Roleplaying Games
Musings of a Dungeon Master #1: Retire Your Character
There is an expectation within the RPG community that the character you make at the beginning of a campaign is the one you are playing at the end. Except for character death, there are very few things that mechanically push you into playing a new character. Monster of the Week allows you to retire your character as part of its level up system, and Warhammer Fantasy or Dark Heresy may force you to retire a character simply on the basis of them missing most of their limbs (and mental stability).
Many of you reading this may even have an expression of disbelief. Maybe quite rightly you would ask “Why on earth would I want to retire my character? We have been through so much!”
Because life is too short to always play the same character. It’s very sweet that you have been playing the same elf wizard for 5 years, and it’s very sweet that every aspect of that character is a fantastical and over-the-top version of yourself. However I implore of you, retire that character. Let the elf wizard take a job at the local academy. Let the dwarf fighter start a mercenary company. The best part of a story is the ending, because it puts the rest into context. Giving your character an ending will let you look back at the adventures they went on and smile with nostalgia knowing in the end, they retired happily.
There is something to be said of the immense pressure that changing characters on a whim can cause to the plot of a campaign. Informing your DM that you are changing characters 2 hours before a session starts can be frustrating, to say the least. However with proper preparation it can even be useful for the DM that there is an impromptu change of cast. It can allow them to introduce a new faction or even location, so you should never be scared of asking.
To attempt to add some context into my musings, I will use my current experience as an example. I am currently playing through Dungeon of the Mad Mage. We are probably 15% of the way through the campaign at best (it is a very long campaign after all). I am thoroughly sick of my character. I am playing a Paladin of Sune (goddess of love) who was loosely based off of the characters in the cult movie Mean Girls. I ended up with a character that is mechanically dull to play and detrimental to the group’s role playing experience as a whole. My attempts to come across as a ‘Mean Girl’ have failed entirely. I am left with a moody character that is at best argumentative and at worst petulant to the extreme.
At some point in our adventuring however my character found herself in possession of a tavern. So at the end of the session I made a decision and contacted the DM. My paladin would not be continuing her journey in the dungeon. She would remain in the settlement and run her tavern, and I would move on with a different character. The weight that lifted off my shoulders when I made this decision was exponential. No longer did I have to worry about ruining other people’s fun with my unpleasant character. Instead she can rest easy in her new life.
Writing a character is one of the most enjoyable parts of playing D&D for me. But it is also the part of the game we often do the least. Once you are past the first four or five levels it’s difficult to get a character killed without playing completely recklessly. The option to retire a character is one that should be more readily available within RPGs. Too often do our stories finish with “And then they saved the world”.
