D&D and Character Development

I did D&D a couple of days ago. It was brilliant. In rambling about it now, I want to touch on not just how fun it was, but a little on the wonderful organic storytelling that D&D engenders. But mostly on the fun.

Therefore, meet Sir Geoffrey du Babbage and his incompetent manservant Hansard.

Think slightly more competent series 1 Blackadder, accompanied by significantly taller series 2 Baldrick. Add a hefty dash of Monty Python and you’re there. In D&D terms, a human fighter.

Sir Geoffrey will tell you that he’s the greatest hero of the age, a magnificent knight, adventurer and all round great guy. In reality, he’s flat broke, mostly an idiot, and went on a crusade through the wrong county due to a clerical error. The only thing that stops him looking like a complete imbecile is the fortuitous presence of his manservant Hansard, who is an idiot in search of a village, and serves as a replacement for Geoffrey’s horse. (Sweet Bucephalus; taken too soon.)

I haven’t been Sir Geoffrey du Babbage in a long time. He was first created long ago for my second Edinburgh Fringe run, in a sketch that was, while far too long and only semi-amusing to watch, was an absolute joy to perform. I got to ride onto the stage on my co-director’s back, brandishing a wooden sword and a false moustache, and do my best Python/Blackadder pastiche. It was awesome. So when I had to roll up a D&D character, there was only one choice, really.

The original Sir Geoffrey (me) and Hansard (Luke Reilly) in 2016

It was a one-shot (Escape from the Crystal Fortress by Will Humberstone, the plot of which I will try to avoid spoiling here) with several members of my choir. Geoffrey, a teenage Halfling barbarian, a cat-bard and an elephant Druid went to prison, beat up some zombies and saved the day. The actual one-shot campaign was really good – the Crystal Fortress was amazingly atmospheric, the encounters were nail-biting (especially for a novice like me), but it was all concise enough to finish in an evening. (If you’re looking for a one-shot, Crystal Fortress is a great choice. Just remember to pick up some bricks along the way.)

The fact that it was a one -shot meant that this was the first time I’d actually finished an adventure. Both times I’ve played D&D before were the first sessions in what should have been bigger campaigns, which then of course fizzled out and were never picked up. In an alternate universe, Sir Geoffrey and Hansard have been standing completely naked in the middle of a town square for about 5 years. As this was a one-shot, however, we actually made it all the way through our little plot.

And it was fun. Because in most fantasy universes you’d never dream of throwing characters like ours together. You’d certainly not do so without a prodigious amount of backstory to set up their relationships, their motivations, the reason they’re all here in this magical prison. That’s certainly what I’d be doing if I was writing it as a conventional story.

But instead, we just turned up and rolled (heh) with it. And because we were a group of people instead of just me trying to think of everything, the story just bloomed into something wonderful. Mad and hilarious, but wonderful. We threw bricks at skeletons, we rescued cats. We bonded, or we started to at least. (We the players bonded magnificently; in character Sir Geoffrey is an arse so it’ll take a bit longer there.)

Thanks to our DM there was no need to think about the story itself – just what I would do. It was writing and acting and improv all at once. And it was a really, really good way to develop a character from a comedy sketch into something approaching a human being. I’m definitely playing with Geoffrey again. But I think I need to do it with some of my other characters too, if nothing else just to see what they’d do. I’ve always thought that good characters are the most important part of any story, setting and plot be damned – and it definitely feels like I might be right.

Maybe I should do what I originally planned, and turn the Boiling Seas into an RPG campaign. I’ve already got a map…