*This says 'take two' in the header as Blogger crapped out on me and didn't save my entire post as a draft and I have to start all over again*
The great Sabu-Tablesmasher asked me to talk about a player and their character that left an impression on me over the course of my gaming 'career'. There have been many interesting people and characters I've played with over the years. Some good and some bad but either way memorable. Today I'll target one person and his characters. I'll do a write up on a second one tomorrow. I think its pretty special that there are two people I want to talk about here.
For my first pick I'm going to tell you about a player and his characters I had in my 3.0 Forgotten Realms game I ran back in the day. Let me introduce you to Dave Girardot. Dave is a heck of a nice guy, has a good sense of humor (albeit a weird one), likes to watch foreign films. Dave was one of the first people to introduce me to Stephen Chow before he became known in the states. I can still remember watching 'God of Cookery' (and Charles threw his computer out the window at the mention of that movie). Dave is happily married with a bunch of good kids. Dave also played Jorian (a fighter/duelist prestige class) and Heironomous (a hodgepodge that I'll explain later). Dave also drove me up a friggin' wall with both of these characters.
Jorian was a ladies man, the suave roguish hero. To me Jorian was Daveabusing the shit out of his charisma score to get what ever he wanted either treasure or virtue trying to gain whatever advantage possible for Jorian whenever he could. Jorian had a 'code of conduct', so we were told, but if it did exist it was all a bullshit smoke screen to ensure Jorian came out smelling like a bed of roses. Sweet but with a hint of crap underneath.
It drove me nuts most games having Dave try to manipulate the (new to all of us) 3.0 rules almost constantly. And it would usually begin with Dave saying 'Now Phil, I know the rules says I can't do this but just hear me out a second....'.
Mental rape ensues, aneurysm occurs, blood shoots out my ears, nose and eyes.
The damnedest thing of it all was that Dave could actually present a decent argument for what he (Jorian) wanted to do. Sometimes it was better than what the rules presented and the game wasn't broken for it. If it kept things fun I'd allow it. Other times I wanted to throw all my books at his head as my response.
It got better with Jorian (read: drove me more nuts) when Jorian got an ally in the party the halfling rogue Apinta Beir (yes his name was A Pint of Beer). After that it was almost a no holds barred adventure in depravity some games. I've never had a game with more drinking, in game gambling, larceny, whoring and general civil misconduct in it ever. Ever. The kicker of it all was they both were playing charismatic characters and could usually talk their way out of anything.
Jorian wasn't a virtuous character. He wasn't a suave roguish hero. He was a gambler and a letch. I remember one game Dave wanted to come up with some kind of in-game brewed potion that prevented him from getting a woman pregnant so Jorian wouldn't become a daddy in all his dalliances. Also in response to all of his whoring I had to consult the Book of Erotic Fantasy to see if there was any interesting social diseases to give Jorian if he forgot to drink his 'Potion of Cure Disease' after his trysts. No such luck there.
Now Heironomous was a problem of a different kind. He was an 'experimental' character Dave wanted to work on. I had a feeling he was trying to min-max out his character by taking as many levels in the various player classes as possible. I'm not talking about regular multi-classing (example a Fighter 3 / Ranger 2) that yields a playable character. This was unplayable. 1 level of Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric, 2 Wizard levels. I made sure Dave justified all those choices and he could. Remember he could present a case quite well. Eventually Heironomous took the Alienist prestige class and became some kind of pseudo-natural cross breed and shortly he just disappeared into the background. Eventually he just got stopped being used and Jorian was back.
The craziest part of all that bitching is that I miss playing with Dave and would do so if given the chance again. As I said Dave is a great guy, someone I liked being around. He's also a bit of a weenie when it comes to RPG's and characters you canabuse the rules create with the rules. Dave also ran a Wheel of Time RPG game that I played in and it was great fun. It was just two of us and Dave and it was a real treat. Unfortunately real life just got in the way and he and his family moved away and I lost his contact info. Eventually Matt found him and we're going to try to get together after the new years. It'll be nice seeing him again.
Tomorrow I'll talk about another person whom I played with and ran games for that left a huge impact on my life. So what did you think Larry? Like this so far? No head-butts for me for being good right???
The great Sabu-Tablesmasher asked me to talk about a player and their character that left an impression on me over the course of my gaming 'career'. There have been many interesting people and characters I've played with over the years. Some good and some bad but either way memorable. Today I'll target one person and his characters. I'll do a write up on a second one tomorrow. I think its pretty special that there are two people I want to talk about here.
For my first pick I'm going to tell you about a player and his characters I had in my 3.0 Forgotten Realms game I ran back in the day. Let me introduce you to Dave Girardot. Dave is a heck of a nice guy, has a good sense of humor (albeit a weird one), likes to watch foreign films. Dave was one of the first people to introduce me to Stephen Chow before he became known in the states. I can still remember watching 'God of Cookery' (and Charles threw his computer out the window at the mention of that movie). Dave is happily married with a bunch of good kids. Dave also played Jorian (a fighter/duelist prestige class) and Heironomous (a hodgepodge that I'll explain later). Dave also drove me up a friggin' wall with both of these characters.
Jorian was a ladies man, the suave roguish hero. To me Jorian was Dave
It drove me nuts most games having Dave try to manipulate the (new to all of us) 3.0 rules almost constantly. And it would usually begin with Dave saying 'Now Phil, I know the rules says I can't do this but just hear me out a second....'.
Mental rape ensues, aneurysm occurs, blood shoots out my ears, nose and eyes.
The damnedest thing of it all was that Dave could actually present a decent argument for what he (Jorian) wanted to do. Sometimes it was better than what the rules presented and the game wasn't broken for it. If it kept things fun I'd allow it. Other times I wanted to throw all my books at his head as my response.
It got better with Jorian (read: drove me more nuts) when Jorian got an ally in the party the halfling rogue Apinta Beir (yes his name was A Pint of Beer). After that it was almost a no holds barred adventure in depravity some games. I've never had a game with more drinking, in game gambling, larceny, whoring and general civil misconduct in it ever. Ever. The kicker of it all was they both were playing charismatic characters and could usually talk their way out of anything.
Jorian wasn't a virtuous character. He wasn't a suave roguish hero. He was a gambler and a letch. I remember one game Dave wanted to come up with some kind of in-game brewed potion that prevented him from getting a woman pregnant so Jorian wouldn't become a daddy in all his dalliances. Also in response to all of his whoring I had to consult the Book of Erotic Fantasy to see if there was any interesting social diseases to give Jorian if he forgot to drink his 'Potion of Cure Disease' after his trysts. No such luck there.
Now Heironomous was a problem of a different kind. He was an 'experimental' character Dave wanted to work on. I had a feeling he was trying to min-max out his character by taking as many levels in the various player classes as possible. I'm not talking about regular multi-classing (example a Fighter 3 / Ranger 2) that yields a playable character. This was unplayable. 1 level of Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric, 2 Wizard levels. I made sure Dave justified all those choices and he could. Remember he could present a case quite well. Eventually Heironomous took the Alienist prestige class and became some kind of pseudo-natural cross breed and shortly he just disappeared into the background. Eventually he just got stopped being used and Jorian was back.
The craziest part of all that bitching is that I miss playing with Dave and would do so if given the chance again. As I said Dave is a great guy, someone I liked being around. He's also a bit of a weenie when it comes to RPG's and characters you can
Tomorrow I'll talk about another person whom I played with and ran games for that left a huge impact on my life. So what did you think Larry? Like this so far? No head-butts for me for being good right???
