Can the Players Kill Luke Skywalker? Or The Evils of Metaplot

           

Tap for pain!

Metaplot.  Does any word draw more condemnation and frustration from the players of World of Darkness games than “metaplot?”  The mere mention of some of the metaplot from the Classic World of Darkness game line draws bile laced gagging from even the most fanatical of fans.  Decreed from on high by the almighty writers and developers of the system, metaplot is the unchangeable grand plot that infiltrates every book, every argument, and every game.  It is immutable, it is sacrosanct, and it is despised.  But why?  Both Star Wars and The Forgotten Realms campaign setting have an existing metaplot that does not bedevil gamers like the metaplot of Vampire:  The Masquerade or Werewolf:  The Apocalypse.  Is there something to be learned from those worlds, where metaplot is known as canon which can be applied to the World of Darkness?  More importantly, is having a metaplot anathema to a good game?  Is the metaplot only a hindrance to Storytellers and players or can it be used to add more depth to a game? 

            What is Metaplot?  A working definition of metaplot might be “the ongoing story in the published materials of a role playing game that creates and moves forward a story that changes elements of the setting and system or explains changes in the mechanics of the game.”  On its face, that definition is neutral, but the first issue of metaplot is that it lacks player agency.  The changes occur regardless of the efforts of the players and perhaps even happen despite the players’ efforts to change those events.  The metaplot is the “Word of God” demanding changes that may or may not be asked for by the players.  The metaplot explains changes to the setting, the inclusion of new options, the removal of other options, changes to well-known and loved character types and updates to the game system.  

            Critics and fans of Vampire:  The Masquerade often regard it as the biggest offender in terms of metaplot interference.  When Vampire:  The Masquerade changed from Second Edition to Revised Edition, a number of changes occurred.  Most notably an Assamite Methuselah, Ur-Shulgi, awakened from Topor and removed the curse that Tremere had afflicted upon the Children of Haqim.  Ur-Shulgi also decreed that Assamites must give up their devotion to other gods and worship only Haqim.  Long associated with the Middle East and Islam, Ur-Shulgi’s decree shocked many Assamites and created a rift in the clan.  Those loyal to Haqim and Ur-Shulgi killed those who refused to set aside their religious beliefs whether Islamic, Christian, or other.  Those who survived the purge fled to Europe and the Americas.  As Gehenna approached, the fleeing Assamites attempted to make peace with Camarilla and join its ranks.         

Tremere-antitribu

            The Tremere are at the heart of another metaplot change.  Tremere-antitribu, who had left behind their clan to join the Sabbat, were all inexplicably destroyed one evening.  During a ritual in which nearly every member of the Sabbat Tremere were in attendance, some force destroyed them all.  No one is sure exactly what happened, only that no more Tremere-antitribu exist.  That event must have been a shock to Tremere-antitribu players at the time.  Suddenly, their characters were gone and nothing could be done about it. 

            The most egregious metaplot changes came from Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand which described another faction of vampires known as the Tal’mahe’Ra or True Hand.  Suddenly the Tzimisce discipline Vicissitude was an extraplanar disease that infected the entire clan and slowly took over the bodies of the Tzimisice and other users of Vicissitude.  The True Hand was dedicated to defeating this other worldly menace and save the world.  Vicissitude no longer worked like other Disciplines and now had special rules that changed not only the cost for learning the Discipline but threatened players with the loss of their characters if they progressed in the Discipline. 

            Metaplot in and of itself is not a bad thing.  Many of the best RPGs have a metaplot to some degree.  Star Wars undoubtedly has the strictest metaplot.  Better known as the canon and released in a series of RPG supplements, books, movies, and TV shows, the Star Wars canon (or Extended Universe) sought to fill in every space of that distant galaxy.  West End Games, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics and dozens of writers have sought to define every aspect of Star Wars for good and ill.  Simple mistakes in the wording of a script have turned into entire novels, such as when Han states that the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.  Rather than letting a simple screw up slip by, writers defined the Kessel Run as a trip near a group of black holes known as the Maw Cluster.  Traveling closer to the Maw Cluster would decrease the travel time of a ship from Kessel to its destination but with the added risk of the starship becoming trapped in the gravitational pull of the black holes and being destroyed.  Later readers would learn that the Maw Cluster hid an Imperial Research installation where the engineers built and tested a prototype of the Death Star.  Later, some of these elements were retconned by the Prequels.  Role playing supplements had to offer stats and information on these regions or create new regions themselves such as the Corporate Sector which started as an element of a novel, “Han Solo at Star’s End,” which led to a West End Games supplement entitled “Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook” that built on the information from the novel. 

Heroes of the Realms

            The Forgotten Realms has undergone a variety of changes as Dungeons & Dragons has changed editions.  Unlike Vampire:  The Masquerade, the change in edition created a change in the setting.  When Dungeons & Dragons transitioned from 3.5 to 4^th Edition, the developers changed the magic system and included both Dragonborn and Tieflings as player races in the Player’s Handbook.   Although Forgotten Realms was not the core campaign setting of 4^th Edition, it was the campaign setting for Organized Play requiring the developers to explain how the magic system changed and the introduction of two new races into the setting.  Dragonborn were an incredibly popular race from the Eberron campaign setting, and due to their popularity and the popularity of Eberron, they were included in the Player’s Handbook (Update:  Dragonborn orignally appeared in Race of the Dragon and later were included in Eberron  I need to learn more about Eberron).  Introducing them into the Forgotten Realms required a bit more work though, The Spell Plague.   The Spell Plague and the death of Mystra reshaped the Weave, the source of magic in the Realms, and the merging of Abeir, Toril’s twin planet and Toril (Toril is the name of the planet on which Faerun is located.  Fareurn is the continent which is the primary setting for the Forgotten Realms.) brought with it the Dragonborn.  The Spell Plague changed entire regions, made magic items non functional, and brought the Dragonborn whose kingdom replaced the kingdom of Unther. 

            When Dungeons & Dragons changed editions once again, once more the Realms changed.  This event known as The Sundering explained how the magic system changed once again and of course, kept the popular Dragonborn in the setting.  A series of novels about the Realms explained the events of The Sundering in detail, much like previous shifts in editions, such as the Time of Troubles. 

            Another example of the developers pushed forward a metaplot can be found in D&D 3.0 and the novel series, The War of the Spider Queen and its accompanying adventure.  In this series of novels, Lolth, Goddess of the Drow, has effectively disappeared and her clerics, the leaders of the chaotic and evil Drow society, no longer receive spells from her.  Seeking answers to this dilemma and hoping to solve it before an uprising overthrows the priestess who lead the city, a group of Drow travel the Underdark, to the surface world, and eventually to the Demon Web Pits hoping to uncover the mystery behind Lolth’s disappearance.  Lolth has attained enough power finally to create her own realm separate from the Abyss, and she has cocooned herself at the center of the Demon Web Pits to complete her transformation not caring that her worshippers and priestesses suffer in her absence.  In the end, Lolth completes her transformation and creates her own plane which changes the cosmology of the Forgotten Realms.  

Cover to Dissolution from the War of the Spider Queen novel series

            If that whirl of information has left any readers confused, then the biggest problem with metaplot has become apparent:  information overload.  Only the most dedicated fans of a setting would be able to track the minutiae of those changes.  These game lines and settings have been growing and expanding for decades.  Star Wars released in 1977, for example, and novels began pouring out soon after and the damn finally broke in the 1990s with the release of “Heir to the Empire.”  Systems and universes soon bloated with all this material.  And when Vampire:  The Masquerade 20^th Anniversary Edition released, the developers promised a metaplot neutral game, meaning that players could pick and choose which elements of the metaplot they wanted to use and could ignore the rest. 

            Most experienced roleplayers already realize that the best way to deal with elements of a system or supplement that they don’t like is to modify it or ignore it.  That’s the solution that the developers of Vampire:  The Masquerade concluded as they revamped the game for its new release.  Of course, ignoring the metaplot was a pre-requisite for publishing the new edition as White Wolf had decreed that the entire Classic World of Darkness game line had ended with the publication of their end of the world books, Gehenna, the Apocalypse, etc.   

            Can a metaplot be completely ignored?  Or more specifically, can the players kill Luke Skywalker?  It’s an evocative question, and the kneejerk reaction of most players is going to be “No, absolutely not!”  Luke Skywalker is the lynchpin of Star Wars canon.  He destroyed the Death Star.  He redeemed Darth Vader and brought about the downfall of the Empire.  He brought back the Jedi Order. Luke Skywalker is Star Wars.   He has plot armor that no player character should be able to penetrate; yet, by acknowledging Luke Skywalker’s importance in the events of the original trilogy and the Extended Universe, the game master has decided that a metaplot exists and that players lack any agency in interacting with that storyline. 

Father/son elevator rides don't get more awkward!

            Luke Skywalker and his exploits are the reason why most Star Wars roleplaying games take place in distant corners of the galaxy.  The game master pushes the events of the original trilogy into the background and lays out new storylines that run tangentially to canonical events.  Player characters may interact with important figures like Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, or Leia Organa.  They are much more likely to be given their orders by secondary figures like Mon Mothma and Admiral Piett.  Nevertheless, the players are hamstrung from the outset of the campaign because they are not the most important figures in the greater plot of Star Wars.  Luke Skywalker and his father Anakin are. 

            With that in mind, can players kill Drizzit Do’Urden?  Elminster Chosen of Mystra?  Can players stop the Spell Plague?  Do Dragonborn exist in Forgotten Realms?  Are the Assamites knocking at the doors of the Ivory Tower begging admittance to the Camarilla?   Each of these questions carries the same weight of metaplot as “Can the players kill Luke Skywalker?”  How many times have game masters, dungeon masters, and storytellers defended the metaplot from the brilliant and cunning plans of players? 

            My own experiences are entirely anecdotal, and I cannot speak for all roleplayers.  I have found that players enjoy re-writing the metaplot, making their own mark on a story considered inviolate.  It was a hard learned lesson and left many players completely disenchanted with me as game master.   I heard their criticism, but wasn’t preserving the story of Luke Skywalker more important?  I started roleplaying by running West End Games Star Wars Revised system and immediately railroaded players through events during the Battle of Hoth.  I couldn’t imagine a scenario where the players could actually affect the outcome of that momentous battle.  Just taking part in the battle should be exciting enough for the players, right? 

Who wouldn't want Leia in Cmdr. Shepherd's armor?

            Fast forward over a decade and I’m still running Star Wars although at this point it’s Wizards of the Coast’s Star Wars Saga Edition.   I finally learned my lesson in the last session of the campaign.  The players had been chasing after a rogue Jedi named Kensa Starwind who had become a kind of Old Republic Colonel Kurtz and saw through the false veneer of the Clone War.  She had realized that everything was the doings of Chancellor Palaptine, but the Jedi Council had sent the players to stop her.   My original idea was that the player characters would confront Kensa Starwind and stop her from murdering the “innocent” Chancellor only to be double-crossed by him.  Of course, that meant the players would have to put aside all out of character knowledge.  Instead of fighting Kensa, the player characters talked to her and believed her!  Together with Kensa, the players defeated Palpatine and Anakin/Darth Vader in an epic battle in the Chancellor’s office forever changing galactic history.  I don’t think that I have ever seen players happier or feeling more triumphant than when they thought they had saved the galaxy from the evils of the Empire.

            As the session ended, I added a quick epilogue for each character that showed how they had changed the universe.  It was altogether bleak.  Rather than transforming into the Empire, the Old Republic fractured into a myriad of small and warring states.  The remaining Jedi fought to maintain peace and bring the parts back together.  One of the players whose character had fallen to the Dark Side became a warlord of a region only to be double crossed by his apprentice.   Others had equally dark or heroic outcomes depending on their individual characters.  And this epilogue should have become the prologue for the next campaign that I ran! 

            The lesson that I learned from this campaign was not that I should allow players to do whatever they wanted.  Instead, I finally understood the purpose of metaplot.  Metaplot is not something that must be adhered to with the religious fervor of an extremist or ignored and discarded like an empty soda can.  Metaplot is a river that once the game begins players redirect its course by adding and subtracting elements.   The players’ influence can be subtle or dramatic depending on how their actions in the course of a campaign.  The challenge to storytellers is not to allow players to alter the course of the story to create a utopian state.  Change requires sacrifice and not all change is positive.  Those with the best intentions, such as the group that killed the Palpatine and stopped the rise of the Empire, may not create the best outcomes.  The unforeseen consequences of the players’ changes should lead to new opportunities for adventures and new stories.   Players, as well, must keep out of character knowledge separate and distinct otherwise roleplaying games can devolve into an endless series of killing off the key figures of a setting or random acts for the sake of being random. 

            Turning back to Vampire:  The Masquerade, many roleplayers have lamented the plots and setting updates that players cannot change.  The events happen in distant lands and involve powerful beings that the average player character just cannot fight against.  What can a Neonate in Atlanta do to stop Ur-Shulgi?  What can a San Francisco Anarch do to stop the destruction of the Tremere-antitribu?  Yet, the rise of Ur-Shulgi and the Assamite schism offers players a chance to affect the metaplot in new and vital ways.  Camarilla players can offer their voices in support of the Assamites joining the Camarilla or turn away the dangerous assassins.  Anarchs and Sabbat players can offer other options to those Assamite fleeing Ur-Shulgi.   Certainly, the Assamite-antitribu will be happy to welcome their old brothers into the Sabbat.  And who is to say that Ur-Shulgi actually speaks for Haqim or that this Methuselah cannot be killed?  

Paint a target on that guy's head!

            As for the Tremere-antitribu, why should the metaplot stand in the way of a player’s fun?  A surviving Tremere-antitribu is no less farfetched than surviving Salubri or Cappodoccians and offers many more story opportunities for both the player and storyteller.  As the last remaining member of his or her clan, the Tremere-antitribu would be desperate to hide from whatever power destroyed their clan and simultaneously seek to re-establish that clan by Embracing new members.  The Tremere-antitribu survivor is now the leader of that clan with new and potentially overwhelming responsibilities. 

            Both of these hypothetical scenarios assume that the storyteller and players agree to use the metaplot as written.  That doesn’t have to be the case either.  Ur-Shulgi does not have to rise from Torpor.  The Tremere-antitribu don’t have to be destroyed.   And none of the material in Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand needs to show up in anyone’s campaign. 

            Metaplot should not be the driving force of anyone’s campaign.  Rather, it is one more tool in a storyteller’s toolbox and in the players’ toolboxes to help them create the stories that they want to tell together.  And that book with the terrible metaplot about Tzimisce diseases and vampires traveling to the Deep Umbra is not the final arbiter of whether or not that information should appear in your campaign.  It is your book!  And like John Wick says, you can tear out pages and take a black sharpie to the pages and passages you hate and delete them forever.  It’s your book.   You bought it.  Use it how you like!             

            So, can your player characters kill Luke Skywalker?

Caine, You Need a Hobby

 One of my favorite scenes in the movie Blackhawk Down is near the beginning where the audience is shown what the Rangers and Delta Force operators do during their downtime.  One of the members of Delta Force is drawing illustrations for a children’s book.  His squad mate complains that the image is too scary, and he replies that it’s the climactic fight when the knight meets the villain.  He says that the illustration is supposed to be frightening.  It’s a moment that humanizes these men.  Chris Kyle, former Navy SEAL sniper once said during an interview that he and his team played first person shooters like the Call of Duty series.  These modern day Spartans read, write children’s books, or play video games.  Regardless of how elite these soldiers are, they don’t spend every waking moment in training; instead they have hobbies to distract them in between missions.    

Be careful who you smack talk.  He could be a SEAL, no really.  He could!

            Unfortunately, when players start creating characters they completely forget that beyond the stats on the page and their back story, these characters are human or demi-human or in the case of a vampire, they are struggling to maintain their humanity.  Well-developed characters should have an identity that extends beyond a single narrow interest or professional skill set.  Even the most dedicated Tremere Thaumaturgist would not spend every moment of every night studying magic and learning new rituals.  A rage-aholic Get of Fenris Ahroun probably thinks about more than murder-mauling Wyrm-tainted monsters.  There’s nothing interesting or fun about playing a character that single-minded.  It’s just one note struck again and again.  Even if that note is enjoyable initially, soon it becomes repetitive, boring, and finally irritating. 

            Even the best players can struggle with creating a character who doesn’t suffer from monomania.  It’s an easy trap to fall into because every player wants to contribute to the success of the group.  Every player wants their character to become the very best Toreador Artist or Elven Wizard or Virtual Adept computer hacker.  The desire to be the greatest Toreador Artist who was ever Embraced or the toughest Brujah street fighter can cause a player to specialize his/her character.  Players start to believe that because they have limited resources, like experience points and character levels, those resources need to be spent in the most optimal way possible.  A player can optimize a Toreador Artist the same way that an Elven Wizard is optimized.  Players familiar with Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 will remember that one of the earliest “broken” character archetypes was the “Diplomancer,” a character type that abused the rules for the skill Diplomacy and other non combat skills to circumvent battles with a single dice roll.  The Discipline Presence can be exploited in the same way. 

Of course, in Classic World of Darkness games there are plenty of ways to use the system itself to make your character interesting or well-rounded.  Rather than looking to the system for a solution, players and Storytellers (remember Storytellers have to create all the NPCs too and are just as prone to creating one dimensional characters as any player) could simply give their character a hobby. 

            Everyone has hobbies, and most of you are reading this article because you have a hobby, role playing.  A lot of us even define ourselves by our hobbies.  I certainly wouldn’t say that I’m defined by my job as cashier in a warehouse store, but I gladly label myself an old school, tabletop gamer.  Yet, when we build characters, we don’t even think about what hobbies they would have.  Instead we design action heroes who have no purpose beyond one single-minded concept:  a sword master, a street brawler, a paladin, and so on.  We play those characters and try to make them well-rounded, but we never ask what those characters do when they aren’t crushing skulls or researching a new ritual.  Between adventures when characters have downtime, the players want to use that time as effectively as possible.  It’s a resource, no different from experience points or skill points, and often players feel they should optimize that time as well.  A Tremere specializing in Thaumaturgy, for example, would spend that time learning a new ritual, seeking a mentor for a new Path or studying occult mysteries.  These activities further only the singular goal of Thaumaturgy.  

Instead of trying to optimize that time and further a goal, perhaps the player should consider using that time to explore or develop their character’s hobby.  That hobby doesn’t necessarily have to be completely random or unrelated to a character’s goal nor does it have to involve the expenditure of experience points.  The only purpose of the hobby is to provide greater depth to the character and offer some diversions away from just accomplishing in game goals, whether that’s forwarding the plot or an individual character goal.  The hobby, however, should not preempt or distract from the flow of the game.  It’s shouldn’t be disruptive, but just a way to provide further characterization. 

One example of monomania run rampant is a Brujah martial artist who practices his kung fu daily, he may speak Mandarin, Cantonese, or Japanese because he studied in the Far East, and he only learns physical Disciplines or Disciplines that make him a better fighter.  He may even have a quirk such as watching old Shaw Brothers Kung Fu films, but every detail about this character is focused on one singular concept, the martial artist.  And during a session, when the Storyteller announces that the characters will have some downtime between adventures, the Brujah Martial Artist will be practicing his kung fu or looking for a new mentor to learn more kung fu.  There’s nothing wrong with this character.  The Brujah martial artist has an interesting quirk and is reasonably developed, but everything about the character is focused around specializing in hand to hand fighting.   This is a one dimensional character, a well-developed and interesting, but one dimension character. 

Replace the clocks with RPG books and DVDs and you have my room!

A more interesting quirk would be that the character wants to be a movie star, like his idol Bruce Lee.  Instead of watching movies, he goes to acting classes, but he is a terrible actor.  It makes for a great counterpoint to the character’s sublime skill as a martial artist that he is so bad of an actor that he couldn’t get a role in Sharknado.  He is so awkward in front of the camera that he can’t even get work as a stuntman.  The player doesn’t have to invest any experience points to improve abilities related to acting such as Expression, but the player now has an interesting hobby and a way to use down time.  Also, the Storyteller has a way to introduce some new story elements that may provide a diversion from the normal storylines. 

The hobby doesn’t have to be useless necessarily; conversely, a player could select a hobby or profession that offers advantages beyond just adding characterization.  An example of this was Skeeve, a character from a Star Wars Role Playing game where I was also a player.  Skeeve was the ship’s pilot and not too bad with a blaster; however, Skeeve was also a smuggler and trader.  Whenever we left a planet, Skeeve would do a bit of research on our destination and then buy whatever trade goods that he could resell those goods for a profit when we arrived.  Although trading and smuggling are professions and not hobbies, per se, Skeeve’s smuggling functions in the same way as a hobby.  It’s a side interest that keeps Skeeve busy during down time.  Also, since the group where supposed to be traveling covertly across the galaxy, Skeeve’s smuggling gave us all a cover story for our movements. 

While keeping track of all of this trading and profiting may sound like it took up a lot of game time, in fact everything was accomplished with a few dice rolls and consulting one chart in the core rule book.  Skeeve received a small advantage in terms of extra credits to buy equipment, but the benefit was small and didn’t unbalance the game.  The player who was running Skeeve only had to invest a few points in Diplomacy to earn a profit smuggling or trading which in the D20 Star Wars System wasn’t a very big investment.  Eventually, Skeeve decided to make a big score by smuggling slaves, and when the rest of the party found out, including the Jedi, Skeeve had to choose between his loyalty to the party and his desire to make money.  It made for a great role playing and character development moment. 

Players should keep several things in mind when selecting a hobby for their character.  First, the hobby should be active.  Although many of enjoy watching TV or movies, these activities are passive and require little effort.  Active hobbies require the hobbyist to venture out, locate supplies, meet people, find a teacher, or explore new places.  Second, the hobby shouldn’t disrupt the game or require a large time investment at the table.  One die roll or two and a quick aside are all that should be necessary for a PCs hobby.  Third, players should consider whether they want their hobby to compliment their characters’ primary interests as in the case with Skeeve the Smuggler or contrast their character as with the Brujah Martial Artist who wants to be an actor. 

This topic was inspired by one of my favorite gaming podcasts, Fear the Boot,Episode 310. I highly recommend this podcast.  Even though it's not about Vampire the Masquerade or the other Classic World of Darkness games, they offer lots of great advice in quick, content filled episodes. 

The Perils of Character Optimization

            When I used to play Dungeons & Dragons 3.0, I would spend hours sitting on my bed, surrounded by books, with a notebook balanced on my lap as I made notes and built all kinds of characters:  dual-wielding, flamboyant Fighters, power-hungry Wizards, wrathful Drow Clerics, and mysterious Psychic Warriors.  I flipped through a dozen books, comparing Prestige Classes and selected the best Feats available.  I assembled the best progression of levels and feats and skills and Prestige classes that I could.  I wasn’t as successful at creating truly optimized characters like those found on many of the Third Edition or Pathfinder boards.  I certainly wasn’t clever enough to create the infamous Pun Pun.

            However, I do recall a few of those optimized characters of which I was really proud:  the “perfect” progression for a lightsaber focused Jedi in WOTC’s Star Wars Revised Edition and a female Drow fighter that migrated through three campaigns run by three different DMs but never really completed her story.  After several years and a couple of campaigns of Star Wars Revised Edition, I had a revelation about how I approached optimizing characters.   I began to think of a character’s growth through the levels as a story arc in and of itself much like JosephCampbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces except the progression was mapped as choices of Character Classes and Prestige Classes. 

Not Tomoe, but a pretty awesome Jedi

            Beginning as Jedi Padawan, my character, Tomoe was corrupted by one of the other PCs, a power hungry nascent Sith masquerading a politician’s aide who wanted to one day rule the galaxy following a similar story trajectory as Palpatine without the bad dialogue and fall into a reactor pit.  Tomoe was a prideful, young Jedi warrior from the Outer Rim who joined with the crew of a ship after they rescued her from some pirates.  Tomoe became close to the politician’s aide who had a knowledge of the history of the Jedi and Sith.  Eventually, Tomoe trusted this man more than her own Jedi Master.  The politician’s aide allowed the Jedi Master to discover that he was adherent of the Sith forcing Tomoe to choose between the Jedi and her friend.  She chose her friend and struck the Jedi Master down, but the Jedi slashed her across the face, blinding her.  Under the tutelage of the politician’s aide/Sith apprentice, Tomoe fell completely to the Dark Side and learned to use the Force to see without her eyes. 

            These events were planned by myself, the Game Master, and the player controlling the politician’s aide.  We’d agreed that the campaign wouldn’t be a traditional good defeats evil kind of game.  We’d play the villains, but I didn’t want to start my character as just another Sith.  I also had the idea of a blind Force-user that had empty black sockets instead of eyes and how terrifying that would be to face in battle.  The three of us worked on that character as a group and how Tomoe would fall to the Dark Side and eventually become a Sith Lord in her own right. 

            One of the mechanical benefits of becoming a Sith and taking levels in the Prestige Classes Sith Warrior or Sith Lord is that the player can trade levels of Jedi for levels of Sith Warrior or Sith Lord on a one for one basis.  Doing so has the benefit of giving the character more powers and feats.  Essentially it’s the same mechanic as a Black Guard trading away his or her Paladin levels which are no longer useful to an Evil-aligned character.  The downside to trading in these levels is that the Black Guard must remain Evil-aligned and if he or she returns to a good alignment then that character loses most of the benefits from the Black Guard levels.  All that’s left of those levels of Sith Warrior or Black Guard are the base attack bonus, skill points, feats acquired normally (not bonus feats), saving throws, and hit dice.  Class abilities, special abilities, bonus feats, and so forth are lost, never to be regained unless the character atones and becomes evil or a Sith again.  Essentially, the levels are an albatross around the character’s neck forever weighing her down and quite the opposite of optimization. 

            Completely taken over by the corruption of the Dark Side, Tomoe traded in her Jedi levels for levels of Sith Warrior gaining her the power and combat prowess she always knew that she should have.  Unfortunately, hubris was also her downfall when a much more powerful Sith Lord challenged her.  She couldn’t resist the challenge and set off alone to fight him, and the Sith Lord killed her.  The player and the character were both guilty of hubris in this instance.

            Nevertheless, I thought long and hard about this character after she died.  She had a great story and really fit into the world and the plot of the game.  Because I’m sentimental, I still have the character sheet which is the only reason I know that character’s name.  I began to wonder what would have happened to Tomoe if she would have lived.  By the time that she died, the politician’s aide was on his way to becoming a Senator of the Galactic Republic, and I’m certain if the campaign would have continued he’d have declared himself Emperor.  Would Tomoe have stood by him after he finally became Emperor?  

            Tomoe was a warrior first and foremost.  She enjoyed the thrill of battle and taking insane risks.  She loved that her name was spreading across the galaxy and that just her name was enough to cause her enemies to double check the locks on the doors at night.  More importantly, I realized that while she was devoted to the politician’s aide she was not evil.  Eventually she would become disillusioned with the politician’s aide’s promises of a better galaxy and realize that he was a tyrant with greater ambitions.  I don’t think she would have turned against him, but she wouldn’t have followed him after a point.  Instead, she would have set out alone disillusioned by both the weak Jedi who couldn’t stop the rise of a Sith Emperor and the Sith who were only interested in personal glory and power.  Forsaking both the Jedi and Sith and giving up the Force, I imagine she would have returned to the Outer Rim and joined a smuggler’s crew, leaving behind her name and everything about herself. 

            Tomoe’s character progression looked something like this:  for levels one through seven, she was a Jedi Guardian.  At level seven, she turned to the Dark Side and traded in four of her Jedi Guardian levels for an equal number of levels of Sith Warrior.  She eventually gained five more levels of Sith Warrior, one level of Sith Lord, and one level of Master Duelist.  So at the time of her death, she was a Jedi Guardian 3, Sith Warrior 7, Sith Lord 1, and Master Duelist 1.  This character was optimized for lightsaber combat and dueling which were my interests at the time. 

Wizards....

            If you’re a frequent visitor to some of the Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder forums, you’re probably familiar with the character optimization threads that are available.  Players have scoured the books and available classes to find exactly the best choices to make at each level in order to optimize a particular type of character class.  Whether you want to play a sword and board fighter or the all-powerful wizard, optimized builds are available where all the choices for feats, skills, and so forth are already made.  At each level, the best possible choices are weighed and then a favorite or favorites are given.  Even the individual classes are compared and divided into tiers.  In D&D 3.5, Wizards and Priests are in the highest tier with other classes filling in below them.  Fighter obviously in considered one of the worst classes just above NPC classes like Warrior, Aristocrat and Noble. 

            The players and Dungeon Masters who developed the optimized character builds and tier system have done amazing work that should be recognized for the impressive amount of research invested.  Going through the dozens of books available for D&D 3.5 and selecting the best feats and comparing so many possible character classes is a Herculean task akin to cleaning out the Augean stables.  And with the amount of muck found in some of D&D books, I’d rather be Hercules than the gamers who refined the tier system and optimization guides.  Entire guides have been made available for players who want to optimize their characters, and these guides are offered free of charge on forums or other blogs.  As much I laud these gamers for creating these resources, I consider these guides a serious problem for the gaming community. 

            We now know that there is a clear, correct choice for any character at any given level.  The best Wizard specialty is Conjurer.  Fighters, Monks, and Paladins are comparatively the weakest classes in the Player’s Hand Book.  Wizards shouldn’t choose Magic Missile as one of their starting spells; they should choose Color Spray or Sleep instead.  Some choices are obvious others are less so.  Given the mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons, a best choice exists amongst the multitude of options.  This isn’t a bad thing, but it does have an unintended consequence:  characters become homogenous.  All Wizards follow the same general progression, choosing the same spells, the same feats, and the same prestige classes.  Fewer players select Monk for their class because of its comparative weakness to the Ranger. 

            I don’t mean to be unfair to people who play Dungeons & Dragons.  Gamers who play White Wolf products have the same problem.  Rarely does a player in Vampire the Masquerade have to do more than spend experience points to acquire a new Ability or Discipline.  How many characters in Werewolf the Apocalypse go on an Umbral quest to find the spirit who can teach them a new gift?

            The Storyteller games, Werewolf, Vampire, Mage, have their own versions of optimizers as well.  Activating Disciplines, for example, requires the character to roll an attribute plus an ability.  In order to optimize a character in this system, players need to ensure that their characters have high ranks in the attribute and ability in order to make sure that they can successfully activate the Discipline.  For example, a Toreador has Dread Gaze, the second level of Presence, in order to activate that ability the character needs to roll Charisma plus Intimidation.  If the character doesn’t have Intimidation and/or has a low Charisma, then the chances of successfully using Dread Gaze are very low.  Optimally, a Toreador with Dread Gaze should have points in Intimidation, but that doesn’t make sense for every Toreador.  Some Toreadors character concepts aren’t going to be intimidating, but will have Dread Gaze because they want the higher Presence abilities like Summon or Entrancement.  If I were to build an optimal Toreador character with Presence, I would put points in any Ability that was required to activate Presence Disciplines. 

And now you're off to play Bloodlines...

            Character creation offers a number of ways to optimize a Vampire the Masquerade character.  Generation is probably the most important stat to improve because improving Generation during game play is difficult and risky.  So putting your starting five Background dots into Generation is an obvious choice.  Doing so means that the character starts the game with the largest possible blood pool for a new character, 15 blood points, and the character can use the most blood points per turn for a beginning character, 3.  Willpower is another trait that can be maximized at character creation.  Willpower costs one freebie point to increase during character creation, but Willpower costs Current Rating times one to increase with experience points.  Of all the available Disciplines, Thaumaturgy is the most versatile with a myriad of available paths that are cheaper to learn and improve than other Disciplines.  The maximum points in Flaws can be selected without reducing the effectiveness of a character. 

            And after character creation is complete, the steps to continue optimizing a Storyteller System character can be decided to further optimize a character.  While the statistical progression for a Storyteller System character is not a clear cut as a Dungeons & Dragons character, an optimal progression can be determined.  By selecting out of clan Disciplines, characters can be further optimized.  An Assamite assassin would be improved upon with addition of Potence which would cause more damage or Protean 2 which gives the vampire claws that do aggravated damage.  I’m sure there are plenty of forums and blogs that offer excellent suggestions for optimizing characters. 

            Now, let’s put Tomoe into this situation.  I’d effectively optimized Tomoe, because if you are familiar with WotC’s Star Wars Revised Edition or just Star Wars in general, you know that the Jedi are one of the best classes.  Access to Force skills and feats make the Jedi or the Sith far better classes than Smuggler, Noble, or Soldier.  Much like the Wizard in D&D, a Jedi was a better soldier than the Soldier and a better smuggler than the Smuggler because of the Jedi had access to the Force.  However, assuming Tomoe survived, eventually she would have given up the Dark Side, forsaken the Force, thrown away her lightsaber, lost access to many of her class features, and begun to take levels in Smuggler.  Every choice at this point is sub-optimal. 

Yes, this is a real book.

            Every choice is sub-optimal from the stand point of generating a set of best system statistics.  However, from the stand point of story and character growth, those are the optimal decisions.  In Tomoe’s case, the character’s growth in the story is reflected in the progression of classes that were chosen when she leveled up.  From Jedi to Sith to outcast. 

            What’s really lost when players and Game Masters begin to think of characters as sets of statistics functioning within a rule set is they are also characters within a story.  In order to optimize a character, however, the player has to separate a character’s statistical progression from a character’s story progression.  Even the Game Master’s campaign becomes polluted by the separation between statistical progression and story progression, because the characters’ growth is only determined by their experience points rather than their progression in the world.  More so than the players, the Dungeon Master is at fault because he has designed a world that allows characters to progress from class to prestige class and so on without requiring characters to earn a new class or prestige class.  The acquiring of a new class or prestige class is hand waved.  It happens off-screen and isn’t even mentioned beyond the player saying that he’s met the prerequisites and is going to finally get that first level of a prestige class or whatever.  The Storyteller is at fault because the only thing separating a character from a new Discipline is the experience points required. 

            Perhaps the most famous Dungeons & Dragons character is the Drow Drizzt Do’Urden of the Forgetten Realms Setting.  Drizzt was trained by his father to be a Weapon’s Master for his mother’s house.  He eventually abandoned Menzoberranzan and set out into the Underdark where he was driven to survive by “the Hunter” persona which drove him to survive and allowed him to unleash his rage upon those who threaten him.  Finally, Drizzt arrives on the surface where he is trained by the Ranger Montolio.  Drizzt’s character progression is Fighter to Barbarian to Ranger, and according to the Third Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Drizzt is a 10^th level Fighter, 1^st Level Barbarian, and a 5^th level Ranger.  There is nothing optimized about Drizzt’s build.  He uses two scimitars which would incur an extra penalty for using a medium sized weapon in his off hand.  According to his character history, he would have gained his Two Weapon Fighting Feat as a Fighter, and not as a Ranger which means that he would have chosen the archery combat style (in 3.5) or not gained any bonus feat because he already had Two Weapon Fighting (in 3.0). 

Not Drizzt.  Just a clone!

Although I realize that Drizzt’s creation predates the introduction of D&D 3.0, Drizzt’s progression as a character still provides an example of story and character outshining stat optimization.  Drizzt is memorable because of his story and his fighting style, not because of the numbers on a character sheet.  If Drizzt had just remained a Fighter, he would have been a more optimized character.  If Drizzt had chosen to use one scimitar or one scimitar and a dagger, he would be a more optimized character.  However, personality won out over statistics, and every D&D game set in the Realms had a Drow Ranger who wielded two scimitars.  The prevalence of Drizzt clones was so wide that even today, gamers groan when they hear someone wants to play a good Drow regardless of class or weapon choice. 

                        While most of this article is directed at the players, an important note should be included for Storytellers, Dungeon Masters, and Game Masters.  Many of us play D&D or Pathfinder, and as a player, I love Prestige Classes.  They can help define an entire character because of their special class abilities, but they have strict requirements.  I have a three part suggestion for Game Masters of these kinds of games.  First, talk with your players about what they want to do with their characters.  Give them opportunities to earn a Prestige Class, but make sure that the Prestige Class serves the overall plot of the campaign.  No player has a right to any particular Prestige Class just because it seems cool or has an awesome ability or they need it for their build.  If the Prestige Class fits into your campaign, then make the character’s acquisition of that class a big moment in the game.  Not only that, but also make sure that the character’s growth towards that Prestige Class is equally as rewarding.  If they need a level of Arcane Spellcasting in order to qualify as an Arcane Archer, make sure they meet a Sorceror who can tutor them and provide clues about a special order of elves and half-elves who can make nigh-impossible shots with a bow.  Second, provide access to lots of different Prestige Classes throughout your game.  Rumors and hints of orders of powerful Eldritch Knights or mysterious cloister Lore Masters can provide reasons for characters to travel to new locations seeking mentors.  And perhaps along the way, the PC will be saved by a servant of one of the gods and decided to declare his service to this new patron and become a Paladin.  Third, because Prestige Classes have strict requirements, allow characters to retrain and change a Feat or Skill in order to meet the prerequisites for the Prestige Class they want.  Rules for retraining are available in some D&D supplements.  This minor change will allow players to adapt to the opportunities presented to them rather than being stuck in a rigid progression.

For those of us who prefer Vampire the Masquerade or Werewolf the Apocalypse, we need to make characters earn their Disciplines and their Gifts.  Learning Serpentis means making a deal with a Setite.  What favor is she going to require as payment?  Assamites will rarely teach an outside Quietus, but if the PC could diablerize one, then perhaps he gain power from the Assamite’s blood?  Even when a character finds a mentor willing to teach a Discipline with no strings attached, the V20 rule book states that the learner must drink a point of vitae from the teacher.  That’s one step blood bound to the teacher.  Is that worth the risk of learning a new Discipline?  Opportunities can present themselves as the vampire PC progresses through the plot of the Chronicle as well.  A blood hunt that ends in the PC diablerizing the target can offer access to a new Discipline that the player didn’t realize he wanted.  Unlike D&D or Pathfinder, the Storyteller System is more forgiving because none of the Disciplines have prerequisites like a Prestige Class. 

I've always loved Pathfinder's art style

While players often groan about the plot railroad, they have no problem putting their characters on a progression railroad.  I think it’s time for players to abandon their rigid stat progression for a more story and character personality based approach.  This would be no different from Storytellers putting aside their railroady plots.  The key to this process is that the Storyteller and the Player need to talk and discuss what each one wants from the game.  Both have to be willing to compromise and keep in mind that the goal of the game is for everyone to have fun, players and Storyteller.  The Storyteller needs to bring a clear idea about the plot and the world.  The player needs to bring a clear character concept.  Both need to be willing to let the world, plot, and character grow naturally rather than being confined to a progression or a strict plot structure. 

When you sit down, surrounded by books, trying to work out the best progression for your character so that he or she can get to the Black Guard Prestige Class at the perfect level, you are robbing yourself of a chance to see where a campaign may take the character you play.  Those carefully crafted pre-planned character progressions rob you of the opportunities you may encounter over the course of a campaign.  The characters begin to all seem the same.  The same progressions, the same wizards, the same spells.  The same clan, the same abilities, and the same Disciplines.  I am not saying that you shouldn’t have some idea where you want your character to end up.  I knew exactly how I wanted Tomoe to progress, but I made those choices to serve the story and not what would make her stats the best.   I was open to changing that progression as well, and in the end, Tomoe was not a collection of stats but a memorable character that changed the way I approach character creation.