Grognardling: Turning Yourself into a D&D Character

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Turning Yourself into a D&D Character

Quick question: a year, maybe two or three, ago, I think there was this meme going around the OSR where you could figure out your attributes or something to turn yourself into a D&D character. I've tried multiple times to google for it, but I haven't been able to find it. Does anyone else remember this? I think you determined Strength by how many push-ups in a row you could do or something, maybe? I can't remember the other ones. Anyway, if someone remembers this and can point me to it, that would be awesome. Thanks!

8 comments:

Savant SageJune 29, 2011 at 6:26 PM
Is THIS what you're looking for?
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ChristopherJune 29, 2011 at 6:31 PM
I think so, yes! Thank you!
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richardJune 30, 2011 at 4:16 AM
when I read your post title I thought "load myself down with 400lbs or so of ironwork, satchels, broom handles, candles and "iron rations" and then get myself skewered by some lowlife in a sewer? Hmmm, no thanks."

As it is, I'm guessing that finding out I'm below average in everything will just depress me. But hey, somebody has to be! And that somebody is 0 level normal joes.
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By The SwordJune 30, 2011 at 6:47 AM
It is easier to make yourself into a Traveller Character.
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ChristopherJune 30, 2011 at 8:37 AM
@richard: Yeah… if I were to actually run a game off of this, I'd wait until I had very experienced players who wouldn't get "themselves" killed right off the bat. And that's still a big "if." I asked because it's a fun little quiz and because I thought it might give me some ideas as to how to turn yourself into a Pendragon character. I was hoping that if I fed my gamer ADD a little scrap then it would quite down- I think Pendragon would probably be the best system I'm familiar with to run a Narnia campaign, and turning yourself into a character becomes, I'd say, much more attractive when you're going to Narnia instead of the bowels of a Swords & Sorcery dungeon… as far as being below average in every attribute, I find that hard to believe. Almost all people are below average in some areas and above average in others, and I'd expect that D&D attributes reflect that. Most people that play D&D would probably at least have INT scores above 10, just because it attracts imaginative people that ask "what if."

@By The Sword: I really need to become more familiar with Traveller. I thought the character generation process was mostly dealing with what space industries your character had been involved in… or is that not the part of turning yourself into a Traveller character that wouldbe easy?
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Trent_BJuly 9, 2011 at 6:17 PM
Jesus... that thing thinks I'm a superhuman.

I think it needs to be recalibrated. Still - Kinda cool.
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richardNovember 30, 2011 at 6:06 AM
Hah - I just did the "what are your D&D scores" above and it turns out I should be a cleric!
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ClawCarverJuly 30, 2012 at 10:09 AM
Cleric for me too. Although I could get a 10% XP bonus as a druid too, apparently. Very upset to discover that I will never be a thief (my favourite class). Dex 6 indeed!
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Words of Wisdom from the OSR

When we encountered a trap or a puzzle, we had to work them out for ourselves; we couldn't just "make a Spot check at DC 15" to find what we needed. The longer I am involved in old school gaming, the more convinced I am that that is the crux of the difference between older games and newer ones…[R]olling dice should never be a substitute for individual cleverness and creative thinking. -James Malezewski

OD&D is not and never has been about who is most powerful; it is about teamwork and having fun by overcoming obstacles together. -David Bowman

The point isn't to make role-playing some sort of masochistic experience where it's all suffering and death and pain and failure. The point is, if all these things are real and present dangers, then success means more. -James Edward Raggi IV

OSR cliche: "We don't explore characters, we explore dungeons". Not exactly. I think the idea is more: what thing do you use as rocket fuel until the campaign gets into orbit and goes where it wants to go? I use a dungeon to get there. Freak monsters and puzzle traps are the selling point--but once the campaign gets into orbit it goes where it goes. Different gamers may all end up in the same kind of campaigns but they were sold on getting into that rocket ship for the same reason. -Zak Smith

Referees/DMs/Labyrinth Lords (or whatever you want to call them) are indeed the final arbiter of the rules and have the final word on what happens inside their world; however, each and every one of us who run an RPG have made the choice to cede that control to our players by the very nature of playing the game. If we wanted total control, we would write short stories, novellas and novels, not play RPGs. The dice are the mechanism by which we cede that control – they are the means by which player choices are validated every time they choose to do something dangerous. -FrDave

Enforcing the written rules is a small part of being a good DM. In my experience the players will respect that you want to keep the game moving as long as they are convinced that you are not an adversarial DM. I can smile while giving my players all sorts of bad news. And they don't blink when I run roughshod over their notions of how D&D works. How can I get away with this? Because they trust that I'm there to have a good time with them, not against them. Show that you will call things down the middle, but will give them every chance when you're in a grey area. Let them use and abuse the tricks on their character sheets and the crazy plans they come up with. Then when you kill them they'll understand that it wasn't anything personal. -Jeff Rients