Get out your handbook and try to roll twenty, as we talk you through some of our favourite Tabletop creations.
Sadie Ní Dochartaigh - my beloved bard
E. Keogh
May I introduce Sadie Ní Dochartaigh: renowned bard in the land of Scart for her extraordinary lute solos, her unique sense of style, her sharp wit, her ability to disguise herself beyond recognition in a second’s notice... and a few other words I can’t put into print.
After leaving her father, she found her way to a school for young adventurers. A ranger, wizard, necromancer, and a girl who Sadie could never figure-out were assigned to work together to understand how to explore the world. That turned out to be a cult, and the five adventurers embarked on an uncertain journey, guided by the mysterious ‘M’. During their traversal of a strange jungle, Sadie would have much difficulty coming to terms with her found-family, and only be her true self around Selune the panther.
Sceptical of Sadie, her friends tried to uncover her past to no avail. Managing to escape the jungle island and meeting the local lord through the means of spell and battle, Sadie and her companions found themselves in a tavern. One of Sadie's friends tried to send a drunk older man to mess with her, and when she found out, she lashed out and, in her usual fashion, ran into the woods. The ranger sent Selune, unwilling to let her go alone, and they found a log to sit by and stargazed.
Sadie's sleep was disrupted by footsteps nearby. She cast a thunderbolt at a cloaked figure in the distance. He shouted to stop, and that he was a weary traveller trying to find his sister. Sadie and Jaskier had been reunited after so many years, but it was like they’d always known each other. Sharply, Selune started to hiss at something. She was then launched into a tree and knocked out instantly.
Jaskier was swiftly stabbed at the monster as Sadie was thrown back onto the cold ground. Her cast lightning only seemed to push the figure back 10 feet. Jaskier tried to stand up, blood dribbling from his mouth but collapsed back onto the ground. Tears began to flow, and Sadie mouthed “I’m sorry” to Jaskier as she turned and concentrated her stream of lightning at the being, but he kept advancing until he threw her back 20 feet directly into a fallen tree. All went silent. The figure disappeared.
I loved Sadie as a character, and I’d be lying if I said I didn't miss her.
Sadie looked down and saw the branch protruding from her chest. She struggled to breathe. As Jaskier with all his strength stumbled over to her, he screamed for help. “Jaskier,” she faintly whispered “tell...tell them I’m sorry...I'm so sorry” as Sadie took her terminal breath. Her pupils widened, her hands became cold. Jaskier tried all the spells he knew to heal her, writhing at each failed attempt. Her blood-soaked clothes became covered by flowers and foliage from all the spells Jaskier tried, as though she was wearing a fine green gown. The sun began to rise as the townspeople gathered to witness the horror that had occurred, the scene that death had left. I loved Sadie as a character, and I’d be lying if I said I didn't miss her. She was my first proper character, and I like to think I gave her a fitting end.
Fox - the hangry Vampire
Ellen Nugent
Meet Fox. Small, mohawked and armed with a crowbar and bad attitude. She’s also a vampire.
As the first character I ever created for the RPG system Vampire: The Masquerade, I would confidently say Fox was one of the most fun characters I’ve ever created and played. She does, sadly, also qualify as the worst, due to my absolutely abysmal luck while playing her.
Dungeons and Dragons is well-known in the RPG community for its use of multiple kinds of dice, the most famous being the 20-sided dice. Vampire: The Masquerade, however, only uses 10-sided dice, with 6 or over counting as a success. The better you are at a skill, the more dice you get to roll, trying to get enough successes to perform a task. I’d made Fox good at running, punching, jumping – skills I thought would help when we tracked down a suitably evil vampire art dealer and started a fight with him and his minions.
Another fun system used in the game is Hunger. It’s a points scale of 0 to 5; where 0 is like the feeling after you eat an entire cheese garlic loaf by yourself, and 5 is an undeniable, unstoppable urge to eat the nearest person. Players gain hunger-points for a number of reasons: you burn energy to heal yourself, you use a powerful attack, or things aren’t going so well and you start getting frustrated (or hangry, as my group liked to joke).
This sets the scene for Fox’s run-in with the evil art dealer (he was making paintings out of people! And not in an inspirational way.). The art dealer (I’ll call him William, because that was his name) was fairly impervious to magical damage, and so Fox was ideally suited to punch him to death. You can imagine my annoyance (and mounting Hunger) as everything I tried to do failed. Grappling, kicking, even jumping towards him – nothing I tried to do worked.
All except for one roll. One critical little roll.
That attack brought me to 5 points of hunger – time to eat the nearest person.
I decided to try biting William, as everything else up to that point had failed – and this time I succeeded. Remember how I mentioned gaining hunger points by performing powerful attacks or being frustrated, and that I hadn’t had overly good luck during the session? That attack brought me to 5 points of hunger – time to eat the nearest person. Which was William, as I’d just chomped down on his neck.
For all of the failures that session, they paled in comparison to me trying to not let my character eat William. I failed at trying to stop myself from drinking his blood. I failed at trying not to kill him while drinking his blood. I failed at trying not to commit the worst crime possible in vampire society: Diablerie (killing another vampire via blood drinking and stealing their power).
The storyteller even allowed me to break the rules and make another roll to resist killing this man – ‘’If you can get even one success in this pool of all of your dice, I’ll let you not kill him’’ – every single dice came up a failure. A side effect of committing Diablerie on a more powerful vampire is that they take over their new host, so I spent the next session sadly failing rolls to try and stop Fox being taken over by an evil bougie art vampire.
What a way to go.
Dadd Daddison - master of the magic trick
E. Keogh
Class? None. Race? Human, subspecies: Dad.
One of the characters I’m about to describe could either be the best or the worst. His name? Dadd Daddison. Class? None. Race? Human, subspecies: Dad.
His only attributes are that he can do really bad magic tricks and make really bad dad jokes. He’s not proficient with any weapons, he’s not a real magic user, and his motivations were to go on a really cool adventure with some really cool people so he could have a new badass story for his kids. He’s wholesome, kind, always has water and snacks for the other party members, and can always get a smile with his extremely unfunny jokes.
I've never had the chance to play Dadd Daddison, as when I play D&D I usually want my character to have a good story, a big sad start, a happy middle where friends are made, drama ensues, and a heartbreaking twist to what happens to my character. It doesn’t always end in death - sometimes it's just really emotional.
My plan for Dadd (who coincidentally shares a name with a background character for another campaign I’m in with no affiliation) is to play him the proper way - as an absolute goofball who contributes to nothing but moral by telling jokes, being the comic relief in stressful situations, and after fights have happened, for him to go up to the biggest slain foe, poke them with a stick, and proclaim a glorious win for the adventurers.
It would humble the adventurers to have Dadd around. The magic users would learn that life was so much more than just magic, and that the true magic came from enjoying yourself and making others happy. The ranger would think she knew everything about tracking and hunting, until Dadd showed her a compass and a map. The Half-elf Cleric would always say Dadd taught them nothing, but in reality, they would be quite impressed at his spirituality, and the respect he had for all things living and good, bringing a hidden smile to them. The Cleric would pray to their deity not just for themself and for all things good, but began to pray for the party, and Dadd in particular.
He’d go to taverns and ask for a cocktail no one had heard of before, and end up taking the only drinks they had going; ale. Dadd would always go to taverns and try to play tricks that were so obviously fake magic, and his friends would act amazed as he'd pull a coin from behind one of the party members' ears. Dadd would be cowardly in all except one of the biggest battles the party would face, where he would quickly unsheath a massive sword from the rangers back, and run towards the 50-foot tall giant, screaming “FOR MY KIDS AND DAVE''. The scene would be set that everyone present would see him for the hero he was, before the giant flicked him 40 feet straight into the nearest tree, sword and all. The party would hear a faint “I’m okay" from a distance. In the end, Dadd goes home, to be with his kids and husband. Scratched up, swollen eyes, and broken left arm, Dadd would recall all the adventures he’s had with his new friends, and although they would continue on their quest, Dadd would be happy he just got to be a part of it.
Glob - the dim kobold fighter
Lennon McGuirk
One of the major appeals of Dungeon and Dragons is the freedom in character creation. The variety means that sometimes you make beast slaying gods of characters, but every now and again you end up making a completely ridiculous character that cannot accomplish the simplest of tasks.
I rolled so badly on my character’s ability scores that my dungeon master offered a reroll; however, justly determined, I decided to have some fun with him.
For me, that character was Glob, a tiny kobold fighter with more flaws than brain cells. I rolled so badly on my character’s ability scores that my dungeon master offered a reroll; however, justly determined, I decided to have some fun with him.
Now the first major issue with Glob wasn’t his low intelligence score. Many characters have low intelligence and they usually make up for it in other areas. No, Glob’s main issue was that he was a fighter with low strength and dexterity as well as an armour class and hit points so low that almost any roll in combat would land a dangerous hit. This meant that Glob spent more time out of combat recuperating his injuries than anything else, and his low intelligence meant that he would continuously act recklessly. He would constantly try to climb larger enemies and frequently found himself flung across the room. If he was within melee distance, you could be certain that Glob would try to bite you. One example I can think of is the stone golem that the party was fighting in a dungeon. During the fight, Glob decided the best way to attack the golem that again, was made from stone, would be to bite it. He of course promptly broke multiple teeth and did more damage to himself than the enemy. He then proceeded to try to bite the stone golem again, before being launched into a nearby wall.
Though being treated like a rag doll during combat wasn’t the only issue Glob had during his run. He had an undying love of dragons. If Glob saw a dragon he would immediately do any request it asked. I knew that there would be no dragons as enemies in the campaign as I had cleared it with the dungeon master beforehand, but what I was not aware of was the dragon egg kept in a glass cabinet in one of the museums that Glob was stealing from. He immediately forgot the mission, opting instead to spend about 3 in-game hours trying to remove the egg from the cabinet without alerting anyone. Of course with Glob’s luck, he rolled multiple nat-ones and caused a massive fight to break out. He did, however, get his egg. Which he spent the remainder of the campaign intensely looking after until it finally hatched. I feel it important to point out that this idiotic kobold-fighter now had a dragon imprinted on him. It was a recipe for disaster. Every single quest ended in burnt down buildings due to the inseparable pair. One of which didn’t even have a name because Glob could barely speak coherently enough to name his new friend.
That dragon would ultimately prove to be Glob’s downfall. Non-playable characters from all over the world, who had been injured or had property destroyed by Glob and his friend, banded together to try to kill the dragon. Glob, in his infinite wisdom, ran straight into this mob to try to protect his friend and sadly he did not return. However, we did get a very nice origin story for the dragon that would be the big bad villain for our following campaign.