Adventuring

Bringing your Character to Life

While you play QoD, you will breathe life into an adventurer within a new and fantastic world. You will determine how your character looks, thinks, and acts. You will portray his (or her) personality by speaking in a specific voice or style, describing mannerisms and expressions, and determining how your character acts. You will make choices for your character, based on goals, motives, and personality. You will determine how your character reacts to the setting, environment, and other characters in the story (both Player Characters, or PCs, and Non-Player Characters, or NPCs). Remember, that you're telling a cooperative story. How your character responds to other characters and events will help to build that story, and determine how the story progresses. The GM will build the world and circumstances the PCs are faced with. You will determine how your character reacts, and by working with the other players, how your group of characters will respond.

Roleplay is about embodying your character and describing their thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. You'll speak as your character would speak. You'll describe body language and facial expressions. You'll describe or use the same gestures that your character would use when interacting. You'll also describe what a character does, their physical actions in the story. While everyone has different levels of comfort when it comes to roleplay, remember that you will get as much out of the game as you put into it. For player's who find roleplay a little outside their comfort zone, remember that the sillier you feel portraying the character, the more interesting your character probably is (and the more fun the group is having because of it).

Exploring your Environment

One of the most important aspects of a roleplaying adventure is describing how your character interacts with his environment. For example, if the GM places your character in the local tavern, what does he do? Does he have a drink? A meal? Flirt with the server because he finds her (or him) attractive? Does he talk with the bartender, fishing for rumors or information? What does he see as he looks around? Are there advertisements, reward posters, or other news on the walls? Are there suspicious characters whose conversation you could overhear if you move a bit closer? Take your queues from the GM, but remember to explore your environment. The GM put you there for a reason, it's your job to figure out why.

When exploring a new scene, try to form a complete picture of the environment in your mind. Ask questions of the GM to help clarify his description. Consider interacting with the objects in the scene: opening drawers, looking under beds, pulling levers, etc. Remember to be cautious, as traps are a distinct possibility in any adventure, but also make sure to fully explore what the GM has laid before you. You may find an important letter in a desk drawer or discover a secret cache under the floorboards. Look for clues in your environment: an object that seems out of place or a empty area where something is missing. Take note of the state of a room: is it clean or dusty, neat or messy, lived in or long abandoned? You never know what you might discover if you take the time to explore.

Interacting with Other Characters

In addition to interacting with the other characters in your party, you will likely have to interact with Non-Player Characters (NPCs), portrayed by the Gamemaster. This may be something as simple as ordering a drink from the bartender, or as complex as convincing the king not to behead you. Regardless of the reason for the interaction, you should view all NPCs as an opportunity to learn more about the world and the story. NPCs can give you tasks and quests to complete, give your information and clues to solve you problems, or could just simply serve to expand and enhance the world. Even if your not sure what to ask a NPC right away, it can't hurt to establish a good rapport with them for later.

Not all interactions with NPCs need to be verbal either. For example, if the GM says "Your character is being approached by a cloaked individual," you must decide how your character will react. Will he greet the individual warmly, with a friendly disposition? Or will he be suspicious and regard the individual with caution? Does he perhaps take a moment to observe the individual and try to get information based on his equipment, demeanor, clothing, etc? Or do you take cover in the shadow of a nearby building and hide from your pursuer? All of these reactions can have different consequences, which will mold and shape how the story progresses.

Overcoming Challenges

The main purpose of any adventure is for the Gamemaster to set challenges before the Player Characters, and for the PCs to overcome those challenges. Challenges can come in a lot of different shapes and sizes, and can include fighting a group of creatures, solving a puzzle, solving a mystery, gathering information, convincing an NPC to do something and more. In each situation it will be up to you to decide what your character does, how they interact with their next trial, and how they help to overcome the challenge.

Sometimes the challenges presented by the GM are straightforward: fight the enemy, solve the puzzle, persuade the gatekeeper. But other times these challenges are less obvious or have multiple solutions: find the stolen goods, obtain the crystal, or learn the innkeeper's secret. There may be a variety of solutions to a single challenge, and it is up to the PCs to determine how they will go about solving it. When trying to find the stolen goods, will you investigate the scene of the crime, ask around in the shadier parts of town, or lay a trap for the would be thieves? When uncovering the innkeeper's secret, will you search through his home, coerce him into telling you, or check the local rumor mill? Be creative and don't be afraid to think outside the box.

What Can My Character Do?

So we've talked a lot about making decisions for your character, but what can they actually do? A character can do just about anything you can imagine (though they may not always be successful at it). When faced with a question, he may ask another character for information (typically NPCs controlled by the GM). He can seek guidance from a Deity through prayer or consulting with religious officials. He can seek written information in town records, libraries, religious temples, or academies. He can use his skills to analyze what information he has and try to expand upon it. In other words, your character can do just about anything in an attempt to solve a problem.

When your character is faced with an enemy, he can attack it, escape it, or avoid it. When facing a trap, he can disarm it, bypass it, or simply trigger it and deal with the consequences. When a door is locked: find the key, pick the lock, or break it down. There are multiple solutions to every problem and it's up to you, and the other players, to determine how your group will handle them.

Your character has special abilities that can help them to overcome these challenges. Your character's skills represent their competence at performing certain tasks and their ability to recall and analyze information on a specific topic. Powers grant special abilities to your character (often in the form of special attacks) that allow you to do unique things, such as specific fighting techniques, cast magical spells, or use a skill in a unique way. The details on how Powers and Skills are used will be described in more detail in the Using Skills & Powers section.

The Player's Job versus the Gamemaster's Job

The Player's job is to determine and describe how his character interacts with the world around him and how he reacts to the events in the story (while keeping the goals, motives, and personality of their character in mind). When a player determines what their character will do, the GM determines whether or not the character is successful (often with the help of the player's die roll). The GM has the final say in what happens in the story, but it's generally up to the players and GM together to determine what happens.

As a Player, be prepared to ask your GM lots of questions, about the environment, about the setting, and about the story. Ask what you see, smell, or hear when in a new location. Use your skills to gain more information about new and unusual things. Get a full picture of the world around you and use it to determine what your character will do next. Remember that you're on a team with the other players and confer with them on the best course of action.

The Gamemaster's job is to set the starting point of the story and help to bring the characters together. He controls all Non-player characters (NPCs), creates their personality, develops relationships between them and Player Characters (PCs), and disseminates information from them to the PCs. He is responsible for setting up challenges that the PCs will face throughout the story and keeping the story on track. The GM serves as a referee of sorts, determining what actions are successful, which actions fail, and how the story changes in response to each character's actions. Ultimately, the GM is the authority on the rules and outcomes of the game, whenever a question arises or a decision is contested.

In the end, remember that you're here to have fun! Pulling together as a group to overcome a challenge can be exhilarating, but failing dramatically can sometimes be just as interested (and sometimes hilarious). The toughest battles are usually some of the most remembered, and thinking in unconventional ways can be rewarded with exciting outcomes. Bring your character to life, try new things, and leave with a story you'll never forget.

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