Vendle's page

Since this thread seems to have taken a religious turn, I'll add my two cents. For the Roman Catholic side, our new Pope has made a statement regarding Harry Potter and the trend in pop culture towards fantasy. Paraphrasing, he asserted that there is no evil inherent in those kinds of stories, and that the creative tales should be enjoyed as the author intended them. I would expect the same follows for fantasy role-playing, where the keys are cooperation, fun, and imagination.

I won't deny that there are some people in religious communities that still hold a very negative view of D&D. This is no longer the official position by any church, that I am aware of. As our community grows and old misconceptions fade, this is starting to change for the best.

D&D is my favorite hobby, and I tell people as much. Some people look at me strangely, some make jokes. That makes no difference to me, because they've only heard bits and pieces of negative opinions.

I'm reminded of two prayers;
Lord, grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.

And an Irish-derived blessing,
May the sun ever shine on your path, and the wind always be at your back. And may the good Lord turn the hearts of your enemies, but if not their hearts, then their ankles, so we'll know them by their limping!

Thanis, I also like your house rule system, although I wouldn't use it myself. The only part I found confusing was your example. In your description, you seem to say that a dragon with DR "number"/magic(Strong) would require epic weapons to overcome. This is contrary to the standard practice of writing damage reduction with the minimum bypassing weapon or quality after the slash (/). Against a dragon with damage reduction of that type, I would expect a +4 or +5 weapon, as well as epic weapons, to bypass that protection.

In the standard world economy, your basic commoner earns a living between a few coppers and a few silver per day, and pay for their own living expenses. Adding up what they need to save to afford a +1 sword (2,000g) should imply that magic weapons are quite rare to the general public, but not to the high risk/high rewards life of an adventurer.

In my experience, and from what I can remember from the illustrious Sage, damage reduction works like this:

1. A barbarian high enough to have DR 1/- negates one point from (nearly) any physical source of damage, even magic weapons or falling damage.

2. Let's say this barbarian puts on medium armor that is made of adamantine, which grants a damage reduction 2/-. These bonuses do not stack, so the higher DR of 2/- is used. This is because DR from class abilities and feats do not stack with the bonuses granted from items or special materials.

3. The same barbarian (DR 1/-) puts on a new suit of armor with the Invulnerability quality (damage reduction 5/magic). He now subtracts the first 5 points of damage dealt from attacks, unless the weapon is magical. In that case, he will apply his original DR 1/- to any damage suffered from that weapon.

4. To clear up another problem about stacking, the barbarian CAN take feats or classes that increase his damage reduction, and in (some) of these cases, the bonuses DO stack. That is because these qualities become innate to the character. There are classes and Prestige Classes that grant damage reduction different from the barbarian's. If they allow an attack or quality (silver, piercing, magical, etc.) to bypass the DR, then they do not stack because they are not of the same type as the character's original DR.

If I'm wrong on these points, I'd appreciate correction.

When I ran this part, the party was torn between seeking the help of the half-elf Striders and using Jenya's special mace to divine the location. They chose the mace, which I had direct them to Artus through an easy riddle. I considered skipping Artus, but his presence gives the PCs another contact in the city to call on if they run into a wall later on the adventure path. In my estimation, my group does not have great skill at research and gathering information, so I have to present a few options now and then. Thankfully, the Shackled City already has many options and contacts built into it. I like to make use of them whenever it is suggested to apply them.

I posted about this once already, but I'll add a little more depth.

When my party entered Drakthar's Way, they only knew they were looking for the goblin's leader. I gave Drak a 10% chance to show up each encounter, and occasionally in between encounters. He must have been sleeping, because the group went from the bathhouse to the base of the mountain without encountering him. Then a spell of Comprehend Languages translated the goblin writing that said 'vampire', so they went back to town to prepare.

A few silver weapons and many holy water vials later, they returned to the caverns and began searching. This time Drakthar got the drop on them, and summoned 5 swarms of bats to whittle away their health. He chose to sneak carefully up and try to Dominate the dwarf barbarian during the chaos.

The party took a lot of damage from the bats, with the rogue/monk beating them out of the air with some degree of success. The cleric's Lesser Vigor kept him up and protected from bleeding. The dwarf at first failed his save against the Dominating gaze, but the paladin used an immediate action spell to give him another chance. Sure enough, he resisted the second time, making Drakthar blink. Dwarf swings and misses.

The next round, the paladin and barbarian flanked Drakthar and failed to hit his high AC. The cleric added to the paladin's chances (since the paladin's greatsword was the only silvered and magic weapon in the party) with a Bull's Strength. Drak slapped the barbarian with his morningstar, nearly dropping him.

Final round, the paladin declares Smite and hits, scoring 22 points of damage. Drakthar goes poof, everybody cheers. Without a lucky roll in that round, or possibly the next, this would have been a loss. The barbarian was going to sunder the vampire's wooden shield, but his AC was still very high. The rogue chose wisely in dealing with the bat swarms, since his fists did normal damage to them. The saving grace is Drak's 14 hitpoints, which gives him a very small window to rely on his fast healing 5.

I should also point out that when I'm running a BBEG, I like to stick to the tactics suggested for the encounter. I went for the bat swarms and Dominate, and then fell back on Drak's determination to drop one foe before retreating. After all, the barbarian was close to passing out during most of the encounter, so he -looked- like easy pickings.

The cleric correctly identified the need to destroy the vampire in his coffin (Knowledge:Religion), so the search continued for another 15 minutes until it was found.

They were quite happy with Drakthar's treasure trove too, but later spent most of it preparing for the Demonskar Ball.

My players haven't gotten very far yet, but one encounter stands out. In Drakthar's Way, the vampire discovered the party heading for his throne room. He created 5 swarms of bats and sent them ahead, while trying to sneak up to the party. If he had stayed out of the fight and let the bats have all the fun, he might've lived, but that wasn't in his tactics. Long story short, one lucky hit from the paladin's Smite made him go poof.

The party walked over the goblin ambushes, too. I think the worst thing they ran into were the shocker lizards that put the rogue to -8 first round, since he didn't tell the cleric that he was already hurt. Next round, both lizards were dead and the rogue was saved.

Thank you for your great ideas to enhance the Demonskar Ball. My players had a great time! Although they did spend a great deal of their meager wealth on dance lessons, costumes, and etiquette training, it all paid off in the end.

Only one of my players took the Noble trait, which she used to secure a proper carriage to arrive at the ball in (from her parents). The player who took Abyssal Heritor feats was a natural choice for the Nabathoratan (sp*) costume, and he arrived on a phantom steed created by a Mount spell scroll.

Then during the dancing competition, the group's dwarf barbarian got randomly paired with the Stormblades' leader (Alyssa?) and managed to avoid getting tripped. I forgot to insert the boasting competition, of which I'm sure the rogue could have made a lasting impression.

No one attempted the musical competition, so no drama there. At the end of the evening, the party cleric was left with several calling cards from young noblemen who were fascinated by her costume's animated wings. They were all quite happy with the results, I don't think anyone felt overshadowed or left out (although the roleplaying award went to the dwarf). Very late that evening when they returned to their respective quarters, they found the summons from Jenya of St. Cuthbert's church. Some of them rushed to the chuch without changing from their costumes. Next week's adventure will most likely satisfy any desires for more combat.

The rivalry sparked here with the Stormblades has really grabbed the interest of my group. They have mostly decided to rise above the swaggering and insults that the noble heirs enjoy, although it came close to blows when Todd spilled the dwarf's drink.

It seems to me the advantage of the new alternate druid ability is in having no 'uses per day' limit. This gives the druid more freedom to use his forms for stealth, movement, and adaptation without fearing a loss in combat uses. Sounds like a great deal to me.

Until, you read through the alternate forms descriptions for the 'PHB2 druid'. The plant form is not a plant. The elemental form is not an elemental. I'm not sure about other players of druids, but when I'm changing into a treant, I want to smash things like a treant. I'll take that vulnerability to fire, just give me all the plant-type immunities. When I turn into an air elemental, I'd like to have the option of flying and turning into a whirlwind.

If I chose to use this ability or allow it in my game sessions, I would alter it to give back those losses. Gaining a creature's form without the special traits of those monsters is too weak a tradeoff, in my opinion.

As a final note, if you have a world-trekking druid with this alternate ability, be ready to stick out like a sore thumb in tree form. The description says, you look -exactly the same- every time you use that form. There aren't many birch trees in the king's orchard, or the Generic Winterwood Forest, if you catch my meaning. My two coppers.

My hometown group still plays quite a lot, although I don't often get down there lately. Ages 30, 26, 27, 22, 29, 26 approx. One woman.

My local group: Ages 27, 25, 23, 19, and 21 I think. Two women. We're all military-affiliated. Of my local group, only I am a long-time player. I introduced my wife to the game a couple years ago, and a couple of my training classmates learned just a year and a half back. One player is brand new to the table, but has taken to the concepts very well.
I'm always happy to introduce this 'hobby' to new people. I've been a dyed-in-the-wool fan of D&D since learning to read about twenty years ago.

I also have a problem with players with hectic schedules. Currently a 4-member gestalt group at level 2.

Dwarf fighter/barbarian (Touched in the Head)
Elf Monk/Rogue (Noble)
Human Fighter/Cleric (Noble)
Avoral Paladin planning on Favored Soul levels (Descendent of ?)

Well, time for an update. The party is greatly changed and headed into the Malachite Fortress, recently getting to level 2.

The party cleric is now a fighter/cleric, and deals significant damage with a warhammer. The player who once had a barbarian is now running a rogue/monk and is fairly good at dungeoneering. The player who ran a kobold is now running an aasimar paladin/favored soul. And the dwarf fighter chose to become a barbarian/fighter. While short on arcane magic, their healing spells have helped greatly to avoid TPK. The rogue/monk is eager (over-eager) to engage in combat. Once he decided that the hobgoblins in Malachite Fortress were 'weak', he leaped at the chance to do battle with six of them, a room ahead of the group. Two rounds later, he was critically hit by a pit spike to -8HP, with 5 laughing hobgoblins with javelins standing over the pit. All in all it was a very fun and exciting rescue.

As a gestalt campaign, I think this adventure path works wonderfully, as it was designed for 6 players instead of 4. With that taken into account, I still have to adjust for the low total hit points of the group and the fewer targets the enemies can divide their attacks among.

I am just starting up a SCAP campaign. I have 4 players, and I'm strongly considering allowing them to remake themselves as gestalt characters when they advance to second level. I have a couple reasons for this (major) alteration. One is, that apart from the cleric having the Diplomacy skill, the party's social abilities are nil ((1 dwarven fighter, 1 1/2 orc barbarian, 1 human cleric, and 1 kobold -black- dragon shaman.)) I don't like to demand core races for my players, but in this case I strongly encouraged it and suggested that their characters would have a particularly difficult time in this adventure path if they chose races that might not blend into a human-dominated city.

The party is headed deeper into Jzadirune, and although the dragon shaman's player is wise enough to often use the perception aura, it doesn't boost anyone's Spot skill enough to crow about. Changing the game to gestalt would save me more headaches than cause, at this point. Also, three of my players are familiar with the strengths and drawbacks of gestalt characters and I'm comfortable with them.

In a recent RPGA game I played in, I noticed something unbalanced. A veteran player had chosen for his druid's animal companion, a panther. Now normally I think this is fine. The DM also approved. The problem came in our first combat. The player, who won initiative in the surprise round, declared that his panther was using its pounce ability. It proceeded to advance 40 feet to the enemy and then use all five of its attacks.

I asked the GM about it later, and he didn't seem to understand my issue. What do you think? Because Pounce allows a creature to make two claw attacks and two rakes, shouldn't it be only allowed in place of a full attack action? That seems a bit much in the surprise round for a character's companion creature at 1st level.

I'm mostly of the same opinions as Absinth and Captramses, and mostly disagree with Fatespinner. I'll quickly point out, however, that this is only on the matter of "preferred style" of DMing. I wouldn't presume to say one way is right or wrong.

I don't like to limit my player's options. HOWEVER, I'll always remind them of the consequences of choosing a strange race (social outcast, fewer hit dice, etc.) so that they know playing a succubus paladin (or whatever) means they'll probably die from lack of hit points.

If I wanted to run Lord of the Rings, I'd buy that RPG book. As it is, I prefer Forgotten Realms, a setting virtually defined by its vastness and diversity as well as being rich in magic. I can't say there are many githyanki walking the streets in Cormyr, but if my player wants a githyanki and it doesn't clash with the party in a grinding-halt sort of way, then I'll make adjustments to allow that character. That's the kind of give and take that I think is ideal in a gaming group. Everyone has fun and the story goes on (although perhaps not in the exact way I had planned it to from the start).

I'd also like to relate a bad experience I've had while gaming under an iron-fisted GM (a loaded term, but fitting in this case.) The GM allowed us plenty of freedom on character creation, but the problem arose during gameplay. The story, it seemed, was already set. In lands far away from our characters, things were happening to reshape the world, and we were not allowed to interfere. It turned out after a lot of questions that the DM was basing the plot around ANOTHER game wherein adventuring group #2 was trying to attain godhood, and were shaking things up in a Time-of-Troubles way. Naturally then, our characters determined to immediately end this power play (certainly a concern for the group's cleric) but the GM wouldn't allow us to persue any course but group #2's footnotes. It quickly became the worst gaming experience in my memory. NPC's that were important in #2's plotline would periodically chat with our group (or worse, defeat rediculously powerful monsters for us because they happened to show up), but were untouchable in terms of spell resistance and armor class, and I suspect did not have recorded hit points. My character, a fiercely independent type, and the terrified rogue eventually 'agreed' to an NPC's pointless errand and walked out, entirely fed up with these "benefactors". Sorry for the rant, it still gets me riled.

Essentially, I'm trying to say that I think it's a bad idea for a DM to start an adventure with little flexibility and predetermined outcomes. Players should be the star of the show, not delivery boys for NPCs who hold all the cards. I realize a lot of characters start as delivery boys, but they should be allowed some room to grow beyond that.

I had a player whose character concept was, bluntly, a monster. He started as a half-shadow dragon minotaur that the party found guarding a dungeon hall and took barbarian levels to Frenzied Berzerker. Once he got Intimidating Rage it was hard to have any sort of combat that wasn't just him chasing down scared opponents and cleaving them with reach. I think his life's ambition was to acquire Thor's belt.

Two years college, and was too young to appreciate it. Now I'm on my way to finishing an Applied Sciences degree in Intelligence in the Air Force Community College.

P.S. Good luck Marechal!

I'm not one to borrow words, so I'm not starting with a quote from another fan.

My initial impression of the MM IV was good, and that hasn't changed. I like the additional attention to lairs and ecology. I like the format that the stats are written in. I like the leveled up monsters for ease of use. I only have a few gripes.

I think there were too many entries for Tiamat's spawn. To try and put this outlook in perspective, let me say that I plan to RUN A CAMPAIGN based around Tiamat's goal of taking over the world through prolific breeding (as mentioned in Races of the Dragon). Creators and editors, thank you for another book that I will find use for in my overwhelming library, but the 'spawn' leave a bad taste in my mouth. My campaign likely won't include more than two of these ghastly beasts, as they are better replaced with half-dragon creatures in my opinion.

It gives credence to the arguement, 'what happened to the majesty and uniqueness of the dragon as a PC terror?' My two coppers.

I play WoW a little each evening, typically. Last week, my guild did quite a few raids so I declined to attend on the weekend, instead joining a D&D session at a local shop for RPGA. It is easy to get burned out by playing one thing repeatedly, so I have minor solutions to this.
One, I play multiple kinds of characters. A priest is way different from a defensive warrior which is different from a fury warrior. The most fun I have is playing a warlock in battlegrounds.
Two, I change my routine. Grinding faction by killing masses of one monster type, then escorting a low level guild member through some quest, then perhaps more battlegrounds (pvp is where the excitement is, unless of course your team is getting rolled by a guilded team of twinks).
Lastly and most importantly, I play WoW with friends I know in Real Life. This makes the game a social event instead of a solo adventure with people trying to sell you stuff they farmed for. Interacting with friends is the reason I bought the game, come to think of it. My two coppers.

p.s. - my main character has /played about 50 days. My alternates probably add up to 40 together.

I could have sworn I posted here before but now that I can't find it... perhaps I only intended to.

I started roleplaying in online chat rooms, and had just read a novel about a Mithril Hall and some drow guy. *chuckle* Well, I took a liking to the wizard of the story, fudged his name a little, and declared myself a distant relative. Thus was born Vendle Harkle. I have used the name for a long time on other boards and freeform sites. I still play on myrealms.net if you care to see a description of my 9-years-running mage.

P.S. Although I used to play the comic relief, the character has outgrown that kind of behavior for survival's sake.

D&D is a widely popular hobby with the American military as well. I think it has to do with mentally escaping reality for a few hours, which does a lot for keeping one's sanity.

There are people who consider it a 'children's game' and give strange looks when I talk about adventures at work, but it's never been a hostile thing nor has it affected my job. I'd estimate that about a third of my office plays online RPGs, which helps maintain a neutral atmosphere around gaming here.

I like the new classes presented in the PHB 2. I think that at first glance they may seem superior to the core classes, but that balancing is easily found in game.

Beguilers have only enchantment and illusion spells, making them quite weak against undead, oozes, and constructs. Dragon Shamen don't seem to fit any core role. Knights' challenges are limited in choice of target, and then several of their abilities depend on these challenges. The duskblade does seem a bit powerful except that they don't melee as well as a fighter can (depending on feats and armor). I'll have to playtest these classes soon so I can add personal experience.

Solid Fog and similar spells (Cloud Kill, Incendiary Cloud) can reduce movement to 5 feet/round, not to mention allow your NPCs to retreat or hide. I'm not sure if they all do, so definitely look up the description to be sure. One more way to drag even fast-moving PCs to a halt in one round.

I like the direction that the MM4 is going for a couple reasons. One: I have a MM (3.5) and Dungeon adventure modules that supply my needs for monster stats 95% of the time. The rest of the time I can extrapolate by adding classes and templates or just HD and feats. For these reasons I do not yet own a MM2 or MM3. It just hasn't been necessary.

That being said, I probably WILL get the MM4 if it isn't too radically altered from the sample info. This is because monster ecology and lairs are an important part of many encounters I run (or at least come up as questions from my players) and it would speed up gameplay to have a few basic monsters with "leveled-up" stats bookmarked.

Nice work Wizards/DnD R&D. You're keeping a happy fan of twenty years, and I'm only 25!

edit: For monster name generators, I recommend www.seventhsanctum.com

Never heard of anything like that. A long while back I had a background check done with no apparent blips on the radar over gaming. For security clearance they're mostly interested in actual crimes.

I'm of the same opinion as Mr. Drain. PrC's should be chosen for character flavor, not munchkin game mechanics.

Reminds me of a picture I saw of the spiked chain with the caption below reading "Oh no, I'm sure you have a great in-character reason for choosing that weapon."

Also, the feral template should not be available to players at its normal level adjustment, imo.

I played in a long-running epic game in FR as a cleric if Kelemvor. Now, trying to recall my various stats and feat choices...

I was mostly cleric with 5 levels heirophant for the increased caster level and using touch spells at range (very handy once again). I agree that unless your ideal character is dual-classed you should stick with one basic class into the epic levels, otherwise you tend to fall behind in terms of effectiveness.

My feat selection included Permanent Emination: Repel Vermin, Automatic Silent Spellx3, Epic Spellcasting, Improved Metamagic x2, Quicken Spell, Maximize Spell, Still Spell, Intensify Spell, and Improved Spell Capacity x4 along with others. A good wall is an Intensified Blade Barrier, I often say. I also took some improvements to Turn Undead, which shored up some of the skipped cleric levels.

Epic spellcasting is fun for the creative possibilities it allows a player. For example, my cleric had discovered that for some time, it was hard for him or the other spellcasters to affect rogues who took the epic feats allowing Reflex saves in place of Fort and Will. In answer, he created an epic spell with a fairly low Spellcraft check that caused Blindness and a -20 to Dexterity for one minute, with a highly difficult save. Tailor-making spells that personalize your magic-user can be very rewarding. Of course, you don't have to wait for epic levels to design your own spells, but make sure you check with your DM before using them.

I know the list of feats I provided above might seem daunting, but the game was very well ran for as high level as we played, the monsters were certainly still challenging, and I did not play the most powerful spellcaster of the group. That tribute goes to our Sor/Ftr/Eldritch Knight/Archmage. Her delight is a chained-intensified Enervation.

I think Insightful Strike is only for adding an Int modifier to melee weapon damage, typically a rapier. Not the actual attack bonus.

The closest I've seen that you can bring your Int modifier in line with your attack bonus is with spells that create a physical manifestation and then attack, such as the Bigby's line, perhaps Mystic Lash and a few others. Oh, and a slightly overpowered spell called Thunderlance. Can't forget that one.

I'd like to know where it is clarified that "undead cannot have regeneration" as this tidbit would nullify several different varities of the undead troll. Truly curious.

I'm going to have to go with Dr. Doom as the best comics villain, although Magneto has long been my favorite. Many similarities between them, but Doom rules because he's quite often right and the 'heroes' reluctantly agree to his point of view; and add in that he's a renaissance man, using science, magic, and political might towards his goals.

I greatly enjoyed the power displayed by Magneto in the X-Men movie. A pity the Fantastic 4 movie was 'teh suck', Dr. Doom could be appreciated by a wider audience.

I think Sisko was a Commander, since he got stuck in one hole of an outpost station as opposed to a ship.

I vote Picard, because even as a senior citizen he lays the smackdown (with his saddle or perhaps a tommygun) and he has a lot of depth and history. He's survived torture, assimilation, and advances from the 'most desirable woman in the galaxy'. I think Captain Kirk might trip up on that last one.

Deepwood Sniper is a favorite class of one of my players. I agree that fighter levels are the best way of attaining this PrC.
And somewhat regularly that player defeats encounters by herself because no one else has the range of combat when she (elf) spots the enemy a 1/4 mile away.
If we're talking about an archer for dungeons, by all means go with a rogue or even a scout, but with near full attack progression, our archer has trouble with some monsters' AC straight out of modules (the melee players too, in fact). I don't recommend losing too much base attack for special abilities.

Now my own opinion, were I to play an archer, would be a fighter20 or AA. The +5 to your ammunition makes a great addition to a bow that adds lots of damage dice. Oh, and always take a feat or item ability that negates concealment in some way. My two cents.

I pulled a nasty trick on my players with an evil cleric once. They were combating a dracolich from one side, while on the other side an evil cleric was healing the beast with negative energy (Inflict spells) under the cover of Improved Invisibility. After finally discovering the problem, an Insect Swarm solved it nicely. (the spaces were fairly tight in the dracolich's lair, mostly to benefit its breath weapon).

I also played a bard without an instrument. I believe his perform skill was 'oratory', where he would generally belittle his enemies. As an evil bard, he didn't want people realizing he was affecting them with magical abilities, so he eventually took Subsonics, muttering under his breath.

There weren't many instances where he chose to use any Inspire ability, because he didn't get along with his companions very well. Taking a couple levels in Lasher gave him some style and made him rather good at disarming, though.

Thank you for the info regarding the range of wands, it's good to see that my house rule is in line with concepts being published.

For house rules, my regular group has agreed on a few. I already mentioned changing touch spell wands to a range of 30 feet. It hasn't been an issue with players exploiting it or becoming unbalancing.

Several members like to play exotic races with some using templates. I refuse to let a player use the feral template from Savage Species, at least with its current level adjustment.

The identify spell we changed to make it easier to use. We gave it a casting time of one hour.

As a house rule, I have often allowed wands of touch spells to be adjusted to a ranged touch of 30 feet. This helps out the party healer in some situations, and has not yet been abused by any of my players.

Partial C. I did not find it irritating, and I did not feel it was something annoying that could be ignored. My opinion on these types of ads is mostly indifference; I don't feel strongly about them one way or another. I occasionally use them to buy a product (positive) and sometimes find them as a hinderance when I'm flipping back and forth in pages of an adventure (negative).

Evanescence is in the player on my desk.

At home, usually Linkin Park, Nickelback, The Chieftains, The Eagles, and Garth Brooks. It holds 5 CD's!

In Forgotten Realms, I would play a human cleric of Kelemvor, for these reasons.

1. Who wants to live for centuries?

2. I want to be certain of where I end up when I die.

3. Not many things say "Heaven is on my side" like the granted power of death touch.

4. Adventurers love clerics. Commoners love clerics. Not many classes have such fan diversity.

5. Enforcing justice in death (and through death) gives a warm sense of purpose.

It would be interesting to find a published set of examples of DnD alignment behavior. Is there one out there that I've missed? I'm referring to the examples mentioned for the Palladium set, where a situation is given and different behaviors are described as results/reactions.

I think it would help people to understand the alignments better. IMO, this system (DnD's alignments) works great and covers the entire range of possibilities, and even allows for game mechanics to affect characters with different behavior patterns.

This probably sounds paranoid to most, but you shouldn't
"run off to investigate an abandoned backpack". That's what bomb squads get paid to do.

With that out of the way, I find that playing Lawful characters comes easier for me, but I can have a blast playing chaotic characters too. My two favorite characters have been 1. a LG cleric of Kelemvor. and 2. a chaotic evil bard/lasher (master of the whip?).

The bard was forever trying to find a way to kill the party wizard in his sleep. However, the wizard didn't need much sleep and usually had a familiar watching or another party member nearby. Other than that, they had a pretty solid working relationship, because the bard's main goals were fame and fortune.

I have a passport that I've never used. Long story on that.

When I was five or six (1985 or 86) my older sister sat down with my brothers and I and played 'Dungeons and Dragons'. The difference was, she had learned how the game worked from her friends but we didn't have any of the books. It didn't matter, we played make-believe with my sister DMing, no rolls or statistics to worry about, giving us a quest and our choice of a few special items. I remember my brother's favorite choice was a folding hang-glider backpack. He also liked to play a ninja. Ah, the freedom of imagination.

It was probably 88 when I actually got my own orange folder and classic dice set. Man, I ran that introduction to Axel in the jail cell so many times.