So it doesn’t happen all the time, but it does happen.  You get tired of playing the character that you are playing.  This could be a result of some mistake you made during your build that you didn’t anticipate, or a bad fit for the party or a maybe you just fell out of love with dwarves.

Whatever the reason, you may find that your enjoyment of the game is significantly diminished.  My first rule of playing any game is to have fun, and especially when I sit down for D&D, so if this is causing your game to be un-fun then it needs fixing right away.

You have several options here.  First, though you may want to really think about what is causing you to wish to play something else.  Odds are good that when you know the reason you can find the solution easier.  Now, talk with the DM.  This may sound a bit difficult to some players, but the truth is you just have to do it.  The DM will most likely be able to help you find a solution that won’t hurt the group.

They may suggest quietly retiring the character.  The character may just buy a tavern and settle down or may get married and start popping out kids.  Retirement is a good option because it allows the character to come back later in a new adventure if things change.

The DM may allow you to simply rework your character into what you want.  If the changes are relatively minor this can be the best option.  If all you want to do is swap out a feat (and you don’t want to wait a level for retraining) then your DM might just allow you to do it.  It doesn’t hurt to ask.  However don’t make a habit of this.  I know that I cut some slack to newbies, but if you’ve been through more than a session or two with me I expect that you understand the rules and the consequences of your decisions.  A lot of DM’s are like this.  They don’t want to have to spend time memorizing everything on your character sheet and doling out character building advice to all the players when they could be spending that time preparing new encounters.

Finally, you may be asked to play the character out.  Now, if you are a subversive sort of person this may be your opportunity to go really wild, taking total risks and behaving in a totally suicidal manner.  Open every door.  Charge into every battle.  Take on every trap.  Eschew aid from the party cleric.  In short, do what it takes to get killed.  The change of pace alone may renew your love for your character

Whatever you do, have fun with it!

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This is a problem for a number of players.  They believe that their DM is simply out to get them.

Real or imagined, this can be a huge problem for enjoying the game.  So what do you do?

Realistically, no matter the actual cause of the problem there is only one answer.  Talk about it.  Don’t be confrontational or a jerk.  Just bring up the problem and ask what is going on.

It is entirely probable that whatever the true source of the problem is has nothing to do with anything that you have considered to this point.  It is also highly probably that the problem can be easily resolved.

A lot of people make the mistake of whining about the problem instead of dealing with it and drag the baggage around for months or even years before quitting and finding a different game.  This is unnecessary.  Either the problem is easily resolved or it isn’t, but it will never be resolved until it is confronted.

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What is a stock NPC?  Put simply it is that guy that shows up in nearly every town, village, bar or other place the players visit often.

The judicious use of stock NPC’s can make many elements of your D&D campaign run much more smoothly, especially if you are running a campaign that involves a lot of city or town travel and is a bit lighter on the dungeons.

The monster manual, handily enough, provides us with a number of stock NPC’s ready for use, i.e. the various “monster” versions of the races in the Player’s Handbook.  These are very useful and should not be overlooked.  If you expect to use a new town or village in the next session it may be a good idea to keep the stat cards around for the humans at the very least, but you may want to consider having a few elves or tieflings as well, depending on your setting.

These statistics are useful for when the party decides to do the totally unexpected such as rob the local merchants of their winter grain storage or recruit the farmer’s daughter into the party.  Having the stats handy (rather than buried somewhere in a book) makes it a lot easier to say “yes” to the crazy ideas.

Combine the stat cards with a name generator and you are set.  If you can find a name generator that does many names at once then just print a list of 20 or 30 names and you are set.

The key to remember when using stock NPC’s is that the players will remember how you play the character rather than where he was found or what her name was.  The stats on the card are there only for reference should anything involving rules come up.  The rest of it is up to how you decide to play that particular character and what sort of feel you want to bring to the session.

Until next time have fun!

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As a DM I’m generally opposed to metagaming – that is all of the game stuff that goes on outside of the game.  As a player the same generally holds true.  However there is one specific instance when I think it is not only okay, but can be very valuable.

When metagaming prevents the game from coming to a complete and total standstill.

When a designer sits down and builds a dungeon they generally have a concept in their head of how the dungeon is going to play out.  For less experienced designers, such as new DM’s, this can lead to some very severe problems such as unsolvable puzzles or overwhelming (or underwhelming) monsters.

In particular this can lead to the problem of where the dungeon itself causes the game to come to a halt.  The party lacks a critical resource to solve some aspect or the dungeon.

In these cases metagaming – i.e. using clues about the designer of the dungeon to figure out the dungeon can be helpful – not only because it generally will lead to loot and experience but because it can take a gaming session from frustrating and boring to interesting and exciting.

One example from my own play experience would be a rather long and uninteresting maze-like dungeon with roughly 2 encounters in it.  Rather than slog our way through it, continuing a session that was going from boring to more boring, my compadres and I decided that the DM in all likelihood based on her personal tastes had very little in the way of serious campaign related material hidden in the dungeon.  We therefore decided to stop searching every little nook and cranny and just looked for the way out which it turns out wasn’t that hard to find.  A short time later we were back down the path of interactive fun.

It took some metagaming and us stepping outside of what we as players and what our characters would normally do, but if we hadn’t we would literally have spent hours doing activities that no one at the table would have enjoyed.

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