It’s been a long time since I’ve waxed poetic about the various brilliant and talented players who have participated in my RPG campaigns and the downright awesome characters they’ve created, so I figured it was high time for a post.

Last year, I ran a campaign of 5th Edition D&D for high-level characters (all PCs started at 12th level). As I described in this post about the set-up for the campaign, I devoted significant time to make sure all the players felt as though their party had been adventuring together for ages and we collectively built for them an in-depth backstory. Since the basic concept behind the campaign was to simulate a “getting the old band back together” kind of thing, I wanted there to be history that the players could draw upon and that would make them look (and feel) super cool. I don’t mind saying that this campaign was a wild, wild success – one of the best I’ve ever run – and the reason why has relatively little to do with me and everything to do with the choices the players made during character creation and during the campaign itself.

They called themselves the Thorns.

Recruited by the radical Interventionist cleric of Rao (god of diplomacy, peace, and justice), Thister Amberlee, she was the Princess Leia to their Han/Chewie/Luke/Lando. The Church of Rao, you see, doesn’t really like to make trouble – they want everyone to be friends. The ruling clerical faction – called the Isolationists – took a very hands-off policy, advocating soft power over hard. The Interventionists, like Thister, felt that was short sighted – there was no negotiating with death cultists and tyrants, with rampaging giants and the restless dead. So, against the wishes of the establishment, she recruited her own group of adventurers to help her go around and right wrongs and bring justice to the unjust. Essentially, Greyhawk’s version of the A-Team.

They became legends, these heroes. Treasure and glory and titles were heaped upon their shoulders. I was going to start them about ten years after the party had a parting of the ways and that something was going to bring them back together. I gave them three character generation stipulations:

1. They would start 12th level and have access to a variety of magic items, followers, and other stuff at the start.
2. They could not have an evil alignment.
3. Despite everything, they loved and trusted Thister Amberlee with their lives.

Now, this could have easily blown up in my face. Characters this powerful can do a LOT of damage and everyone knows how weak alignment and character backstory can be once the dice start hitting the table. One of the first plot points was that Thister had gone missing – kidnapped or possible dead – and she had left a secret message telling them they had much more important problems than finding her: they needed to save the world.

My second commandment for TTRPG players is called “buy-in.” It’s the idea that a good player will not only want to play in the world and style that the GM creates, but also that they will actively contribute and heighten those ideas to make them more fun. With this set-up, and given their power, the Thorns could have easily paid lip-service to the idea of helping Thister (or saving the world) and gone off to do their own thing. They could have put a torpedo straight through this whole campaign and become pirates or slave-traders or conquered a small country of their own or something. But instead, the bought-in hard.

First there was Miles Maywater, the assassin, known as the Hound of Veluna – slayer of tyrants, bane to the wicked. A prickly, analytical man with a monastic style, he was always the dispassionate one, arguing for the most sensible and practical course of action. Thister was a respected colleague and sister within the Rao faith, in whom he had the greatest confidence.

His foil was Faison Sharpe, the tiefling valor-bard, known to all as The Friendly Fiend, who loved Thister with all his heart (though she was never really romantically interested in him). A saloon owner and braggart (and also bastard son of none other than the Dark Prince Grazz’t himself), Sharpe wore his heart on his sleeve and thought with his passions not his brains. He preferred bold, heroic action and wild acts of daring. He and Miles fought constantly, but they also always bailed each other out of danger when the chips were down. One of the great moments of the campaign was when Miles was on the brink of death and all the other party members were gone and Miles had to figure out what to do with a terrible secret, the first thing he did was center himself, look down at his feet, and say “What would Miles do? What would Miles do?” It was beautiful, trust me.

Often in Sharpe’s corner was Snell, the Infernal-pact Warlock, sworn to serve Dispater, Lord of the Infernal City of Dis. Known as the Keeper of Secrets and also given the moniker the Cursed, it was Thister that saved him from slavery and always treated him as an equal which earned her is vicious, undying loyalty (he was Lawful Neutral). Snell was full of doubts where the others were confident, but he was integral to everything going on. It was, after all, Dispater, who kidnapped Thister leading him to eventually decide to betray his own patron (and lose his powers) to tell his friends how to save her. Then we got to watch him manipulate a series of imps and hellish denizens to legally box Dispater into having to transfer his contract to one of his fiendish rivals – Mephistopheles.

Rounding out the cast was the grim and taciturn Severus, Ranger and Knight of the High Forest, known as the Manhunter. Famed tracker, tactician, and paranoid loner, Severus was always the first into the fray but was also the one who most often gloomy about their chances for survival.

Without their grade-A roleplaying and true devotion to the campaign’s story, the campaign could have easily devolved into rote encounters. But, by playing up their flaws and tensions between one another, by voluntarily splitting the party at critical junctures, and by acting out a role rather than acting as a piece on a gameboard, we had truly, truly ridiculous fun. The stories of their adventures could fill a book quite easily, so I won’t relate them all here, but these characters did it all and did it with flair. I felt like I was along for the ride, trying to keep up with them, but they were running with a ball that I gave them and were making it into something special I could not have made on my own. For that reason, all four of these rate among my favorite PCs of all time. Thanks, guys.

The Thorns of Veluna