2024 Session 2: TLQuest Week 1

 Greetings everyone and welcome to our actual first week of the session.  If the theme does not interest you, or you're busy, please do skip to the final paragraphs with the usual prompts!

As usual for the first week of a new TLQ session, let's use the comments to introduce ourselves and set goals for the session (reminder: we're setting goals for three calendar months with a final report in on 18th August 2024), along with goals for next week.

For the northern hemisphere attendees, it's "summer vacation" season, which we tend to look forward to all year as a special space in the calendar - an opportunity to focus on TLQ a bit more, to repair or improve things about ourselves and our environment, to be reinspired and/or to initiate new research ideas that we'll work on around the edges of the other parts of the job for the rest of the year, or to complete projects to clear the decks, and to prepare for the coming academic year.  But at the same time, every year, it never quite lives up to that promise, because we over-plan, or Life Happens, or the goals we made for our future selves earlier in the year aren't quite the goals summer self actually cares about.  If it works for you, why not add one goal to your list which is what Summer You actually cares about, which if achieved by 18th August would make Summer You feel like something went right this year?  That could be one of your research goals, like completing a paper, a mixed goal like connecting with academic friends at a conference, or a purely "soft animal of your body" goal like read a poem outdoors every week, or buy fresh lemonade and a giant punnet of strawberries from my favourite farm shop....

This week's gameplay:

This week and next we're going to think about character creation in D&D.  In our "light touch" version we're not going to fill out a full character sheet, but we are going to think about the main features of our characters (or let the dice pick them).  In D&D, you don't get to start out as a Mary Sue or Gary Stu, who is perfectly competent at everything.  Your character is someone a little special compared with the general population because of their will to go on an adventure, and they start out with both strengths and weaknesses - the rules are clear that you can't be both very strong and very intelligent and very good at people, both nature and nuture mean your character is good at some things and less good at others (for example, I'm currently playing a ranger, Raven, who is very dextrous and has keen senses, but is not interested in or good at people, so he has low charisma, and is only averagely book-smart.  Our party wizard is extremely book-smart, also "bad at people", and weedy.  our Barbarian Fighter is dumb as two short planks but strong and persuasive...).  This affects how likely you are to succeed or fail at different kinds of challenges (Raven is excellent at moving quietly and shooting a long bow, but terrible at getting information out of a suspicious mayor or pretending to be an ordinaty farmer).  "Nature" and "nurture" in D&D are represented by the character's Race and Class - yes, we know race is a contested term, but there isn't an agreed-upon alternative - in a fantasy world it means things like elf or human, and since at least some of those types of person can interbreed species isn't a good alternative...). Many of the terms in D&D have awkward stereotypes or "general language" connotations reflecting their origin with white men in 1970s USA, and in high fantasy literature of the time (which was generally VERY Not Woke) - we can use alternatives if any of them bother you, please let me know & we'll use an alternative. 

This week we're going to think about character class or profession.   

There are three types of class in D&D - martial, half-caster or full-caster.  Martial classes focus on their physical skills (e.g. strength, dexterity, constitution) and are usually the fighters and/or explorers of the group (e.g. a Barbarian is a berserker, an unusually strong and resilient fighter), casters are magic users who focus on their mental skills (e.g. intelligence, wisdom/perception and charisma) and gain magic from various sources (e.g. a Wizard gains magical powers through book-study and uses spells for most things), and half-casters draw on both halves (e.g. a Ranger's life in the wilds means they are very good at surviving in wild places, but their study of the natural world also grants them some magical powers like talking to animals or supernaturally good archery).  As characters move through their adventures, they can become more skilled - a wizard learns more spells or can cast more powerful versions, a barbarian secures magical weapons and becomes tougher and stronger.  In addition to a general class, a character also has a background - a wizard can come from a noble family, have been a orphan apprenticed to a magical master because of their intelligence, have learnt their basic skills in a war college, or be a scholar who happens to have chosen to specialise in magic.  

To decide your character's class, you can either pick the best option from the lists below, or have the dice make the decision: for this week we're using a standard 6-sided die or as we call it a d6.  If you don't have one around, you can roll a digital dice by CLICKING HERE : set the roller to roll 1 d6 dice with nothing added, click roll, and you'll get a number.

First, roll 1d6 - if your result is 1 or 2, look at the martial list, 3 or 4, the half-caster, and 5 or 6, the caster.  Then either choose a class from the relevant column or roll another dice (if you don't like the outcome, roll again - you deserve to enjoy your character)!  Rogues turn up in two columns because they can choose to focus on their physical skills or to add a touch of magic to their tool kit.

• Martial classes (do not have innate access to spell-casting, have strong physical skills): Barbarian (a berserker with rage issues, capable of extraordinary feats of endurance), monk (think martial arts, ninja), fighter (classic folk hero adventurer with a sword) or rogue (think sneak-thief, spy. assassin).  If letting the dice choose: 1 = barbarian, 2 or 3 = rogue, 4 or 5 = fighter, 6 = monk
• Casters (cast spells as their main skills - a powerful but finite resource): Bard (their powers come through their music and abilities to charm or persuade people), cleric (a channel of the power of a deity), druid (channels the power of nature - some types have the option to shape-shift into creatures they know well), sorcerer (gains magical powers through their blood-line, e.g. an ancestor slept with a naturally magical entity like a fiend, a celestial or a dragon), wizard (gain magical powers through careful study), warlock (gain magical powers by making a Pact with a naturally magical entity like a Fey Lord, a Demon or an Old One) - If letting the dice choose: 1 = bard, 2=cleric, 3=druid, 4= sorcerer, 5=warlock, 6=wizard
• Half-casters (mainly rely on a physical skill backed up by limited spell casting): Artificer (they are skilled crafts people or inventors with skills in potions or gadgets or devices), Rogue (thief, spy or assassin who chooses to enhance their skills with a few well chosen spells), Ranger (a traveller of the wilds - a tracker, hunter, guardian or scout who has survival skills and also learns some magic from their deep knowledge of the environment), Paladin (a holy warrior who channels the power of a deity through both their fists or weapons and through divine magics).  If letting the dice choose, 1=artificer, 2-3 = rogue, 4-5 = ranger, 6 = paladin

Having picked a profession, it's time to think of a background for your character - why and how did they end up in this profession?  If you want a prompt from the dice, roll another d6 - 1 = noble family origin, 2 = raised in family tradition of this profession, 3 = military (learned the profession in the town guard, a national army or a mercenary troop), 4 = education (learnt their trade through a school or apprenticeship), 5 = urchin (this background comes from poverty and has made their way by a combination of luck and graft - adopted, debt-bonded, trained by a master thief...), 6 = black sheep (they come from an ordinary family of farmers or craftspeople but were always the odd one out)   

Next week we'll pick our character's race and think about the equipment and tools they start out on their adventures with.

In summary

your TLQuest prompt is: pick the class and background of your character

your real world TLQ prompt is: what are your session goals?  Do they include one goal that will make Summer You feel satisfied that the time didn't dribble away unvalued by August 18th? what are your weekly goals?