Interview Arc: Assassin
With Paladin on sabbatical, we figured it was high time we filled his spot on the Anti-Party. Choosing the replacement would be no easy task, so it seemed like a good idea to ask our Quest Givers over on Patreon for help. We’ve got a pretty big roster of unaffiliated heroes after all. Everyone from Cavalier to Horsepower to Alchemist was on the list, so somebody had to fit the bill. Unfortunately, once the voting had ended and the dust had died down, our top choice emerged as “some new character we haven’t met yet” (followed closed by a certain gun-toting non-starter). Oof.
While the Anti-Party settle into their follow-up interviews, what do you say the rest of us talk about confidence? Just look at Assassin‘s smug fetchling mug. That shady so-and-so is absolutely sure that his brilliant plan is going to work. This despite the fact that he’s toying with a barbarian’s best saving throw. It takes chutzpah to maintain that level of self-assurance. And it’s a fine example to all us IRL folk as well.
For me, the nerves tend to jangle worst when I’m settling into a new gaming group. I find myself tempted to retreat to the metaphorical dark corner of the table. I’ll clam up, peer out of my darkened hood at the world beyond my brooding nook, and wait there for the story to come to me. It takes an effort to drop the aloof act and put myself out there as a gamer. That’s because, despite my habitual extroversion, all the neurotic catastrophizing of “what if?” begins to creep in.
What if my British accent is off today? What I don’t gel with the group? What if I say something stupid to an NPC and start a bar fight and get us all TPK’d by the epic level tavern keeper before the game has even started?
It doesn’t take much to psych myself out. But folks? You can’t stride boldly forth into the land of adventure without the “striding boldly” bit. When you’re part of the ensemble improv performance troupe that is a roleplaying game, you’ve got to stake your claim. You’ve got to grin a cocky grin, Riker maneuver your way into the scene, and declare to the world, Hey, I just poisoned your beer. What the hell are you going to do about it? In other words, when it’s time to establish your character, it’s all about taking the initiative. Make an offer. Chances are that the world will pick it up.
Question of the day then! How do you overcome the nerves, the stage fright, and the awkwardness of the new-game jitters? Do you fake it ’til you make it? Plan out some business ahead of time? Or are you such a gamer paragon that the whole notion of “first game nerves” is a foreign concept? Whatever your style, tell us all about your take on gaming with confidence down in the comments!
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… You know what? I don’t think this guy fits in with the company culture of being less evil than the main party. 0__0
You gotta keep up with competition though!
Yeah, but don’t throw away your unique strengths while doing so!
How do you overcome nerves?
Years of practice, and plenty of reminding yourself that your nerves are pointless. Just put yourself out there and do it.
Paging Mr. LaBeouf.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0
I’m very rarely nervous at the start of a game, usually because I’m playing with friends and have already run my concept by the group and GM enough times that I can be sure that people already like what I’m going to present.
That said, I always get very nervous starting a game as the GM despite all of the above still applying. Same reasons as you said, what if my accents are off, what if the party don’t like the starting NPC. But by the second session, if the campaign hasn’t collapsed inward, then I’ve probably found my footing and the nerves settle.
> I can be sure that people already like what I’m going to present.
I suppose it’s that sense of being judged. When you find yourself in a performance, you want it to come off well. But your friends are more likely to respond positively than the potentially-hostile audience of strangers. In that sense, I imagine that the “nerve settling” you describe in the second session might be the sense of trust beginning to emerge.
Well, I can’t give great advice on overcoming pregame nerves (besides reminding yourself that everyone else there is also spending their saturday night pretending to be elves, so probably aren’t going to be too judgy), but I can safely say I’ve never had a problem with my British accent being off. Pip pip old chap.
My accent tends to take a train from Liverpool to Dublin by way of Mary Poppins. Sometimes it stops in Moscow.
Fair enough. My American accent is usually on a walking tour of the deep south, with occasional detours to 1920s New York
Never before have I felt such empathy for my transatlantic cousins.
Mood-kindred.
How do I overcome nerves? That’s the secret, I don’t. I overthink all the time. Which does come in handy for paranoia moments or Shadowrun, but otherwise it puts me in the awkward position of having a million ideas and no willingness to act on them.
Which is awkward when I end up being the one who’s the most active or engaged and become the de facto pilot of the group.
I also shut down for social encounters because I’m like that in RL.
> Which is awkward when I end up being the one who’s the most active or engaged and become the de facto pilot of the group.
Believe me, I know a thing or two about fighting my own diva tendencies:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/diva
But I think it’s important to remember that you deserve the spotlight. If your buddies step up and take charge, you don’t shunt them out, right? And if that’s the case, I say to keep on offering up the offers. That’s an invitation for the world to act back at you, and your co-performers happen to be included in “the world.”
Jokes on assassin, Barbarian watched Princess Bride at least three times.
That’d be a great follow-up! XD
I don’t see how the Bonetti’s defense applies to this situation. 😛
Ironically, fighting around the obstacles in a crowded tavern probably would necessitate a Tumble check, much like rocky (or “Difficult”) terrain. 😉
Barbarian prefers the windpipe offense.
I.e. “give me the antidote and I release your windpipe.”
I generally find it pretty easy to laugh at myself. If i do something wrong/dumb/silly, then i just laugh with everybody else then move on. DMing isnt the “turn of your brain” play that I really enjoy on the other side of the screen, but I can also frontload a lot of the thinking, and frankly, “the DM does something dumb” can be just as fun for the players as a well thought out challenge or roleplaying encounter, so the mission is still accomplished, and their fun increases my fun.
Just ran “Thirsty Sword Lesbians” for some friends last night. It was my first time GMing a Powered by the Apocalypse game. It is straight up HARD to come up with a series of social encounters requiring moves like “Provide Emotional Support” and “They Finally Kiss.” It certainly wasn’t a “lean back into my GMing experience” sort of moment.
Players seemed to dig it though, and that’s always a plus for the ol’ self confidence going into the second session of a “”””one-shot”””” game.
As a habitual DM, I do go insane overthinking and stressing out about stuff on occasion. As a player though, never. I leap in and engage as best I can with everything in front of us because I know just how hard it is to be on the other side of the screen. To be fair though, I only play with a select group of people whom I trust to play well. I’m very selective about who I play with.
Kind of makes me wonder if GMing with randos is good for you as a GM. If the job is to entertain folks who aren’t predisposed to like you, then you lose that safety net. That could theoretically help abolish nerves going forward.
I’ve always had fears of being ignored, or people talking over me. (I wonder if that’s part of the reason I became a forever DM?) Many years ago, back when I did free-form forum RP, I used to commit to the most explosive, disruptive character introductions I could, such as someone literally falling from the sky and crashing into another character’s car. The idea was to grind the narrative to a halt so that they HAD to focus on me, at least for the length of the character’s introduction. Was this the correct approach? Probably not. But it worked, for at least a little while.
Looking back, I probably played more NPCs than PCs, so it’s no surprise that I started DMing eventually. And my fears were ultimately realized when the other players started ignoring my posts to focus on the romance between the designated main character and his then-girlfriend. High school was a weird time. Since then I’ve found a much better friend-and-DnD group, and while we’ve had a couple of false starts, I’ve never felt the same fear of being overlooked with them.
Can’t really speak to the forum politics. That’s more Laurel’s bag than mine.
What I can relate to is the idea of “playing NPCs.” I’m more of a character actor. I like the over-the-top accents and slightly silly presentation. When I try to go for “main character” vibes I wind up getting upstaged by my own familiars:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/sudden-but-inevitable
I think it’s a case of communication. If you’re with a group of co-creative collaborators who like and trust one another, getting a bigger part is as easy as asking for one.
If I’ve made my own character, then I’ve probably written the rough draft for a novella in backstory before we begin, so I’m ready to jump in and RP and hope the strangers (or friends) like what I’ve wrought.
If I’m handed a pregen, I still try to hide my nerves behind the persona, but it often takes longer. I look for some trait on the character sheet to hang a personality on or wait for an opening. Once when I was *very* new to my game night group, my computer-spat-out generic Fighter was derisively called “Clovis” by a friend at the table (reference to a Jerry Clower routine). Since we were in a merchant hub and the DM had already referenced trade goods (3.5 PH, p.112), I grabbed my pencil, struck out the character’s random-gen name, and wrote “Clovis McCormick, spice merchant.” For the rest of the evening, I leaned into the persona, sketching the familiar “Mc” logo on his shield and running a profitable side-hustle buying/selling dried herbs and spices at each village we stopped at.
> I look for some trait on the character sheet to hang a personality on or wait for an opening
Superhero game at a con. My pregen was an Iron-Man clone. Nothing to hang a personality on at all. So I decided he was a Australian, a family man, and a bit of an underachiever.
I don’t remember much of that session, but I do remember teleporting home just as the nuke went off. Last line of the session was, “Honey? Where’s the aloe vera?” in a ludicrous Crocodile Hunter accent. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to invent a persona.
The bugger did WHAT to beer! Off his head and loot the antidote.
I’m by nature a joker so I cool my nerves by turning everything into a joke, say a stoic character, well he’s also going to break new records in male cluelesness when it comes to flirting, be it from men or women.
Don’t worry about the beer. Iocane powder is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadly poisons known to man.
“Or are you such a gamer paragon that the whole notion of “first game nerves” is a foreign concept?”
Less “gamer paragon” and more “in order to have nervousness you have to feel shame or embarrassment and/or indecision about your actions”, and due to certain tendencies, I burned //most// of those feelings out by the time I hit high school.
Now I’ve still felt stage fright a few times in my life, once actually on stage (despite being completely prepared, it was the first time I was on stage //alone// doing a solo and the eyes of the audience feel upon me like a hammer) and once in a LARP when I was suddenly called out to give a speech and was completely unprepared.
Both times I powered through and the only sign I had stage fright (to anyone who wasn’t me) was that whichever leg I wasn’t putting all my weight on was trembling uncontrollably.
> due to certain tendencies, I burned //most// of those feelings out by the time I hit high school.
Three sets of ten cringe humor jokes every lunch period.
Being the smallest kid in school, plus getting straight As and doing all the extra credit anyway, plus extreme shyness… I was constantly bullied.
I learned there are only two ways to stop being bullied, hurt the bully so badly they fear touching you (easier said than done when you’re tiny, but I gave it a go every time the bullying switched to being physical) and not getting upset when called names, made fun of, having any/every flaw called out. The later of the two was unfortunately far, far easier…
yeah, good luck with the whole “trying to poison the barbarian” plan. we all know barbs never dump con
We certainly know that Barbarian in particular didn’t:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/light-stabbing
Well, at least Fighter will have competition for the most evil member of the (nominally) non-evil parties. Assassin may act as a more appropriate counterpart to Thief rather than Barbarian, assuming Barbarian doesn’t murder him with her bare hands.
I was always a little disappointed that we couldn’t make the 1:1 rivalries more of a thing.
Sorcerer in particular seems to have moved from smarmy womanizer…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/wizard-vs-sorcerer
…To magical colleague:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/material-components-2
And the last Thief/Barbarian interaction I can think of is the tiefling horns gag:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/cosmetic
Part of it was that Paladin’s story is/was more compelling and you’d have to justify putting the petty rivalries ahead of the far more dramatic tango of Paladin & Necromancer and the struggles of “Am I really THAT evil?” Antipaladin and his adorable devil hound. The Evil party honestly took up a lot of the petty rivalry aspect that the anti-party was originally for while the anti-party turned out to be a group of not-so-differents from the main party.
> the anti-party turned out to be a group of not-so-differents from the main party.
It’s nice to have an alternate cast of characters to take on different adventures, but I sometimes struggle with, “What are they for?” I like the characters individually but it’s like, “What role do they serve in the comic,” you know?
While they may feel extraneous, they help flesh out Handbook world. Otherwise it’s just the “heroes”, the villains, and the npcs. While the anti-party may have fallen behind both team bounty hunter and the villain party in terms of focus, they provide a lot of flavor for the stories being told and can be great pieces to fill in as needed when the other three parties don’t fit. Plus it’s fun to explore the connections between the parties.
I’m lucky in that I’m basically immune to stage fright, which is ironic considering how shy and awkward I am in regular life. I think the reason is that as soon as I go into character, I start thinking like that character rather than myself – if, say, Thrunak the orcish siege engineer doesn’t have any social anxieties or stage fright, why should the person playing him?
That’s how I do it too. Much harder to pull off when you’re GMing though.
I never get over the stage fright stage. I have been in a game for just over two years now, I talk to most of the group regularly now, and before each game, I still feel like I am going to puke or crap myself (or both)…
of course I have near crippling social anxiety, so maybe I am a unique case, but still…
never.
See the comment above. I find that getting deeply into character helps. Make a confident character and pretend that you’re them.
I am nervous, then the game starts and i am no longer nervous 😀
By the way. Assassin? Fetchling? and is already poisoning the party? I am in love with this guy 😀
> I am nervous, then the game starts and i am no longer nervous
That’s the thing with public speaking in general. Anticipation is the killer. Once you launch into it, the actual doing is far less nerve-wracking.
This latest comic makes me think of the opening scene from Temple Of Doom
See hover text. 🙂
The problem is he assumes Barb will continue to negotiate rather than beating him and taking the antidote.
On the subject of Assassins, the big problem is that most people who picture them picture an MMO DPS rather than an actual assassin who does things like sneak into parties to poison drinks, or sits patiently in a book depository with a heavy crossbow waiting for the king’s carriage to ride by. The 5E Assassin Rogue is clearly modeled on the latter fantasy.
Yeah some think proper assassins are boring or not optimal. The thing is Assassin is a precission tool, if you want universal tool pick Fighter, and like all precission tools they have their time and place taken out only when needed and then put back.
It’s kinda like people see Berserkers vs the more historical take on them, only few sagas imply berserkers as fury incarnate while a large ammount speak of them as if they are dueling champions. But that’s pop culture, it corrupts the good stuff.
“Alright, roll initiative!”
“I have surprise, right?”
“The goblins are looking right at you.”
“But they’re surprised I have a knife, right?”
What’s Barb obscuring from Assassin’s CV/credentials?
Murder, Degrees 1 Through 13
Stabbing, Misc.
Not Being Seen
I am unwholesomely curious as to what, exactly, might constitute 13th degree murder. Or 5th degree murder, even. How much nuance can you really apply to categories of inhumation?
Pretty sure “murder just to get Dave’s dumbass character out of the party” is in there somewhere.