About a year ago, we looked at our little cast of characters and realized that they were all terrible gamers, each in their own special way. Fighter is our resident munchkin and jerk. Cleric is a rules lawyer. Wizard is that guy at the table who’s just that little bit too into his character. And then there’s Thief. Poor girl is an unluck loadstone, and that’s no fun for a roguish type. But in the same way that deities can gain new divine portfolios, our plucky band of heroes can gain new aspects of suck. As such, I am pleased to announce that Thief is comically inept at PVP.

Player vs. player games are ever so slightly polarizing. Ask a group of gamers for their opinions and half will relay PVP horror stories while the other half stab you in the spleen, take your stuff, and then get up on the table to attempt an IRL teabagging maneuver. (No points for guessing which camp I fall into.)

Of course, there are many different forms of PVP. We talked about a few way back when Wizard and Thief went on their first double date with that nice swan couple. More than direct thievery or literal backstabbing, I’m intrigued by the concept of opposed gaming styles. When players are at the table for different reasons, their characters’ actions can seem incomprehensible. That lack of understanding may even come across as hostile. In today’s comic for example, we’ve got Wizard trying to share his precious backstory while Thief is trying to acquire stuff. They are enjoying the adventure on fundamentally different levels. But you know what makes their relationship work? Our lovebirds communicate. Each knows why the other is at the table and rolling dice, so they can both get their jollies from the same interaction. Wizard gets to add yet another minor betrayal to his ongoing personal tragedy, and Thief gets to throw a little PVP into the proceedings. Of course, she’s failing her Bluff check pretty hard there. The jeweler’s loupe is a dead giveaway.

How about you guys? Have you ever realized that another player at that table had a fundamentally different way of gaming than you? Did you figure out how to play nice together anyway? Let’s hear it in the comments!

 

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