This guy is the avatar I used for Black Beestinger whom I played in the Frontier Space campaign with Ninbinz of Project PBR. Black was a changeling Way of the Shadow Monk who also worked for a group called the Greywire. His mom was an assassin, his dad was a cleric, and he was going to try to expand the business of the Greywire in the universe. When I made Black, I made him to answer this question:
What if we didn’t assume trust and cohesion as a default in the party?
– Me, totally over being the nice guy amid people who don’t always care to be 2019
In most games, my characters are kind, curious, and helpful. Even when other characters are mean or antagonistic. Without fail. This time, I wanted to know what would happen if I didn’t give kindness, but instead demanded that the party earn it from me. I would start hostile.
The DM (rightly) asked me to soften that idea a little and start neutral instead, so I did and off we went into the black as this campaign was based in Dark Matter. Black would be neutral-hostile and as party members proved to be kind or trustworthy, his disposition would shift positively.
In addition, he spent all time adrift listening to his mother’s dramatic voicemails, scheduling flowers to be sent weekly, and smoking when stressed. His most reliable friends were the Brotherhood and K.A.R.I. his digital assistant.
The shenanigans that followed in the campaign proved me more right than wrong in being somewhat hostile, but the universe was also filled with varying types of delight for Black to find. He did his duty to the Greywire as he went from one place to another offering delivery services for varying things.
As an example situation, one of the characters drops bone leeches on a foreign planet. The bone leeches are apex predators, but the atmosphere of their world suppresses their destructive urges. I had just delivered a princess to her coronation – where these bone leeches are not from – and the captain drops these bone leeches on this planet.
Normally, I’d try to find some peaceful way to solve this. Black? He pulled out a pistol and shot at the captain.
Twice.
It was nice to have an immediate outlet for these types of things instead of hoping that the arc of the game or the DM introduces karma without having to be concerned about breaking character.
As I look back on this game several months beyond its passing, I still enjoy having a character who brought me a bit outside of my normal tendencies for characters I play and wish I would have gotten to explore him more fully. Maybe I will get to revive him for a future game of some kind.