Someone Explain To Me How You Would Roleplay Belkar

[Robert Paulson]

I never played tabletop D&D, but I understand the rules enough to have played Baldur's Gate and some of the other D&D based computer games. That said, I have no idea how you would go about playing Belkar's character. Take, for example, the current situation in which our Sexy Shoeless God of War bones a thief, and then settles down for a brace of sammiches while instructing her to go take a "solo campaign". Within the mechanics of the pencil and paper game, how would you convey all this to your friends sitting around the table? In what level of detail would they tolerate you waxing manly about your sexual escapades and the proclivities and perversions of your NPC partner? What do you say and do?

Help a brother understand. :smallsmile:

[NENAD]

You probably wouldn't mention it unless someone asks. As far as the comic itself goes, it doesn't matter, because, as has been established in the comic itself not too long ago, this is not a tabletop roleplaying game, it's a universe wherein the rules of D&D are as solid as the laws of physics, but there are no players behind the player characters. There is no player explaining, for some perverse reason, his sexcapades to his friends sitting around the table, there's just Belkar having them.

[Scarlet Knight]

Belkar is actually very easy to roleplay and many beginning players are like him. They basically kill most anything thrown in front of them as if D&D is a video game. It takes them awhile to understand concepts such as : " the DM doesn't want us to kill the monster, that's why it has a name!".

If you ever read a smaller webcomic like "DM of the Rings" you'll see examples of how characters are always looking for wenches & brothels anytime they're not "questing".

As for the feel, it goes something like this:

DM: "Ok, the battle is over, the Guild goes off to keep their end of the bargain. What do you do?"
Haley: "I go find a barber to fix my hair"
DM: "OK, you find one. You look better but your hair is real short. Mark off 10 copperpieces".
Belkar: I Look for the guild's bard, what's her name? Jenny"
DM: "Um , ok. You find her."
Belkar: "Ok, she said call me so I do. I order food and we have sex all day."
DM:"What?"
Belkar: "Hey, she said call me."
DM: "Oh, fine. Role diplomacy to see if she agrees..."
Celia: *giggles* "Don't forget the size modifier..."
Haley: "And weapon shrinkage..."
Belkar: "Shut up!" Oooo, a natural 20! I may be a halfling, but I'm the SEXY shoeless god of war!"
DM:" 20, huh? Ok she agrees & comes back for more..."

[Tholok Razescar]

DM: "Oh, fine. Role diplomacy to see if she agrees..."


Can you replace 'diplomacy' with 'intimidate'?
I think some people need to replace it with 'bluff'.

[Niley]

Um, okay, listen. Before I started reading OotS, I actually played as a psychotic halfling, except that he was a rogue/barbarian :smallwink: . And situations like strip 622 did happen. A lot. On the other hand, ALL party members in that campaign were Chaotic Evil, so... well, you know.
I would roleplay Belkar just like I roleplayed Kavar (that was his name):
- kill for pleasure
- don't be too attached to other party members and consider them expendable
- bone everything you can
- despise everything that's Good and Lawful (especially Lawful)
- work, work, work for your bad reputation

[Avilan the Grey]

Can you replace 'diplomacy' with 'intimidate'?
I think some people need to replace it with 'bluff'.

No we can't (intimidate), because then we would roleplay rape. I am not saying this to be annoying or a buzzkiller, but it would simply imply a different relationship between the NPC and the PC.

Niley:
I don't know... I see Belkar as more Chaotic than Evil, meaning that he would not work for his bad reputation, in fact he would be indifferent to his reputation.
But that's just me.

[Captain Alien]

In my D&D campaign (In which I'm actually the DM), every PC, with no exception, is always trying to have sex with every human female NPC. Almost half of the roleplay scenes in the campaign end like this.

There's almost no town in my campaign setting in which the PCs have been and haven't had sex. Sometimes it's disconcerting. But at least they roleplay.

[tcrudisi]

In my group, we leave it at a quick footnote. "Jenny should be there, right? I think I'm going to take her up on her invitation to fulfill my basest of needs."

DM: "Make the proper roll"

Player, after rolling: "Success!"

DM, watching the roll: "Nice roll! You did well enough the first time to have her begging for seconds."

Player: "Eh, what am I, some sort of machine? No. I'll finish feeding the cat first."

That would be it. We may all laugh about it, but we certainly aren't going to go into much more detail than that. I can't speak for others, but while I will tell my friends, "Hey, I had the best sex last night!," I won't go into specific details. So that crosses over into our rpg's too.

[BardicDuelist]

As for the feel, it goes something like this:

DM: "Ok, the battle is over, the Guild goes off to keep their end of the bargain. What do you do?"
Haley: "I go find a barber to fix my hair"
DM: "OK, you find one. You look better but your hair is real short. Mark off 10 copperpieces".
Belkar: I Look for the guild's bard, what's her name? Jenny"
DM: "Um , ok. You find her."
Belkar: "Ok, she said call me so I do. I order food and we have sex all day."
DM:"What?"
Belkar: "Hey, she said call me."
DM: "Oh, fine. Role diplomacy to see if she agrees..."
Celia: *giggles* "Don't forget the size modifier..."
Haley: "And weapon shrinkage..."
Belkar: "Shut up!" Oooo, a natural 20! I may be a halfling, but I'm the SEXY shoeless god of war!"
DM:" 20, huh? Ok she agrees & comes back for more..."

Basically this, but with the whole "solo encounter" and all of those lines being thrown around too. Yeah, the general understanding in my group is: No details about sex scenes, but you will be mocked.

[Manachu Boy]

In my group, we leave it at a quick footnote. "Jenny should be there, right? I think I'm going to take her up on her invitation to fulfill my basest of needs."

DM: "Make the proper roll"

Player, after rolling: "Success!"

DM, watching the roll: "Nice roll! You did well enough the first time to have her begging for seconds."

Player: "Eh, what am I, some sort of machine? No. I'll finish feeding the cat first."

That would be it. We may all laugh about it, but we certainly aren't going to go into much more detail than that. I can't speak for others, but while I will tell my friends, "Hey, I had the best sex last night!," I won't go into specific details. So that crosses over into our rpg's too.

This. Having not played pen-and-paper D&D you'd probably not get this, OP. Thinking about it in terms of the limited amount of stuff you can do in Baldur's Gate etc, is a poor comparison, a decent tabletop session tends to be closer to an episode of 'Whose Line is it Anyway' with everyone trying to improvise off each other's reactions.

Anyway I don't see it being hard to RP Belkar. Just act like a selfish bugger that enjoys killing things (tho lately you may wish to replace that with 'a selfish bugger who wants to maximise his death count in the long run') and see where that takes you.

[Berserk Monk]

Belkar is actually very easy to roleplay and many beginning players are like him. They basically kill most anything thrown in front of them as if D&D is a video game. It takes them awhile to understand concepts such as : " the DM doesn't want us to kill the monster, that's why it has a name!".

Actually, my first character ever in D&D was a halfling fighter who once killed a guy for one gold piece.:smallbiggrin:

[Robert Paulson]

In my D&D campaign (In which I'm actually the DM), every PC, with no exception, is always trying to have sex with every human female NPC. Almost half of the roleplay scenes in the campaign end like this.

There's almost no town in my campaign setting in which the PCs have been and haven't had sex. Sometimes it's disconcerting. But at least they roleplay.

Do you award XP for roleplaying? Has anyone ever leveled up as a result of a sexual encounter?

[Robert Paulson]

This. Having not played pen-and-paper D&D you'd probably not get this, OP. Thinking about it in terms of the limited amount of stuff you can do in Baldur's Gate etc, is a poor comparison, a decent tabletop session tends to be closer to an episode of 'Whose Line is it Anyway' with everyone trying to improvise off each other's reactions.

That's why I asked. From most people's responses, it sounds very boring. :smallannoyed:

[BRC]

That's why I asked. From most people's responses, it sounds very boring. :smallannoyed:
It's highly boring, if you insist that everything be represented mechanically. Roleplaying, acting as your characters, responding, conversing, even if it has absolutally no mechanical impact, can be incrediably fun. Balders Gate won't give you that.

Heck, even combat by itself isn't fun. A Dragon is just numbers on a piece of paper, it's not fun that you used the numbers on your paper to do things to the numbers on another paper until one of those numbers got into the negatives. It's fun because your dwarf just took down a Dragon.

[Scarlet Knight]

Do you award XP for roleplaying? Has anyone ever leveled up as a result of a sexual encounter?

Sure, depending how aroused the DM gets.:smallwink:

Honestly, in my experience, this is very difficult to role-play. I've always played in mixed groups of friends. The women have frequently been wives, friends,or girlfriends of other players . Roleplaying is what make D&D come to life, but it's uncomfortable for me to say to my wife "I take my *adjective + body part* and *verb + adverb* into your *adjective + body part* with all the enthusiasm of most roleplaying in front of a group of friends. If I do it right, & make it come to life, it's like exhibitionism. It can be dangerous if my character does it to my friends wife.:smalleek: Especially if she is not entirely into roleplaying or she's really hot & my Mrs. is also playing!

So we stay safe with comedy. Make a joke about how it's not a coincedence that my gnome's large nose is crotch level and go on from there.

However, since a book such as "Erotic fantasy" is out there, I may not be typical.:smallredface:

[factotum]

There's almost no town in my campaign setting in which the PCs have been and haven't had sex. Sometimes it's disconcerting. But at least they roleplay.

To paraphrase Elan: "I bet the new edition STILL doesn't have rules for sexually transmitted diseases!" :smallwink:

[King of Nowhere]

In my old group we did such things a lot, and we even had the "performace dice" (1d4 + CON). My character was the cleric of an orgiastic deity (whose church was wiped out by bigot crusades centuries back) who wanted to spread this sex and drug religion.
Now I'm playing with a family that includes children, so we can't go in detail. Still, the party sorceress stripped in the middle of a barroom brawl to distrafcct the opponents.
There's plenty of fun in roleplaying such situations.

[John Campbell]

You might want to find a discreet cleric in the next 1d6 hours... (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=951)

(That strip is pretty much how it actually goes, IME.)

[Tholok Razescar]

No we can't (intimidate), because then we would roleplay rape. I am not saying this to be annoying or a buzzkiller, but it would simply imply a different relationship between the NPC and the PC.

Niley:
I don't know... I see Belkar as more Chaotic than Evil, meaning that he would not work for his bad reputation, in fact he would be indifferent to his reputation.
But that's just me.

That's... That's exactly the joke.
Okay, blam it. I haven't had enough coffee for this yet. *walks off*

[bluedolphin359]

I haven't played D&D, but if I do, I will definitely be Belkar. And maybe Miko…

[derfenrirwolv]

Belkar is pretty much a (slightly) over the top parody of how alot of roleplayers start (and sadly, stay)

Belkar treats all of the NPC's as obstacles to OVERCOME. Not CHARACTERS to interact with. They're not PEOPLE. They're a bunch of statistics to be used, usualy by dropping their HP to zero and then taking their stuff.

In oher words, play belkar as if you were a person in a video game, rather than as if you were trying to play a real person as the game.

[WoDHells]

Do you award XP for roleplaying? Has anyone ever leveled up as a result of a sexual encounter?

Heh, I can almost see it:
"DING!-- HOLY CR..P!"

[Ethdred]

Belkar is pretty much a (slightly) over the top parody of how alot of roleplayers start (and sadly, stay)

Belkar treats all of the NPC's as obstacles to OVERCOME. Not CHARACTERS to interact with. They're not PEOPLE. They're a bunch of statistics to be used, usualy by dropping their HP to zero and then taking their stuff.

In oher words, play belkar as if you were a person in a video game, rather than as if you were trying to play a real person as the game.

Run, my pretty little chunks of XP, run!!

[Vemynal]

ok guys i have a question- See when me and my pals play D&D we generally always have the same DM. The DM and 2 of the others I play with are under the strict impression that chaotic evil is an unplayable alignment.
That the player would constantly be trying to kill his own team mates, would purposefully slow down the campaign and the DM even commented that if a character were to have an alignment shift to chaotic evil he wouldn't have anything against god modding that pc into situations where *he* was the villain and no longer part of the group which would make me have to re roll.


what can i say to convince him otherwise?

[hamishspence]

point out the number of D&D novels with a CE character having to work with others.

BoVD points out even CEs can have friends/allies, as does Savage Species.

[Robert Paulson]

You might want to find a discreet cleric in the next 1d6 hours... (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=951)

(That strip is pretty much how it actually goes, IME.)

This entire series is much, much better than I expected. Thanks for the link. :)

[JaxGaret]

I have a character who regularly rolls to "diplomacize himself some women". 6 out of every 7 days, in fact.

On the seventh day he rests - he goes out and Intimidates himself into some good-natured fisticuffs.

He's a LG Crusader/Marshal of St. Cuthbert with a ridiculous Diplomacy score. :smallsmile:

[[sWc]Konman]

Do you award XP for roleplaying?

in some systems like paladium, there are charts for awarding xp for roleplaying

[Devils_Advocate]

Heh, I can almost see it:
Ding! (http://www.pvponline.com/2008/05/27/innocence-lost/)


what can i say to convince him otherwise?
"But... if I don't string them along and secretly manipulate them into helping my nefarious plot now, how will I be able to brutally betray them to their deaths when they least expect it later?"

I'd say that that works just fine for a character plotting a massive act of destruction. But if your DM interprets CE to mean, by definition, impulsively violent and incapable of short-term self-restraint, then there's really nothing to be done for it. Unless you can convince him that his definition is wrong.

You might point out that dishonesty is, if anything, a Chaotic trait, so saying that duplicitous scheming bastards have to be Lawful Evil doesn't really make much sense.

[Tredrick]

In my D&D campaign (In which I'm actually the DM), every PC, with no exception, is always trying to have sex with every human female NPC. Almost half of the roleplay scenes in the campaign end like this.

There's almost no town in my campaign setting in which the PCs have been and haven't had sex. Sometimes it's disconcerting. But at least they roleplay.

This is why the good lord invented STDs. Magically resistant STDs no less.

Or, for real fun, give them the disease at level one and have the church put a voe contingent cure on them. My favorite is a vow of chastity or the disease comes back.

[magic9mushroom]

Ding! (http://www.pvponline.com/2008/05/27/innocence-lost/)


"But... if I don't string them along and secretly manipulate them into helping my nefarious plot now, how will I be able to brutally betray them to their deaths when they least expect it later?"

I'd say that that works just fine for a character plotting a massive act of destruction. But if your DM interprets CE to mean, by definition, impulsively violent and incapable of short-term self-restraint, then there's really nothing to be done for it. Unless you can convince him that his definition is wrong.

You might point out that dishonesty is, if anything, a Chaotic trait, so saying that duplicitous scheming bastards have to be Lawful Evil doesn't really make much sense.

Post got eaten. Let me sum it up.

CE are more inherently likely to betray than LE, look at mob bosses vis-a-vis the Joker in Dark Knight. Who would you rather be working for? However, LE types typically can actually get underlings and allies to backstab, whether or not they actually do backstab them, so they end up doing more backstabbing total than CE types, who will generally have less compunctions about backstabbing, but generally for that reason don't have much opportunity to do it.

DMs who ban Evil characters typically do it because they're afraid that Stupid Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawfulStupidChaoticStupid) will result. It depends on the character and player of course whether that happens.

[magic9mushroom]

ok guys i have a question- See when me and my pals play D&D we generally always have the same DM. The DM and 2 of the others I play with are under the strict impression that chaotic evil is an unplayable alignment.
That the player would constantly be trying to kill his own team mates, would purposefully slow down the campaign and the DM even commented that if a character were to have an alignment shift to chaotic evil he wouldn't have anything against god modding that pc into situations where *he* was the villain and no longer part of the group which would make me have to re roll.


what can i say to convince him otherwise?

That Chaotic Evil doesn't necessarily mean the Joker. And that motivations of Evil characters are generally more interesting than those of Good characters.

Of course, if your character is turning into a Xykon or Joker lookalike, then he has a point. Those sort of characters can be unfun to play alongside.

[Scarlet Knight]

That Chaotic Evil doesn't necessarily mean the Joker. And that motivations of Evil characters are generally more interesting than those of Good characters.

Oh, I don't know.

TN daughter: (Thinks: I caught an STD from the farmboy Wesley. I must be treated but Daddy will kill him if he finds out) Aloud to Cleric : "Cure me, please, I am ill , but I don't know who did this to me. I was attacked in the dark and was too ashamed to tell anyone."

CE Cleric:(Thinks: Here is an opportunity to rid myself of that do gooder palladin) My Lord, I just treated your daughter, she was violated. I suspect the short haired halfling traveling with those adventurers that just suspiciously left town."

LG father: (Thinks: MY daughter!) Summon my housecarl ! I will hunt them myself and punish them for their wicked deeds! We will make an example of the halfling in particular..."

[C-Man]

ok guys i have a question- See when me and my pals play D&D we generally always have the same DM. The DM and 2 of the others I play with are under the strict impression that chaotic evil is an unplayable alignment.
Take a look at the RPG system Paranoia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)). That's a role playing setting where basically every player character is expected to be played as a chaotic evil backstabber and it works.

One trick for DMing a party with one or more chaotic evil characters is to place a restraining bolt on them and thus force them to play along with the plot. A curse which harms the character when he tries to betray the other character, like the MoJ in OOtS is one way to do it. A very powerful force that WILL find and kick the characters ass unless he does what the force wants is a more mundane one.

The GM could also try to convince the CE character that he has a very pressing motive (vengeance, greed etc.) to accomplish the goal of the campaign and also give a convincing reason for the CE character to need the other party members. They could, for example, have unique knowledge, skills, traits or privileges which are essential to reach the CEs goal. That way the CE has to play along with the plot and contribute to the success of the party but is free to use his own methods to do so ("did you distract the priest so we can take a look at the holy scroll?" - "I am sure the dagger in his lung is pretty distracting...")

Another way to play with CE characters is to tailor the campaign to suit the CE playing style.

Infiltrate Lord Evils castle and rescue the princess? Not my problem when the wench gets captured. Infiltrate King Benevolentius castle and abduct the princess? Sounds fun, I'm on my way. Does of course only work when all characters in the group are more or less evil. Unless you use the restraining bolt technique mentioned above on the good characters instead of the evil ones.


But a good DM of CE characters should always be prepared to improvise in case the CE character finds a way around the control imposed on him or act in other unpredictable ways. It is not an easy task but can be great fun for everyone when it works. The unpredictability is one of the greatest aspects of pen&paper RPGs.

[Whoracle]

As far as awarding XP for roleplaying goes, there are whole SYSTEMS out there that award XP exclusively for roleplaying.

KULT comes to mind, or ShadowRun, if memory serves. I for one find these much more rewarding than the "kill-X-to-level" kind.

[Feefers]

I'd play him badly and whilst doing something else like Fallout3 at the same time.

Drink would probably also be involved.

...

Lots of drink.

[Twilight Jack]

Do you award XP for roleplaying? Has anyone ever leveled up as a result of a sexual encounter?

I did once. . . Oh, wait, you meant in a game?

[King of Nowhere]

There are may ways a CE character might want to stay with a good party.
1) Not all CE are like Belkar, the funny little pshyco is one of the worst among them. But since we were talking specifically of Belkar, and I don't wanna derail this into an alignment thread, I'll skip this point.

2) A good party is paid as much as an evil party, so if you care only for money you won't fell the difference.
3) Your party won't slit your troath in the middle of the night to take your loot. Heck, if you're killed, your party will raise you rather than loot the corpse.
4) You can trust the judice of their competent leader; he's a better tactician than you, and he'll not send you in a suicide mission to avoid dividing the loot.
5) If you're a pshyco, being in a good party gives you the perfect opportunity to kill things without consequences. Yes, you can walk in a village slaughtering everyone in your sight, but then a lot of bounty hunter will trace you, and some of them may be high level enough to actually defeat you... or may just slit your troath in the middle of the night. Or your evil party may sell you to the bounty hunters for a quick profit. As long as you officially work for good, you can kill without fear for repercussions.

I'm sure there are other reason, those are the most important that came to me

[Janmorel]

Drink would probably also be involved.

...

Lots of drink.

Quoted for truth.

Seriously, until very recently, I'd have said that Belkar was played by someone who wasn't really that interested in playing, and so just took the quickest, bloodiest route possible through the game. This seems to have changed, courtesy of "character growth," but it's still kind of soon to tell whether it's a permanent change or just a passing fad.

[hamishspence]

another way of doing CE is the charming conman whose indifference to the suffering he causes makes him evil: like Reacher Gilt in Going Postal.

Or, the person who'd be CG if it wasn't for his utter ruthlessness and willingness to treat innocents as "collateral damage" when fighting a major Lawful Evil adversary.

etc.

[whatchamacallit]

I'm wondering why so many people would ask for a diplomacy roll when the outcome has absolutely no bearing on the plot of the adventure? Jenny wanted the B'ster. If he pursues it then it's all RP, no dice involved... and the appropriate amount of bad puns and cat-calls from everyone at the table to accentuate the moment.

[Tyrmatt]

To paraphrase Elan: "I bet the new edition STILL doesn't have rules for sexually transmitted diseases!" :smallwink:

Oh you have to go and put the idea in my head...