RuneQuest: The Character Interview

The past couple of days, during which I’ve begun to experiment with solo roleplaying, have been some of the most creative in (honestly) months.

Part of the reason for this increased energy has been the fact that I’ve been free to develop the roleplaying adventure that I actually want to play – instead of trying to second-guess what my disparate group of players desire – because I’m both the player and the Game Master.

That said, the other key inspiration during the process has been the unexpected but very timely re-discovery of Brian Jamison’s excellent guide to “Gamemastering“. The next step in my progress towards a solo game, then, came when I decided to follow the guidance in his book on creating characters.

In fact, as a very deeply ingrained Action Roleplayer, I took the challenge of the Character Interview further and treated myself to the full works Acting Roleplayer approach to creation. What I discovered was both incredibly hard but also highly rewarding.

The Character Interview

Jamison is against characters being “rolled-up”. He’s against random character generation in all forms. What’s he’s in favour of is taking time to “role up” a character:

“Roleplaying is about heroics, about being something one could never be in real life. A character in a roleplaying game should never be random. We’ve already been dealt a random hand in the game of life. Roleplaying is a chance to determine our hand in advance and play it out…

What is being created here is an expression of desire, a role, an object of fun that a person can explore, adventure through, and become invested in. The player should be given the choice of any attributes or skills the game system offers.”

– Jamison, Gamemastering, pp. 34-35

Essentially, Jamison advocates an interview between the player and the Game Master during which the new character is devised and developed as a fully realised idea. Following this interview, the character is then “put into the system” of choice for the roleplaying game.

Here’s how my interview began…

Who do you want to be?
“I want to play an agent for one of the religious cults in the town, perhaps the Moon Cult. I see the hero as combining stealth and martial skills with Theistic magic and some interaction skills. My initial temptation is to play a female character, but I am going to resist that urge and instead choose a young male warrior.”

What do you look like?
“I have long brown hair, in the style of the warrior class, but a young and somewhat pale face with large opal-shaped blue-coloured eyes. I have a slim build and tall bearing, giving the impression of an under-developed boy. Because my family is of the warrior class, I am dressed in a light leather tunic and woolen trousers. I carry a long-bladed knife, as befits my rank, but have not yet earned the right to bear a sword. Around my neck is a silver chain bearing the silver charm of the Pale Queen, a circle with a cross inside.”

How did you end up in your profession?
“The Priestess of the Pale Queen came to my home and asked my father to release me to her service as a bonded guardian. She would attend to my education and training in service to the Temple. Being an honourable man, and despite the protestations of my mother, he agreed. Since that day I have been living in the Temple and learning the ways of the Bladed Brotherhood.”

Developing Four Lists

The stated outcome of the Jamison approach to character creation is:

“The primary reason for the interview is the creation of four lists by the player. These lists will add flesh, bones and spirit to the character. First we have the Rights and Wrongs Sheet, then the Friends and Foes Sheet, next a Goal Sheet, and finally a Quirks and Traits Sheet. The lists build upon each other until at the end of the interview the player has a solid, three-dimensional character with plenty of room to grow.”

– Jamison, Gamemastering, p. 37

I used, with only the slightest of modification, the questions suggested in the book and ran through to create the following details:

Who are your (or your profession’s) enemies?
“Enemies of the Pale Queen are, of course, my own: this would include servants and thralls of the Red Watch, although their agents seem far from these shores. Locally there is tension between the Temple and the agents of the Lightbringer Brotherhood, servants of Aurin the Bright (the Sun God). I must also be on guard against the agents of the Jarl, not all of whom are obvious: it is said that the Jarl even pays Thralls to spy upon the Priesthood.

Personally, I have always been the target of the well-liked and respected elder son of the Thane, Marko. He is a bully and the most arrogant of men, despising those who he does not believe measure up to the exacting standards of his father’s house. As a son of one of the Thane’s Karls, I am an easy target. One day I hope to repay him for his arrogance and violence.”

What do you think is worth fighting for?
“My first duty is to honour the will of the Pale Queen. Fighting for her, although never the first option, is inevitable. Additionally, we exist to protect the people and I must be ready to defend the city.

Fighting against tyranny and harsh rule is something I would be prepared to do. My experiences with bullies over the length of my childhood has taught me that might can be just as easily cruel as it can be right.”

Who are your friends?
“I have few friends: most of the warriors show me little respect because of my slight frame and awkwardness with sword and shield. That aside, I have two people to whom I am close.

The first is my childhood friend, Eija, who is the daughter of the merchant Freedman Erik Bluestone (owner of the Bluestone mines. She is a flighty and shy girl a couple of years my junior who has always been kind to both me and her servant thralls.

The second is my mentor, Karin, the Priestess of the Pale Queen who is instructing me in the ways of the Brotherhood. She is a kind and yet serious woman of middle years who seems to see more to my potential than most people.”

Where were you born? Which class do you belong to?
“I was born in the city of Jerennach, in the home of Karl Rikhard. I am the youngest of three sons born to the warrior class and expected to bring honour to my family.”

What goals do people in this profession have?
“Agents of the Blade Brotherhood serve the Pale Queen in the gathering of intelligence and the protection of the Temple. We are expected to both guard the Priestesses (the public role) and protect the interests of the Goddess (our secretive role). We seek to garner knowledge of our enemies and to support the goals of the Pale Queen.

At this stage in my membership, I seek to train in the martial arts and to develop my skills of stealth and infiltration. Soon I will be expected to complete a Trial Quest alone as proof of my readiness to serve.”

Why does the Brotherhood prefer stealth and knives? Isn’t that cowardly?
“While the warriors of the city stand ready to guard against frontal assault, there is a need for more subtle and secretive defences. Individual agents can slip past the usual defences of the city and we exist to hunt them down and stop their plotting. The long knife is a weapon perfectly designed for such work while still granting the victim an honourable death. It is not cowardly to haunt the shadows when the enemies of both the Pale Queen and her subjects seek to infiltrate them for evil ends. Neither is it cowardly to observe and report upon the traitorous intentions of those who seek power for themselves.”

How might the Bladed Brotherhood have use of an agent within a team?
“Not all missions are solo. Some require the coming together of the resources of those who serve the Gods and the city. Under those circumstances, it is easy to slip an agent of the Brotherhood into a regular team, often providing much-needed subtlety and skill where it would otherwise be absent.”

Rights and Wrongs

Perhaps the deepest elements of the character revolve around their beliefs. As an Ethics teacher, I also find this the most interesting element of roleplaying… but, weirdly, the one which we tend to keep at the greatest distance from our regular table.

My character’s ideas proved quite illuminating:

Is it ever okay to misrepresent the truth?
“It’s ok to lie to an enemy who has no honour, such as the servants of the Red Watch or the crazed primitive Wild Folk. It is wrong to lie to a person of honour.
That being said, it is not the same as lying to withhold a truth or fact from someone if it will cause harm to speak up. We must each of us seek to cause as little suffering as possible and it’s an important ability to hold back information for the greater good – for example, you should remain silent when being questioned by enemies of the city or faith.”

Do you ever break the rules? Why?
“Of course I do. It is hard to be an agent of stealth and guile without breaking the rules that bind the weak. And that is the point: most rules bind those who, being weak in mind or judgment, need guidance. The rules which always apply to me are those for which I am not yet qualified to judge; some, however, are beneath me and are a necessary choice in the fulfillment of my duties. Each situation is different, so I must use my best judgment to decide when to follow and when to break the rules. Surely you don’t expect the Jarl to follow all the petty rules that exist to manage the Thralls?”

How do you feel about the taking of lives?
“Death is an inevitability of living. The issue is the manner of our death, and the reasons for it. It is wrong to kill the innocent, the very young and vulnerable, or those who have responsibility for you. It is right to kill those who give up their innocence by choosing wrong, opposing either honour or loyalty to the city and the Gods. Those creatures who give up their humanity by serving evil demons and false gods are the first victims of the Bladed Brotherhood. The last shall be those who, although nurtured by the Jarl’s protection, betray us all into the hands of those who would harm us.”

Do you ever question orders?
“If the orders come from the Priestess, then they are surely the will of the Goddess. These are matters of which I should not raise objection.
Orders from an authority that remains in service to the Gods is likewise above question and should be honoured.
Instructions from anyone of questionable loyalty or honour, however, are to be held in deepest question.”

Do you approve of the Jarl’s actions?
“Generally, the Jarl intends good. Occasionally, however, the Priestess has alluded to moments in which it appears that the Jarl might be more self-serving – perhaps he seeks to supplant the High King – and so we remain vigilant against his mistakes. On a personal level, I generally trust the Jarl but I have to remain on guard lest he shows disloyalty to the Temple.”

Are we free agents, or pawns of destiny?
“We live under the great paradox: we are both given free will and can choose our own path, yet we are called to our destiny and purpose as designed by the Gods. Ours is the responsibility to act as though we were free while willingly surrendering our choices to that for which we have been called.”

What form of law and punishment do you approve of?
“On the whole, the traditions of the people are honourable – blood for blood and coin for coin is sensible. Sometimes, however, a Judge might be cruel or brutal and it is the responsibility of all to oppose such actions. First we must speak up and call for honour to be restored; failing such words, we must be prepared to eliminate the evil from the population. Death from the shadows is, in many ways, more clean and sensible than honour duels – with the latter there is too much risk of an accident leading to an unjust outcome.”

How do you feel about foreigners and aliens?
“Folk from other of the Free Cities are welcome and to be respected, although the Brotherhood expects me to remain vigilant. Servants of the Red Watch are to be eliminated, however, and as such we must be slow to trust northerners. As for primitives and other non-human beings, we must remain on guard against their actions: you cannot truly trust a creature with whom you have so little in common.”

Do you have any secret goals?
“I would seek to learn the secrets of the cultic magick, especially that which can enhance my skills. In honour of the Priestess, however, I keep my ambitions to myself.”

Putting Him Into RuneQuest

Having developed the character quite extensively through the interview, it was a pretty trivial matter to put him into the system.

RuneQuest is actually very good for this because it comes with a few elements that make life very easy for the Game Master:

• RuneQuest includes a points-buy method for character creation which allows you to fit the concept to the game
• The system develops the character by taking you through considering their culture and career
• The game does not bind a character to any one vision of “character class”, allowing for more flexible concepts

In short, I was able to put my character into RuneQuest as being from a Barbarian culture, choosing the Agent career (a choice that needed GM approval), and using the Background and Passions rules to further deepen the character’s place in the world.

After about an hour of effort, I had a finished and re-typed character sheet for the hero. I call him Pyry.

If you’d like to view the RuneQuest character sheet, click –> Pyry_Character_Sheet <–

For the Four Lists summary, click –> Pyry 4Lists <–

With the character created, the next step is to actually begin play.

Game on!

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