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Post by DM Windhover on Mar 2, 2017 16:29:19 GMT
I had no idea what to title this. This is a very obscure problem.
I'm about to start a campaign with real life friends who have only played D&D once before (in a 1-shot I ran for them a few weeks ago.) We're having our session 0 for the campaign tomorrow. I've sent them a campaign bible, and asked them for basic information on race and class they're wanting to play, etc.
One of them wants to come from a kingdom in my world which is populated by a combination of elves and humans, which also happens to be the only place in the world where half-elves are common because of lots of intermarriage. She wants to be the daughter of a man who has never told her who her mother was. And so she as a character doesn't know whether she's a half-elf or a human; in my world, half-elves tend to look fairly indistinguishable from humans, and given that she's a ranger, the fact that she sees unusually well in the dark and sleeps lightly could make sense in story terms even if she were human.
Here's my problem. She got her husband to pick for her (half-elf) and tell me. But she as the player wants to be kept in the dark, if possible, just as the actual character is. Beyond just making her character sheet for her, rather than walking her through it like I'll be doing with the other players in the session 0, is there any way you can imagine to successfully hide this information from her? Keep in mind that she's brand new to D&D, so that helps some.
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Post by Jesse Ross on Mar 2, 2017 18:41:44 GMT
What a fascinating dilemma! Clearly, you will have to make her character sheet to get the stat adjustments worked out properly. Darkvision and Fey Ancestry are probably the most telling indicators of her background, and then her slow aging once she get much older. Since her dad is a human, I would put Human (or Human?) on her character sheet. It shouldn't affect too much of her experience beyond the initial stats (and the couple of things I mentioned above). If I were DMing, I would probably treat her like a human, have people treat her like a human, and have her really start to identify as human. Then, and only then, would I have the party run into an enemy that casts a spell that puts the party to sleep. When she realizes she isn't affected, then she might piece it together Very fun, though. Your player is in for a great adventure of self-discovery.
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dmcrenton
Squire
Posts: 27
Favorite D&D Class: Swordmage
Favorite D&D Race: Human
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Post by dmcrenton on Mar 2, 2017 20:53:04 GMT
Rather than "human?", you can simply put "H". It works for both Human and Half-elf
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