Priests, Females, and Bikini Chainmail

        My schema for 'priests' is pretty much what you see in the movies and at weddings.  So, when I started learning Dungeons and Dragons and saw that one of the main character classes was a priest, or cleric, I started building a new concept from the ground up in my mind.  A D&D priest draws on divine inspiration or literal divine intervention to cast a variety of spells, including healing spells.  They can worship any number of gods and draw different types of powers from these sources.  I read a lot in the Player's Handbook and in this book back in those days:          

      Fast forward to a few years ago when I was introducing my friends' wives to D&D.  I found some pre-made, ready to go characters, and at game time divvied them up amongst the two guys and three girls at the table.  The standard classes were represented, fighter, wizard, rogue, priest.  Shortly after we began play the group ran into problem solving encounter where a girl was struggling to stay afloat in the river while her mother is on the bank calling for help.  After the party returned the girl safely to her mother on the shore the NPC woman said,  "You have my thanks, but I wish there was some way I could repay you."  The player responds, "If you follow the tenets of my god and attend services regularly, it will be repayment enough."

       Well, I thought that was just awesome.  Here it was, her first role playing game experience and she was knocking it out of the park!  In retrospect, it is clear that she was drawing on her own background and experience as someone who grew up a practicing Catholic.  This informed her notion of the types of behaviors and attitudes a priest would assume.  This connection might seem obvious to some people, but I have played D&D for many years, often playing priests and almost always at a table where someone was playing a priest - and I never saw it played in that way.

     It was a great table moment, and there are two lessons in it for us here: 

1. You want to try to tap into your new players' understandings of the world (both game world and real world), their tendencies, biases, predilections, etc. This will allow them to feel more involved in the game and generally to just be enjoying it more.

2.  With new players be prepared for the unexpected.  This goes for always, but especially with new players.  If they are willing to take the risk of engaging with the game and DM, new players are among the most creative people you can game with - which is in itself rewarding for everyone at the table.

Thanks for reading!  I guess we'll have to cover bikini chainmail next time.