Roleplaying in a skirt

Monday night role playing went pretty well.
There was a lot of exposition, to be sure, but important things happened:

• I got to level 4, and finally got a good spell or two


• I got to play to my PC's strengths: healing, music-based magic, and being sassy.


• I didn't need to roll no stupid 20's to kick monster ass

When we finally got moving (after I told a prince from my native country that I could possibly lift a debilitating curse laid upon him by evil cultists from the mountains and healed a bunch of people that were buried in the rubble of a catastrophe), our party was set upon by horrid giants big enough to carry archers in baskets on their backs.

Certain co-adventurers needed to rely on the luck of a few random lucky throws of the dice. Some twenties were rolled.

Whatever.

Meanwhile, Harmony Icebane cast Terror on one of the beasties, which took off back up the mountain he had come down from to attack. She used her amazing power and strength of will, and quick wits to turn the almost insurmountable tide.

Singlehandedly, I beat off one of these guys (that tun of phrase was dirtier than I intended), without even drawing a weapon or making a couple of lucky rolls.

So who is more awesome? The guy with a generic big sword who makes some random rolls to his favour, or the eldrich mistress of mysticism, music, and mayhem, who makes monsters flee at the sound of her lute?

Crickets, I think we all know the answer to this.

Oh, and here is Reis, he of the splendid Geek Orthodox site, taking my picture because he was so in awe of my mad role-playing skillz:

Roleplaying with a skirt and an accent

Crickets, if I have learned anything from the latest campaign I am involved in, it's this: Playing a female PC sucks, and playing a female PC with a French accent sucks even harder.

My current PC is Harmony Icebane, a Bard/Priestess. I play females every now and then, because a)No one else in our group tends to play women, b)I like to mix things up a little, and c)I just feel so darned pretty when I'm a lady, like a beautiful blossoming ros-uh, never mind. I drew up a pic of how I wanted Harmony to look (see above), and wrote up a guide to her culture. I conceived her as worldly and charming, and a little vain, so to add flavour I gave her a French accent.

The upshot of all of this?
I quote:

Fellow Gamer: "Dude, my guy is gonna rape her"
Fellow Gamer: "Dude, you sound like Pepe Le Pew"

It's annoying and distracting for me to do the voice and accent, and I know I sound like an idiot.

Luckily, this week, Harmony kind of got to kick some butt.

For one thing, our party came up against a nasty undead vampiress, who, it was hinted at by our DM, Todd, was way out of our league.
Harmony sassed the bitch anyway, and then fired an arrow at her.
And darned if I didn't roll a natural 20 to hit.
The vampiress got taken down eventually, thanks to Reis' PC hacking off a wing (with the help of a Strength potion) and a huge hairy Yeti (Greg) jumping on her back.

A little later, an annoying NPC, a Baron who had been trying to abduct Harmony, met with an unpleasant surprise when he opened a carriage door, expecting Harmony to be trussed up and safely delivered to him, and got two of her arrows through his face instead. Take that, you lady-abducting cad.

Our adventure continues in the cave of a huge dragon, and stuff about prophecies and special rings. But that's all for next week.

Here's Todd's version of Harmony