Last night, during the “every so often on Thursday when enough people respond affirmatively” Dungeons and Dragons campaign I play in, one of the other players commented on how reckless I was playing my character. I was a bit surprised they’d said anything, since I’m playing the party’s tank, a Barbarian with a super high AC and Hit Points to spare, but I had slowly been escalating my character’s behavior over the last few sessions. I’d gone from looking out for my allies to jumping straight into danger and even trying to get eaten by creatures large enough to do so. I had a logical explanation for all of it, most of which centered on my character’s ability to remain at a single hit point instead of falling unconscious if I passed a fairly easy constitution saving throw that got a little bit more difficult each time I made it. Behind that, though, I actually had a different reason for behaving this way at all and I finally got to spill the beans when this player started commenting on the fact that my character was betting his soul that he’d be alive after the pit fiend that he was face-to-face with had “died.” The Pit fiend didn’t take the bet and I got to explain that I was doing all of this reckless, ill-advised stuff because my character (known to the party as Sir B. F., which only one of them knows stands for Sir Biscuit Fluffington since he’s a Wizard’s cat who was awoken to consciousness by ambient magical energy and transformed into a large, beefy Cat Man when he got transported to the world we’re in) had a magic item that made him immune to fear effects. He was literally incapable of being made afraid and I decided to take it a step further by making him incapable of feeling fear.

Now, that’s a bit of a step beyond what the magic item does. The magic item, which also makes him immune to being charmed (which is pretty much any mind-control or mental influence effect), prevents him from being distracted, paralyzed, or sent running due to fear. It doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t feel it, just that he can’t be overwhelmed by it. Part of my decision, though, is that I got this cool magic item shortly after my previously mentioned perfect session with this character. To summarize it for people who don’t want to click through, my barbarian managed to take a huge number of hits, not die thanks to perfectly making five increasinly difficult saving throws in a row (the first was a DC 5, which I couldn’t have failed at, and the last was a 25 that I was unlikely to make), and even keep on fighting successfully despite being on his last legs the entire time. So he managed to cheat death, got made immune to fear effects, and has gone toe-to-toe with several enormous beasties, all without ever once being killed (which would only temporarily remove him from the world he’s in) despite everyone else having died multiple times at this point. It honestly seems like not feeling fear is the logical result here.

Part of what led to this point is my mechanical knowledge of the game. I know that, thanks to the way the game’s systems work, that any character who is swallowed by an enormous creature will take damage once per turn. I also know that I can make a save against being slain by that two or three times before I’m taking a moderate risk. I know that my melee character can probably still hit with most attacks because I can safely use features that, in other situations, might put me in danger. I have a specific plan for all of this chaos and that means I’m willing to come up with and implement audacious plans. And, since the character doesn’t feel fear (and has little reason to, since he will just get sent home if he “dies”), I get to put them into use. Plus, you know, he’s a cat. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything other than the people he’s chosen to like and, of course, his own personal business. Its a lot of fun, really.

Now that the other players know I’m playing this character as if he’s incapable of feeling fear, I’m interested to see how they respond to what they’ve been reading as confidence and braggadociousness. They’ve been letting me run point on a lot of pre-battle conversations in our encounters-centric campaign (partly because Sir. B. F. always walks ten feet in front of the rest of the party and partly because I’m a more decisive and active player) and that’s led to a lot of weird, fun encounters that have caused us to fight more people than we maybe otherwise would have. It has also opened the door to letting other people either end or alter some of the fights because my character’s supeme confidence and quick dismissal of whatever threats the enemy of the day hurls our way means that there are a lot of gaps in what might have otherwise been villainous monologuing since Sir B. F. absolutely cuts these people off or interjects his own mix of threats and one-liners. It’s been a lot of fun to play such an unconcerned character who so often is proved to be correctly unconcerned.

I look forward to continuing this charade and, while we still have a few levels left to go before we max out our characters and either have to start over with new ones or move on to something else with this group and gaming time, am dreading the day that Sir B. F. has to go on my metaphorical shelf (all his character sheets are digital). I will be sad to see him go since, despite this campaign being entirely battle-focused, he is the character I have gotten to play the longest and mechanically develop the most. Which each new session, he sets the record as my longest-running game experience as a player and I’ll be sad to see that end, even if this game is replaced with another one. Like I said, we’ve still got a ways to go, yet, and I’ve got plenty more stupid hijinks to get up to in the meantime, so I am already looking forward to our next session, whenever that is. Maybe it’ll even be tonight! I never can tell ahead of time, given how many of these sessions come together at the last minute or fall apart the day-of due to someone being unable to make it like they said they could. Here’s hoping.