D&D: New Years Resolutions For Your Table
It’s the new year and that means it’s time to make some resolutions for your character. Inject new life into your favorite character with a new goal!
Let’s be honest with ourselves. D&D characters tend to be horrible people. Sure, you might be playing a lovely queer tiefling couple who have adopted a goblin and opened up a tavern with them, but where did you a) adopt the goblin from (probably a dungeon full of the corpses of its enemies/kin) and b) get the money for the tavern (violence and looting, where all wealth comes from). What I’m saying is, there’s room for every character to improve. And at the new year is the perfect time. Here are some resolutions for your characters to make that’ll help that “G” in your alignment actually mean something.
Be more trusting
Yeah, the world is a dark place and full of dukes who are out there trying to manipulate you into their schemes because they are either secretly demons, mindflayer thralls, devils, or just plain evil–but that doesn’t mean you have to go shouting Insight Check whenever an NPC sighs and says “times are tough.”
It’s just an NPC sitting in the bar next to Sam Smorkle, both of whom your DM just made up to add some color to the scene where you’re about to go on a quest. And odds are good that the innkeeper really does charge 2 silver per night for a room. And odds are good that the attractive tavernserver doesn’t want to flirt with you because they’re tired, not because they’re secretly a yuan-ti agent in disguise.
Unless you’re playing through Cult of the Yuan-Ti tavernlords, in which case, yeah go for it. Every time.
Declutter your Inventory
This one hits deep. You keep finding potions of healing, scrolls of spells, items with limited charges like a necklace of fireball or beads of force. And they sit there in your inventory, never used, because what if you need one of those spell scrolls for a really hard fight later–these encounters are hard, you never know when having a scroll of shield might come in handy, better to spend your spell slots on the encounter and just take a rest.
Anyway isn’t it weird how the DM never gives us treasure? Well, time to hang on to that ring of three wishes–just be careful not to use it.
Drink potions responsibly
Of course sometimes you have the opposite problem, and your character finds out whether or not a potion is useful the second they pick it up in a fight, and the next thing you know you’re ethereal because you found a potion that looked like liquid smoke and you thought it might make you fire resistant. Sometimes it pays off to wait for something to be identified.
Practice patience
We all know that camaraderie is the hallmark of any good adventuring party, but just because one of your friends is making a check doesn’t mean you have to as well. Yeah the halfling is trying to lift a grate, and sure you could probably assist to get advantage, but maybe this was an opportunity for them to prove their own strength.
Or just because the rogue is trying to open the door doesn’t mean they need your advice on picking the lock, you’re not even proficient with thieves’ tools.
Learn a new skill
One of the best new features in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything are rules for swapping around your skill proficiencies or even your subclass whenever you level up. If your character has been feeling a little stale, this might be the perfect chance to mix things up. Forget an old skill, pick up a new one. But whenever the game starts to feel a little boring, just remember there are ways you can shake things up!
What are YOUR D&D resolutions for the new year?
