D&D: How To Play A Final Girl
Wanna survive to the end of your campaign? Want to be the one to take out the villain when all seems lost? You should play a Final Girl.
Everyone loves a Final Girl. Except the murderous psychopath who has been chasing her for the last 75 minutes. But hey, if you’re not a masked slasher or hideous monster, Final Girls are great. They’re tough as nails and just as sharp, but their biggest strength lies in their vulnerability. Survivors at the end of everything else, they’ll make it out alive. And if you’re in a bind? Just stick with a Final Girl – if you can keep up.
What is a Final Girl?
If you don’t know what a Final Girl is, you’d better learn quick. You never know when a masked psycho is waiting to kill you.
In a nutshell, a Final Girl is “the last character left alive to confront the killer,” usually in a horror movie. They’ve typically survived close calls, and have probably been at least moderately injured, if not close to death by the time all is said and done. But they just can’t give up.
The iconic Final Girl is smart and tough by the end of the movie. But they started off scared, vulnerable, and running away from danger. They’re usually brunette, but that’s mostly because studio executives tend to be unimaginative and risk-averse.
Beloved Pop Culture Final Girls
- Ellen Ripley – Alien, Aliens, etc.
- Laurie Strode – Halloween
- Sydney Prescott – Scream
- Dave Bowman – 2001 A Space Odyssey
- Sarah Connor – The Terminator
- Nancy Thompson — Nightmare on Elm Street
- Ash – Evil Dead
- Julie James – I Know What You Did Last Summer
- Taylor Gentry – Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
- Erin Harson – You’re Next
- Tree Gelbman – Happy Death Day
How to Play a Final Girl in D&D
Little wonder then, a Final Girl is a great archetype for many an RPG character. But how do you play a Final Girl?
You can use these tips to play a Final Girl of any gender because that’s absolutely how it works and you can die mad about it if you think otherwise.
But how can you nail down that journey from scared, waifish-flight to survival against the odds? You’ve come to the right place, friend. Whatever game you’re playing, here’s how to be a Final Girl.
Be Vulnerable
Step one. It all starts with vulnerability. This is a harder thing to represent in RPGs like D&D because the rules are aimed at empowering you. So this is kind of up to you to roleplay. You can hedge your bets by playing classes that aren’t as physically robust to begin with. In D&D, Rogues, Bards, and Wizards make for fantastic choices to start off as a Final Girl.
Other things you can keep in mind are sort of rules for keeping your character safe. In D&D, that might mean taking the Dodge action when you’re confronted with more than one enemy. Or maybe it means using whatever means you have to hide. Having a Rogue’s Cunning Action is a great way to spend your turn hiding from the killer/ogre/hydra but still also contributing to the game.
Be Resourceful
Final Girls are, above all else, resourceful. They can’t count on physically overpowering their opponent, they have to rely on whatever advantage they can. A Final Girl knows how to use whatever is around her to try and escape. Whether that’s using the steam from a burst pipe to make a temporary escape, or strapping into a power loader to take on the alien queen, you’ve got to be flexible.
So to be a good Final Girl, you’ll want to find ways to use your environment. People should know you’ve always got a clever trick up your sleeve, even if it’s only one you found out of desperation.
How do you do this? Look for ways to interact with the world. In D&D, that means using skills like Sleight of Hand or tool proficiencies like Thieves’ Tools to manipulate objects in your environment. If you’re a spellcaster, maybe you rely on spells like minor illusion or pyrotechnics to give yourself an edge in a tough spot.
Be Frightened, but Determined
A big part of the Final Girl is that you’ve got a journey. You start out frail but you end up fierce. In order to get there you’ve got to know how to show that off.
So if you started off with vulnerability, it’s time to layer in some strengths. Maybe you pick up a feat like Toughness or take Resilient to bump up a weakness. Maybe you multiclass and take a level or two of something like Fighter or Paladin.
So in an RPG as you get tougher, you can still roleplay the fear at the heart of the Final Girl. They’re motivated by pursuit or feeling overpowered – and even if you know mechanically you can beat the enemies you’re fighting, you can still act fearful.
Every hit point you lose brings you a little closer to death. So how can you show that while still playing the game? That’s where determination kicks in. Shaggy is a perfect example of someone who’s one murderous masked villain away from being a Final Girl. Jumps at the nearest shadow, but still goes through the next room for the promise of a snack.
Your character can do the same. We have some advice about being a reluctant hero – all you have to do is make it clear out of character that you’re down, and just use your in-character actions to reflect that you’re reluctant.
Tell people you have a bad feeling about this. Let them know that it’s probably a trap. A Final Girl is a walking repository of things an audience would shout at the screen, but they do them anyway.
Be Wholesome
Perhaps the trickiest thing about playing a Final Girl is their sort of hidden morality. They’re unwilling to sacrifice someone to survive. They’re often in the predicaments they are because they won’t make the hard choice.
Final Girls won’t leave someone to die. They won’t burn down the house or just run away from the killer and get out of town.
They have a moral center that drives them. They’re wholesome, for the most part. In the days of the earliest slasher flicks, this meant never having sex, because sex=death in a slasher film.
But even as the genre changed away from that trope (a little, it’s still around), Final Girls still try to live a better life. That’s part of what keeps them going when the odds are against them.
So look for ways to tell your party “no we aren’t going to rob those merchants” or “we aren’t going to let the dragon just kill everyone in town, we have to get them out.”
Be Unbreakable
At the end of a Final Girl’s journey, they may be beaten, but they’re never broken. The killer, at the end of the day, isn’t going to win. And that’s doubly true in most TTRPGs.
You’ve taken character options that make your character stronger both physically and mentally. But there’s a thin line between triumphant last stand and smacking the boss so hard they die in the first hit.
It all depends on the kind of climax you want for your character.
But at the end of the day, just remember sometimes the real power loader was inside you all along.
Have you played a Final Girl in D&D before? Who’s your favorite? Let us know in the comments!
