We’re Playing D&D With Benoit Blanc So Lay on the Southern Hokum
Sweet biscuits, the game is afoot. This week we’re peeling back layers and solving murders most foul with Benoit Blanc.
Glass Onion has been out for a little while now between theatrical release and streaming. And collectively, we are all not over it yet. It was a fun mystery with a solid cast and the return of our favorite very southern detective, Benoit Blanc.
Currently, the internet (rightfully) thinks that a crossover mystery extravaganza with the Muppets is the next move for Mr. Blanc, and it got us thinking. Where wouldn’t he solve mysteries? Nowhere. Benoit Blanc belongs everywhere, including our next dungeon crawl. So this week we’re playing D&D with…
Benoit Blanc
Courtesy of Netflix
Benoit is a pretty straightforward character; there are a few things that make him recognizable, and everything else is just having fun with it. We need to make a top-notch detective and a character who’s good at putting on a bit of a show.
To start I made a Rogue Mastermind. As far as making a detective goes, this is a pretty classic approach. And while there are other ways to make detectives playable, I wanted to go with a more classic approach this time around. He has quite a few levels of Rogue with 9. This was honestly because I wanted to make sure he had Insightful Manipulator off of the Mastermind list.
via Netflix
From there we took a few levels in Bard. While Benoit isn’t a performer in the most obvious sense, he definitely puts of very specific spin on all of his cases. In Glass Onion he specifically talked about ‘laying on the southern hokum’ and making a show of playing dumb when the need arose. That’s definitely some Bard stuff.
Plus I wanted to make sure we could take Zone of Truth off of the Bard spell list.
College of Lore gave us a little more ability to use wit to distract and confuse. And with that, I felt like I had most of the basics of Benoit Blanc ready to go.
From there everything I added was done keeping mysteries in mind. Investigator and Keen Mind feats gave us some nice boots and boons, while his expertise would make sure nothing went unnoticed. Spells for the most part were also chosen with a focus on knowing things, noticing details, or questioning suspects.
As for weapons and armor, he doesn’t really use them either. In fact, he seems to take off parts of his suits and roll up his sleeves as the mystery gets more mysterious, effectively shedding armor. But he can probably use a gun when push comes to shove and I gave him a dagger as a nod to Knives Out.
If you can’t get to the bottom of whodunit with this sheet, you’re either rolling poorly or just maybe bad at solving mysteries yourself. But that’s okay, it’s not my forte, either.
How would you make Benoit Blanc for D&D? Do you think he’d enjoy joining us for a session, or would he tell us he’s “bad at dumb things”? What show, movie, comic, or game should I make sheets from next time? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
