At long last, it’s finished! It’s taken a long time to complete the final article in this set, mostly because I had to keep setting it aside to work on something that would meet the immediate deadline, but here (at last) it is…

Introduction to part 4

Not all Priests are the same. In fact, there’s so much room for variation in the archetype that it would be more accurate to say that it’s a rare thing for two to even resemble each other. And yet, this rarely seems to be the case in practice.

It would be uncharitable to suggest a lack of imagination, and this phenomenon is spread across entirely too many individuals, in any case, for that to be the cause. Having considered the question for a while, I have reached the conclusion that the lure of the classical image, the cardboard cut-out, is simply so ubiquitous that the possibility of an alternative has simply never occurred to people. The imagination was there, it simply wasn’t switched on and turned in this direction.

The Differential Encounters are, hopefully, going to change all that.

The first part of this series analyzed the modern priest archetype, identified elements that representatives of that archetype have in common, and along the way considered how to employ casual encounters to enhance and reveal the character’s basic role in a campaign. It also found a lot of frequently untapped room for variations on the ‘standard model’.

In the second part, I built on those foundations and took a closer look at the variations that were possible, and how to devise and utilize casual encounters based on their distinctiveness.

Part Three listed no less than 44 encounters, including one epic with 11+ connected subplots, that derived from and highlighted the commonalities.

This final part will present even more mini-encounters, these deriving from the differences that distinguish one example of the archetype from another.

The Differential Encounters

It’s extremely difficult to create an encounter celebrating a point of individual distinctiveness without knowing what those differences are. So, at times, the following encounters may be a little on the vague side, and the list will certainly be incomplete. More than a list of actual encounters, these are going to more often be encounter templates, with some work still to be done to integrate the encounter with any specific Priest character.

Variations In Theology & Doctrine

These basically occur when a group or an individual is expecting a Priest of one Theology or Doctrine and they get the PC instead, whose Theology or Doctrine is subtly or wildly different. There are seven encounter sub-types within this general pattern: Public Expectations, Expected Differences, Theological Expectations, Comparative Theology, Lethal Force?, Confessor, and Services.

45. Public Expectations: Memory Lingers On

The general public expects their priests to behave in a certain way. This type of encounter functions by highlighting the fact that this priest doesn’t have to, or perhaps even is required not to behave in that way.

“Memory Lingers On” is an encounter that will be valid for just about any time period. A parishioner who was on what is now considered “the wrong side” of a conflict five, ten or twenty years earlier has that past catch up with him, and the Priest becomes involved. This encounter was largely inspired by “Blown Away”, in which the ‘Parishioner’ was an ex-IRA bomb-maker played by Jeff Bridges, but this encounter should be a lot more low-key than that rather explosive confrontation! The key to employing this encounter to highlight the differences between the Priest character and any other Priest is to determine exactly what the parishioner expects the priest to do, and how the Priest Character’s response is likely to differ from that. It’s the equivalent of hiring a go-between and getting an Action Hero instead.

And, speaking of go-betweens:

46. Public Expectations: The Negotiator

This encounter only works in a more modern setting. A gunman takes the customers in a supermarket hostage. He doesn’t trust the police and demands to negotiate face-to-face with a Priest. Guess who gets the call?

To make this encounter work, you need to understand the hostage-taker, his background, his motive for taking the hostages, and his reasons for not trusting the Police – and for trusting a Priest. How the encounter proceeds will largely depend on these variables. It could be anything from a man whose guilty conscience is forcing him into a suicide-by-cop, and who wants the Priest to hear his confession before he goes out in a blaze of glory, to a man who has been framed for a crime by a member of the police force. Whatever those circumstances, its a sure bet that everyone is going to get more than they bargained for in this encounter.

47. Public Expectations: Pillar Of The Community

A con-man decides that the easiest way to work his scam on a large number of people at once is to persuade their priest to endorse him. The target can either be the Priest Character, or another Priest who then turns to the Priest Character for advice when he begins to grow suspicious. Either way, once again, someone is going to get more than they expected.

48. Public Expectations: Sack-cloth and Ashes

Corruption and scandal are nothing new to The Church, just like any other human agency or organization. But when a case of corruption or a scandal involving a member of the clergy comes to this Priest’s attention, expect more to happen than a cautiously-worded letter to the Bishop…

49. Expected Differences: The Day Of The Dead

Encounters labeled “Expected Differences” describe situations where the Priest is expected to behave in a different way because of his adventuring reputation but instead shows himself to be a man of the cloth first and an adventurer second. They are very difficult to craft because they rely on accurately forecasting the player’s reaction to unusual circumstances, and identifying a situation in which they will follow doctrine and not some (unrealistic?) expected behavior. It gets even trickier: having identified such a situation, it is then necessary to determine the expectation and how, if the Priest were to follow that pattern of behavior, it benefits whoever holds that expectation.

Once a year, on the Day Of The Dead, families gather to remember those who have died in the past year. It is said (in the game) that if a loved one is expected to participate but fails to show up, the deceased may be raised as a Zombie by Voodoo witchcraft; by serving the summoner, the Zombie earns the Voodoo Priest or Priestess’ aid in finding their missing relative. If not raised by a Priest or Priestess, the dead may sometimes rise of their own accord and seek out the places where they last lived in search of their “missing” family. Each year, the resurrected dead become harder for whoever summoner to control them; if no progress is made in a decade, they may break free and become a terror on the streets. Alternatively, if the Priest or Priestess locates and cares for the family, the Zombie may become a devoted servant for the lifetime of his immediate descendants. A Voodoo Priestess asks for the assistance of the Priest in finding the family of one such servant, expecting that the Priest will be able to set aside his theological straitjacket and perceive that a lifetime of service by the Zombie is a reasonable fee for her protection of the Zombie’s daughter. This fails to take into account the “bigger picture” from the standpoint of most catholic religions, which would consider this Black Magic (at the very least), and denying the soul of the deceased his rightful place in heaven – or his deserved punishment in Hell. Either way, it’s wrong; the fact that you can keep a monster tamed and leashed for a decade doesn’t make it any less of a monster. And that’s assuming honorable intentions on the part of the Priest or Priestess – which may be assuming entirely too much. Especially since this particular Priest or Priestess has failed to keep their end of the bargain out of laziness or self-interest.

NB: This is probably too big an idea to be resolved in a single encounter; I would use it as the basis of a whole adventure for all the PCs.

50. Theological Expectations: The Weeping Angel

The “Theological Expectations” branch of encounters all revolve around the differences between being a ghost-hunter or enemy of the supernatural and being an ordinary priest, especially in the provinces of theology and doctrine. As such, they can be considered “Public expectation” encounters with a supernatural twist.

The example of this type of encounter that I have chosen is “The Weeping Angel”. A devout family have, in their garden, a statue of an Angel, which unexpectedly begins weeping tears of blood. This blood is reported to perform miraculous cures when the faithful are anointed by it. The local Priest contacts his superiors, unsure what to make of the situation; they, turn, dispatch the Priest Character to investigate the claim. The encounter begins when the Priest character arrives to do so.

From the moment he arrives, the Priest character begins to suspect that there’s something not right about the entire situation. The model who posed for the statue is a deceased local beauty with an unsavory reputation but who supposedly recanted on her deathbed; the locals believe that the tears are her spirit’s attempt to make restitution to those she harmed in life. Those “cured” by the angel have become holier-than-thou evangelists, stoning those who are not pious enough, torturing “sinners” for “confessions”, etc – all by night and in secret; by day, they are simply very pious. The faith of those “blessed” by the angel is being twisted into something that is the very antithesis of what the Church is supposed to represent. The wings of the angel appear to be fresher plaster than the rest of the statue, a later addition, which should lead the Priest character to suspect fraud – but when his concerns become known, the “Order Of The Angel” target him for “Purification”. Stripping away part of the angel wings reveals, underneath, a set of bat wings; rather than being a Holy artifact, this is an Unholy artifact, and the woman who “recanted her evil ways” was actually the leader of a Coven who cursed the statue exactly 666 days before it began “weeping”.

Once again, this is probably too big to be contained in a single encounter; while it might start off being a solo gig for the Priest character, it should not be too long before he calls in the rest of his fellow adventurers.

51. Comparative Theology: The Bronze Tiger

This branch of the encounter set describes situations in which a priest of a different faith is expected or required, but gets our Priestly protagonist instead, who must use his skills and wit to fit himself (a square peg) into someone else’s shoes (a round hole).

My example encounter begins with a charity street stall run by the church with which the protagonist is affiliated, selling donated goods to raise money for some worthwhile benefit. Some of the items have been provided by a parishioner from a deceased estate – one of his tenants, an old Asian man, who died with no next of kin and left his possessions to his landlord and friend. Not wanting to profit from his friend’s estate, he kept one or two items of sentimental value and donated the rest, including a tiger mask made of bronze that’s been giving our protagonist bad vibes all day.

The sale is going well, and the protagonist has just sold the bronze mask to a woman who thinks it will make a terrific wall hanging, when half-a-dozen martial artists come out of nowhere and confront her, shouting, “She has the mask! Get Her” Our protagonist must act quickly to drive them off. Because he is badly outnumbered, though, he is about to lose the fight when the woman reveals herself to be a martial artist, and joins forces with him to win the day. Most of the attackers flee, though one is left behind, unconscious or disabled in some way.

Of course, it’s way too big a coincidence that the purchaser ‘just happened’ to be an expert in martial arts, so when the woman offers such a story, it probably won’t go over too well. As soon as she sees any sign of suspicion in the protagonist, she will turn on him, stun him, and flee with the mask, doing whatever she has to do (including putting bystanders in danger) to get away.

That leaves the protagonist to question the martial artist left behind – but he will not trust the Priest because the Priest is not a member of his faith. The protagonist will have to be persuasive. If he is sufficiently convincing, the captured martial artist will tell him the following story:

He belongs to a monastery, a sect which had been entrusted with the guardianship of the Bronze Tiger, an ancient totem able to gift the wearer with great power, only to be used under certain very select circumstances. [The exact location of this sect’s temple is left to the GM – I would suggest Korea or Vietnam because the conflicts in those regions will help explain what happens next].

A generation ago, the sect came under the control of a leader who attempted to interpret and even manipulate circumstances to justify his use of the power of the mask. [Defending his homeland/the temple during the conflict being the possible ‘circumstances’ that tie in with the conflicts mentioned earlier].

He could fool himself, he could fool his subordinates, but he could not fool the gods, and far from granting the powers of the mask to the infidel, they stripped him of his power and left him as weak and feeble-minded as a newborn babe. When the other members of the sect discovered what had happened, they also learned that the Mask had been stolen by the only member who had dared to denounce the activities of the fallen leader to his face. Unfortunately, the weakness of the disgraced leader passed quickly, and he and his wife and young daughter were driven out of the temple. None of the warriors of the sect knew what became of them after that.

Because the members of the sect had failed in their trust, they set out to track down the mask and protect it while never claiming it for themselves, watching over it as the decades passed, in hopes of one day redeeming themselves and regaining their sacred trust. Eventually they traced the wandering mask-thief to the United States [or wherever the adventure so far has taken place] and begin their guardianship. From time to time, the thief would discover that they were nearby and would flee, covering his tracks as best he could, not trusting their intentions. In due course, he passed away and his possessions – including the mask – were donated to the Church of the protagonist. Where, somehow, the daughter of the disgraced leader spotted it, or was drawn to it somehow – and bought it. The sect could not permit it to fall back into the hands of one so besmirched in character, and so they intervened – but the protagonist misinterpreted their actions, and now the mask is gone.

All of which leaves the Protagonist leading a bunch of martial artists to recover a sacred relic from another religion. And doesn’t say anything about how much of the story told by the captive is truth. The GM can, consequently, take this mini-adventure in a number of different directions. He can keep it small, or expand it into a complete adventure for the whole group of PCs.

52. Lethal Force?: Pushed To The Limit

Means, motive, Opportunity, and Aftermath are what this category are all about. Means: you need to find a way to put a lethal weapon into the hands of the Priestly protagonist. Motive: You need to give him a reason to consider using lethal force, without making it his only option. Opportunity: you then put the Priest and his antagonist into a confrontation and see what choices the character makes. Aftermath: you need to deal with the fallout, no matter what the Priest decides; if you have done the set-up right, someone should be upset with him over his choice, regardless of what it was.

You may have noticed that I didn’t include a Resolution section. That’s because there are likely to be several. There’s the public perception of the character. There’s the official, legal, resolution of the decision, especially if the character chose to employ lethal force. There may be resolution of a subsequent confrontation with the family of the slain (if the Priest used lethal force) or the victims of the not-slain (if the Priest did not). There’s resolution of the the professional reaction of his superiors. There’s the reaction of the character’s friends and associates – some of whom should probably mirror each of these other points of view. And, finally, there’s the fallout of the Priest second-guessing himself and deciding whether or not to do the same thing in any future, similar, circumstances.

53. Lethal Force?: Accidental Bystander

The second variety of encounter that comes under the Lethal Force category is the accidental application of lethal force to a bystander. There are lots of different ways this could develop, but they come down to combinations of two simpler factors:

1. Innocent or not so innocent? – Sometimes the “innocent” turns out not to be so, especially in more modern adventures. This is not often the case in Pulp adventures, though it could be worked that way with a little more finessing of the plotline.
2. Culpable or not so culpable? – The other variable is whether or not the Priest was actually responsible for the lethal force killing or injuring the “innocent”. Sometimes appearances can be deceptive, and the character himself might not actually be sure.

The structure of the encounter itself is exactly the same as that of “Pushed To The Limit” (above): Means, Motive, Opportunity, Aftermath, and Resolutions. The “Accidental Bystander” is a complication that occurs either during the Opportunity phase, in which the protagonist and antagonist confront each other, or in which an accidental bystander is discovered to have been involved in the aftermath. The latter is more true to life in modern encounters, where stray bullets can easily penetrate brick walls and even metal bathtubs; the former works better in a simpler era, such as that of a pulp campaign.

54. Confessor: The Heist

There are very firm restrictions about what a Priest can do about a Confession. The privacy of the Confessional is sacrosanct, even if not legally protected in the same way as attorney-client or patient-doctor privilege. The priest can’t hint, can’t speculate, can’t report anything that he’s been told in the confessional, even anonymously, under any circumstances. One exception: without naming names or being specific, he can seek guidance on what he should advise the person who has made the confession to do from his superiors and may discuss the confession in general terms – no specifics – with fellow priests, who are bound by the same doctrine to remain silent outside the clergy. He can’t even confront the individual who has confessed and try to talk him out of it; he has to maintain the appearance of a veil of ignorance, even if it isn’t really there.

That puts the Priest in a very interesting situation when someone confesses intent to commit a crime, or desire/intent to have an affair, or just about any other form of taboo behavior – at least it does when the Priest is a PC in a roleplaying game. There is nothing in the doctrine that prevents the Priest from personal intervention! He just has to be careful what he says and does so as not to reveal the source of his knowledge. Even if the criminal later admits to confiding in the Priest in the confessional, the Priest’s vow of secrecy is not lifted or broken – he can’t talk about it.

He can’t tell the authorities “be at this specific place at this specific time”. Even without telling them why, it’s presumed to be obvious that this information derives from a Sinner’s confession-in-advance. He can’t even ask leading questions that might lead the authorities to act in a way that would prevent the crime. He CAN show up in person and try to stop it, or at least to make sure that no-one gets hurt.

In real life, though, doing so would leave the Priest open to charges as an accessory to the crime, and possibly charges of Conspiracy. But this isn’t real life, it’s an Adventure RPG…

Which brings me to the example encounter, “The Heist”. This is a six-encounter mini-adventure, but could easily be expanded as the backbone of a full-group adventure. In part one, a criminal confesses to the priest that he and some friends are planning to rob the payroll of a business somewhere in town when it is delivered. In theory, the Priest doesn’t know who is in the confessional; in practice, he might recognize the voice, or the aftershave, or have seen the person waiting to enter the confessional. The criminal may even have offered his name during the confession, or given his job title, or stated that he worked for the company that is to be robbed. In other words, the Priest has some idea of who the criminal is, or even knows for certain.

In part two, the Priest must contrive some innocent and legitimate reason for him to be in the place where the robbery is to occur and at the time, without giving any hint as to why, or that anything unusual is going to happen. Which can be trickier than it seems, depending on the target.

In Part three, having justified his presence, the Priest intervenes in the robbery. He must then withstand questioning by the police.

In Part four, after the criminals responsible have been captured, the Priest has to give evidence at their trial. The lawyer defending the criminals has been told that one confessed their plans to the Priest, and without admitting his clients’ guilt probes deeply into why the Priest was there, casting aspersions on his character to weaken his testimony. The vow to protect the sanctity of the confessional makes it look as though the Priest has something to hide (he does) but he can’t even admit that he is protecting that sanctity. It’s entirely possible that the criminals will get off with a lighter or even a suspended sentence as a result.

In Part five, the priest has to defend his actions and choices in an ecclesiastic court that has been triggered by the veiled hints and accusations leveled in the trial (and subsequent newspaper stories).

Finally, in Part six, the Priest must confront the criminal and explain his actions. Ideally, this will run along the lines of “you’ve been given a second chance, don’t waste it”, or “I tried to give you a second chance”.

There are some interesting conflicts-of-interest inherent to this plot. The main thing to remember is that the Priest has to focus on the Big Picture. If you assume that the Priest really is saving the soul of his parishioners by hearing their confessions – an assumption that the Priest has to make – then his first obligation has to be to protect the ability of the church to do this. That’s why the confessional seal is sacrosanct, and why the Priest is so limited in what he can do; he is protecting the capacity of the church to save the souls of everyone who might choose NOT to confess if their confession could be compelled as evidence against them. Next, he is attempting to save the soul of the actual confessor, and the lives of bystanders. Third, he is attempting to perform his civic duty while navigating an extremely restricted set of choices. And lastly, he is trying to save the lives of his parishioner, who came to him to confess – and who is therefore not all bad; he has a conscience. Its these behind-the-scenes imperatives and the conflicts-of-interest amongst them that are at the heart of this plotline.

55. Confessor: The Deathbed

In this ‘Confessor’ plotline, the Priest receives a letter from an inmate on death row who has chosen his name at random from the telephone directory (or wherever, if that’s not appropriate to the campaign setting). The criminal wants to confess certain things to the authorities, but needs to use the priest as a go-between to ensure that certain things he does not want to become known are protected. He is willing to confess those things to the Priest, however, so as to unburden his soul.

The Priest has very little choice but to agree to the terms under the circumstances. The Criminal then confides to the priest that he had a partner, and that this partner now cares for a number of children, and that his conditions are to protect the children and the partner. But he has “found God” to a sufficient extent that he wants to end the suffering of the families of the victims. He then confesses to a series of kidnappings and killings for which he has never stood trial, giving dates, details, and descriptions of where the bodies were concealed. This puts the whole burden onto the shoulders of the Priest. Part of what he has been told was protected by the sanctity of the confessional, and part he is not only free but required to reveal to the authorities. The Priest is bound by oath to protect the “sealed” parts of the conversation and he is honor-bound to respect the conditions which distinguish between the two, even though the conversation did not explicitly distinguish between the two. It’s a fine line, with a minefield to either side, and the Priest has just been required to tap-dance on it…

56. Confessor: The Infidelity

There is a cause that is near and dear to the Priest’s heart (NB: a separate casual encounter or two may be needed to establish this cause and the Priest’s relationship to it). One of the most prominent supporters is a businessman & his wife in the Priest’s parish; without his support, the cause may wither and die. In the confessional one day, another of his parishioners confesses to having an extra-marital affair with the businessman. She is pressing the businessman to leave his wife and seek a divorce. The priest knows that this will devastate the cause, probably ending the support of one or both, and almost certainly ending their ability to support it even if they still wanted to.

This rough outline puts the Priest’s personal goals in conflict with his oath as a Priest. If the Priest is Roman Catholic, divorce is not permitted by the church – so the businessman would be expelled from the church, adding an extra complication. He now has to figure out how best to protect both cause and his parishioners…

57. Confessor: Unwanted Attractions

In the confessional, a young woman/teen-aged girl confesses that she has been having lewd and lustful thoughts towards someone that it is inappropriate for her to have a relationship with, and is not sure how long she will be able to control herself. If an inappropriate relationship begins between the girl and the object of her affections, and is subsequently discovered, it will almost certainly ruin the life and career of the man. If the priest is an Anglican, i.e. permitted to marry, HE may even be`the subject of affection. The priest has to cope with the situation, and try to defuse it.

58. Confessor: One Hand Washes the other

A crusading public figure comes to the priest, having deliberately chosen him because he is outside of the public figure’s constituency, and reveals that he subsequently discovered that the vote which elected him was rigged, and that he is now being blackmailed with the knowledge. So far, he has only had to make minor compromises to protect that knowledge, but the day is surely coming when he will be forced to do something more serious. He needs the priest to solve the problem, without revealing the scandal, before it’s too late.

59: Services: The Rogue Priest

The Priest is asked by a friend, who is the Priest of a neighboring parish, and who has fallen ill, to conduct Services for him until he recovers. When he does so, he finds that his friend has been working on the very fringes of acceptable behavior for a Priest of the faith – blackmailing his parishioners into performing good deeds, extorting donations to charity, etc. Then his friend vanishes, and it is discovered that a lot of “donated” money earmarked for charity has also disappeared…

There are three ways to play this encounter:

• In the first, the Rogue Priest has fallen into temptation and succumbed to it;
• in the second, he has fallen victim to a Confessor plotline and has vanished in order to pursue and recover the money. He couldn’t tell the protagonist anything about it without breaking the confessional seal – but he could arrange legitimate and apparently innocent circumstances that place the protagonist in position to act as his backup, should his intervention go horribly wrong; his apparent complicity in the events is the result of a clever frame;
• In the third, the Rogue Priest has been blackmailed over an incident in his life before he joined the seminary and has set out to confront the blackmailer, leaving protagonist to act as his backup.

Personally, I find options two and three to be the more interesting in terms of action, and they permit the protagonist to retain his confidence in his judgment of the character of his friend, despite appearances. The first is interesting only insofar as it shows the protagonist to have made a mistake in that judgment, and which gives the player an opportunity to explore the Priest’s reaction to the discovery of that flaw. On it’s own, that’s not strong enough to sustain a lot of interest; but if it were to be coupled with, and serve as a prelude to, another adventure in which the Priest then had to make a character assessment, it could be rather more significant.

60: Services: Prelude To An Adventure

The protagonist is asked to write and deliver a sermon on a particular subject. Who is doing the asking doesn’t much matter, s long as the character says yes. It should be made clear by the GM that the player is expected to write, and have his character deliver, the sermon at some near-future point in the game. Depending on the abilities and opinions of the player, this can be either a simple subject or something more difficult.

In the following adventure, the protagonist gives the sermon that he has written. In the course of the adventure that follows, he discovers that the subject matter of the sermon is directly related to the subject of the adventure, and that the whole purpose of the encounter (at a metagame level) was to establish the moral background of the adventure itself, the context within which PC decisions of what is right and wrong will have to be made.

In other words: the GMs decide what the adventure-after-next is going to be, and get the character to frame the moral questions posed in the course of that adventure for them, without realizing that he is defining his character’s attitude to the moral questions that are going to be posed.

Variations In Faith

These apply when a Priest character is of a faith other than Catholic. With so many possibilities to choose from, it’s impossible to get too specific. The purpose of these encounters is to highlight the differences between the faith of the protagonist and that of a more stereotypical Catholic Priest; the best way to achieve that purpose is simply to consider the many encounter/mini-adventures offered in other sections and note any which would proceed significantly differently because of the differences in faith, and how those encounters would then have to be modified to keep them interesting & entertaining.

To explore a variation in Faith, think about how that variation impacts plots designed around the stereotype.

One insight worth offering under this heading comes from The West Wing, comparing Anglican and Catholic faiths: “Catholics believe that faith alone is not enough, that it must be accompanied by good works”.

60a: Prelude To An Adventure (Variant)

A good example would be the one just offered, “Prelude to an adventure”. If the character was a spiritual leader from a completely different faith – for example, a Tibetan Monk, or a Native American Medicine Man, sermons are not part of their normal religious practices. But if the topic was one where there was some commonality of interest, for example Caring For Children or Responsibility For One’s Actions, it is not out of the question for an interfaith sermon to be of interest.

This would work especially well if the public perception of opinions on a subject differed markedly from the actual precepts of the other faith – the NPC doing the asking expects a sermon built around the former and is surprised to get one from the perspective of the latter.

Variations In Ethnicity

At first glance, it might seem that this encounter category would suffer from the same problems as Variations In Faith. That turns out to be only half-true.

In terms of differences between one specific variation in Ethnicity, it remains the case; but a surprising number of encounters can be derived simply by thinking about variations in Ethnicity generically, and those are what this section is going to focus on.

61. Ethnicity: A Fish Out Of Water

This general encounter puts the character into a situation in which their character stands out by reason of the difference in ethnicity. It could be a Caucasian dealing with a tribe of New Guinea natives, or a Scottish Priest dealing with a Welsh community, or an Ethiopian in an Tibetan Monastery, or even a Black preacher in the American Deep South. Central to making this type of encounter work is that events have to focus on the local ethnicity, the inherent attitudes and expectations that come with that territory, and the way in which the ethnicity of the character violates those expectations.

But it also works quite well in terms of an unusual ethnicity in a predominantly and typically Caucasian setting, such as a Priest from Louisiana visiting London.

It doesn’t have to be a big plot point; a minor encounter that simply reminds the players that the Priest is also of Ethnicity X is enough, in other words, that that there is more to the character than his Priestly Collar.

62. Ethnicity: A Character at home

The opposite also works well – placing events in the ethnic quarter to which the character is native. Nothing emphasizes more strongly that a Priest is also Italian than having the PCs venture into Little Italy, where the protagonist can be an Italian first and a Priest second.

63. Ethnicity: Ethnic Sub-currents

Because of their shared ethnicity, a character of variant ethnic group is going to told things by members of that ethnic group that they might never tell a stranger. Is resentment brewing because of a perceived bias on the part of the city council against the ethnic minority? Is there unrest on the docks? Are the police in Manhattan growing frustrated over their inability to catch a cat-burglar? For the first, a member of that minority serves as a conduit to introduce the PCs to the adventure; for the second, an Eastern European; and for the third, an Irishman, or Irish American.

Look at where an adventure is taking place. Look at the ethnic groups around who might have noticed whatever is going on. Look for a match amongst the PCs – in this case, the Priest. Use that common ethnic heritage as a way to connect a character with awareness of the events; the result is a far more natural segue into the adventure than an outside source.

64. Ethnicity: Ethnic Surprises

Every culture, every ethnic group, has something about it which is different to the mainstream. Try to identify those cultural surprises and create an “encounter” in which the Priestly Protagonist springs or demonstrates that cultural surprise to the other PCs – or, at least, to the other players. Is there a particular holiday or religious observance, for example, that is not recognized outside of the ethnic group?

Research is the key to formulating these encounters. The more you know about the reality, especially in specifics and not generalities, the more you can integrate them into little side-encounters.

In particular: who did the ethnic group have a beef with when the character was a child? Who are their traditional sporting rivals? What is their most popular sport?

My favorite example is the Mexican Siesta. For an hour or two, not only does virtually nothing happen, but everyone expects nothing to happen. You might work through a siesta period if you had to, but it’s like working through to 9PM in a desk job – you’re either overenthusiastic, even driven, or you’re desperate.

65. Ethnicity: Cross-Cultural Connections

Sometimes, ethnicity matters when you’re creating an NPC. At other times, the NPC can be from virtually anywhere. When deciding what Ethnicity to make such NPCs in the Adventurer’s Club Campaign, Blair and I have a clear order of priority.

1. Emphasize where the characters are in the world.
2. Emphasize any ethic group that are important to the plotline.
3. Pick an ethnic group that will provoke a reaction or attitude from a PC that is interesting, or opposed to the general attitude that we want the NPC to engender, or that will guide those attitudes in a particular direction if the majority of the PCs in general will have no fixed opinions.
4. Same as (1) or (2).
5. The other choice from (4).
6. A member of an ethnic group with a strong opinion or attitude towards some group involved in the adventure. The more overtly prejudiced and objectionable the behavior of this character, the more the players will adopt a contrary opinion on the subject; use this to steer the adventure.
7. A member of an ethnic group with a strong reaction to one of the PCs.
8. Something unusual.
9. Repeat from the top.

The first such NPC will have an ethnicity chosen for criteria #1, the second will be #2, and so on. If we feel that any given point is not going to be emphasized enough, we may throw in a second successive example.

A great example is the attitude of Australians toward the Turkish, which results from the battle at Gallipoli. These events are considered pivotal in the emergence of awareness as individual nations by both Australia and New Zealand, and are commemorated every year. Even though the Turkish people were enemies on that battlefield, the respect demonstrated by the Turkish Forces post-war toward the Allied casualties has cemented a much closer relationship and mutual friendship than is usual amongst opposing sides in a past conflict. A Turk can visit Australia and say “My grandfather fought at Gallipoli” and be accorded a level of respect and friendship equal to that accorded to a local Veteran of that conflict. This relationship can form a subtext between a Turkish NPC and an Australian PC that lends weight and significance to an encounter, whether that encounter is trivial or substantial in terms of the overall adventure.

66. Ethnicity: Caught In The Middle

Ethnic and National identities can lead to problems when there are conflicts. During the War in Bosnia, for example, there were clashes and antipathy between Serbian and Croatian ethnic groups here in Sydney. These still flare up, in a more dignified way, when the two sides confront each other in the World Cup. Both sides will barrack for the Australian team against anyone else, though!

Being an adventurer usually lends perspective to events that participants will not achieve until many years afterwards. It follows that if a nation with whom an Adventurer identifies due to his ethnicity goes to war for the wrong reasons, that adventurer can very much be caught in the middle of events, subject to conflicting ideals and ethnic loyalties. The character becomes a focal point for the conflict. The situation is not dissimilar to that experienced by German-Americans and Japanese-Americans during World War II. While the majority supported their adopted country, while sympathizing with the people of their former country, some were more clearly torn between the two loyalties – and, at least in the case of the German-Americans, some clearly chose ethnic loyalty and ethnic ideology over the principles of their adopted country and became pro-German agents.

The Adventurer’s Club PCs include two Australians, a Canadian, and a Boston-born American, and predominantly takes place in the USA. The next conflict for those countries is World War II, with Australia and Canada both entering the war as soon as it is declared by Britain – while America was still firmly isolationist in mindset. While that is a number of years removed from the current campaign date, things would get very interesting for the PCs when war actually breaks out. (Things would have been even more interesting if a former PC, an Italian-American, was still around!)

Because the American character is played by an Australian, and one with the perspective of history, the character is anti-isolationism, and has participated in a number of adventures in which the Nazis were bad guys (if not “the” bad guys). So far, that hasn’t made him a target for pro-isolationist factions or even hostile encounters with pro-isolationists – but that time will come. How will he react to being labeled a “Warmonger”?

Variations In Culture

It’s not enough to say “Irish” a lot of the time – you need to qualify the label with “Northern” or “Southern”. The people of Kentucky share many values with the people of Boston – but there are significant differences, too. And let’s not even mention the political differences between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

The citizens of a coastal Brazilian city like Rio de Janeiro are going to be very different to the inhabitants of a tiny inland village like Nova Xavantina.

These are all distinctions that can be useful to the GM and can be exploited through encounters to further define and characterize the Priest – because he’s either going to be the product of his environment, or an exception to it. Either permits cultural variation to be the foundations for an encounter.

Variations In Role

These are pretty much all fish-out-of-water concepts, in which the individual character is poor at something that he would normally be considered to excel at due to his occupation as a Priest. For example, a Priest may have a problem speaking to large crowds manifesting as a stutter; this would be no handicap to his being the spiritual leader of a small community, or an administrator within a larger community; it would mean that he was not going to be doing much public speaking on behalf of the group of adventurers, however. This sort of encounter would then include circumstances which have forced the reticent communicator to give a public speech.

It follows that while the occasional circumstance or encounter of this type may have comedic value, and remind the group of the idiosyncrasies of the PC, they have a remarkably limited potential beyond this circumstance and should be held in reserve for the times when they will make a substantial contribution to a plotline.

67. Enemy Of The Supernatural: Mr Fixit

There are potential exceptions, however. For example, if the logic of the “clean-up/cover-up” aspects of the “enemy of the supernatural” role is accepted (refer to part one of this series-within-a-series), you could have an encounter in which another priest has already done the “fighting the supernatural” part of the job, but has botched the cover-up – and the protagonist could be sent in to troubleshoot the problem.

Variations In Personality

The ultimate expression of individuality rests in the personality of the individual. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? It gets a lot more complicated when someone other than the GM is deciding what that personality is, however. There are two obvious approaches: in the first, the player advises the GM that they have an aspect of the Priest’s personality that they would like to explore, and in the second, the GM puts the character on the spot – having forewarned the player that he will need to have decided where the Priest stands on some issue of substance; this gives the player the chance to define the Priest’s personality, rather than putting on a display. Which you choose will depend on the player and the GM involved; in general, I recommend an emphasis on the latter approach over the former, but it’s not always possible.

68. Personality: Temptations

How does the character handle being tempted by something? What tempts him? What are his vices, and how strongly does he pursue them?

There’s a lot of ground for creativity here. For example, consider the temptation of Greed. The character can be offered a bribe to do something.

Interesting, but hardly earth-shattering. The GMs would expect most Priests to turn such an offer down without skipping a beat. So let’s increase the bribe, and make it indirect – “I will give $1000 a year to the charity of your choice if you…” “It looks like the church could use a new roof – you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours…” “I know where [reputed bad group] meets, but can’t do anything about it officially because there is not enough evidence. But you aren’t bound by the needs of due process. Just do me this favor and I’ll tell you…”

Now, those are interesting!

69. Personality: Opinions on Controversies

There are always controversies – any place, any time. You can always get good mileage out of forcing a character to state an opinion on one of them, especially if its a subject the character is supposed to know about because of his occupation, and then demanding that the character explain his position.

Additional value can often be found by leveraging the player’s privileged position of historical outcomes. Asking a PC in the 1930s what his opinion is of the cheap tenement housing proposed for a neighborhood, for example – either the character takes the contemporarily-popular position (cheap, affordable, housing) – or he “foresees” the degeneration of the neighborhood into slums and opposes them.

This series is all about Priests – so take a look back at the list of religious controversies offered in Part one of this series. Make one of them relevant to a plotline or to a key character in a plotline – and thereby force the character into taking a stand on the issue, a stand that someone is sure to challenge.

70. Personality: Opinions on Politics

People get asked their opinion on politics all the time. In bars. By neighbors. By the press. By statisticians (in the modern era). By friends. In casual conversations. By their parishioners.

Sure, the character can equivocate – sometimes. But try asking the player who the character is thinking of voting for at the next election…

The GM should be careful not to let his own opinions on political matters color the encounter. Doing so tends to make the discussion too personal, and the GMs too ready to argue the point with anyone who disagrees (either as a player or in character).

71. Personality: Opinions on Society

Similarly, there are ALWAYS social problems and Priests are ALWAYS expected to have an opinion on them. Often, they see the consequences of these problems first-hand – so there’s a casual encounter in its own right, one that sets up a second, when the question gets asked.

The same caveat about personal opinions applies here, too.

72. Personality: Hobbies & Interests

Finally, what are the Priest’s hobbies and interests? Players often have a lot of trouble coming up with these even given advance notice – a far better approach is to have the character encounter a hobby and the GMs then asking how interesting the character finds it. There are lists of hobbies out there – search Google for “list of indoor hobbies”, “list of outdoor activities”, and so on. Pick something, read up a little bit on it, and then offer the character the chance to get interested in that activity. That’s several hundred casual encounters right then and there!

The Beacon of Hope: The Conclusion

Priest characters have a unique position to occupy in any game, but that uniqueness is a only a potential asset to the GM. For it to materialize, the GM has to provide opportunities for it to manifest in both plot-significant and trivial ways. What they ultimately offer is an opportunity for Roleplay, for the character both to express their individuality and to reflect the circumstances that come with their Vestments. In some campaigns, they offer a window to an Ultimate Power and Moral Authority; in others, they embody human ideals in an all-too-human and flawed container. The Priest character can and should be the sum of all these things, but all too often they are tragically under-utilized as just another generic participant in the adventure of the week. Revel in their uniqueness and the only complaint will be a demand from other players that you do the same for them. The game can only profit from your doing so.

About the Casual Opportunities series:

This series seeks to offer opportunities for PCs to reflect their primary role within a campaign. Opportunities for heroes to be heroes, for villains to be villains, for geeks to be geeks.

It’s easy to become so focused on the primary plot, or on the things that the PCs are contributing to it, that it’s easy to overlook these touchstones that remind players of who their characters really are when the chips are down. Each part will focus on one particular character archetype, examining it in detail.

I found out with the first entry in this series that they are just too big to write as a single article. In some cases, they may need to be split into three or even four sub-parts. These may appear in bursts, or other articles may appear in between – because I tend not to be able to write too far ahead.

The series itself is be an irregular one, appearing every now and then – and will eventually cover all genres. I intend to cover D&D/Pathfinder, Pulp, Superhero, Sci-fi, and anything else that comes to mind along the way – all in no particular order. In fact, I’m going to deliberately mix it up!

So far, we’ve had D&D/Pathfinder and Pulp/Modern – so next time, something Sci-Fi seems to be in order.