The Gnome Who Died to a Door
Let me tell you about the shortest heroic career in the history of my gaming table. It lasted eleven minutes. It ended with a door.
Back when I was a younger and dumber Dungeon Master, a friend rolled up a gnome fighter named Thorgrim Skullsplitter. Thorgrim stood about three feet tall. His battle axe was nearly as long as he was, and he had to drag it behind him like a kid hauling a Christmas tree. He gave a speech at the dungeon entrance about glory, honor, and the blood of his enemies. The rest of the party nodded politely. The cleric looked a little worried.
Then Thorgrim charged the first door.
Here is what I had not planned for: the door was stuck. Thorgrim hit it at a dead run, bounced off, rolled a natural 1 on the Athletics check, and the door swung open at exactly the wrong moment to knock him flat. There was a trap behind it. It went off. Thorgrim, who had not yet been introduced to a single monster, was down to zero hit points.
The table lost it. I mean the kind of laughing where someone has to leave the room.
And then my friend did something I will never forget. He didn’t sulk. He didn’t ask for a do-over. He looked up and said, very seriously, “Tell my story.”
The party hauled Thorgrim out of there by his boots. The cleric stabilized him. He spent the next two sessions as a legend in his own mind, telling anyone who would listen that the door had cheated. Two levels later, he held a hallway against a pack of ghouls by being too small to hit with half their attacks, and every one of us cheered like it was the Super Bowl.
That’s the thing I love about the underdog. Nobody expects a thing from the gnome. So when he finally gets up, the whole room gets up with him.
I have been running games four nights a week for a long time, and I’ll tell you what I’ve learned. The mighty half-orc barbarian with the 20 Strength is fun, sure. But he’s never the character people talk about at the next session. They talk about Thorgrim. They talk about the door.
So here’s my advice if you’re sitting down to roll a character this weekend. Pick the one that’s slightly wrong. Pick the one who is too short, too clumsy, too nervous, too bookish. Give him a big speech and a bigger heart. Then let the dice do what they do.
If he dies to a door, congratulations. You’ve made a legend.
And for the record, Thorgrim got a heroic burial. The door was named in his honor. I still say it was a legitimate trap.
Terry Neil lives in Northern Wisconsin, games four nights a week, and shares his home with a German shepherd named Coog. Meet Terry.
