The picture above is the unpainted HeroForge Custom Mini I have for my new character: Cridder.

Last night I started a new D&D campaign as a player this time. At long last I am back on the other side of the DM screen. Don’t get me wrong. I love being a DM, but it’s always been a goal of mine to be a player with a role-playing focus.

Enter Cridder, the gnome hermit who has grown up on his own in the wilderness. He’s incredibly naive and doesn’t really know much about societies or the world at large. However, he has the utmost respect for life. So, when he cast a spell without knowing what it really did, he was horrified to realize he injured civilians with it. Even though there was a combat, he spent his only other spell slot to heal one of them on his next turn. He values life and wanted to correct his mistake.

I feel like we do this a lot as people. We have our views and values and beliefs. We do our best to follow them, but sometimes, we don’t quite realize what we are doing with the tools given to us. We mean to do good and ultimately cause harm. The real question is how do we respond to this?

Cridder tried to undo his mistake and was met with the horrid realization that he can undo it. He can try to make amends, but he can’t make it so it never happened. I can tell you he will probably never again use that spell again. The spell horrified him because he is convinced it will hurt things he doesn’t mean to. He is changing his behavior to better reflect his values. I can only hope that I can do that when I mess up in real life.