October 28, 2006

multi-classing

The thought came to me the other day that sometimes D&D reflects real life. Ok, there are fire breathing dragons and acid swords and +2 helms of holiness, but there are challenges and rewards and "leveling up" as you would call it, and there are specialties, single class characters and characters with multi-classes.

In D&D multi-classing is a long and grinding road of constant hazards, sometimes unbelievably painfully slow as you watch your character become better in both classes. Alongside that is, at young ages that character is not very good at anything really, they're neither this nor that. A wizard/rogue is not a very good spell-caster and not good at picking locks. It takes almost twice the amount of Dire Rat kills to get anywhere as a multi-class.

Such is the same with life, or at least with my life. In the last while I've come to the realization that I am a multi-class. Here I am posing as a IT guy in daytime life, and then at night I work on my real love: music. Neither abilities are advancing at a quick rate and when I was younger I was really kind of bad at both. If I focused on my computer skills my music suffered, and if I focused more on music my computer skills fell behind. These days if I focus too much on my music my boss gets grumpy and starts to think I'm not 100% committed to being there. Which of course is not entirely untrue.. at least not in the greater scheme of things.

I think that real-life musicians, ones with kids, a house, a mortgage, no rich benefactor or inheritance, and ones who aren't famous because of accident/endless whoring of themselves are multi classed characters. We HAVE to be. You can't give music up entirely, especially if you're an obsessive like me, it will eat away at the back of your brain until you are a cranky bitch who will snap on a pin drop. You also can't give up your job, because let's face it: you're not more talented than ever other {pick an instrument}alist out there, you don't have the funds and you will not be discovered in a grand flourish of lights and applause. You are a western society musician, materialistic as the rest, you won't live alone in a one bedroom apartment downtown amongst the sirens and you want some semblance of security.

In a multi classed character there is a point when all the crazy hours you've grinded away at this character pays off (or doesn't pay off) and you become really cool (or really useless). I wonder if soon that point will come around, when I find out if I've fractured my too much, spread too thin, or that everything I was duplicitous about was worth it and will work off each other to make this character really cool.

Ok I've had some wine... and I'm getting pensive, and I realize I've played way too much D&D in my life, but you know it's something to ponder...

Posted by Oorgo at October 28, 2006 10:50 PM Permalink - Category: Ponderings | TrackBack
Comments

Well, I haven't had any wine and I think this is a great post. I think it applies to any artist (in my case aspiring poet/writer) who must work for a the tangible aspects of living (food, home, clothing, family, etc.) and who must also create artistically for their sanity and their soul.

Bottom line, they're intrinsically bound in that one enables the possibility of the other.

BTW, you'll be interested or happy to know that its my turn at not sleeping. See, I shouldn't have teased you 'cause I now have Karmic retribution to deal with.

Posted by: Michele at October 31, 2006 10:43 PM
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