Who is this "Captain"?

Back in the late 70s my running buddies and I would gather at the old Pizza Inn. Most of us worked there, and some of us pitched in even if we didn't work there for money. It was a way to spend time with the gang. I cheesed and sauced a huge amount of pizzas for little more than a free coke or two, and all of the invaluable time I could spend with my friends.

After closing we clean up and then break out the role playing gear. This including anything from D&D, Traveller, to Star Frontiers. We'd play long into the night, and at least once beheld the sun coming up as we left. Cops would get curious and stepped in at least twice to try to figure out what in the world 8 or so people were doing in there at 2 a.m. with books and lots of multi-colored dice.

In this dash into role playing, my friends and I developed our characters persona and histories. At first I was playing a fighter, and like a lot of gamers at the time my character was not strictly by the book. This rankled a few fellow gamers, and all of us who had "illegal" characters took steps to make them conform. Most of these illegal characters were created when playing solitaire. When playing with fellow gamers, the absurdity of the illegal character became evident. As much fun as it was to storybook a character who had extraordinary abilities, in the teamwork environment of role playing, he simply wasn't needed and didn't fit.

I wanted to play a guy who could both fight and use magic. My fighter was out, mainly because he had served his purpose and was due for a role as a secondary fellow at best. I didn't want to play an elf, because I wanted a guy who was a human. Elves don't exactly turn my crank, but I respect them and guys who play them well. Trust me, a guy who can play an elf very well is few and far between.

Anyway, to have my fighter/magic user meant either playing dual class (which was a book keeping pain) or a cleric. I started to read what a cleric could do. Spells, heal, turn undead, fight without edged weapons, use almost any armor, some scrolls, all that stuff. Lots of yawns there. Then they hooked me. The Clerical class was patterned after orders of the knights. Ding, they got me. I was playing not just a souped up Father Murphy in armor, but a full-blown KNIGHT.

I rolled up Captain Faustus Mitternacht, version 1, right after that. As time went by and we plundered our way through various modules, many of the guys noticed several things. I played the Captain like a Paladin more than a cleric, and I had this nasty habit of animating dead when we were outnumbered and needed some stiffening in the ranks. After I gained enough levels I could even command undead into my service when we met them.

Guys who were new to the group often wondered if I was playing a Paladin until I did something like send the skeletons after the orcs. They'd look at me in bug-eyed disbelief. Because of this expedience in combat, I had to make the Captain of Lawful Neutral alignment.

Another problem the Captain had was that he hardly ever made a saving throw, even with all the magical goodies he could strap on. If anything bad happened, the Captain would be on the receiving end of it. That usually meant the rest of the party picking him up and carrying him out of the dungeon, paying a sizable share of their treasure to get what ever happened to him fixed, then going back in again. My fellow dungeoneers made much fun of this, but they still let me play the guy over and over.

To keep playing, we often went back to first level again and again. This led to new challenges, as when a guy has a ton of hit points, can kill anything with a swipe of his trusty sword, he gets cocky and careless. Zipping back down to first level, sans all the goodies he collected before, makes a guy think long and hard before wading into 15 goblins. Especially when he's second edition armor class 8 on a good day.

Captain in white, red, and on his warhorse "Skeeter"

Captain Faustus Mitternacht was created in the transition period between the small "brown books" in the box and the "blue book" that really set it off. As first edition rules were fleshed out, he was put into that mode. When second edition came out, he was changed to conform with that. His stats were re-rolled many times at each first level draw down on request by my friends, in hopes that he would stand a better chance with has saving throws and combat. He still consistently failed his rolls and got killed often. For that reason I was usually allowed to take a second character along, and she was a Thief named Jean. Jean was sidekick, squire, and companion to the Captain. She was also nuts, hyper, and refuses to take "unnecessary" risks. (When I draw Jean she is stacked like a goddess, short blond hair, and all attitude. She is the blond cheerleader directly behind Ginny in the Proposal picture in the "my Gwen" file, leaning slightly to her left, if you want to see what she looks like.) Jean was a ball to play, as she was not a leader like the Captain and often got herself into some situations that she'd rather not be in.

The Captain and Jean both lasted right up until the D20 third edition D&D came out. This was for me possibly one of the worst Role-Playing system in existence. We struggled along in this bookkeeping nightmare for a couple years, and then it just sort of died. When we do meet, we tinker with D20 modern and such, but the thrill of D&D is dead with third edition. There is way too much book keeping envolved, and the complication of the mess takes the fun out of playing the game.

Some folks like, it however, and that is that. We can't go back, but we certainly can refuse to go forward, especially when we don't like the clunky system in use. Its like D&D went from the fun and classy Avalon Hill games of the 70s to the rules heavy junk that SPI mostly put out.

So the Captain is basically retired. He shows up in stories I and some of my friends write, some of my comics and drawings, and I use him when I play a solitaire game in a medieval setting using Heroquest or some other similar system.

So, essentially, that is who

Kapitaen Faustus Mitternacht,

Grand Master,

Knights of the Hospital and Temple 

is in reality. The character I use in the My Gwen fiction is 100% him. He has fought thousands of foes, journeyed thousands of miles, and would do it all over again and twice as much for that lady he loves. Like Gwen, he lives on.

Links to my tactics page and info about the club are below this picture.