Monks and Character Building with The C Team's Kate Welch

Kate Welch plays Rosie Beestinger on Penny Arcade Acquisitions Incorporated: The "C" Team. I talked to her about playing a monk, The Way of the Shadow, character creation and also about the group dynamic of the The C Team.

Kate Welch: You can make a character who's completely different from yourself, but you're not going to have a lot of fun playing that character. It's going to be difficult for you. And even if you do make a character that you think is totally different from yourself, just because you are yourself and you're living in your body and in your mind, that character's probably going to become a little bit more like you.

Kate Welch: So, I tend to think that the most fun you can have with a character, is creating someone that you wish you could be, or that you want to try out. And create a character who has a quality that you wish that you had as a person. And then practice that. Because what you'll find, is that you do have that quality, because you're playing the character and you're embodying that. And then you can be that person in real life if you want to, or not if you don't. But it's a way of trying things on and experimenting with your own identity, so that's what I always do.

Kate Welch: Monks are extremely balanced for combat, but we're not a combat-heavy game. As anybody who's watched us knows, we're definitely more role play-heavy, which is something that we have requested. We really prefer that storytelling, to the constant mathematics of rolling dice and doing number checks, which is not as entertaining to some of us.

Kate Welch: But Rosie in particular, is just a powerhouse. She's a blender. She will mess anybody up. She's very, very good at fighting. So, you have to find ways to bring the metaphor of being a fighter into the role-playing space. And then also take advantages when I'm leveling up, of what's going to be the ability that's going to be interesting in the role-playing space, versus getting an extra attack and a stunning strike and key points that I can spend in combat, which we never spend any time doing. So, the next time we're in a fight, Rosie's just going to kick total butt, but I think that's once every four episodes, at this point.

Kate Welch: But, as far as the monk class goes, it really, really is a fun and versatile and brutal class to play. I'm having so much fun. The reason I chose Way of the Shadow, is not because it was the most combat optimized. If you're min-maxing a monk, it's I believe Way of the Open Palm is the way to go. But, Way of the Shadow is more Rosie, because she is an astronomer and she's got this connection with the homeward star that always guides her back home whenever she's lost.

Kate Welch: And she also operates in a couple of different ways from a place of shadow. She calls upon the Plane of Shadow for [gramamancy 00:02:58], which is her power, which binds people by calling on this Plane of Shadow, to bind them with their own shadows.

Kate Welch: And then she is also ... Something that Jerry and I have talked a little bit about, is how the shadow is also a place where people who are underappreciated live. They live around the edges of the room. They're not seen and that's sort of the role of someone like Rosie, who has been a grandmother, who may not have been appreciated in her lifetime. And she has done all these tasks and kind of represents the power that still exists. You may not believe. You may underestimate Rosie's abilities, but she's going to surprise you, because she is from this area of shadow.

Kate Welch: And none of those things are overtly evil. You associate shadow with the Shadow Weave and the God of Shar and there's all this darkness when you call upon the Plane of Shadow, but Rosie uses it almost like you would use the light, I think. So, Rosie is just a vessel for me to confess my love to everyone that I play with. So, basically any time there's an excuse for Rosie to be this corny grandma who just loves everyone, that is absolutely my favorite stuff. Because, this crowd, this group of people, we're not the most necessarily, emotional. We tend to be more on the humorous side and giving each other shit, but any time I can let them know, via the guise or our characters how much I care about them, those are my favorite Rosie moments, because I am a total squishy marshmallow person, apparently.