Examining The "Doubting Thomas" Character Archetype in Fantasy RPGs

Normally when it's time for an Unusual Character Concepts update I'll talk about a new spin you can put on an old class, or how you can step outside the usual tropes and archetypes that cling to certain concepts. This month, though, I'd like to address a character concept that I've seen a lot, but which has rarely been played well. A character archetype I refer to as the Doubting Thomas.

Look, can we just stop with all this talk of "magic" and "vampires" already?

What is The Doubting Thomas?

For those of you who haven't been to Sunday school in a while, the term Doubting Thomas refers to how one of the apostles refused to take the word of the others that Jesus had risen from the dead until he'd seen him with his own eyes, and touched the wounds left behind. Colloquially, the term refers to someone who remains skeptical about the stories told to them by other people until they have experienced the phenomenon themselves.

In short, for Thomas, seeing was believing.

All right, my bad, looks like you were all telling the truth about this.

In the case of fantasy RPGs (this archetype is pretty scarce in other genres) I use the term Doubting Thomas to refer to a character who refuses to believe in some supernatural part of the game. Done right, this concept is the mythos investigator in Call of Cthulhu who is always looking for a rational explanation to what's happening, or the private eye in a Chronicles of Darkness Mortals campaign who doesn't believe in vampires and thinks it's just a gang of delusional serial killers responsible for all these deaths they're tracking down.

In order for the Doubting Thomas to work, though, they need to be doubtful of something that is not a part of the day-to-day mechanics of the world. They need to be skeptical of something that is rare, unusual, or which is widely deemed impossible... like a crucified man coming back from the dead three days later, still bearing the wounds of his ordeal.

Because if you are skeptical of the regular, operating reality of the world in which you live, you don't look or sound like a reasonable skeptic... you just come across as a crackpot.

How To Avoid Becoming a Fantasy Flat Earther

Generally speaking, if something is in the common knowledge sections of the game, you can take it as writ that people know this thing exists. People outside certain communities might not know the tribal traditions and naming structure of the orcs of the Shadoval Reaches, but most of the time they're at least going to recognize that the character is an orc. And even if someone was playing a sheltered farm boy who'd never been more than two miles from where he was born, someone who thought all these other fantasy races were just bedtime stories, you wouldn't sit across the table from Harton Ax Hand and Simerian Heartsfire and tell them to their faces that orcs and elves don't exist.

They're right in front of you. It's a fact of the world.

This applies to basically everything that you will encounter.

This doesn't work any better with magical skepticists in high-magic setting, either. If a character comes from a place where there is no magic to speak of (no magical creatures, no enchantments, no sorcerers or wizards, etc.), then sure, they might initially believe that tales of magic are all fairy tales and hokum. But the first time a goblin shaman flings a fireball at them, or the first time they see a cleric repair wounds with a touch of their hand, they have seen the evidence that such a thing is real, and exists.

Denying it at that point isn't a unique or interesting character quirk. It just makes them look unreasonable at best, or stupid at worst.

You can apply this to basically any element of an accepted setting that a character refuses to believe in once they have experienced evidence that it exists. Whether it's the avowed atheist in a fantasy setting where divine envoys can be summoned with a word, or someone who refuses to believe the dead can walk being attacked by a horde of zombies, these are things they know are real aspects of the world. A character may believe in alternative explanations for what they experienced (someone who feels that god is a misnomer for the beings whose servants wield their power, for instance, or someone who feels that "arcane science" is a more accurate term instead of something vulgar like "magic"), but they shouldn't deny what is right in front of their eyes.

The thing to remember is there are plenty of rare phenomenon in any setting that one might never actually come into contact with, or be proven wrong about. Someone might feel that the ancient empire of Kalasar is actually just a myth, as were the Jadori people that made their cities fly on glowing crystals harvested from the chests of dragons in the deep earth. Stating that, from a scholarly perspective, there is no evidence that such places ever existed is probably safe, since the civilization isn't a part of everyday life.

On the other hand, if the party finds themselves in the midst of a ruin of this forgotten people, and then a massive crystal flares to life and the ruins start flying... that's probably when it's time to rethink what your character does and doesn't believe.

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That's all for this installment of Unusual Character Concepts. Hopefully this one gave you something to chew over, whether you're a player, or a dungeon master.

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