Oh, I get it now, Fighters /should/ have spells.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 3:20 am

erik wrote:Now your super powers might be due to your individually designed magitech armor, chem and gen augmentation, the psychic protection of your deity and maybe a master craft bolt pistol, but whatever you are, you definitely aren't a mundane anymore.

Hell, even Charles Atlas superpowers can work at high level, if the the world is set up to handle it. Case in point: Zaraki Kenpachi, who never learns any kidou, never communes with his zanpakutou, and yet competes with, and generally dominates, all the supernaturally overpowered shit there is within the Bleach universe.

The thing that makes this work is that it is an implicit fact of the world that by virtue of being inherently awesome you can do shit like cut through buildings, zip around faster than the eye can see, and stand/fly in midair.

Why can't we have the same assumptions in D&D land?

Partially because of what Kaelik is always on about with the class naming. The Fighter name has 30+ years of connotations entrenched in the minds of players everywhere, and there's just no getting around that. The Fighter, more than any other character, is constrained by the limitations of the real world, because that is the archetype that has grown up around it, with the expectations of the players and designers forming a feedback loop that has made for an utterly unbreakable cycle of suck.

It's time to admit defeat on this one. The Fighter name is unsalvageable within the time frame that we care about; oh, sure, give it another 30 years and we might be able to shift people's Fighter paradigm. I want my non-shit D&D now. The truth is that any sort of name other than Fighter will serve our needs. It doesn't have to be evocative, because the fact that Fighter isn't an evocative name isn't the fucking problem. It doesn't have to imply any source of power, because the fact that Fighter doesn't isn't the fucking problem. The problem is that people have an intractable (and untenable) concept of what a Fighter is. A Soldier, Warlord, Champion, Gladiator, Aggressor, or WtfEver-er is comparatively devoid of preconceptions, allowing for a design space that can accomodate the sorts of actions that are necessary within the context of high level play.

It's time to let the Fighter die, so that others may live.

RIP, Fighter.

EDIT: Power sources should just be a feature of the world. Whether it be via study , devotion , inherent pluckiness, ethnicity/race, or even just fate/destiny/phlebotinum/LSD, it should be EXPLICIT that Real Ultimate Power is available to anyone for any fucking reason at all. We must ensure that the availability of power is conceptually separated from class "type".

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:01 am

Ooh, I kind of like "Aggressor."

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:13 am

Yah. Kenpachi has powers that basically amount to invulnerability, a fear aura, supernatural speed, supernatural strength, supernatural senses, and of course air walk, and he probably has the most simplified set of supernatural powers out of all the captains. A Legendary or even Epic Berserker sounds about right for him.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:13 am

Third option:

Keep the "mundane" Fighter, name and all, but have him as a minion/NPC class.

The cool Warrior/Swordsman/Barbarian/whatever PC classes can do superhuman stuff. A high level "Wuxia" warrior for martial arts and can jump so high they might as well fly, a high-level Berserker guy performs feats of great strength and causes earthquakes by smashing the ground, etc.

Everybody wins!

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:14 am

unnamednpc wrote:And b), really, I mean really, a class name that evokes more than a one-schtick-role? Go to someone who's not already steeped in DnD knowledge and ask him what a "Rogue" means to him, and I'm certain you won't hear one thirty-fifth of the shit you'd consider standard class-features and part of a Rogues's "role".
And being able to play a "Wizard" was one of the reasons people in the fucking debate-team thought you were weird, because that sounds dumb as all hell.
You say "cleric", and nobody thinks of a platemail wearing warpriest.
And so on.
td,dr: DnD class names are dumb, period. But giving renaming everything to something you'd find on the stat card of a Happy Meal collectible toy will make even less people take our stupid little hobby seriously, AND it won't do a single thing to lessen the disparity between the magic guy and the sword guy.

You've missed how many people play computer games, huh? If you say "cleric" most people below 30 will think of an armored healer. If you say "rogue" most people below 30 will think of "dps" and "stealther".

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:16 am

Or fourth option, as Frank I think proposed once: Cap the game where a "fighter" is allowed at a low level, and make it so anyone leveling up past that has to take an "advanced class".

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:11 am

Fuchs wrote: You've missed how many people play computer games, huh? If you say "cleric" most people below 30 will think of an armored healer.

I agree with you there. If you image search "Cleric", the first three pages are filled with art of warrior priests from fantasy. An actual bunch of real world clerics (Yemeni jihadists as it happens) do not show up until page 4. A websearch reveals similar biases: D&D comes first, Cleric as a character class in games in general comes second, and actual clergy of real world religions comes a distant third.

Cleric is just a really obscure word outside the context of fantasy. And within the context of fantasy it means an armored warrior priest. Cleric is a bad class name, but not because it doesn't mean "an adventurer who is a priest". It's a bad class name because the vast majority of fantasy worlds are aggressive polytheistic and want to have the priests of different religions using vastly different magics and having completely different fighting styles.

If you say "rogue" most people below 30 will think of "dps" and "stealther".

Disagree completely. According to the internet, the vast majority of people think "Southern Woman who steals powers by touching people", with a minority of people who think of "rule breaking innovator" or "dangerous lunatic". "Rogue", unlike "Cleric" is a fairly common word that is used by ordinary people in their everyday lives. A "rogue X" is an X who has broken the rules and is on a rampage of (some sort). You really have to scroll down to get a hit that is RPG related, X-Men and people (and animals) who have "gone rogue" completely dominate the hits for the word Rogue.

That being said, even though D&D doesn't dominate the word in any context, "Rogue" is still a fine name for a class. Because what it actually means is someone who breaks the rules. And if you're trying to get across a Han Solo vibe, that's not bad.

-Username17

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:20 am

Cleric is still workable as a shtick. It just needs to be the case that all Clerics are priests but not all priests are Clerics.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:29 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
Fuchs wrote: If you say "rogue" most people below 30 will think of "dps" and "stealther".
Disagree completely. According to the internet, the vast majority of people think "Southern Woman who steals powers by touching people", with a minority of people who think of "rule breaking innovator" or "dangerous lunatic". "Rogue", unlike "Cleric" is a fairly common word that is used by ordinary people in their everyday lives. A "rogue X" is an X who has broken the rules and is on a rampage of (some sort). You really have to scroll down to get a hit that is RPG related, X-Men and people (and animals) who have "gone rogue" completely dominate the hits for the word Rogue.

That being said, even though D&D doesn't dominate the word in any context, "Rogue" is still a fine name for a class. Because what it actually means is someone who breaks the rules. And if you're trying to get across a Han Solo vibe, that's not bad.

-Username17

Well, WoW Rogue is 8th on my google hit list. But yes, marvel's rogue is likely more popular - but I I think WoW's rogue is very known in that demographic below 30 as well.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:33 am

I've been musing over various ideas for character classes that are more recognizable as warrior than as mage, but still have a toolbox of abilities for dealing with noncombat situations. The main response I got to a spirit-binding and shapechanging berserker was that it felt too much like a mage, so that is evidently too much power from spells.

Here's another concept:

The Darkstalker. This guy is a mighty-thewed slayer of evil who carries around a sword, spiked chain, and bags of various subweapons and gadgets with highly niche uses. The Darkstalker has fortified his blood with mystical potions he prepares himself, which grant superhuman abilities. Originally, Darkstalkers were an order of holy warriors created to stab a really jerky vampire lord in the face, but since the vampire was an Evil Wizard, his castle was filled with an assortment of other, sometimes annoying and/or gimmicky monsters. The Darkstalkers have developed into an organization dedicated to hunting down and defeating "Evil... Stuff" in general.

In battle, the Darkstalker can move super-fast, air dash, swing around with the spiked chain, and is in general highly mobile. They have the ability to prepare piles of one-shot weapon gadgets that are Super Effective against one or two types of enemy. Further, they can spend turns rolling "Monster Lore" checks to simultaneously get hints about enemies AND retcon existing subweapon preparations into ones that are Super Effective AND get bonuses to attacking the enemy they identified. When the Darkstalker is severely injured, they can go into a glowing super-mode where their attacks come faster and they dodge really well.

Out of combat, the Darkstalker can make all sorts of fancy potions, many of which can be used by others. They can take monster bits and craft those into super-fancy stuff. Darkstalker potions are great for providing long-term protection from something specific. So if you want to go exploring outside the City of Brass, a midlevel Darkstalker can easily hook you up with the Fire Resistance, Piercing Vision, and Endless Breath buffs necessary to survive. Most potions take a minute before they kick in. Socially, the Darkstalker gets bonuses to stuff based around finding out Dark Secrets. If you don't cast a shadow or a reflection in a mirror, you should count on Darkstalkers noticing. So disguises and illusions shouldn't be very effective. Finally, a Darkstalker can meditate for an hour to sense places of power and the general location of powerful monsters within a few miles.

This involves no spellcasting, but it still has long-term prep and limited-ammo supermove options. It's a few shades more specific than the Berserker, but it should also be less "Mage-esque"

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:30 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:I've been musing over various ideas for character classes that are more recognizable as warrior than as mage, but still have a toolbox of abilities for dealing with noncombat situations. The main response I got to a spirit-binding and shapechanging berserker was that it felt too much like a mage, so that is evidently too much power from spells.

Here's another concept:

The Darkstalker. This guy is a mighty-thewed slayer of evil who carries around a sword, spiked chain, and bags of various subweapons and gadgets with highly niche uses. The Darkstalker has fortified his blood with mystical potions he prepares himself, which grant superhuman abilities. Originally, Darkstalkers were an order of holy warriors created to stab a really jerky vampire lord in the face, but since the vampire was an Evil Wizard, his castle was filled with an assortment of other, sometimes annoying and/or gimmicky monsters. The Darkstalkers have developed into an organization dedicated to hunting down and defeating "Evil... Stuff" in general.

In battle, the Darkstalker can move super-fast, air dash, swing around with the spiked chain, and is in general highly mobile. They have the ability to prepare piles of one-shot weapon gadgets that are Super Effective against one or two types of enemy. Further, they can spend turns rolling "Monster Lore" checks to simultaneously get hints about enemies AND retcon existing subweapon preparations into ones that are Super Effective AND get bonuses to attacking the enemy they identified. When the Darkstalker is severely injured, they can go into a glowing super-mode where their attacks come faster and they dodge really well.

Out of combat, the Darkstalker can make all sorts of fancy potions, many of which can be used by others. They can take monster bits and craft those into super-fancy stuff. Darkstalker potions are great for providing long-term protection from something specific. So if you want to go exploring outside the City of Brass, a midlevel Darkstalker can easily hook you up with the Fire Resistance, Piercing Vision, and Endless Breath buffs necessary to survive. Most potions take a minute before they kick in. Socially, the Darkstalker gets bonuses to stuff based around finding out Dark Secrets. If you don't cast a shadow or a reflection in a mirror, you should count on Darkstalkers noticing. So disguises and illusions shouldn't be very effective. Finally, a Darkstalker can meditate for an hour to sense places of power and the general location of powerful monsters within a few miles.

This involves no spellcasting, but it still has long-term prep and limited-ammo supermove options. It's a few shades more specific than the Berserker, but it should also be less "Mage-esque"

So, basically, a witcher. Also, unless you have like >9000 classes, a class schtick of "uses a specific weapon" is pretty bullshit.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 5:22 am

If the class is set up with a "specific weapon" that mandates the following list, is it really that much of a problem?:

- Silvered Throwing Knife (long-range, high rate of fire)
- Holy Water Grenade (small area damage, leaves damaging field)
- Wingbreaker Hatchet (makes flying target meleeable)
- Sacred Boomerang (stun potential)
- Book of Cleansing Light (large area damage, dispel check against illusions)
- Memento Mori (interuptable charge time, area stunlock)
- Stake Launcher (long range, armor piercing)

- Grappling Chain (mid range damage potential, more useful as a mobility aid)

- A melee weapon of some kind that gets a bless effect

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:15 pm

erik wrote:Yah. Kenpachi has powers that basically amount to invulnerability, a fear aura, supernatural speed, supernatural strength, supernatural senses, and of course air walk, and he probably has the most simplified set of supernatural powers out of all the captains. A Legendary or even Epic Berserker sounds about right for him.

Bleach is also infamous for every character being unable to do anything specialized outside of a fight without plot-fellating. Kenpachi even moreso. Just reading your post exasperates and frustrates me, because I thought that TGD was making real mental progress on this issue. But no. It's just the same old shit.

Kenpachi being held up as an ideal of what you want the Fighter-revision to be shows me that people aren't serious about fixing the Man-At-Arms character.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:54 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Bleach is also infamous for every character being unable to do anything specialized outside of a fight without plot-fellating. Kenpachi even moreso. Just reading your post exasperates and frustrates me, because I thought that TGD was making real mental progress on this issue. But no. It's just the same old shit.

Have you not noticed this? Combat is the first and final goal for character concepts. The only time you ever find a gamer in favour of greater player advocacy is when they want very MTP system; FATE, any of the Forge games, etc. Increasing depth of rules either makes the gamer focus/care only for combat, or demands greater responsibility & control on the part of the DM, or both more commonly.

I know of games where the expected session is a mix combat and non-combat, but in essentially every case, the non-combat portion is either ignored in favour of more combat or the rules for the non-combat portion is ignored in favour of MTP the encounter. I've tried to run & play non-combat portions using the rules, and the vast majority of the time I got the stink-eye.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:16 pm

virgil wrote:I know of games where the expected session is a mix combat and non-combat, but in essentially every case, the non-combat portion is either ignored in favour of more combat or the rules for the non-combat portion is ignored in favour of MTP the encounter. I've tried to run & play non-combat portions using the rules, and the vast majority of the time I got the stink-eye.

While this has pretty much been my experience for both D&D and non-D&D games, I'd also like to point out that the vast majority of game engines with well-defined rules have their non-combat portions really sucking. Shadowrun has probably the best non-combat skill system in a mainstream product I've seen and it's still very dodgy in certain areas. Like rigging and hacking.

Even for dungeon hacky games like D&D, I've seen people use skills and non-combat abilities a lot more at lower levels than higher levels. If you look at logs for WoD or D&D online sessions you'll see that the amount of non-combat MTP goes up the more power people get.

Midnight_v · Post by **Midnight_v** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:57 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
erik wrote:Yah. Kenpachi has powers that basically amount to invulnerability, a fear aura, supernatural speed, supernatural strength, supernatural senses, and of course air walk, and he probably has the most simplified set of supernatural powers out of all the captains. A Legendary or even Epic Berserker sounds about right for him.
Bleach is also infamous for every character being unable to do anything specialized outside of a fight without plot-fellating. Kenpachi even moreso. Just reading your post exasperates and frustrates me, because I thought that TGD was making real mental progress on this issue. But no. It's just the same old shit.

Kenpachi being held up as an ideal of what you want the Fighter-revision to be shows me that people aren't serious about fixing the Man-At-Arms character.

I say this without hyperbole, and without the intention of starting a fight, but Lago it has been my understanding that you're solution was akin to Kaeliks: "The Man-At-Arms, cannot exist anymore." I hate to have you wrong, could you briefly state your position, please? I dont' wanna get you wrong here.

Edit: Also, if soo many people want to play "Kenpachi" (and they really kinda obcviously do) find a way to let them. Isn't he just a Tome Fighter in many ways?

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:11 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
erik wrote:Yah. Kenpachi has powers that basically amount to invulnerability, a fear aura, supernatural speed, supernatural strength, supernatural senses, and of course air walk, and he probably has the most simplified set of supernatural powers out of all the captains. A Legendary or even Epic Berserker sounds about right for him.
Bleach is also infamous for every character being unable to do anything specialized outside of a fight without plot-fellating. Kenpachi even moreso. Just reading your post exasperates and frustrates me, because I thought that TGD was making real mental progress on this issue. But no. It's just the same old shit.

Kenpachi being held up as an ideal of what you want the Fighter-revision to be shows me that people aren't serious about fixing the Man-At-Arms character.

Your tears are delicious.

Look, Kenpachi is seriously all the effort/interest some people are willing to put into the game. It's not even surprising because there's a huge glut of fiction out there supporting this kind of character. (isn't this a vicious circle? yes, it is. Are we in a position to break it? no, we aren't)

Your assumptions that all characters need to contribute equally in and outside combat are actually begging the question. Because fiction shows that's completely viable to have a character like Sanger Zonvolt or Kenpachi, with a roleplay outside combat that should be "I train, sleep or watch my contractually required cute kid sidekick do something cute." Problems like "we need to teleport to MexicoHueco Mundo, or find who's behind the crazy conspiracy" are other people's problems. Kenpachi (and Kenpachi players) don't even feel diminished because that.

Really, if your argument is "dumb melee fighters are boring characters" then frame it as such so that's clear that it's just your opinion. Maintaining that "the dumb melee fighter is not a viable character role" falls flat every time somebody goes and points to a such a character, existing just fine.

I don't even buy the more limited argument that "dumb melee fighters are not viable character roles for a collaborative RPG" because I have the anecdotal evidence of my old playing group. Seriously half the guys there were in to play Elothar, warrior of bladereach. They wanted to hit things in combat and get the girl at the end and that was it. Spells? "too complicated". Warblade? "too complicated". Whenever I got to talk with other DMs I heard similar experiences. I even concede that my group was below average because I had two dudes wanting to play the "I hit it with my greataxe" big guy, but about every DM I talked with about that had had experiences with this kind of player.

And we all had our collaborative RPGs just fine. It was always done in the Elothar way (DM handing out appropriate treasure/circumstances/MTP shit to compensate for the lack of class features). Everybody had fun, people still talk about those games, etc.

Really, I'm starting to see that the problem is that the DMF only works if everybody accepts that they're protagonist characters in a story. I mean, the actual argument in this discussion is "DMFs ruin the immersion for people who want to think that the RPG world is fair and objective."

I think this is closer to the crux of the problem. In a "pure simulationist model of a D&D world" (>_<) the flying invisible wizard or dragon zaps the fighter to oblivion and the fighter is shit out of luck. But since this would make for a boring/shitty story and ruin everybody's evening, some Deus Ex Machina will play out and the fighter will get a fighting chance / escape / etc. Which means that mostly everybody who signed up to play a fighter under a DM who wasn't a dick actually had this hidden class feature, that came online around the 4th level:

Blessed by the Fates(Ex):
To survive as a human fighter in a land with trolls and flying invisible wizards is no small feat. In fact, your character build is so hopeless outmatched by what's actually written as level appropriate challenges in the book that reality can't handle the stress of you existing, so it starts to break and bend around you.
The DM will not write encounters that take advantage from the fact that you're just standing there, with a chunk of point metal in hand. You can expect that dragons will land to melee and won't try to grapple you, that wizards will fight you with evocations in rooms full of obstacles to line of sight, etc.

Moreover, you're expected to find magic weapons before meeting gargoyles, elixirs of stone-to-flesh in the immediate surroundings of a medusa lair and assassins attacking with poison usually have the antidote in their pockets.

The DMReality won't take lightly if you're so impolite as to point to what's happening around you. Really. Act surprised and vaguely grateful to your fate everytime the DMUniverse hands you the ways to survive despite your inadequate build or it will crush you like a bug.

If we don't want to go that way, I think it's even a reasonable goal. Then what we do is to give the DMF some actual class features that allowed him to be the dude standing there in the open and the flying invisible wizard is actually afraid to start shooting. Like some throwing attack that cuts through magic (and cleaves to the caster). This goes back to my WWSJD idea for a fighter fix.

But saying that the DMF shouldn't exist? Nope.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 5:52 pm

nockermensch wrote:And we all had our collaborative RPGs just fine. It was always done in the Elothar way (DM handing out appropriate treasure/circumstances/MTP shit to compensate for the lack of class features). Everybody had fun, people still talk about those games, etc.

Oh God this is such bullshit. I guess I'll go over the two big ones.

[*] Just because something is viable doesn't mean that it's fair or desirable. And certainly not optimal. D&D and their derivatives has had a lot of questionable or even downright repulsive gameplay and/or story tropes in their heyday but it didn't sink them. That in of itself isn't an excuse to bring the old ones back or keep the ones that are causing problems.

[*] Just because an element or product was fun and viable back then doesn't mean that it will still be. Many entertainment products have a timeless quality to them, but a lot of them don't. Millions of people probably have their own Space Invaders story, but re-releasing the game as is would be a massive flop. People laugh and tell horror stories of various gameplay fuckery like the Sierra Screw, but a game that did that nowadays would be panned to death.

[*] A lot or even none of the fun that people can have has nothing to do with the gameplay experience. I mean, people have fun and great memories from kicking around a hacky-sack for several hours. Or holding sticky Pokemon cards and droning "im dying squirtle" and "Mudkip!" and making Smugleaf jokes for several hours. The amount of fun that people have in a game is a bullshit metric, but the amount of fun that people have in a game because of the game is key.

[*] I'm very suspecting that you're messing up cause and effect. You're claiming that people enjoy DMFs therefore games shouldn't support martial characters that do things other than hit people really hard. The trend for games and fiction has been against the DMF. Not a wholesale rejection of the concept, but the steps are already being set in place to replace the character.

1.) Audiences are becoming more accepting of 'mundane' characters doing impossible things.
2.) Protagonists with an identifiable phlebtonium source who don't need plot fuckery to accomplish supernatural things are becoming more popular.
3.) In TTRPG-land, the long-term trend has been towards giving people more and more non-combat tools.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:05 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Kenpachi being held up as an ideal of what you want the Fighter-revision to be shows me that people aren't serious about fixing the Man-At-Arms character.

nockermensch wrote:Your tears are delicious.

Ah, succulent. Cry moar, Lago. Feed us your pain.

Kenpachi almost certainly could contribute to things out of combat, but his character is a lazy fuck who only cares about fighting to a fault, so we'll never know exactly what else he could do. I wasn't holding him up as an ideal, just saying that he could certainly compete at high levels and is in no way considered mundane despite that he is almost one-dimensional. He'd be a high level berserker who doesn't bother using powers or doing jack squat outside of combat.

I don't think Kenpachi is a terribly interesting character and it costs you nothing to add in out of combat abilities for him, but clearly the character playing him could give two fucks about such abilities as he apparently has super-developed senses but doesn't bother using them for anything other than combat. In combat it is understood that he has powers that let him remain relevant.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:57 pm

Well, nobody in Bleach really gets out of combat powers. I mean, kidou is basically just a mix of Entangle/Barrier/Blast, and zanpakutou powers mostly make you better at combat, so the fact that Kenpachi gets along without them doesn't really prove much.

As has been mentioned, the fact the the Fighter gets dominated even in combat is just the icing on the cake of why the class has problems. It's not hard to make a Fighter that contributes well in combat, but so does every other class. If your only feature is something everybody else also does, but they also contribute out of combat, then you have a problem.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:10 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Bleach is also infamous for every character being unable to do anything specialized outside of a fight without plot-fellating. Kenpachi even moreso. Just reading your post exasperates and frustrates me, because I thought that TGD was making real mental progress on this issue. But no. It's just the same old shit.

I think you've missed the point.

The issue with the mundane warrior type is that they aren't allowed to do level-appropriate things even in combat. Kenpachi is just an example of a character who is clearly identifiable as a "melee warrior", and whose universe is conceived such that one not need be overtly "wizardly" in order to do things that are normally considered magical. Like, oh, flying or destroying enemies at range with a sword slash. The point is that people accept the dumb melee fighter doing cool stuff (i.e., the stuff grognards, 4rri3s, and Paizils relegate to spellcasters) if it's presented in the right way.

Extrapolating from this, it seems reasonable (at least to me) to presume that if the world were set up for it, the "mundane" warrior could not only be given level appropriate combat abilities but also level appropriate non-combat abilities without breaking the "mundane" concept.

It's all about finding a way to spin the fluff such that assholes don't complain when the melee-weapon guy does the "slash through dimensional boundaries" thing or similar.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:33 pm

Ice9 wrote:Well, nobody in Bleach really gets out of combat powers.

Bleach is a show about supernatural SWAT teams. Every so often, we see people who are dropping spirit nukes, or doing crazy research, but all of the main characters are basically guys who go places and stab fools. That isn't a setting characteristic, it's an artifact of the focus of the show.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:37 pm

erik wrote:I don't think Kenpachi is a terribly interesting character and it costs you nothing to add in out of combat abilities for him, but clearly the character playing him could give two fucks about such abilities as he apparently has super-developed senses but doesn't bother using them for anything other than combat. In combat it is understood that he has powers that let him remain relevant.

Look, I do agree with the fact that we do need to have simple characters with a low storytelling and tactical burden so that Little Trevor and the DM's girlfriend can play. But we have those characters for the same reason why we have training wheels. People who voluntarily choose such a sippy cup class when they can perform better otherwise should be viewed either piteously or contemptuously. The Little Red Hen refusing bread to a Mr. Mouse who, having pneumonia, was only able to watch the oven is her being a dick. Able-bodied Mr. Turtle whose only contribution was watching the oven whining that he should get a bigger piece of bread is him being a dick.

Cooperative role-playing isn't just people sitting in their own little worlds passing the story stick. You're expected to contribute to other peoples' story (as part of the overall story) as well. People who declare that they're only going to participate when it suits them and that they're going to scribble tanks or play Smash Bros. until the part of the story/game that interests them comes up again are dicks. Depending on their other contributions, their presence may be a net or even most positive. But they're still dicks in the same way that smoking a smelly cigar or playing loud music on their headphones makes you one.

And unless the game is designed such that a combat and combat-only character are the primary archetypes and everything else is of little consequence -- like a Street Fighter II: the RPG character -- it should not support these players' dickery. The Daves of the world are a tolerable and unavoidable evil. But not necessary in any sense.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:44 pm

NineInchNail wrote:Extrapolating from this, it seems reasonable (at least to me) to presume that if the world were set up for it, the "mundane" warrior could not only be given level appropriate combat abilities but also level appropriate non-combat abilities without breaking the "mundane" concept. It's all about finding a way to spin the fluff such that assholes don't complain when the melee-weapon guy does the "slash through dimensional boundaries" thing or similar.

People have been trying to do this longer than the history of D&D. You'd think people would realize by now that this task is impossible short of restricting the scope of the setting, having unbalanced contributions, constant authorial intrusion or (most likely) having a nonsensical and dishonest story. But no, if they TVTropes or MTP a bit more, they'll be the one who squares the circle.

You'll forgive me for not wanting to enable their denial any longer, won't you?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:47 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Look, I do agree with the fact that we do need to have simple characters with a low storytelling and tactical burden so that Little Trevor and the DM's girlfriend can play. But we have those characters for the same reason why we have training wheels. People who voluntarily choose such a sippy cup class when they can perform better otherwise should be viewed either piteously or contemptuously.

Fvck you and fvck your elitism.