Lost In Translation: Adapting Fictional Characters To Games

There are two ways of rating fictional characters that you want to add to role-playing games (and other types of games as well). These are the functional method and the emotional/perceptual method (for want of a better name).

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What's the difference? The functional depends on what the character can actually do, without regard to what others can do. The emotional/perceptual depends on the character's relation to the rest of the world. In that second method, a very powerful character will be rated as similar to the most powerful characters in the game rules you're using, regardless of what the character can actually do.

An example from my own experience was my introductory D&D adventure through Moria, published in White Dwarf more than 35 years ago. There were no Lord of the Rings (LOTR) movies at that time, but most prospective players had read LOTR. The party of player adventurers were the Fellowship of the Ring. Assuming most players had read LOTR, I let new players play the familiar characters to make it easier for them to understand what was going on. (Keep in mind, RPGs were relatively new at the time; even today there are many millions who have no idea how an RPG works.)

I relied on what the characters could actually do. Consequently, Aragorn was a seventh level ranger with a magic sword (keep in mind this was first edition D&D) and Gandalf was an eighth level cleric with a Ring of Fire and a magic sword. At seventh rangers got an extra attack every other round, and had a lot of hit points with high constitution required (and one extra D8). Gandalf could not raise the dead as a ninth level cleric could, hence the limit to eighth - and even at eighth, the D&D cleric uses a lot more magic than Gandalf. (Gimli and Legolas were fourth fighters, and I gave the hobbits an extra level to second.) If the party included experienced players, they played Gandalf and Aragorn.

Some readers wanted these characters to have sky-high levels because they were so much more powerful than virtually anyone else in Middle-earth. "But they were two of the most powerful figures in the world!" is the emotional/perceptual response. Yes, but it's a world almost entirely lacking in powerful figures, and in magic, compared with the typical FRP world. Imagine Gandalf as a 17th level cleric creating one miracle (in Middle-earth terms) after another. If Gandalf had been anywhere near the level some readers desired, he would have been a god within Middle-earth's low magic setting. Or imagine Aragorn at 16^th level, slaughtering trolls, ogres, giants, wholesale.

So I focused on the functional, believing that the emotional follows in the long run. In this case Aragorn and Gandalf are still very powerful compared with the other characters. The only similarly powerful character involved was the Balrog, which was probably more powerful than either Aragorn or Gandalf just as in the book itself. (Keep in mind the Balrog back then was much less powerful than the Balrog is in D&D now - AC2, 10 hit dice, two good attacks (2-12 and 3-18), needed +3 weapons to hit IIRC.)

So I just avoided the ridiculous, avoided giving far too many choices to the players, and also avoided the problem that Advanced D&D mechanisms broke down when you got much into double-figure levels. It just didn't work anymore.

Functionality is part of modeling, characterized by a term called "correspondence," or less mellifluously "analogousness." My word allowance doesn't let me go into details here, I can only summarize. There are three questions to ask (generalized for all games, not just RPGs):

• Do the actions of the player-controlled characters/assets in the game correspond with what happens in real life (or the fictional reality) we're modeling?
• Does the non-player activity in the game correspond to what happens in the (possibly fictional) reality we're trying to represent?
• Do the strategies a player follows correspond to something in that reality?

Gandalf as a 17th (or more) level cleric will result in No's for all these questions, as will Aragorn at 16th+ level ranger. But at the levels I chose, we can get Yeses.

contributed by Lewis Pulsipher

 

[SMHWorlds]

Interestingly, 1st edition Stormbringer has a small section on playing Elric, which I thought was interesting. As a player it never occurred to me to want to be the fictional character, constrained by their actions and motivations. But I guess there was a desire among some groups to do just that.

 

[pemerton]

Many fictional characters are distinguished as much by their motivations and commitments, as by their capabilities. This can create modelling challenges for an RPG.

 

[SMHWorlds]

Many fictional characters are distinguished as much by their motivations and commitments, as by their capabilities. This can create modelling challenges for an RPG.

I suspect (as always) system matters a great deal. How you might model Belgareth in D&D is different than say how you might in Rolemaster or FATE. The notable exceptions, even though systems vary wildly, is super heroes. I think the old Marvel Super Heroes did a pretty decent job of modeling the comic characters. Where as the DC games, from what I heard, always had some issues.

 

[Sunseeker]

Modeling fictional characters in RPGs is a bad idea. PERIOD.

Fictional character's capabilities are based entirely on literary function. If its useful for them to cast Meteor, they cast it. If it's not, they don't. End of story. They do not have daily allotments of spells except for when the story calls for that to matter. They don't have to prepare or memorize spells except for when the story thinks that's important. They can kill a man 9 different ways with only their thumb because the book says they can, grapple checks need not apply.

If for whatever insane reason you decide to include a fictional character from literature in your game there really should be nothing more on their stat sheet than their name. When you want them to succeed at something, they do. When you don't want them to, they don't.

 

[billd91]

Many fictional characters are distinguished as much by their motivations and commitments, as by their capabilities. This can create modelling challenges for an RPG.

That has not been my experience. For the most part, role playing motivations and commitments is pretty easy. Most often, they need no mechanical expression at all.
But for times you do want that kind of expression, Pendragon pretty much nailed the hell out of the idea with its Traits and Passions. And the subsystem that covered that is actually fairly portable to other games like D&D.

 

[Arilyn]

System matters a lot. It's easier to model fictional characters in games like Fate, Cortex Plus or Heroquest, than in DnD type games. Games with levelling, and/or heavy emphasis on nitty gritty mechanical details are especially bad at simulating fictional characters. Using Fate, I could probably recreate the LoTR characters, because the aspect system in Fate is so good at narrative elements.

Games that are designed to mimic particular shows or books sometimes work and sometimes don't.

 

[pemerton]

I suspect (as always) system matters a great deal. How you might model Belgareth in D&D is different than say how you might in Rolemaster or FATE. The notable exceptions, even though systems vary wildly, is super heroes. I think the old Marvel Super Heroes did a pretty decent job of modeling the comic characters. Where as the DC games, from what I heard, always had some issues.

I like Marvel Heroic RP's approach, although I've only seen a few characters in action (War Machine, Nightcrawler, Bobby Drake, Wolverine are the main ones).

And I like Burning Wheel's Tolkien-esque approach to elves and dwarves.

System matters a lot. It's easier to model fictional characters in games like Fate, Cortex Plus or Heroquest, than in DnD type games. Games with levelling, and/or heavy emphasis on nitty gritty mechanical details are especially bad at simulating fictional characters.

When I think of emulating fictional characters in D&D, I only think in 4e terms. AD&D generally isn't flexible enough. But Gandalf is tricky even in 4e (maybe a STR cleric with INT secondary and multi-class wizard?).

 

[Arilyn]

Yeah, DnD is not the game for LoTR. AiME does a surprisingly good job, but even it is hampered by being DnD, and in my mind is inferior to The One Ring. Gandalf is Gandalf, and is neither a cleric or a wizard. On top of that, I suspect we never really see his true essence or power.

 

[delericho]

In terms of the functional vs perceptual debate, I tend to side with the OP - better to model the characters based on what they can do, rather than assigning high levels because they happen to be the most powerful characters in their settings. Not all settings are created equal.

However, I'm much less concerned with the levels assigned than with how the character would get there. If the game is supposed to be modelling a given setting, it really should be possible to create the characters for that setting as viable PCs, without stretching the rules of the setting too far. That is, in a Star Wars RPG, Luke Skywalker (as we first see him in the first film) really should be a viable starting character. In a Lord of the Rings game, the four Hobbits really should be viable starting PCs, and it should be possible to create PCs that could level up (or its equivalent) to match Legolas, Gimli, and Boromir.

If not, if the game insists on giving Luke stats that can't be achieved using the default generation system (or by cheating, if that system is random), or if Legolas and Gimli are forever out of reach, then there's something wrong with the system.

(And, all that said, it's worth noting that D&D isn't intended to simulate LotR, or Conan, or Elric, or the rest. So while you should be able to create characters rather like those from the stories that served to inspire it, it's much less necessary that they be perfect, or even particularly accurate, simulations.)