Discussing Iconics

I'm A Banana · Jun 14, 2012

I think dungeons and dragons is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills monsters and doesn't afraid of anything.

Doug McCrae · Jun 14, 2012

Gold Roger said:
True to DDNs goals, they shouldn't create many new ones, but draw most of them from D&Ds history. Maybe even use some well known villains, like Lareth from the Moathouse (ToEE).

I like this idea. Morgan Ironwolf, Gutboy Barrelhouse, Eclavdra, Emirikol the Chaotic, Beek Gwenders of Croodle, Erac's Cousin, etc. Would confuse the heck out of younger players.

Consonant Dude · Jun 20, 2012

am181d said:
It's interesting. I thought the "secret push" behind this set of poll questions was "How would you feel about a single iconic character?" And I think this ties to what they were saying overall about the brand of D&D with previous discussions about the logo, about possibily having a non-logo icon (ala the "dragon swirl" at the top left of the Next character sheets), etc.

My guess is that they want to use Elminster more heavily, as a "front of the DMG" type character ala some of the 1e books. This is based on the 1 character assumption above, their seeming renewed focus on Forgotten Realms, and the fact that the wizard character may strike them as the most uniquely D&Dish.

I doubt that's what they want to do. And in any event, that would be a disastrously bad call if they did.

There is only one character in the history of the game that is truly representative of the DnD game: The adventuring party.

It's very much how the game functions and why a bunch of players assemble, each creating an individual but the truly colorful nature is in the sum of this mixing and matching. So you need a good selection of iconics representing core options in the game.

And they must totally avoid known characters with rich history or detailed backstory. It's not about what we think of them, although that can play a part. But the real utility of these iconics is that they present strong, identifiable template. And there comes a point where the more you know about the character, the less you can claim it as your own, the less useful it becomes.

WotC must take into account DnD is a generic fantasy game at its core. It's appeal is that it has some general setting assumptions, but those can be applied to a variety of settings, commercial or homebrewed by the users.

Li Shenron · Jun 20, 2012

I quite liked the idea of iconics used in 3ed to present rules and character material, but we've never actually used any of them as PCs... at least that's not what I used to think iconics were for, IMHO they were there mostly to show you the most "normal" or "obvious" progression for a character of a certain class.

But now that I think about it, for 5e I would probably prefer if they choose famous top-level NPCs which have crossed many editions (Elminster is an excellent idea for a "normal" Wizard, but Drizzt doesn't seem to me a "normal" Ranger at all), and then show them in flashback as they started at 1st level, and then in parallel versions which highlight the feature of 5e to approach one earlier edition or the other.

Although admittedly, many of those famous NPC had some totally non-normal stats of divine blessings which broke the rules, but they can don't have to be represented (and personally I much prefer the idea of an uber NPC who actually started as a very average 1st level character rather than someone born a superman).

Discussing Iconics

I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich

Doug McCrae

Legend

Consonant Dude

First Post

Li Shenron

Legend

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