D&D 5E I hope 5th edition makes room for "Adventurers" and "Heroes".

I am going to try running a Next game where the PC's don't gain a background until 3rd level. I want 1st level to be where the PC's are just starting their career.

I want their actions during the first two levels to reflect on what background they end up choosing and I want them to choose according to their actions.

ForeverSlayer said:

I am going to try running a Next game where the PC's don't gain a background until 3rd level. I want 1st level to be where the PC's are just starting their career.

I want their actions during the first two levels to reflect on what background they end up choosing and I want them to choose according to their actions.

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The only issue I'd take with this is that a background is well their background. Perhaps a better approach would be to take away their speciality.

ForeverSlayer said:

I am going to try running a Next game where the PC's don't gain a background until 3rd level. I want 1st level to be where the PC's are just starting their career.

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That seems like an odd choice. Do you mean the specialty, not the background?

ForeverSlayer said:

I hope 5th edition makes room for both because sometimes I like being a hero, based on the style of game I'm in, and sometimes I like to be just an adventurer.

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I agree completely.

ForeverSlayer said:

The way PC's in 4th edition start out with more HP and powers and the sheer fact that 4th edition was geared more towards a "heroic" type of PC than the farmer's son having wonder lust shows how it is more than just the DM.

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Well, it looks as if 5e PCs will still start out with more hit points and abilities than average, but it's probably closer to the 3e level of more.

For example, compare a 1st-level human fighter with the human commoner in the bestiary.

The fighter has much better ability scores (16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 9, an additional +1 to any score for being human, and an additional +1 to Str, Dex or Con for being a fighter compared to 10 across the board).

The fighter has much better hit points (10 + Con mod, compared to 4).

The fighter has a +3 bonus to weapon attacks (and it will likely be higher because of positive Strength and Dexterity modifiers) compared to +0 for the commoner.

The fighter has armor proficiencies which enable him to get a much better AC (say, AC 16 for chain mail, compared to AC 10).

The commoner deals 1d4 damage with an unarmed strike (or up to 1d6 with one-handed basic weapons, and up to 1d8 with two-handed basic weapons). The fighter can deal up to 1d8 with one-handed martial weapons or 1d12 with two-handed heavy weapons, and will likely be able to increase the damage further because of a positive Strength modifier.

By spending an action, a commoner may grant another commoner (or some other creature with Mob Tactics) a +1 bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls to a target while it is within his reach. The fighter gets Combat Superiority and a Fighting Style.

Still, I suppose we can be comforted that the human commoner has more than 1 hit point (four times as much!) and the human fighter does not have more than 30 hit points (less than half that!) and that the human fighter can't increase his damage by +1[W] once per encounter. All the other differences pale in comparison, really.

DEFCON 1 said:

Actually... the DM could have easily reduced the PC's starting HP and not given out as many powers at 1st level for his game if he really wanted to. So yeah... playing 'Adventurers' (by your definition) was really quite easy to do in 4E if the DM did a little work.

And I played in several pre-4E games where the PCs started as 'Heroes' too, just by the DM starting us at a higher level or giving us more stuff to start with.

Any game can go both ways if you fiddle with it for all of like 6 minutes.

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True. But most players have a good knowledge of the game system/edition and expectations as to how that edition typically runs. The "fiddle work" may amount to 6 minutes (though with 4e that might lead to issues for players using the character builder later), but you're also well advised to spend a little time sitting down with the players in question. (It's not as simple as implying that unless you're a lazy DM, it's easy. I could "power down" 4e easily, mechanics-wise, but some of my 4e-loving players would go balistic if I did.)

There are differences in editions and the expectations they give—case in point all the 4e fan complaints about DDN's lack of PC options—and the OP makes a valid point. Any system can be made into nearly any other with "a bit of work" but a good future edition will temper expectations by veering away from the extremes.

I hope it makes room for characters that are neither "Adventurers" nor "Heroes".

IRL, the difference between 'hero' and 'adventurer' (or something worse) is probably just who wrote the history book. ;(

In D&D, it's prettymuch a difference of tone. Adventurers are gritty and more likely to be morally ambiguous. Heroes are larger-than-life and more likely to be good and noble, or rascally anti-heroes still with a heart of gold. When Adventurers succeed where others fail, they're said to be canny or lucky, when Heroes succeed where other's fail, they're said to be 'great' or 'fated.' You could try to play a hero or adventurer in any edition. In general, you're probably more likely to succeed at trying to be a hero (ie, live to tell about it) the later the ed of D&D you're playing. But playing an 'adventurer' in any ed shouldn't be an issue.

So, Hero and Adventurer are really just a matter of what you do. The main difference is that doing the Heroic thing will get you killed 9 times in 10, unless you have a hefty suit of 'plot armor' (hps in D&D).

Hopefully, 5e will keep the heroic options open.

Ahnehnois said:

I hope it makes room for characters that are neither "Adventurers" nor "Heroes".

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Agree. The 0-Level character should be represented. Playing Traladaran teenagers who are participating in the Shearing Ceremony comes to mind.

I think the amount of power definitely affects how the PCs are perceived by the players, as "adventurers" or as "heroes".

But there is another, possibly more important element of distinction IMHO, and that is lethality.

Adventurers die. An adventurer-type character is still perceived by the players as a fairly normal person. We're in a fantasy world, so some of the most talented people can learn magic, but even if what they do isn't normal, they still are fairly normal after all, in the sense that they will die if they are not careful, if they make a mistake, but often just because adventuring long enough simply brings you more chances to die. It's "natural", when you live in a world full of monsters... and you go out looking for them!

Heroes don't die. This is a semi-serious overstatement... of course they die, but my point is that they die only if their death can be turned into a memorable show, and sometimes they die even only if their players want it. This is why superheroes game feature so many tricks to prevent death from mistakes or bad luck: action points, second wind, plenty of healing capabilities... in those games death is not "natural", it is only a punishment for a player who's done something really really wrong, or the result of a DM creating an excessively difficult encounter (which usually causes a lot of players' resentment).

I think the two ideas belong to two fundamentally different gaming styles. An "adventurers' campaign" is more like what life could really be in a fantasy world. A "heroes' campaign" is more like an action movie.