D&D 5E I Am SO Over The "Rootless Vagabond" Archetype

[Gadget]

I think there are many reasons for the "rootless vagabond" trope, and many of them have to do with play style and social contract. First: it is the path of least resistance that casts the widest net. Players don't have to come up with back stories and ties to the campaign, if indeed they have any but the vaguest notions about the campaign and setting. It is enough of a hassle for some casual, beer and pretzels type of players to actually go through the process to build the character mechanically, let alone come up with some connection to the DM's setting. Some people just want kick in doors and smash monsters. In a game that had a strong tradition of players not even naming characters until they survived to a certain level, this can be a par for the course occurrence.

Also, the group dynamic plays a part. If your group is lifelong friends with similar tastes and play styles, with good communication, these things tend to be less of a problem. The DM and the players can set some ground rules about what type of setting and campaign they want to play; if you are a bunch of casual acquaintances that are getting together to "play some D&D" it can be difficult to make expectations and play styles gel, and 'rootless vagabond' can really slot in anywhere.

Also, Also, some people have had conflicts or bad experiences with DMs/games in the past where their idea of what they wanted in the setting and the DM's clashed. Some have felt they were set up to acting out a part in the DM's Magnum Opus unpublished fantasy novel, or become pawns in someone's morality play when they did not wish that type of game. Thus having a connection, like a family or organization/home town was just setting yourself up to have them dangled over a boiling cauldron/raped-and-pillaged while the MacGuffin teetered on the edge of a precipice on the other side of the room/country/continent. Such things can become tiresome after a while too, thus 'Rootless Vagabond' becomes more about just playing the game and getting on with it.

Now I'm not saying any or all of these situations apply to your game, or are valid for your situation, but these are some of the issues I've seen raised in the past by various other players and DMs when something like this has come up.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Others have said most of what I was going to, especially about 1st level characters buying the farm (they just left), 'wasting' whatever background they had. I've also found that I usually get a better idea of what I want my characters to be like after playing them for a few sessions, if not longer. (One such character ended up the top cleric in the base adventuring town, so not having a ready-made background didn't prevent her from making connections.) Oh, and Japanese ronin are exactly what D&D adventurers are, sans magic.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I've never liked rootless vagabonds, and pretty much never saw them in games from OD&D onwards - we were always running and playing in campaigns, and getting involved in the society was always one of the objectives. I don't really remember anyone wanting to play 'the man with no name', everybody wanted to build their castle/tower/temple, and rise in status in the society.

I think that OD&D and AD&D definitely supported and encouraged this kind of play - it was right there in the name level benefits after all!

It would be interesting to find out whether many people who really got into D&D in the 3e+ era had a greater or lesser tendency to murderhoboism/being rootless vagabonds. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a greater tendency because the 3e rules onwards expressly didn't really support anything other than continually finding bigger badder dungeons. Of course, people have run all kinds of campaigns within 3e onwards, no doubting that they can. But perhaps the lack of explicit pointers to that worldbuilding side of characters may have failed to encourage people to get involved?

Cheers

True, but world building and putting together stuff from the result of game play is different IMO. Rising to rule a dominion is a cool part of the game. On the other hand I've seen backgrounds where I couldn't accept this was a 1st level PC just starting out they had some much stuff in their past already.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've run my fair share of rootless vagabonds/murderhobos, but I have also run mercenaries/hirelings/siblings of other PCs, and other plotline hooks. Not only do those hooks help the GM, but they also help me stay in character. Because of this, I often include all kinds of roleplay notes on or attached to my character sheets.

So on my PCs sheets, you might see something like:

CLAN SKYHAMMER'S OATH:

In deepest mine, on mountain's height
Our cunning foes will face our might
No Far Realms scourge evades our sight
Skyhammer clan's eternal fight!

(See Jeffrey Combs in "From Beyond" (Mythos);
Ellcrys Guardians; pallasite meteorites;
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy_(astronomy) [siz-i-jee]: an alignment of 3+ celestial bodies.
See also http://www.enworld.org/forum/5223637-post.html )

Which helps remind me that this Dwarven Starlock

1) came from a clan of aberration-hunting scholars

2) uses powers gained from his pact to fight the more egregious interlopers from the Far Realms

3) some meteors are not rock, but "eggs" from Far Realms entities, some of which fail, some of which hatch...

On a more recent PC's sheet, there is this:

ILLUMINATED SOCIETY OF THOTH
Motto: Ardere et Lucere, to be enkindled and to enlighten.

This selective, secular organization is loosely associated with the
Church of Thoth. It is a diverse confederation of individuals devoted to the discovery and control of knowledge of all kinds. One need not be a believer in Thoth to be offered an invitation to join, but it helps. Members are typically well-informed in many areas, either by formal education or by life experience.

There is more to it, and that handy description of his secret society helps keep my "Arcane Paladin" on the right role-playing path.

 

[KarinsDad]

One of the power fantasies that D&D allows for is self-sufficient characters who answer to no one, who improve their own skills by slaying their own monsters and never need anyone else. They come into town from Elsewhere, on some impossible mission, looking for only gold or glory, and leave just as suddenly, attached to no one, without responsibility or background. They are orphans or outcasts or otherwise abandoned souls who needed no one and answer to only themselves. They are Rootless Vagabonds, self-contained engines of freewheeling semi-heroism.

YAWN.

These days, I tend to find such characters taxing, cliche, and a little annoying. They're bland. They have no arc, no growth, no origin, no fate. no goals. They exist to slot into some excuse to slay monsters and then leave, as indistinct and irrelevant as the rest.

Sounds like a perfect PC.

 

[AmerginLiath]

It's been a bit since we played, but my group's long-standing DRAGONLANCE campaign-of-campaigns built up (over a century of gametime and on-and-off two decades of playing time) a web of connected groups and organizations in a first generation, and then over subsequent generations*, tying those together with random characters' stories filling in gaps. If a player came in with a one-sentence background, we could easily figure out ideas of connecting him/her to other characters via blood, marriage, politics, or business (which all worked quite well in a 'romantic' setting like DRAGONLANCE) to instantly flesh out the new character and create group ties and larger stories. It was like the Backgrounds feature before its time, thanks to grafting a long campaign onto a existing campaign setting! (We always played in the periphery of things -- my choice of playing a noble of Northern Ergoth, the one major kingdom on the maps never mentioned in the wars of the books, launched a thousand original stories...)

(*there's now talk of using 5e, perfect for DL, to play the fourth 'generation' -- in some cases literally generation -- of characters)

 

[Nebulous]

Not to start a pseudo-edition war, but have you looked at 13th Age, either to play or to mine for good ideas. Icon Relationships make players movers and shaker - protagonists in the story - even from 1st level, but the flip side is that they aren't rootless vagabonds. Backgrounds (13th Age skills) work best when associating you with the world, and the One Unique Thing often also is a strong link into the world. Plus all of them make the character less cliche and more interesting and connected.

13th Age and 5e share a lot of DNA and design philosophy - it would be rather simple to import some of the ideas even if you don't play/run 13th Age.

Yep, i second this. 13th Age can be massively used in 5th edition. I like 5e better, but 13 age has some great ideas.

Edit: and there's another entire thread about using 13th Age monster powers in 5e. It's a great fit.

 

[Umbran]

Not to be confused with murderhobbit.

That's, "SEXY SHOELESS GOD OF WAR!" to you, sir

 

[Umbran]

The only thing that I'll really object to as a DM is the lone wolf character who then looks to me for a reason that his hero is adventuring with the rest of the group.

I have, thankfully, not had that problem in years. Folks these days seem to realize that if they are going to play that, 'I have no reason to be here' character, then they don't really need a reason.

And, you know, I'm okay with that. If they're there consistently to just play the tactical game, for example, and I can rely on them to otherwise follow the party's lead, that's fine.

The one I've had an issue with is the "lone wolf who expects to be needed by the party, to be its leader, but to not lead the party" It seems connected to the "snarky, condescending people are sexy," trope. I'm sorry, but if you are snobby and unpleasant to the rest of the party, don't expect them to follow your lead....

 

[I'm A Banana]

I was a simple lowly farmer, my life turned upside down when my wife and child were infected with the kyuss rot. I was trying to save them. I wasnt some uber-heroic guy, I played him as a farmer, doing what he needed to for his family. I always suggested the safe path, the scout path... everyone else charged right in. DM asked me once why I played such a character, its a game about doing heroic things. He didnt get it. Because i didnt talk in a brooding, low voice with a bad english accent, i wasnt playing right.

To me, the rootless vagabond archetype makes the most sense for those inclined to become adventurers. Why else would you leave the comforts of the farm to battle deadly monsters?!?!

Sounds like a perfect PC.

Others have said most of what I was going to, especially about 1st level characters buying the farm (they just left), 'wasting' whatever background they had.

We are kind of beer and pretzels gamers so writing out long detailed pasts with all that isn't something we are interested in, and the loner leaving his crappy mud hole to find glory and riches in some dank forgotten temple is pretty much the par. Plus you spend all the time making up a rich background only to get mauled by a boar or killed by a pit trap in the first session

This is interesting because it meshes with my impression that this may be a table-level style thing more than a player-level thing. Some DMs/campaigns have no need and no patience for anything more than a party of murderhobos, the less they talk about themselves the better, and that can certainly be a fun game. But I find myself wanting a bit more these days than Joe the Fighter in the games I have that lean more toward a narrative (meaning, with only an outside chance of permanent PC death). Joe's fine, but part of my fun as a player and a DM is digging into the flavor nuggets the setting offers, and for one year of play, Joe's lacking in depth and complexity.

I think some of the problem can be tied to players' lack of setting knowledge. When you don't have perfect knowledge of the world, it can be a little hard to tie yourself to the Order of Ebony or the Justicar's Guild when all the information you have on these things is a paragraph in your DM's setting bible. My players, at least, aren't the type to create an organization as part of their background (despite my encouragement), and don't want to tie themselves to something that may come back later to bite them on the behind.

I can't help but think that as a campaign matures or as a new campaign is launched with the same players in that world, they'll be more likely to tie themselves in with some of the characters and organizations they had crossed paths with in a "previous life."

...it is the path of least resistance that casts the widest net. Players don't have to come up with back stories and ties to the campaign, if indeed they have any but the vaguest notions about the campaign and setting. It is enough of a hassle for some casual, beer and pretzels type of players to actually go through the process to build the character mechanically, let alone come up with some connection to the DM's setting.

On the other hand I've seen backgrounds where I couldn't accept this was a 1st level PC just starting out they had some much stuff in their past already.

The flip side of that is "80-page Backstory Man," who expects anyone to care about his character's tragic past with its cast of thousands. Equally boring, but more attention-seeking and time-consuming.

I wonder if these aren't issues that some sort of system can solve or mitigate. Like, every player of even the most casual Beer & Pretzels game has to choose a race, and learn at least that little bit about this fantasy world ("Dwarves live in mountains, got it."), and their role in it. They may also plug into bits in their class ("Wizards study magic, I guess there's some university that taught me?" or "My cleric is part of a church, of course" or even just "My fighter paid for his first suit of armor with some coin from a mercenary job for some podunk village."). Even the "path of least resistance" leads to SOME world info. I wonder if it would be possible to do this a little more formally, meaning even your most casual player has something you could hook into, and limiting the amateur fantasy authors to something concrete and relevant in play that I don't have to dedicate a week to reading about. Maybe just being a dwarf fighter means you have to pick up some hooks just as part of that? I wonder what that would look like, if every rules element you took came with a world hook of some sort....

And of course, we'd need to make clear that the intent is to deliver on these hooks. This ain't gonna be a save-or-die kind of game.

Anyway, The Wanderer is certainly a cliche, but so are the Noble Paladin and the Apprentice Wizard and a bunch of others. The trick to keeping them interesting (whether in RP, literature, comics, or TV/film) is to be aware of the cliche and use it as a tool for storytelling. Being witty or endearing can help a lot here.

I guess the other side of this coin is that a well-played rootless vagabond antihero can add a lot to a group, but if EVERY. CHARACTER. is this kind of character, it degenerates into The Wolf of Wall Street, Greyhawk Edition. I don't want to necessarily kill the idea outright, I just don't want people defaulting into it, and I want even those murderhobos to give me meaty adventure hooks (what is the past you are running from, what is the reputation that precedes you, what do people think when you come into town?).

Icon Relationships make players movers and shaker - protagonists in the story - even from 1st level, but the flip side is that they aren't rootless vagabonds.

I think Icons are a good way to think about being invested in NPC groups, but the actual mechanics leave me a little cold ("roll a 6 and derail your session"....eh, I could live without that). They are active, though, and I'm fond of that. Hmmm....