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).
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 16th 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):
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
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 16th 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
