D&D General how did we end up with the thousand types of Bruiser?

[Paul Farquhar]

Small people are rarer, and get played a lot less - you can see this very easily in video games. Even where the stats of characters make almost no difference or there's actually no stat-size linkage in a game, the small races are nowhere near as popular as the big bruisers. And the most popular races always, without fail, the humans and elves (and things in that general zone). Devil-people are also typically pretty popular, and a lot more popular than the small guys.

This is largely because the games you are thinking of are full of adolescent males.

The last MMO I played I was a 4 foot tall robot.

As previously mentioned I played a half ogre - when I was an adolescent male...

 

[Vaalingrade]

Sometimes they are, just like sometimes humans are, but they aren't as obvious candidates for "the big guy" as a half orc, bugbear, goliath, wookiee or minotaur.

It only just occurred to me that bugbears are wookies. I've always just seen them as a completely nonsensical addition to the goblinoid family (seriously: furry goblins, wtf?)

I played a half ogre back in 1st edition days.

I spent entirely too long trying to develop a half ogre for my setting before just making ogres playable.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It only just occurred to me that bugbears are wookies. I've always just seen them as a completely nonsensical addition to the goblinoid family (seriously: furry goblins, wtf?)

Zeb Orrelios (Rebels) is even more a bugbear. We noticed this when someone played a bugbear in our Eberron campaign.

I spent entirely too long trying to develop a half ogre for my setting before just making ogres playable.

Mine came from a magazine, can't remember if it was Dragon or something else.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Am I the only one who doesn't see Dwarves or dragonborn as 'bruisers'?

Tanks certainly, they can take punishment, but I put that in a different category than Smashzilla. The dwarf stereotype is Cleric OR fighter and dragonborn are paladins.

As for the other examples, they all bring something different to the table, IMO.

The half-orc is a carboard stand-in for actual orcs; they're the ISO standard 'fringe of society but part of it' tough guy. They're your bouncers, the hired goons, etc.

the minotaur, depending on where you hopped on to minos as a race, is the balance of beast and brain. They can be highly honorable MtG minos, or bestial guardians. Usually their strength is used not for offense but defense.

Goliaths tend toward Green Scar Hulk expies. Strong, bright enough to not be feral, and apart from society. They've become more iconic of the cultural barbarian.

A lot of others; half-giants, half-ogres, have all been basically prototypes for Goliaths that never caught on as well as they did for various reasons.

then what on earth are they then?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

then what on earth are they then?

Dwarf on the left: Bruiser. Dwarf on the right: not a bruiser.

 

[Vaalingrade]

then what on earth are they then?

I said it in the post: tanks.

They don't so much smash things as soak damage.

At least in my taxonomy you have: Bruiser, Tank, Blaster, Mobility Fighter, Face and Skill Monkey.

Or we could go with d&D terms: Defender, Strike, Controller, Leader. A Bruiser would be a Striker, chewing ass and kicking bubblegum while a Tank is a defender, protecting the squishy.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Zeb Orrelios (Rebels) is even more a bugbear. We noticed this when someone played a bugbear in our Eberron campaign.

Mine came from a magazine, can't remember if it was Dragon or something else.

you mean a Lasat they had a jedi in fallen order. they are similar to wookies as they came from the same need to give han solo a bigfoot sidekick, did we ever have playable big foots?

 

[Vaalingrade]

D20 Modern had the skunk ape.

And there is no way Pathfinder doesn't have an entry for Bigfeet, Yeti, Skunkapes, Yowies, Ape Men AND excessively hairy men who walk around in the woods shirtless.

Oh, playable. I actually don't think so. There should be a WW game for it. Big: The Footening.

 

[Mind of tempest]

D20 Modern had the skunk ape.

And there is no way Pathfinder doesn't have an entry for Bigfeet, Yeti, Skunkapes, Yowies, Ape Men AND excessively hairy men who walk around in the woods shirtless.

Oh, playable. I actually don't think so. There should be a WW game for it. Big: The Footening.

I have no idea what that is WW? but Big: The Footening sounds like a game to be played drunk.

 

[Vaalingrade]

WW is White Wolf.

Ironically, Big: the Footening would probably just be Werewolf: the Apocalypse just with more bounding into out of focus areas when cameras are present.