Why PCs should be competent, or "I got a lot of past in my past"

[Clint_L]

You can't convert Gandalf or other LotR characters to D&D classes and levels. You just can't, and it's ridiculous to try. LotR was not written with Vancian magic in mind, for one thing, so the argument that Gandalf cast a lightning bolt and so it was a 3rd level spell is nonsensical. He was going toe to toe with a number of Ringwraiths and holding his own. He defeats a balrog 1v1. Gandalf is effectively a lesser god, but this is also a world in which powerful elves and others are also basically lesser gods, or at least capable of holding their own with them.

None of it equates to D&D. I don't think it equates to any RPG system I've seen, even LotR ones, because Tolkien wasn't designing a game with "levels" and balance in mind, he was writing epic fantasy.

 

[Staffan]

That's a really long way to say what makes Wolverine interesting is not what he can do, but his longstanding relationships with Weapon X, Sabertooth, the Silver Samurai, etc.

Right. And for the most part what's interesting is that he has those connections, not how he got them. In the words of John Rogers: "Remember, on Leverage you will never see Wolverine run into the woods in a poncey nightshirt. Or, for those of you who have lives, we will never nail down their backgrounds in one linear narrative."

They have those connections now. That's what's important. We may have flashbacks to how they got them, perhaps in the form of the player saying "Remember the Silverymoon job? I'm calling in that marker now." What was the Silverymoon job? I don't know. We might find out later.

b) Gandalf has an elven ring of power equivalent to a Ring of Elemental Command (Fire) and a Staff of Power (the origin of the D&D 'retributive strike' ability appears to be Tolkien - 'You shall not Pass.').

It is unclear whether Narya possesses any power over elemental fire or not. When given the ring by Cirdan, Gandalf is told "Take this ring, master, [...] for your labours will be heavy; but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill."

The elven rings are not designed as weapons, but as tools for healing and preserving. Given that, it seems more likely that it was useful when rousing Theoden from Saruman's spell than when fighting the Balrog.

 

[Theory of Games]

One issue I have with D&D and many of its descendants is that the default method of character creation is designed to create young, inexperienced characters who get threatened by something like a giant rat or a bandit.

Can you post the D&D book and page number that states created characters must be young and inexperienced? I looked at D&D Beyond and it reads " You choose your character’s age and the color of his or her hair, eyes, and skin. To add a touch of distinctiveness, you might want to give your character an unusual or memorable physical characteristic, such as a scar, a limp, or a tattoo." So this thread begins like so many others: with someone erecting a scary strawman and then telling everyone how terrible the imaginary monster is.

Some people argue that you need to start low in order to have a proper "hero's journey" and start talking Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Campbell's "Monomyth" and stuff like that. The issue is, those are primarily solo stories. There is one Hero, and though they may have a cast of supporting characters they are primarily the story of that One Hero and their growth from "young person with a great destiny" into, well, a Great Hero who can defeat the Darkness or whatever.

But if anything defines RPGs, it is that it is a group activity. I mean, sure, you can play one-on-one or sometimes even alone, but it is primarily about a group of characters. And stories about groups generally start with them already experienced. Take any Star Trek crew, or the Serenity crew, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the All-New All-Different X-Men, team Leverage, the crew of the Rocinante, the A-Team, the IMF, and so on. They are already mature characters when we get to know them. In some cases they are newly recruited as a group, but they're still highly competent individuals. And that's because an ensemble show doesn't have room to give us detailed origin stories of every member of the ensemble. Save the background stuff for when it becomes relevant to the present.

It looks here like your confusing how books and movies are written with how rpg campaigns are created. They are not the same.

And starting out as experienced characters gives more room for bringing in background elements. Someone who started the campaign as a 17-year old 1st level wizard's apprentice probably doesn't have much background to draw on that didn't happen during the game. But Amos Burton? Yeah, that guy's got a lot of past in his past, and it could pop up at any time.

In one way, I think this might have been relevant to the success of Critical Role. When we first met Vox Machina, they were already 9th level or so. They had established group dynamics, and had made allies and enemies already. That might have been a reason I had a hard time getting into their second and third campaigns – I just didn't find the origin stories interesting.

Okay wait. First you suggested good stories only have experienced characters in them then you flip everything to suggest when presented with experienced D&D characters by CR you didn't like their backstories?

Of course, that doesn't mean one shouldn't have room to grow, both in an interpersonal way by building relationships and dynamics within the group and in a more direct way by becoming more powerful. To use Leverage as an example: Parker starts out as one of the best thieves in the world, and doesn't become appreciably better as a thief over the course of five seasons. But she does have a lot of personal growth, by establishing friendships with the rest of the crew and a romantic (such as it is) relationship with Hardison. She also becomes more adept at other aspects of pulling off heists, such as grifting and planning. So there's definitely room to grow even if you start off competent.

Anyhow, that's just a bit of rambling on my part, prodded on by my realization that the difference between Hero's Journey and Already Competent often has to do whether the story focuses on one person or a full cast.

Oh, and Lord of the Rings is a bit of a special case, in that it basically splits into two. While Frodo goes on his Hero's Journey (along with Sam), the rest of the Fellowship goes on to do Badass Things (albeit with a side quest for Merry and Pippin to get buffed by the ents). And that's basically an illustration of my thesis: it's the single hobbit and his friend (while some would argue that Sam is the Real Hero, narratively he's more supporting cast) who goes on the Hero's Journey, while the group goes on to do Badass Stuff. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas are fundamentally the same characters after the books (Aragorn might be King, but that's just a matter or recognition, not of him leveling up or anything), but Frodo is fundamentally changed.

Are you good, friend? There's never been anything in D&D that forced players to make young characters. This feels like you were in at least two groups that played that way, maybe? I hope you found the right group of people.

 

[Celebrim]

There's never been anything in D&D that forced players to make young characters.

While there is certainly nothing in D&D that forces players to make young characters, it is certainly implicit to the structure of D&D and the assumption that you start at 1st level that you make an inexperienced character. This assumption in my experience tends to be soft forcing on the idea of a young character, because otherwise you typically have to assume some character flaw to explain why an older character is inexperienced and most players aren't into that. It's not that you can't have a middle-aged rich dilletante like Bilbo Baggins finally getting out of the house for the first time in his life as a PC in D&D, it's just that that story doesn't typically resonate with players who are generally creating a player character as a playing piece to self-identify as. Whereas, if the inexperienced character is young, this doesn't present itself as a character flaw but the natural expectation.

Sure, you can probably think up a dozen or so original backgrounds to explain why an older character as very few useful life skills and now is suddenly going on an adventure as an exercise in creativity, but those explanations aren't as obvious as "my PC is young" and often carry unwanted baggage.

 

[payn]

While there is certainly nothing in D&D that forces players to make young characters, it is certainly implicit to the structure of D&D and the assumption that you start at 1st level that you make an inexperienced character. This assumption in my experience tends to be soft forcing on the idea of a young character, because otherwise you typically have to assume some character flaw to explain why an older character is inexperienced and most players aren't into that. It's not that you can't have a middle-aged rich dilletante like Bilbo Baggins finally getting out of the house for the first time in his life as a PC in D&D, it's just that that story doesn't typically resonate with players who are generally creating a player character as a playing piece to self-identify as. Whereas, if the inexperienced character is young, this doesn't present itself as a character flaw but the natural expectation.

Sure, you can probably think up a dozen or so original backgrounds to explain why an older character as very few useful life skills and now is suddenly going on an adventure as an exercise in creativity, but those explanations aren't as obvious as "my PC is young" and often carry unwanted baggage.

A lot of folks don't correlate the two. The mechanics stay under the hood and serve the game. So you can have characters go 1-20 in 30 years, just 3, or 30 days even.

 

[Celebrim]

A lot of folks don't correlate the two. The mechanics stay under the hood and serve the game. So you can have characters go 1-20 in 30 years, just 3, or 30 days even.

So, I'm not at all sure what you are trying to say. So, I'm going to respond by going off on what might or might not be a tangent to what you are saying.

In World of Warcraft, very quickly I came to the understanding that in the game world itself the fiction basically established that you were the protagonist and one of the mightiest heroes in the world from the very first level and from the perspective of the game world you didn't level up at all or that at most you'd already reached the pinnacle of mortal power by 20th level. The meta of the game involved levelling up but the levels really had no in game meaning and instead where a narrative device meant to force linearity on your story so that you encountered the story beats in the same order. That meant that the world you were in didn't have 6th level bear and 70th level bears - they were all just bears. The game mechanics existed entirely outside of the game world and largely had nothing at all to do with it.

I don't feel like D&D works the same way and it would be difficult to color it the same way. In D&D when your character levels up in the game that actually means you are meaningfully increasing in power in the game world. Thus, it is implicit to a 1st PC in the game that they haven't had a lot of adventures (or else something has happened to de-level them and there is a table agreement that not even Wish would allow them to recover their lost XP but that's a pretty far out edge case).

 

[MarkB]

While there is certainly nothing in D&D that forces players to make young characters, it is certainly implicit to the structure of D&D and the assumption that you start at 1st level that you make an inexperienced character. This assumption in my experience tends to be soft forcing on the idea of a young character, because otherwise you typically have to assume some character flaw to explain why an older character is inexperienced and most players aren't into that. It's not that you can't have a middle-aged rich dilletante like Bilbo Baggins finally getting out of the house for the first time in his life as a PC in D&D, it's just that that story doesn't typically resonate with players who are generally creating a player character as a playing piece to self-identify as. Whereas, if the inexperienced character is young, this doesn't present itself as a character flaw but the natural expectation.

Sure, you can probably think up a dozen or so original backgrounds to explain why an older character as very few useful life skills and now is suddenly going on an adventure as an exercise in creativity, but those explanations aren't as obvious as "my PC is young" and often carry unwanted baggage.

Why make up a new background? Plenty of the existing ones assume that you're experienced and have been in that role for some time.

Criminal states in its first sentence that you're experienced and have a history of breaking the law, and portrays you as a well connected member of the criminal underworld.

Folk Hero explicity gives you a heroic past.

Guild Artisan specifies that you've risen to being both well-established within the mercantile world and a master of your craft.

As a Hermit you've lived in seclusion long enough to have made some remarkable philosophical discovery.

A Sage, like the Guild Artisan, has spent long enough in their profession to achieve mastery, this time in a particular field of scholarly study.

Soldier carries with it a sufficient military rank to command the respect and deference of others, not something easily achieved without a significant career.

Even the backgrounds that don't explicitly make you an adult with a job you've been in for years or even decades don't preclude such a thing. I don't think any of them come with the assumption that you're still young and inexperienced, except possibly Urchin.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

One thing I had discovered, decades before I ever was introduced to Traveller and its character creation was a great product by the dear, missed Jennell Jacquays, Central Casting: Heroes of Legend (1988 - https://www.amazon.com/Central-Casting-Heroes-Paul-Jaquays/dp/0922335001)

This had so many ways to get a backstory going, and possibly tie the group together. The first campaign I joined outside of my family used this book, and gave such a complete backstory that even decades later, I still remember that my character had been born decadent, had military service and had been blessed by the goddess Sif - for some reason - with unnaturally beautiful hands.

In games I run of D&D, I try to find a way to tie the characters together and my players generally work out reasons why their characters are friends and remain loyal to each other - I call this an example of 'Good Metagaming' instead of the bad cheaty metagaming. There are no mechanical ways currently for D&D players to randomly roll lifepaths to connect, and as much as I love them, I don't think they'd be a better option than sitting down and working out the tale of how you all were members of the thieves guild or under their protection before the Fire Knives came to destroy them and wiped out all but the PCs. YMMV

 

[payn]

So, I'm not at all sure what you are trying to say. So, I'm going to respond by going off on what might or might not be a tangent to what you are saying.

In World of Warcraft, very quickly I came to the understanding that in the game world itself the fiction basically established that you were the protagonist and one of the mightiest heroes in the world from the very first level and from the perspective of the game world you didn't level up at all or that at most you'd already reached the pinnacle of mortal power by 20th level. The meta of the game involved levelling up but the levels really had no in game meaning and instead where a narrative device meant to force linearity on your story so that you encountered the story beats in the same order. That meant that the world you were in didn't have 6th level bear and 70th level bears - they were all just bears. The game mechanics existed entirely outside of the game world and largely had nothing at all to do with it.

I don't feel like D&D works the same way and it would be difficult to color it the same way. In D&D when your character levels up in the game that actually means you are meaningfully increasing in power in the game world. Thus, it is implicit to a 1st PC in the game that they haven't had a lot of adventures (or else something has happened to de-level them and there is a table agreement that not even Wish would allow them to recover their lost XP but that's a pretty far out edge case).

Well why are there old NPCs without lots of levels? These are honestly things some folks wrestle with and one of the biggest reasons I love bounded accuracy. The world can have folks of variable power across any age range. So, unlike WoW the PCs are not fantasy Avengers unless you want the to be.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

One thing I had discovered, decades before I ever was introduced to Traveller and its character creation was a great product by the dear, missed Jennell Jacquays, Central Casting: Heroes of Legend (1988 - https://www.amazon.com/Central-Casting-Heroes-Paul-Jaquays/dp/0922335001)

This had so many ways to get a backstory going, and possibly tie the group together. The first campaign I joined outside of my family used this book, and gave such a complete backstory that even decades later, I still remember that my character had been born decadent, had military service and had been blessed by the goddess Sif - for some reason - with unnaturally beautiful hands.

In games I run of D&D, I try to find a way to tie the characters together and my players generally work out reasons why their characters are friends and remain loyal to each other - I call this an example of 'Good Metagaming' instead of the bad cheaty metagaming. There are no mechanical ways currently for D&D players to randomly roll lifepaths to connect, and as much as I love them, I don't think they'd be a better option than sitting down and working out the tale of how you all were members of the thieves guild or under their protection before the Fire Knives came to destroy them and wiped out all but the PCs. YMMV

Xanathar's Guide to Everything has a life path from Page 61 to 73. Not as extensive as Central Casting but useful.