D&D 4E 4e: Death of the Bildungsroman

[Infiniti2000]

Those weak ass characters in books almost are always escorted, helped, mentored or protected by powerful characters. D&D would be quite dull if some 10th + lvl NPC's hung around saving the PC's all of the time. Literature never translates well to games, it is why Campaign settings based on popular fiction do not last and are not supported in the long term. Those worlds have already been created, the stories already written, and the hero's defined and beloved.

My advice has always been, enjoy the games for what they are. IMO, if someone tries to take their favorite 2E or 3E characters and covert them to 4E, the game may not meet their expectation. On the other hand if people would create new characters and bond with the 4E experience, they will be much more open to the strengths the game will bring.

QFT. Succinct and precise. I loathe those adventures or plot hooks where the powerful NPC's are always saying something like, "Oh, no, YOU save the world. I, er, got something more important to do." Obviously, we don't want those high-level NPCs always saving our butts, so just keep them out of the story.

What some people call bildungsroman, I call trite.

 

[GSHamster]

Those weak ass characters in books almost are always escorted, helped, mentored or protected by powerful characters. D&D would be quite dull if some 10th + lvl NPC's hung around saving the PC's all of the time.

Which is why one of the most important parts of the story is when the Mentor dies. Gandalf in LotR, Obi-wan in Star Wars.

That's the point where the hero has to stand on her own. In many ways, D&D just skips the first part, and starts right after the Mentor dies. In Star Wars terms, a group pretty much starts at about the level of Han, Luke and Chewie rescuing Leia from the Death Star.

But kind of honestly, nothing really interesting happens before then, other than a lot of colour and setting the stage.

 

[AtomicPope]

Interesting post, but I think there is an element missing here: the young hero is still relatively competent at his job, at least enough so to survive.

Take Luke Skywalker in A New Hope. This 18 year old yokel lives on a desert world where he has nothing to do but chores and hotrod around in a landspeeder. Yet after a couple of hours training with Obi-Wan, he manages to a.) devise a plan to rescue his sister b.) survives multiple fire-fights with deadly stormtroopers c.) destroy two tie-fighters in ship-to-ship combat aboard the falcon d.) swing across a chasm with a princess in toe under heavy fire and e.) blow up the frickin Death Star!

Not bad for a first level yokel, eh?

Sure, those escapades seem tame compared to his later actions in Empire and Jedi, but that's the point, he gained seven levels in Jedi over the course of the movies and is now a Knight by the end of the OT. However, he never started off with 1d8 hp and AC 12, or else his journey would have ended right quick.

Especially because nobody wanted to play the cleric


My major is English Lit, I've been the managing editor for a literary magazine for over a year now and I'm of the opinion that bildungsroman is alive and well in the realm of Dungeons and Dragons like never before. The PC's start off "a little more" heroic than everyone else. Considering the volumes of literature (or just take Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces) and it's easy to see that humble beginnings does not mean complete schmuck. Far from it.

Literary history supports humble beginnings but imbued with the potential greatness. In all cases the young hero depits a tenacity, cunning, and talent to overcome. The 4e experience is to create monsters that will challenge PC's by providing each monster with a unique combat dynamic. Traps are meant to challenge parties rather than a single class. Quests are inherent to 4e, and to the development of the young hero; rather than a house rule/variant rule.

The only way I see bildungsroman fading from 4e is when DMs fail to craft a fine story. But that's always been a issue with any RPG.

 

[Serendipity]

Don't you remember how satisfying it was in 3e when you looked by (10 levels) and said to your friend "remember when those 3 goblins in the alley scared you to death - and almost killed you?"

No, but I remember that from 1e. Sorry couldn't resist.
In a general sense I very much agree with you, but we'll have to see how the game actually plays to know for sure, or such is the stance I'm taking on it.

 

[pemerton]

I think that this trope can be easily represented in 4e, it just takes a shift to the perspective that this type of narrative style campaign requires a more narrativist approach to gaming than simulationist style gaming, even if this approach really is more railroady/illusionist narritive. Unless you don't mind deprotagonized PCs with much PC death. In that case, I would suggest just going with Henry's approach. He sounds like he does this style well.

P.S.- I am not completely sure I am using all these GNS terms completely accurately. I think that I have conveyed the right meaning though. If I need to edit or clarify I will.

Your meaning was clear - an interesting post.

On the terminology - The Forge regard "railroady/illusionist narrative" as not narrativist at all, because the story does not emerge in play but has been predetermined by the GM. If it has to be given a GNS label, it can be labelled as a type of simulationism (all the play is aimed at exploration of the GM's predetermined story) but I think this is not very helpful, because it is nothing like either purist-for-system simulationism (RM, RQ) or high-concept simulationism (CoC, Pendragon). I prefer to think of it as its own (and in my view uniquely unappealing) appraoch to RPGing. Henry's approach doesn't appeal to me all that much, but I'd play that game any day rather than a tedious railroad. Give me lighthearted PC suicide squads over self-indulgent GMs who expect me to take their literary creation seriously.

 

[hong]

On the terminology - The Forge regard "railroady/illusionist narrative" as not narrativist at all, because the story does not emerge in play but has been predetermined by the GM. If it has to be given a GNS label, it can be labelled as a type of simulationism (all the play is aimed at exploration of the GM's predetermined story) but I think this is not very helpful, because it is nothing like either purist-for-system simulationism (RM, RQ) or high-concept simulationism (CoC, Pendragon). I prefer to think of it as its own (and in my view uniquely unappealing) appraoch to RPGing. Henry's approach doesn't appeal to me all that much, but I'd play that game any day rather than a tedious railroad. Give me lighthearted PC suicide squads over self-indulgent GMs who expect me to take their literary creation seriously.

Huh. Railroady/illusionist narrative is basically what underpins the whole adventure path concept, and a lot of people seem to have fun with that.

It's also seen in JRPGs, Bioware CRPGs, and in fact a lot of electronic gaming in and out of the RPG genre.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Huh. Railroady/illusionist narrative is basically what underpins the whole adventure path concept, and a lot of people seem to have fun with that.

It's also seen in JRPGs, Bioware CRPGs, and in fact a lot of electronic gaming in and out of the RPG genre.

Not to mention nearly every published WOTC and TSR adventure as well as all of the RPGA adventures ever written.

The idea of all of them is that you know the beginning, middle, and end of the adventure and the PCs are there just to find their way through it.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Huh. Railroady/illusionist narrative is basically what underpins the whole adventure path concept, and a lot of people seem to have fun with that.

It's also seen in JRPGs, Bioware CRPGs, and in fact a lot of electronic gaming in and out of the RPG genre.

That's because it's actua;lly really hard to make a truly open computer game. GTA does a goed job with a sandbox game, but even that has certain storypoints you have to do to progress the game through an eventually linear story.

Then again I have a tendency to make my campaigns more railroad/illusionist narrative than I should. I always have grand plots in my head that I would like to have come about in my sessions and it can be frustrating if you keep the game open and your players totally run off with it, leaving all your carefully designed plot twists in the dust...

 

[Steely Dan]

I can see what you're saying, but the previous edition's (all) way of starting off as a glorified cobbler (1st level) and ending up as a demigod around 10th + level, never quite jived with me.

And there's more than one way to skin a fantastical cat – must we forever have to model after Bilbo, Pug, Thomas Covenant etc?

 

[DeusExMachina]

Not Pug... Never ever Pug... Feist was such a disappointing writer to me after reading about all the praise he got...

Personally, I am aiming for a Steven Erikson inspired campaign. A writer who often screws around with people's perception of the power level of his characters...
Although I should probably not have the players fight the level 30 Tisti Andii sorcerer/dragon right at the beginning...