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

[Remathilis]

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.

So I see no problem with a fighter having 4 useful encounter abilities at 1st level, as well as double digit hp. Nor do I see a problem with a mage rarely running out of his weak ju-ju, the spells he spent years mastering "off camera".

Therefore, I see no disconnect between being a "hero" at first level and your bildungsroman concept. What is does is change the focus of who your PC is: Your PC is Luke, Han or Leia and clearly a high "quality" character than TK-421 the Stormtrooper. And that's just fine with me.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I second what Ingolf said.

To add: I think that too many folks have developed a "gotcha" response to 4e's terminology regarding "heroic," "paragon," and "epic" tiers. They're just shorthand; it doesn't mean that a 1st level PC is an Instant! Legendary! Hero!

The examples of bildungsroman in the OP are actually quite telling, for a couple of reasons. First off, Bilbo is a poor example of a D&D PC in general precisely because he *is* an "everyman hero"; he doesn't really make Campbell's heroic journey and he doesn't particularly advance in skill and power (references to his accomplishments in The Hobbit refer to his already extant resourcefulness and stealthiness). There's also the fact that he actually *is* exceptional to begin with; there are plenty of references to "something queer" in Bilbo's Tookish side and to a hitherto-unknown dormant adventurous spirit inside him that awakens when the dwarves come knocking.

Ged is an even less apposite example: He is *clearly,* at the start of AWoE, described as being of exceptional talent. As a young boy, he's capable of summoning a fog that blankets an entire island, and he uses magic even after only rudimentary instruction. Not to mention the fact that he has a destiny, as Ogion indicates. He's practically the prototype of a 4e PC!

I'm also inclined to think that people who are bemoaning the loss of the modestly-powered hero are seriously overestimating how powered-up 4e level 1 PCs are. Really, the only thing that the changes to 4e PCs are accomplishing is to level out the power curve a bit, which if anything is *truer* to genre emulation than not. Fights will last a bit longer, is pretty much all. The fact that wizards can pull off a low-level magic missile effect in place of firing a crossbow strikes me as being *more* evocative of traditional literary wizards, not less. (Besides, how many low-level wizards *are* there in fantasy lit?)

All of this is not to mention those characters in the fiction that influenced D&D who are pretty darn capable at the start of their careers. Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Cugel, and numerous others may get better as they go, but they're not wimps to start with.

Then, of course, there is the other issue that complicates the bildungsroman discourse tremendously: Namely, the fact that D&D at least contemplates the possibility that any given PC will rise to the level of godlike power. "Everyman hero" stories don't really take characters along that dramatic an arc; for literary inspiration in that vein, you really have to look at stories like the Earthsea trilogy or the ancient legends (say, Heracles or Beowulf).

In short, I think that the bildungsroman tradition encompasses a *lot* more than the "everyman hero" story the OP is citing, and I think that in fantasy at least, the heroes tend to resemble 4e 1st-level PCs at the start more often than they resemble 1e-3e 1st-level PCs... unless the concern is about a lack of easy mortality and low/dangerous magic, in which case one needs an entirely different system anyway.

 

[Voss]

Back in the days of yore, there were stories about heroes who went exploring and came across all sorts of nasty and wonderful things. People sat around the fire and listened to poems, tales, songs, whatever.

Then the oral tradition died. It happens.

Yes, 4e might be a much better game for having level 1 be robust and varied. But by doing this, it further removes itself from the literary precedents I hold dear, and make (in my opinion) for a less rich and varied game.

Interesting. I see some of your points, but for myself, there are three things.

1- I think it hearkens back more to the stories of the oral tradition you started with. Heroes aren't interesting as young, inexperienced punks. You don't get epic stories about how Hercules killed his first slightly large dog, or Beowulf's first fight with an equally inexperienced teenagers who's only footnote in history was that he was the first person Beowulf killed.

2- Part of the literary tradition you're talking about is specifically a British cultural thing (though it bleeds over to other cultures in places). The inexperienced, under-equipped prospective hero who muddles through despite the odds being stack against him, and then gets what he really wants, and goes home again. Sorry, but I've had enough of useless hobbits, farm boys and plucky orphans. I'm so very, very tired of them, and they're very, very played out, not to mention the lack of believability in such a story. In a dangerous world, such people would get gutted a mile from home. Or have a competent dark lord just kill them in the first place!

3- Goblins and kobolds and such are still a threat. They aren't one-hit kills any more- a group of goblins is still a threat to an adventuring party. But it doesn't come down to a single lucky (or unlucky) roll anymore.

 

[Rechan]

Well I'm not sure about dire rats, but taking on necromantically animated bones that move with supernatural speed and shrug off most weapon hits sounds pretty heroic to me.

Eh. It's pretty passe, especially when there are just 2-3 skeletons. And they're only a real threat to, well, the wizard who dies after a hit.

 

[smathis]

I disagree. 1st level in 2e-3e felt like "Rat catchers" to me. You fought dire rats, and skeletons. Oh no.

Fair enough.

But there was certainly no "Rat Catcher" class that we all started out in until we became Thieves or (later) Rogues. I can understand the matter of "feel" but in the game it was mostly a matter of flavor.

"I'm playing a 1st level thief and I'm an Orphan Pickpocket"

"Bob's playing a 1st level thief and he's a graverobber"

In 3e, we could possibly model this by a selection of skills (often leading to less effective characters in the long run from the purchase of cross-class skills -- but that is another topic). But in 1e and 2e, we really had nothing to differentiate these characters in the standard rules.

I don't see it being any different in 4e.

For the casual observer, it might appear that 1st level characters are uber-heroic. But that is a comparison based upon 3e, not upon their place in 4e.

Sure, a 1st level 4e character can have 25-30 or so hit points, whereas a similar character in 3e would have 12-15.

But a Kobold in 4e can have 15-20 hit points, whereas in 3e he had 4.

So mostly, I see it as a non-issue. If anything, the monsters got the better deal out of it...

In the end, we'll hack together some manner of 0-level play for this kind of thing. Just like we did in 3e and (some of us) in 2e. And others will have some equivalent hack to the "choose one level of an NPC class" that was common in 3e.

Sure, the numbers in 4e are inflated. But, I assure you from having played it, kobolds, goblins and the city guard can still be a significant challenge for 1st level PCs. We thought our 27 hit points made us impervious to lesser foes at first.

And then we got dropped. So we were more "heroic" but the peril was no less perilous.

Personally, I don't think the "feel" thing will be all that different or -- at least -- missed all that much once 4e comes out.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Many of the protagonists in many of the books I consumed featured youngish (usually) men (usually) who were put into difficult positions and ended up managing to overcome the odds. They acted, initially, heroic, but were not yet heroes.

I've read a lot of novels like this, and become disenchanted by a lot of them. (Ironically, some match DnD in that the young nobleman becomes a badass swordsman in only a years' time. And then there's the young love stuff - can't the hero be 30 years old, happily married, and not have his significant other killed off?)

It's not necessary to list many examples: this is a bedrock trope of the fantasy genre. Bilbo Baggins, Ged (of Earthsea)... these and many others characters were depicted at the start of the novel as distinctly weak. They were inexperienced, and often didn't know their own power (Ged), or never had any reason to expand their horizons and grow (Bilbo). Until adventure came along.

There are obvious psychological reasons why this sort of narrative is so durn appealing, particularly to young readers. The protagonist is, like many "real life" readers, inexperienced and ignorant about magic, war, love, life. Yet the protagonist manages to overcome many obstacles, and we cheer with them, even as we wonder... if perhaps... in some transformed way... the same sort of thing won't happen to us?

But enough of this silly grade school psychology, which I despise in any case.

The point is, the bildungsroman is dead.

I get you. Well, I think I do.

One of the things I noticed in fantasy is no one can do magical combat well. (DnD novels tend to be worse than other novels in this regard, but pretty much any novel does this poorly.) For instance, in Warcraft novels, which has many authors, every main character mage (or other kind of spellcaster) has one of the two following traits:

1) They're weak. They can cast three spells and then they're tapped out. Sometimes the spells are powerful (if the character is experienced), but they tap out so fast they go entire chapters doing nothing but dispensing advice. If that. (Remind you of 1st-level DnD mages?)
2) They're powerful. One spell wipes out a legion of heroes. (And the spells rarely resemble what they can do in-game, but that's not relevant to this discussion.)

Even the Dreaming Dark trilogy of DnD novels didn't have a main character mage. Just an artificer who multi-classed.

I swear, I would like to see a spell like Chain Lightning (but maybe a bit weaker) cast in one novel. Just. Once. Something moderately powerful that won't totally overwhelm what the other heroes are capable of, and can be used fairly frequently.

IMO, apprentices shouldn't adventure. Indeed, most capable mages still won't adventure. There's nothing wrong with Lotrino the 7th-level research mage whose physical stats are all 10 or lower and whose only combat spells are Mage Armor and Invisibility ... so long as he's not getting in over his head by adventuring.

But what if you want to play a budding mage who ran away from his village in 4e? It was easy in 3e. Just play a 1st level sorcerer or wizard. But what about 4e?

Do I have to create an artificial level 0?

That might be a good idea. I suspect WotC did market research and found very few people liked playing 1st-level mages in 3.x, so they wrote the rules to satisfy the larger audience.

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?"

Three goblins could almost kill you in 4e, as long as they're not minions. Goblins can even be badasses, even in 3.x. (My own party was nearly wiped out by kobolds, at 8th-level. Of course, they were rogues and one sorcerer with Lightning Bolt. We ran screaming! Yes, the kobolds really did kick our arses. And no, we never found out what level they were, either.) But that's just my experiences, and just what makes me happy.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I think the big things that seperate 4e from the rags to riches in 3.5 are the things like at will magic, healing surges, minions, and "ISN'T THIS SO AWESOME?" races. You can outright skip minions, but the at will magic missile and dragonscalies/teleporting at level one are probably the two biggest problems. But again, you can just houserule the dragonborn and other things out. So really, the magic at will is what I'd say is the biggest (and only big) thing that wrecks the farmer to legend story.

 

[Scribble]

But what if you want to play a budding mage who ran away from his village in 4e? It was easy in 3e. Just play a 1st level sorcerer or wizard. But what about 4e?

Thats one way to look at it sure... Until your low HP having budding mage gets killed by falling down a 10 pit and you become not the hero of the story, but the guy on page 35 who gets killed in a pit and had no real bearing on the story.

You can still play the budding young mage... Just because your chatracter sheet sas you have x many HPs and special powers doesn't mean your character in game has to know anything about that.

heros in stories are always overcoming odds and opstacles that seem insurmountable. In the books maybe they have some sort of special power they never knew they had, or just got a lucky break.

The game just makes it easier to model this, without the player actually being as lucky in real life.

I think 3e was a poor model at this.

So your 4e character has a special ability. Maybe he/she doesn't even know he/she has it in game... when you use it Role Play out the scene where the character manifests said power but has no clue how or why.

Player 1: What the hell was that?

Player 2: (Looking at his hands that just shot lightning...)I have no idea...

Player 1: Can you do it again?

Player 2: I don't know how I did it in the first place... it just happened...

 

[Rex Blunder]

So really, the magic at will is what I'd say is the biggest (and only big) thing that wrecks the farmer to legend story.

Why? What about spell slots is required for stories about beginning wizards? I can't think of many stories about beginning wizards, but none of the sorceror's apprentice who made all those brooms, Luke Skywalker, that guy from Robert Asprin's Myth books, the Gray Mouser were described as having spell slots, that I remember.

The Vancian system was introduced to model a wizard's growing power. But it's not the only way to do so.

 

[FadedC]

Eh. It's pretty passe, especially when there are just 2-3 skeletons. And they're only a real threat to, well, the wizard who dies after a hit.

Which kind of proves my point really. These abominations of necromancy who can easily rip up a regular peasant aren't even much of a threat to level 1 characters. That makes them sound pretty heroic to me.

In comparison 4e characters might actually seem less heroic since they actually have far more reason to fear things like skeletons and goblins.