Archetypes, are they useful anymore?

[charlesatan]

Look, first off I get the feeling these books were at least 90% classic fantasy (sword and sorcerer stuff) with just a little bit of odd-ball stuff (wizards donning armor etc.). Is that correct?

Once and Future King, not really. It's in a genre of its own: Arthurian Fantasy. Actually Once and Future King has more sorcery than sword, and explores more the characters of Arthurian legend than an actual quest-fest.

A Wizard of Earthsea has a wizard as the main protagonist. Also breaks the stereotype of the bearded old men as wizards (well, sorta) because the main character is a young wizard. There are, however, many old wizards in the series, and le Guin eventually ret-cons them to be evil.

Howard and Leiber, of course, are sword and sorcery stuff.

Secondly, lets say all these books were as popular as "The Hobbit" and LOTR series. There still chump change compared to the classic story book fairy tales which reach back 100s of years, the ones we were introduced to in our childhood. And thats why Gygax focused on a more "classic fantasy" setting (with MUs not wearing armor, and fighters not casting spells).

If we're just talking about fairy tales, what we have are Fighters as Knights. Or commoners even. Period. Spellcasters were villains. So what happened to our clerics and thieves?

As mentioned by others, the classes are there for game design reasons, to give a reason for the party to coexist, and a throw-over from the war gaming era which preceded RPGs.

P.S. And isn't "classical" = "archetypal"?

 

[charlesatan]

To be more precise, the first part of the Once and Future King, The Sword in the Stone, is the well known and pretty much most accepted telling of the early life of Arthur. (I have the original edition; White changed it later, and not for the better). The later books aren't as great, though still interesting to read.

Cheers!

Thanks for clarifying. Alas, he pulled a George Lucas, or a le Guin, or even a Moorcock...

 

[Desdichado]

J-dawg, first off, you can come up with a million and one archetypes. I was referring to the popular "types" or roles found in AD&D 1E (in this case the basic classes) and other popular literature (I was breaking it into 5, the child, the protector/provider, the teacher, and the healer. These are just 1 set though, and no biggy if you don't want to use them. They are codifications, artificial boxes inwhich attributes are thrown to make some kind of superficial since of them...nothing more.

Now I'm even more confused. Which class represents the "child", for instance? For one thing, I'm not terribly impressed myself with either Jung or Campbell and their reduction of all characters into a handful of vague and broad roles--they're so vague and broad as to be fairly meaningless, IMO. Also, their constructs related to literary and mythological characters, which doesn't map well to 1e, which is largely a very gamist, miniatures based tactical wargame still.

So, if you're not talking about the types of archetypes represented by the classes, I guess I'm a little at a loss here as to where you're going.

But sure, you could have the "Hero" archetype for 3E Or anything else that floats your boat. Infact, I agree with you, the archetypes or class restrictions found in 1E aren't well suited for 3E, which is def. a more retro feeling game. As you said, it has incorporated many other current systems along with D&D (strongly tieing into Magic for instance).

Again; quite confused. 1e class restrictions aren't well suited for 3e, which has a retro feel?! Those seem to be contradictory (albeit confusing and unclear) statements to me. Also, I never claimed that 3e incorporated many other systems along with D&D (although now that you make that claim, I'll agree with it--elements of Rolemaster in particular are easy to spot, among others) but I have no idea what you mean by strong ties to Magic. You mean Magic the Gathering?! What strong ties are you talking about?

So what could you learn from playing the 1E classes...well that depends on the player. I suppose nothing for some. Having to limit yourself to sneaking around vs. casting spells vs. going toe to toe all require you to think differently. Can the things you do in the game help you in some way outside of the game? Maybe...but like I said it depends on the player (some don't even get into the game...so. I hope that helps clearify my admittedly obscure statement. But I'm posting in a rush, so..

Uck. No thanks. I did that back when 1e was current and I was in junior high. It's not a "learning experience" as far as I'm concerned, except that I learned that D&D was a frustrating game to play, and I left it and migrated through other RPG systems until 3e/d20 was released. I think the market (and if not, certainly me) have moved beyond such blatant gamist constructions that constantly remind me that I'm playing the equivalent of a complex tabletop wargame or boardgame. There's been a push in RPGs in general, and in D&D in particular to allow player characters to better emulate the kinds of characters that you read about in fantasy books or see in action movies. That hasn't weakened the archetypical nature of the classes, IMO, but it certainly has broadened the scope for any given individual character.

 

[tx7321]

I'm not talking that literally, rather "closest to". Merlin is the only one that comes to mind as a wizard (and the one portrayed in Excalibur would be the classic sort), Jack and the Bean Stalk corresponds with a thief (sneaks in sneaks out with the goods), Prince X take your pick for a fighter (direct battle), clerics.........thats tough. Possibly biblical?
Oh and the huntsman in Red Riding Hood, a good ranger template (but really the fighter equiv. in the story).
Its the whole: child-plays, and shirks responsibility/ Father-protects and provides/ Elder -advises and guides/ shaman (heals and effects the supernatural) The Shaman and elder are actually the same. Like I said this is just one set of archetypes which are re-occuring figures in myth and legend from cultures around the world. This is anthro stuff and I realize of no interest here.

 

[Desdichado]

No, it probably is of quite a bit of interest here, given especially how popular Jung and Campbell seem to be. Not popular with me necessarily, but then again, for anthro give me archeology, linguistics and physical anthropology any day and keep the rest.

I guess I'm not understanding what the relationship between those type of roles are and anything going on in D&D. Of any edition. In my experience, D&D games tend to run a spectrum between fairly wargamey; little more than Warhammer Quest type games, to games that resemble complex novels of the type GRR Martin would write (well, at least they aspire to.) I'm a little confused how either of those types of games lends itself to the type of anthro analysis you're talking about.

 

[Desdichado]

To be more precise, the first part of the Once and Future King, The Sword in the Stone, is the well known and pretty much most accepted telling of the early life of Arthur. (I have the original edition; White changed it later, and not for the better). The later books aren't as great, though still interesting to read.

Wow! I couldn't possibly disagree more. While the Sword in the Stone certainly borrows heavily from the "accepted" Arthurian tradition, it's also largely completely White's invention, especially all the details of the tutelage under Merlin. The "accepted" version of the Arthurian stories are generally Mallory's, not White's.

Also, Sword in the Stone is fairly whimsical and entertaining, but as the books advance, they take on a maturity and pathos that make SitS seem quite small in scope and style in comparison.

 

[Desdichado]

AD&D 1Es primary demographic was a more general public and thus had to have a wide appeal. The books you mentioned weren't read by anyone I knew back then. Maybe in your neck of the woods.

Whoa--just scanning through the thread and this eye-popping claim jumped out and bit me by the sack. Are you kidding? You're saying that 1e had a more general public target market than 3e? On what are you basing this extraordinary claim?

 

[charlesatan]

I'm not talking that literally, rather "closest to". Merlin is the only one that comes to mind as a wizard (and the one portrayed in Excalibur would be the classic sort), Jack and the Bean Stalk corresponds with a thief (sneaks in sneaks out with the goods), Prince X take your pick for a fighter (direct battle), clerics.........thats tough. Possibly biblical?
Oh and the huntsman in Red Riding Hood, a good ranger template (but really the fighter equiv. in the story).

So now we're approximating? But either way, that still exists in 3E. And the problem with the wizard is that well, we simply have Merlin as your "heroic" wizard, and honestly, even then, he does less adventuring and more advising. And Excalibur being "the classic sort" because it's the only Arthurian model you're familiar with? The spellcaster "where did that come from archetype" stands.

I'd say Jack and the Bean Stalk is more of a commoner rather than a thief. Or that of a wise man archetype that outwits rather than physically outmaneuvers them.

As for clerics, my point exactly. So now we're now shifting into Bible territory? Again, you have the spellcaster and the Fighter. What happened to the thief and the cleric? And mind you, Bible prophets didn't wear armor (well, the exception are probably the leaders in the Book of Judges but it's been so long since I've read that part). And we're disregarding the fact that prophets did little adventuring and just prophesied, gave warnings, and performed miracles rather than killing stuff directly. Or the fact that they condemned sorcery of any sort (except the miracles they performed of course, because that's not sorcery, that's coming from God).

I'm not denying the Fighter. I just see, according to your logic, why we really need the other two, and the spellcaster is really a villain more than a heroic model, at least according to "fairy tales". Unless you want to move into Greek territory, where we had gods-warrior/spellcasters.

Its the whole: child-plays, and shirks responsibility/ Father-protects and provides/ Elder -advises and guides/ shaman (heals and effects the supernatural) The Shaman and elder are actually the same. Like I said this is just one set of archetypes which are re-occuring figures in myth and legend from cultures around the world. This is anthro stuff and I realize of no interest here.

It's not that we have no interest in it. It's just because it doesn't really relate to the topic at hand. It sounds like a forced thesis. Might look great when your teacher is grading it, but when it boils down to reality, it's a very loose theory. 1E classes can be summarized in two ways: those that kill (i.e. fighter, spellcaster, thief) and those that heal (cleric). It's the bastard child of war gaming after all.

 

[charlesatan]

Wow! I couldn't possibly disagree more. While the Sword in the Stone certainly borrows heavily from the "accepted" Arthurian tradition, it's also largely completely White's invention, especially all the details of the tutelage under Merlin. The "accepted" version of the Arthurian stories are generally Mallory's, not White's.

Also, Sword in the Stone is fairly whimsical and entertaining, but as the books advance, they take on a maturity and pathos that make SitS seem quite small in scope and style in comparison.

I think the point of Merric is that while Mallory is canon, Mallory doesn't cover much of Arthur's youth. Before drawing the sword from the stone, we only have vague details of Arthur. T.H. White provides us some of that detail, and the succeeding generation draws from that. Disney did for example. White's Arthurian material, while not canon, doesn't really contradict (or support) Mallory's.

I think the strongest scene for most people in Once and Future King is the scene where Arthur turns into a variety of animals and experiences their life. Yes, it is whimsical and entertaining, and perhaps that's the allure of it: the fantastic nature. Not everyone liked what happened after (I didn't, but it's more of a prose style concern) for various reasons but in the end, it's all subjective.

 

[tx7321]

JD: "Whoa--just scanning through the thread and this eye-popping claim jumped out and bit me by the sack. Are you kidding? You're saying that 1e had a more general public target market than 3e? On what are you basing this extraordinary claim?"

What are you talking about? I never mentioned 3E? :\

What I was saying was that the creators went with a typcial fantasy setting and corresponding characters (or if they did use particular models (as P&P suggested) they used ones that did not break the archeytpical molds). For example, they didn't use armor wearing wizards as the MU template. Raven said, "wait a minute, there are plenty of armor wearing wizards in popular culture, and named a coulple. But that wasn't really relavent, as Gygax went with the non-armor wearing sort we see in most fantasy movies and cartoons.

Anyhow, Thats the only point I was trying to make. I had no interest in discussing 3E...thats another topic all together.