Archetypes, are they useful anymore?

[MerricB]

What about Cugel the Clever from Jack Vance? I think that was the main ispiration.

I've read some Jack Vance, but not much. Although important to the history of D&D, I don't know how recognisable his works are today.

I can point to rogues in current fantasy literature, and in classical literature, but the AD&D thief doesn't turn up much.

Cheers!

 

[Hussar]

Did you ever play OD&D? BECMI D&D where the races were classes? Or Basic Roleplaying, or Dragon Warriors? There are plenty of ways it could be easier.

Personally, I played and enjoyed all those games and dozens more. I also played Rolemaster 2 with loads of the options; I remember spending six hours optimising my cleric before I could begin play.

3e strikes a particular point along the simplicity/complexity axis. If you add optional rules, it strikes a different point depending on which options are in play. But to suggest that any particular permutation of 3e is optimal is to project your own preferences onto other people.

Oh true, it could be easier. There's no disputing that. But, that's a far cry from saying that D&D in any incarnation has particularly difficult character creation rules. Yes, creating a Basic D&D character is faster and easier than a 3e character, but, both are far faster and easier than creating a character in say GURPS.

I defy anyone to spend 6 hours creating a 3e 1st level character. Lumping 3e with Rolemaster doesn't fit terribly well in this case. While I'm not familiar with Rolemaster, it sounds a lot closer to GURPS than D&D.

Even allowing pretty much every book out there, creating a 1st level character cannot take that long. You simply don't have that many choices to make. Note, I did say 1st level. Jack things up to about 15th level and I can see it taking hours for someone who is not familiar with high level rules.

I think Storm Raven and MerricB have both hit it rather well. D&D in any incarnation has NEVER been about genre recreation. Yes, they have borrowed from popular fantasy of the time, but, the game has always pushed you to move beyond archetypes. Dragon magazine has umpteen articles about how to make your character your own. Sure, starting from an archetype helps, but, archetypes have always been the starting point, not the goal.

I've been told time and again that the mechanics don't matter. That two players will take two fighters with identical stats and create entirely unique characters in AD&D. Is this mistaken? If archetypes are the goal, then shouldn't every PC of a given class look very much the same?

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I've been told time and again that the mechanics don't matter. That two players will take two fighters with identical stats and create entirely unique characters in AD&D. Is this mistaken? If archetypes are the goal, then shouldn't every PC of a given class look very much the same?

The archetypes define the character's abilities, but the player imputes his or her own motivation and interpretation on them. So one player might roll a fighter and play him as a brooding tragic hero with long drooping moustaches, and another might roll the same character and play her as a bright, idealistic blonde.

Yes, the two characters might both wear plate mail and carry a longsword and a large shield, and mechanically they'd be identical, but they'd look very different, see?

 

[Psion]

I defy anyone to spend 6 hours creating a 3e 1st level character. Lumping 3e with Rolemaster doesn't fit terribly well in this case. While I'm not familiar with Rolemaster, it sounds a lot closer to GURPS than D&D.

AFAIAC, worse. Much worse if you use certain editions.

 

[tx7321]

Raven: "Personally, I think the "classes are archetypes" argument used in relation of 1e and 2e AD&D is very much overblown. The main problem with the argument (as I see it) is that the classes as written don't seem to fit any literary archetypes at all."


The 5 basic archetypes are broad, not just specific jobs, careers or roles, but they all fit into that general basket due to their boundaries. These are universal templates as old as man. They also are studied in psychology, anthropology, history, and many other fields and don't just occur in literature. Carl Jung did allot of interesting studies into archetypes.

Archetypes come from the roles that we (all humans) instinctively recognize (mother, father, child, teacher, healer). You can go to the deepest back-jungle H/G nomadic tribe, to the modern city and see the same basic archetypes.

Archetype shouldn't be confused with personality. Some personalities are better suited for different archetypes (or roles) but each category has examples of all the personalities in it.
AD&D uses the alignment system to give a basic template to follow (you have CE Magicians, just as you have LG...some would argue the lawful is probably better suited for being a magician. In "real life" there are many personality category systems.
The most popular in the West is probably Myers-Briggs. Many of you have undoubtedly taken this test for school or work. If you haven't take this test: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes3.asp and there are more detailed write ups here. http://www.personalitypage.com/home.html.

Anyhow, authors use archetypes to make things simple. The more defined they are (expressed through limits) the more identifiable. Usually archetypes are used to address human problems and conflicts we all experience (like growing up). These conflicting archetypes within individuals are often the basis for characters in books and movies.

In AD&D I think the focus was to get on an adventure and do stuff asap. It was a less introspective game, and more interested in adventure. Therefore, quick and easy identification of your role is very useful in this "action oriented" game.

Perhaps 3E has broken down the barriers between the classes, to reflect a more intellectual or inward looking game. Its less about the "group" and more about the individuals within it. Thats probably why customization is the focus. And probably why they changed the rules to put the rules into the hands of the players (now responsible for their highly customized characters). So perhaps in some since the role of archetype has been changed in 3E from one of "tool to get into action" where the player keeps his personality and shoves it into a PC (as you see in AD&D 1E), to one of "tool to define yourself" where the player builds and streamlines his character and then attempts to become it. I think this may come directly from 2E which was strongly into character development...but taken one step further by removing the barriers to self expression (ie. a fighter being able to take elements of being a thief, or a MU being able to take elements of being a fighter).

Fascinating stuff.

 

[Seeten]

We played RM for years, making a character could easily take 5 hours.

But I had a ton of fun making RM characters. Background options = feats before feats were cool, and spending the skill points was amazing, you had skills and could actually do stuff.
So it was a fun 5 hours.

 

[Greg K]

We played RM for years, making a character could easily take 5 hours.

But I had a ton of fun making RM characters. Background options = feats before feats were cool, and spending the skill points was amazing, you had skills and could actually do stuff.
So it was a fun 5 hours.

Wow, it never took me more than an hour to make a Rolemaster character unless I was building a high level NPC from scratch

 

[Nikosandros]

I've read some Jack Vance, but not much. Although important to the history of D&D, I don't know how recognisable his works are today.

Well, I believe that it's a shame... Vance is a very inspired writer.

 

[Rothe]

Personally, I think the "classes are archetypes" argument used in relation of 1e and 2e AD&D is very much overblown. The main problem with the argument (as I see it) is that the classes as written don't seem to fit any literary archetypes at all.

For example, the thief class in 1e D&D was pretty clearly heavily influenced by the character of the Grey Mouser. But in play, the 1e thief didn't play like the inspiration. In point of fact, when he wanted to create a Grey Mouser like character for his use (Gord the Rogue), Gygax had to substantially modify the class to get to the archetype (see the appendix to the first Gord book). And the 'archetype" doesn't fit, for example, Bilbo Baggins very well.

Some of the "archetypes" are based on a single literary character: the structure and abilities of the 1e Ranger are very obviously built upon the character of Aragorn. The paladin class and its abilities is based upon the protagonist in the book Three Hearts and Three Lions.

The 1e cleric class has almost no literary antecedent. I suppose you could say that it is partially based on Bishop Odo and his participation in the Battle of Hastings, or Moses, and the abilities he displays in Exodus (including the spells sticks to snakes, part water, create food and water, and so on). But it isn't a good fit for either.

Gandalf doesn't work as a 1e AD&D wizard. Legolas and Gimli would both be 1e AD&D fighters, but their skills are wildly different. Nor do the AD&D 1e fighter skills really fit Conan very well - he displays a lot of what would be designated "thiefly" abilities in the stories Howard wrote about him.

And these dissatisfations resulted in a burgeoning proliferation of classes. One class for every variation. The Barbarian. The Thief-Acrobat. The Cavalier. The Sentinel. The Jester. The Bandit. The Sage. And so on, and so forth. Until you had so many classes that the "benefit" asserted for a class based system (ease of character creation) became swallowed up by the enormous number of variant classes to look through.

.....

QFT especially the last paragraph. The number of classes put forth in D&D rivals the number of skills in some skill based systems.

 

[Faraer]

Archetypes are how people think. You might as well ask if realist fiction -- which is normal fiction with a realist surface -- will replace myth.

As for D&D classes, I somewhat agree with Storm Raven but I find that in practice they're more effectively archetypal than you'd theoretically think.

And I'm with Philotomy in that discrete rules options have little to do with genuine character choices.