D&D: Adventurers, Not Heroes

[kenobi65]

I believe all of the WotC-ran Living Campaigns use Point Buy

Yup; I'm not aware of any RPGA campaigns (or, even, non-RPGA Living-style campaigns) that don't / didn't use some manner of point buy for stats, although the reason for that is because everything in a shared campaign like these needs to be documented, because you need to be able to trust that the PC that sits down at your table legitimately has what he claims he has. To allow rolling for stats in those campaigns is just asking for cheating ("I *swear* I rolled six straight 18s! Jimmy here can vouch for me!").

 

[jasin]

I've been hearing a lot of talk about "heroic fantasy" and "1st level characters are heroes" in connection with D&D4e. The lead designer, Mike Mearls, worked on the distinctly heroic "Star Wars" and "Iron Heroes" and suddenly the word "hero" is on everybody's lips.

I find a couple of flaws in your thesis.

1) You assume that when the 4E designers say "1st-level characters in 4E are heroes", they use "heroes" to mean "highly moral people fighting the good fight". Context seems rather to imply the meaning "badass".

2) You label Iron Heroes as "distinctly heroic", which I think is a mistake (other than in the previously mentioned meaning of "badass").

3) You seem worried heroism (in the "highly moral..." sense) that might be assumed in the books railroading newbies into thinking heroic characters are the only option. I would argue that the default tendency of a newbie is towards Chaotic Neutral, and that such (distinctly non-heroic) characters will very soon be explored, regardless of the the books' assumptions.

 

[ptolemy18]

the extremely high HP-Curve between levels is flattened and therefore you can use the same type of Adventures longer and can use a higher CR Range without overwhelming the players.

That is actually a good point in favor of the new system, I agree.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I'm a little amazed by this argument, which is about nothing more than semantics. Are people really confusing what Mearls said about heroic characters as a statement about the moral direction of the game rather than, as others have mentioned, a reference to the classic, mythological idea of the hero? (Which is basically, a guy that is really, really good at what he does.)

This argument doubly confuses me because DnD has, at its core, always been about the good guys vs. the bad guys. If DnD continued in that direction, why do people care so much now, and how does it prevent them from running the kind of game they want to run anyway?

 

[ptolemy18]

I find a couple of flaws in your thesis.

1) You assume that when the 4E designers say "1st-level characters in 4E are heroes", they use "heroes" to mean "highly moral people fighting the good fight". Context seems rather to imply the meaning "badass".

Meh. I do actually have a slight problem with the "always a badass" part too. I like badass games and I like making badass characters -- I am a gamer after all -- but I also like having the option to run, or play in, 1st-level schlub games in D&D. (And then if you can gain levels and work your way up to being a badass, then it's sooo sweet.) It is a Simulation of a game world, and schlubs exist in that game world, after all, and once in a while it can be fun to play one. (This is my experience with games like KULT, Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer speaking, I guess.)

Now, maybe the majority of people don't like this, or maybe there is a terrible problem with 12-year-old newbies playing D&D for the first time and saying "I was knocked unconscious by an orc? This sucks! Back to Warcraft!" And so I can understand the desire for D&D4e characters to start out with 3xhd hit points. But I personally also like the option to play games where the characters are kinda weak, just as I personally like the option (shock! horror! insanity!) to play games where there's quite not so much combat or there's minimal miniatures-use and every class and every character type doesn't have to be combat-capable. If I am outvoted by Wizards, Wizard's focus groups, and the people in the enworld.org 4e forum, then che sera, sera. But I like having the option to do that in D&D.

Of course, I like super high-fantasy badass games too. And actually, I also worry about the "high end" of the game being removed too; the high-level powers and weirdness. Like that "Game Breaking Spells" thread, where everyone is whining and moaning about how Fly or Teleport or Polymorph or Speak with Dead makes their games unplayable. Give me a break! Stop nerfing all the cool stuff! There is NO way to perfectly balance a game. The way to balance a game isn't to eliminate "game breaking" effects, it's to craft the game around your PCs' abilities, or alternately, to make sure that there are *enough* game breaking effects that if someone "breaks" the game one way, another PC or NPC or monster can "break" the game another way. (Evil NPC: "Damn! That wizard flew over my basilisk-filled ravine, negating that entire portion of the encounter! I guess I'll just have to FINGER OF DEATH them!") If the PCs' particular ability or spell or magic item turns out to be the perfect tool for the scenario, then the PCs deserve two things, in order: (1) a reward for their cleverness (2) the DM working harder on the *next* scenario to design something that challenges that particular group of PCs. They don't deserve the DM writing to Wizards saying "Take Teleport out of the game cuz the PCs teleported into the fortress."

D&D should be about flavor and options, and at high levels, in a high fantasy setting, your options should be nearly limitless. D&D is a fantasy game, and fantasy means a certain level of weirdness and unpredictability and chaos. If a wizard or monster is able to do it in a fantasy novel, it should be doable in D&D, even if only at an incredibly high level. D&D shouldn't be a predictable tactical setup where everyone goes against approximately the same challenges with approximately the same power level. Otherwise the only difference between 1st level and 15th level is that the PCs are doing 100~ damage per round instead of 10~ damage per round, and the only difference between a wizard and a fighter is that the wizard says "I blast him" and the fighter says "I hit him."

 

[ptolemy18]

I'm a little amazed by this argument, which is about nothing more than semantics. Are people really confusing what Mearls said about heroic characters as a statement about the moral direction of the game rather than, as others have mentioned, a reference to the classic, mythological idea of the hero? (Which is basically, a guy that is really, really good at what he does.)

This argument doubly confuses me because DnD has, at its core, always been about the good guys vs. the bad guys. If DnD continued in that direction, why do people care so much now, and how does it prevent them from running the kind of game they want to run anyway?

I suppose at some level I am just being a big nitpicker, yes. :/

But also, I do like the assumption that D&D is primarily about the game world and the experience of playing a character in that world, and that the players aren't railroaded into playing any kind of particular plot or role (including heroes). I like low-fantasy; I like medium-fantasy; I like high-fantasy. Anything that makes D&D lean too far in one direction, as I see it, activates my whine-o-meter.

 

[Rechan]

This argument doubly confuses me because DnD has, at its core, always been about the good guys vs. the bad guys. If DnD continued in that direction, why do people care so much now, and how does it prevent them from running the kind of game they want to run anyway?

THIS confuses me. No, it hasn't. As it's been pointed out, if you look at the old 1e modules, the PCs went into the dungeons for promises of loot and knowledge at risk to themselves. Not because "It's for the greater good", but because "Sweet, loot is in there".

 

[Jhaelen]

Now, maybe the majority of people don't like this, or maybe there is a terrible problem with 12-year-old newbies playing D&D for the first time and saying "I was knocked unconscious by an orc? This sucks! Back to Warcraft!"

That isn't the problem, IMHO.

The problem, in my experience, is the 30+ year old veteran D&D player who has invested hours or days to create a character unlike any of the dozens or hundreds she has already played with an involved backstory and distinctive characterization that gets cut down by a lucky crit from an orc in the first combat encounter.

The number of times you are willing to invest much effort in character creation is limited if it's for nought simply because of an unlucky die roll.

Plus, as a veteran player, I typically find the first level pretty boring, since there aren't many options for appropriate challenges for a starting adventurer. About the only way for me to still enjoy starting adventures is to create a truly 'fresh' character concept and roleplay it to the hilt. Which leads me right back to the problem mentioned above.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

THIS confuses me. No, it hasn't. As it's been pointed out, if you look at the old 1e modules, the PCs went into the dungeons for promises of loot and knowledge at risk to themselves. Not because "It's for the greater good", but because "Sweet, loot is in there".

Ok, you got me. I was being a bit hyperbolic, and I did not play 1st ed. However, I think the premise is still pertinent; playing the moral hero is not something new to 4th or even 3rd edition. The paladin has been an official character class since, what? The 80s? Early 90s? I started playing AD&D 2nd edition around '97 or so. And bane of amoral character groups though it may be, the fact that it is a core class says something to me about the kind of adventurers the game expects, paladins or otherwise.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Ok, you got me. I was being a bit hyperbolic, and I did not play 1st ed. However, I think the premise is still pertinent; playing the moral hero is not something new to 4th or even 3rd edition. The paladin has been an official character class since, what? The 80s? Early 90s?

Try the '70s.

I started playing AD&D 2nd edition around '97 or so. And bane of amoral character groups though it may be, the fact that it is a core class says something to me about the kind of adventurers the game expects, paladins or otherwise.

True enough. It sounds like plenty of the games played "back in the day" by some of the great D&D luminaries were heroic in feel. (Roger E. Moore's editorial about his paladin finishing off a Type IV demon with a dagger is an old fave of mine.)