Does anyone miss the generic cleric?

[Storm Raven]

i didn't have the experience of driving players away from the game. so i'll just have to take your word for it.

life drove most of the players away as far as i know.

kids, marriage, moving, jobs, mortgages, health issues...

the things outside of the game. we (you included) are old enough to know what is more important.

Actually, this drives home a point I made on your nostalgia for OD&D a while back. You don't long for OD&D. You long to be a young gamer again, with limited responsibilities, and a group of young, fresh gamers like yourself.

In the span of years since you regularly played OD&D, your friends and you grew up, assumed responsibilities and obligations that drew you away from gaming, and basically life changed. You don't fondly remember OD&D, you fondly remember a gaming experience that was set at a point in your life when you happened to play OD&D.

Every post you make "justifying" why OD&D was so much better confirms this. You played with a group of people you liked. That has nothing to do with OD&D. You played with a bunch of house rules. That has nothing to do with OD&D. You played a simpler game. That has nothing to do with OD&D. People moved away from the game because of real life issues. That has nothing to do with OD&D.

You don't long for OD&D. You long to be twenty-five years younger. Wishing for your old OD&D game and gaming group is just the cipher for this desire.

 

[diaglo]

You don't long for OD&D. You long to be twenty-five years younger. Wishing for your old OD&D game and gaming group is just the cipher for this desire.

i don't want to be that young again. i've earned these wrinkles, loss of hair, bad knees...
edit: bigger pants size, poorer eyesight, failing memory...

and at the same time i am still trying to get a group together to play the game in the style for which i am accustomed.

i have ads on several boards. some years old. it is still my intent to find an OD&D game.

i just might in a couple months. i'll be sure to drunkenly swagger around when i do.

 

[Storm Raven]

i don't want to be that young again. i've earned these wrinkles, loss of hair, bad knees...

and at the same time i am still trying to get a group together to play the game in the style for which i am accustomed.

Sure you like being older. Everyone loves being older, and no one ever wishes they could have the health, stamina, and lack of responsibilities they had when they were a couple dozen years younger.

All the same, you are trying to recapture your younger self. It will never happen, but you will probably keep trying. As long as you keep trying, you will likely be dissatisfied and unhappy, but if that's your choice, you are the one who has to live with it.

 

[diaglo]

All the same, you are trying to recapture your younger self.

i don't want to be my younger self.

i knew too much then actually i knew everything there was to know then. all you had to do was ask me.

no. i much prefer the way i am now. i am very happy with my life. my small gripe, and it is very small in comparison to the rest of my life, about the game i play can't change that.

i know what is important.

just ask the group i play with now.

i'd really like to try to play OD&D. but i have patience. good things come to those who wait...patience is a virtue seldom practiced. or get off the pot, there is always someone waiting....and all the other catch phrases.

 

[Desdichado]

How did this thread turn into a therapy session for diaglo, exactly?

Does anyone besides me have a problem with the cleric concept in general; generic or otherwise?

 

[diaglo]

Does anyone besides me have a problem with the cleric concept in general; generic or otherwise?

yes and no.

i have no problem with it as a niche in a group party. and as an npc class for villagers.

but as a holier than thou crusader...well, leave that for others more qualified.

 

[Henry]

Does anyone besides me have a problem with the cleric concept in general; generic or otherwise?

Nah.

I wish I could expound more, but there's not much else for me to say. I love the concept of a human servant of the divine - what I dislike is the concept of "just the combat medic", but the 3E design team fixed that for me - and not just through spontaneous casting.

 

[WizarDru]

Nah.

I wish I could expound more, but there's not much else for me to say. I love the concept of a human servant of the divine - what I dislike is the concept of "just the combat medic", but the 3E design team fixed that for me - and not just through spontaneous casting.

What Henry said.

 

[Desdichado]

See, I don't mind the concept of the servant of the divine. But the cleric seems a poor implementation of that. Healing, and heavy armor, and pretty decent combat abilities, and access to weird spells, many of which have a much more arcane "feel" to them?

How does the mechanics of the cleric class (of any edition) actually match up to the concept in question? I just don't really see it.

 

[Henry]

Actually, they match up in part with Turpin from Song of Roland, and the other part matches up with the stories of people like Moses and Elijah.

What would you say is the archetypal holy man? because there isn't one, IMO. Fakirs, to Knights Templar, to Buddhist Lamas, to obsidian-knife-weilding-and-heart-carving Aztec high priests, the archetypes are across the map. But I agree, automatic proficiency in heavy armor and all simple weapons still doesn't fit most divine servants - a priest of Aphrodyte with plate mail and a morningstar?

If they keep with domains, I hope for 3E they might allow a littel more rules customization - say, attach the armor and weapon proficiency to the domains. They already have weapon prof. attached to war, why not have armor and weapons attached to the domains? It would also allow some of the stranger things (like the power word spells) to no need to be attached to these domains any more.

• A War Priest isn't going to be standing in back casting blade barriers - he's going to be buffed up with magic to the gills and wading in first!
• A Love Priest is going to be using charms, hold spells, deflecting magics to protect themselves and friends, etc.
• A wealth priest might be using ranged weapons and most spells of a "metallic" nature, or a trap-based nature (blade barrier, etc.)
• A death priest would be tossing off death spells or laying about with scythe in hand...

You get the idea.