Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7184794" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'm not convinced 'the leader' is a class in and of itself, nor am I convinced that the best mechanical implementation of 'good at leading others in battle' is a class rather than say one or more skills or one or more feats (or both).&nbsp; I completely disagree.&nbsp; The Hero is not a class.&nbsp;&nbsp; Just because something is a trope does not make it a class.&nbsp;&nbsp; Again, 'The Hero' does not pass my basic test of whether something is a class - could you have an entire party with the class 'The Hero' that share a core idea, and yet also have them have different personalities and capabilities.&nbsp;&nbsp; Functionally, 'The Hero' tends to occur most often when the focus of the narrative is on a single individual, and the rest of the team is composed of sidekicks that are narrative appendages of the protagonist.&nbsp;&nbsp; I think this is obviously a bad thing in an RPG.&nbsp;&nbsp; Otherwise, even in Band of Five structures, the Hero is largely defined by their in narrative relationship to the other characters - the Apollo to the Starbuck, or the Ken to the Joe.&nbsp;&nbsp; He's the 'clean cut' fighter to the 'rebel bad boy' fighter, but in a team of wizards he'd be the 'clean cut' wizard to the 'rebel bad boy' wizard.&nbsp;&nbsp; In D&amp;D terms, the class defines the capabilities, not the role of the character in the story.&nbsp;&nbsp; Granted, a NAR game might define class according to their role in the story (&quot;Side Kick&quot;, for instance), but I think the OP's question was directed toward D&amp;D.Again, 'Reluctant Hero' is a personality of a character or a story role.&nbsp; Tropes are not classes!&nbsp; You could have a reluctant cleric hero, or a reluctant wizard hero, or a reluctant rogue hero, or a reluctant folk hero, or a reluctant hero of any class.&nbsp; Creating that is a function of a Role Playing skill, and not a class.&nbsp;&nbsp; Even if you could create that as a class, to make it work would still require role-playing skill, and it would be a very different heavily Nar game where 'reluctant hero' was actually a class.If you mean by that 'The Chosen One', then D&amp;D shouldn't do that for the same reason it shouldn't have a 'The Hero' class.&nbsp;&nbsp; But if you mean that simply that the character is lucky or favored, then I feel that falls under the same category as 'Folk Hero' I mentioned above.&nbsp; (Indeed, my attempted implementation of the folk hero class depends heavily on leveraging a pool of 'destiny points'.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7184794, member: 4937"] I'm not convinced 'the leader' is a class in and of itself, nor am I convinced that the best mechanical implementation of 'good at leading others in battle' is a class rather than say one or more skills or one or more feats (or both). I completely disagree. The Hero is not a class. Just because something is a trope does not make it a class. Again, 'The Hero' does not pass my basic test of whether something is a class - could you have an entire party with the class 'The Hero' that share a core idea, and yet also have them have different personalities and capabilities. Functionally, 'The Hero' tends to occur most often when the focus of the narrative is on a single individual, and the rest of the team is composed of sidekicks that are narrative appendages of the protagonist. I think this is obviously a bad thing in an RPG. Otherwise, even in Band of Five structures, the Hero is largely defined by their in narrative relationship to the other characters - the Apollo to the Starbuck, or the Ken to the Joe. He's the 'clean cut' fighter to the 'rebel bad boy' fighter, but in a team of wizards he'd be the 'clean cut' wizard to the 'rebel bad boy' wizard. In D&D terms, the class defines the capabilities, not the role of the character in the story. Granted, a NAR game might define class according to their role in the story ("Side Kick", for instance), but I think the OP's question was directed toward D&D. Again, 'Reluctant Hero' is a personality of a character or a story role. Tropes are not classes! You could have a reluctant cleric hero, or a reluctant wizard hero, or a reluctant rogue hero, or a reluctant folk hero, or a reluctant hero of any class. Creating that is a function of a Role Playing skill, and not a class. Even if you could create that as a class, to make it work would still require role-playing skill, and it would be a very different heavily Nar game where 'reluctant hero' was actually a class. If you mean by that 'The Chosen One', then D&D shouldn't do that for the same reason it shouldn't have a 'The Hero' class. But if you mean that simply that the character is lucky or favored, then I feel that falls under the same category as 'Folk Hero' I mentioned above. (Indeed, my attempted implementation of the folk hero class depends heavily on leveraging a pool of 'destiny points'.) [/QUOTE]

Verification