D&D 5E I Am SO Over The "Rootless Vagabond" Archetype

[pemerton]

Fantasy literature also predisposes to "rootless wanderers". Bilbo and Frodo didn't have much connections. They had a few bonds to others, but they were pretty weak.

I think that's a serious misreading.

The Hobbit is fairly light as a story, but one aspect of the humour is that Bilbo is so relcutant to go adventuring because of his roots - his home, his respectability, his connections to The Shire. The main reason he heads off is because of his friendship with Gandalf.

As befits a book that is more serious in tone, Frodo's roots are explored more than are Bilbo's. As well as his friendship with Gandalf, these also include his connection to his uncle, his friendships with Merry and Pippin and his connection to Sam (a romanticised conception of upstairs/downstairs,cross-class relationships). At the end of the story he leaves Middle Earth, but this is not a small thing. It's a great cost, as well as a reward, precisely because it means severing connections to places and people that were, and still are, dear to him.

If you look at the other hobbits, you see Merry and Pippin have their friendship with one another, their deep connections to the shire (as the future Masters of Buckland of the Smials, respectively) as well as the connections they develop to Rohan and Gondor. And Sam is so connected to the Shire that his conception of a reward is the magical soil and seed to make it floursih again, his conception of power being to spread the "green and pleasant land" of the Shire to the rest of Middle Earth. That's not a rootless vagabond.

Of other characters in the LotR, Aragorn's background drives a good part of the action, Boromir and Faramir both have very strong ties of family and loyalty, likewise Eomer, Eowyn and Theoden, likewise Gimli. Legolas's roots explain his presence in the action, but otherwise play a lesser role in driving his character - of the Fellowship, he is the closest to a rootless vagabond.

 

[GSHamster]

I think that's a serious misreading.

The Hobbit is fairly light as a story, but one aspect of the humour is that Bilbo is so relcutant to go adventuring because of his roots - his home, his respectability, his connections to The Shire. The main reason he heads off is because of his friendship with Gandalf.

As befits a book that is more serious in tone, Frodo's roots are explored more than are Bilbo's. As well as his friendship with Gandalf, these also include his connection to his uncle, his friendships with Merry and Pippin and his connection to Sam (a romanticised conception of upstairs/downstairs,cross-class relationships). At the end of the story he leaves Middle Earth, but this is not a small thing. It's a great cost, as well as a reward, precisely because it means severing connections to places and people that were, and still are, dear to him.

On the other hand, Bilbo and Frodo have no wife, no girlfriend, no parents, no close family. In fact, I believe Bilbo is actively feuding with what few relatives he has (I have a vague memory of Sackville-Bagginses and silverware). I don't think that it's connections that keep him in place, but inertia and comfort. To put it another way, once on the adventure, Bilbo/Frodo never thinks about the people he leaves behind.

Also, I would exclude secondary characters from this. It's primarily main characters that start out unconnected. They form their serious connections while adventuring. Alternatively, they have connections to other people who adventure with them. Frodo with Bilbo/Sam/Merry/Pippin, Rand al'Thor with Mat/Perrin.

 

[Hussar]

My thermodynamics professor was very clear on something: There is no such a thing as a free lunch.

Yes, you get benefits, but those benefits have some cost. The association comes with responsibilities. The players are likely used to fiction, where any association with an organization winds up being a plot hook/detriment for the character, rather than a strength. Basically - they're afraid the GM will use it to screw them.

And, i'd add to this to say that it isn't really a DM trust issue. "Screw them" might be too strong here. But, add complications to their life through the vehicle of the association is very, very genre fitting. It happens in genre fiction all the time. The hero joins some group that seems like a good idea at first, but, turns out to be baby eating, devil worshippers in the end is a pretty old trope. The players may be avoiding the association the same way that you avoid any other potential trap.

There's another big point that I don't think that has been touched on directly.

If I join an organization, then that organization will have a chain of command. It might be loose or tight, but, it will be there. Players are often VERY reluctant to give direct control over their fate to the DM like that. If I join the King's Guard, then, well, I have to do King's Guard things, which includes obeying my superiors. Which can have all sorts of complications. My group wants to go loot that ancient tomb over there, but, my captain is telling me that we need to patrol the orc borders over there. The potential for conflict can be pretty high.

It might be better if the whole group joins the organization, but, that's a different sort of uphill battle.

 

[pemerton]

On the other hand, Bilbo and Frodo have no wife, no girlfriend, no parents, no close family.

Frodo has close family - Bilbo (his uncle) and Merry (his cousin at one remove).

And the reason for the absence of close female companions isn't about rootless vagabondage - it's about the nature of middle class English culture, at least at the time. Relations among men figure loom far larger than relations between men and women. You can see the same phenomenon at work in Robert Graves's Goodby to All That, even though in many ways Graves is less conventional than Tolkien.

 

[LostSoul]

Another nice example of PC goals actually mattering to play,hence giving the players a reason to come up with some. (Also, off-topic, am I right in assuming that Dhalia Doomfey is the character who was looking for rocket ships?)

Thanks. Yeah, Dhalia is the PC who bought some rocket ships on the moon. We haven't played for a while now - maybe two months? - as we are dabbling with other game systems. I'm late to run Call of Cthulhu now!

 

[Henrix]

To put it another way, once on the adventure, Bilbo/Frodo never thinks about the people he leaves behind.

Oh, yes they do, they reminisce about home all the time.
Frodo in particular has a very nostalgic streak, talking to Sam about how it used to be and how good it would be to be back and wishing all that happens never had happened.
The whole reluctant quest is a wish to protect the homeland, the way things were*.

And "There and back again" is a very telling subtitle.

The very roots of Frodo and Bilbo is their home, the good old Shire.

Links to stuff that are no longer there is also important, and tie the characters to the world.
A bond to what you are missing can be a very good bond.

In RPGs you can use that by, in the middle of the action, take a pause in it, say during a short rest, and talk about how things used to be - playing out the scene as it happened to see what happens.


* Though in the end, in good story fashion, LotR shows that you can never go back, things will never be quite the same.
(And Bilbo's fight with the relatives is in LotR, not Bilbo, that is when he is effectively a NPC.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think part of my confusion is that I don't have a clear view of what is "screwing them" and what is just part of what you sign up for when you play a game of heroic action. PCs are in a constant state of threat, and if the antagonists aren't slackers, so is everything else. At what point have we done something too awful?

I guess the idea of the organization being "useless" is something we could probably work on, system-wise. There's always training rules - you just can't gain levels until you get someone to teach you. I like making organizations equipment gateways, too: if you want that plate armor, your going to have to do more than show up at a shop with gold pieces...There might be some better carrots out there, too...

 

[BigVanVader]

I think players don't like being under someone else's thumb. Some might see a large organization as a much bigger, much less personal GMPC. Especially if they're the only way to get cool equipment or gain levels.

 

[pemerton]

I think part of my confusion is that I don't have a clear view of what is "screwing them" and what is just part of what you sign up for when you play a game of heroic action.

Well, you also need to look at how consequences are adjudicated and imposed.

If the main form of conflict is combat - which, in D&D, it traditionally has been - and the main consequence of losing a combat is PC death - which, in D&D, it traditionally has been - then the players will want to take steps to minimise the risks of combat, and more generally to control and mininimise the stakes in conflict situations.

If you want the players to be relaxed about their PCs being exposed to threats and danger, because that is where the fun lies in a game of heroic action, then you need to give them more confidence that failure won't equal loss of the game. "Fail forward" is one obvious technique here. GM fudging is another, but that can have it's own issues from the point of view of trying to encourage player buy-in.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

If you read Gygax's PHB (especially the introductory pages - I think around p 7) and his DMG (especially the discussion of "The First Dungeon Adventure") you will see that he describes a single motive for PCs: acquiring fame and fortune. Furthermore, there is no suggestion to the GM that s/he might incorporate PC backgrounds into scenario or world design.

I think this will naturally tend towards the creation of "rootless vagabond" PCs, of the more-or-less Conan-esque sort.

Many fantasy CRPGs also start your character out as rootless vagabonds. They did it back in the old gold box days of AD&D Pool of Radiance, and the Elder Scrolls games are pretty pointed about telling you during the starting area/character generation tutorial that your background is irrelevant and all that matters is the adventuring you are doing right now. I haven't played anything more recent than Oblivion, but I doubt the trend in CRPGs has substantially changed.

I think the idea that an RPG hero should actually have a backstory and connections is a newer idea than the rootless vagabond assumption many of us grew up on.

I prefer a deep backstory, but it makes perfect sense that that is a rather novel idea to people first being exposed to it.