Players: Do your characters need to be kewl?

[Victim]

I must know more vets than folks here do. I know lots of people who have done extraordinary things, but they aren't strange and unusual as a result of it. But when it comes to D&D, it seems like fewer and fewer people who are a recognizably normal person (even if they might have pointy ears or hairy feet) are picking up swords or studying magic.

What you do does not change who you are, IMO. Sure, there are Vietnam vets who come back to America with catlike reflexes and a deadly growl for a voice. There are also others who come back -- having done the same stuff and been through the same things -- and are essentially Joe Average.

Most Everyman need to be prodded into adventuring. Something needs to be keeping them from having the normal life they want. There's a difference between someone having an adventure, and an "adventurer." Why jump through continous motivational hoops? It's not like most adventurers are being drafted.

And I'd make a huge distinction between being able destroy a city with by launching a missile and the same intrinisic capacity. Sure, a guy has some powerful weapon. Did he design it, build it, and does have have unrestricted access and authority over it? No. One ability is personal, the other is granted by society's infrastructure. It's the difference between a tank or helicopter crew and Iron Man.

A typical high level adventurer will have chosen to increase his abilities by killing people/monsters and taking their stuff as a lifestyle choice. In real life, that's more the provence of psycho killers. Simply choosing to be an adventurer is unusual enough.

One interesting issue is the transition of characters from one group to another. An Everyman might develop some special skills during his initial adventures, or come to embrace the action that had previously been forced upon him. A Kewl character or badass could try to retire eventually to a normal life. Unforgiven is basically about a badass who became an everyman, and who then reverts to a badass during the movie.

 

[hong]

why must what a person can do mean they have to be something unusual as what they are?

Exactly. This is why the distinction assumed in your poll is nonsensical.

 

[hong]

This is the way I took it:

Do my characters need to be cool? No.

They don't need to be, but sometimes they are. So, vote the first if some of your characters are not cool. Vote the second if none of your characters are not cool. By his definition of cool, since he defined one.

Actually, Bangwhiz never said anything about "cool". He said "kewl", which is a word with the convenient property that it can mean exactly what he wants it to mean.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Actually, Bangwhiz never said anything about "cool". He said "kewl", which is a word with the convenient property that it can mean exactly what he wants it to mean.

Well, there's 6,150,000 hits for "kewl" in Google. There's a lot of agreement as to what it means.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Exactly. This is why the distinction assumed in your poll is nonsensical.

Or, alternately, it's why my question as written in the post is more valuable than the small amount afforded in the poll window.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Most Everyman need to be prodded into adventuring. Something needs to be keeping them from having the normal life they want. There's a difference between someone having an adventure, and an "adventurer." Why jump through continous motivational hoops? It's not like most adventurers are being drafted.

Hmmm, that may be part of the difference between the two groups of respondents. I've played in a lot of games where the characters were drafted. And yeah, good point that different sorts of chracters would adventure all on their own.

One interesting issue is the transition of characters from one group to another. An Everyman might develop some special skills during his initial adventures, or come to embrace the action that had previously been forced upon him. A Kewl character or badass could try to retire eventually to a normal life. Unforgiven is basically about a badass who became an everyman, and who then reverts to a badass during the movie.

Good point. That movie makes a heck of a good springboard for a D&D game, IMO. Just file off the guns and the trains (or not, depending on the setting), and off you go.

 

[Jdvn1]

Actually, Bangwhiz never said anything about "cool". He said "kewl", which is a word with the convenient property that it can mean exactly what he wants it to mean.

Sorry, I couldn't bring myself to type that word.

 

[Aus_Snow]

A PC, in most RPGs I've come across, cannot be an 'everyman'. Even if they tried.

So, I'm with 'kewl'. Or whatever.

 

[Sound of Azure]

Most of my characters tend to have a very "Everyman" attitude. They might have "kewl" powers, and they may even have a higher station in life (especially at high levels) than many others in the setting, but in the end... they have hopes, dreams, and other motivations... just like everyone else. They tend to be very humble, too.
My most recent PC, whose name is my Avatar was offered Godhood (and the other PCs -except one- thought he deserved it the most) and the position of custodian of the world. He turned it down, because throughout the campaign he'd felt homesick, sick of all the strange things he lived through. He just wanted to go home, help rebuild his village, and grow vegetables with his wife.

...he did kind of regret it later, though. Especially after the PC who did become God started sending Knights in a crusade to conquer all the land! Ah well....

 

[Jedi_Solo]

I know lots of people who have done extraordinary things, but they aren't strange and unusual as a result of it. But when it comes to D&D, it seems like fewer and fewer people who are a recognizably normal person (even if they might have pointy ears or hairy feet) are picking up swords or studying magic.

Then perhaps your definition of 'kewl' is different than my definition of 'kewl'. Would you classify a rogue who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and saw a murder he shouldn't have seen as 'kewl' or 'everyman'? What about after he learned that he had professional bounty-hunters sent after him because the guy who commited the murder learned who the PC was? What about after the rogue learned magic and started being able to pull spells from a Fearunian Spellpool? Is he still an everyman then? In my mind, no. He's gone from being an everyman even though he started as one.

What you do does not change who you are, IMO.

I'd say it doesn't change your past or how you started out as - but it can change who you are. Luke Skywalker was (arguably) an everyman at the start of A New Hope. He was no longer an everyman at the end of Return of the Jedi. Doesn't mean he didn't start out as a farmboy but he no longer was a farmboy - or at least no longer JUST a farmboy.

Are they, in other words, Peter Parker or are they Wolverine? One of those two wears underwear with holes in it, the other does not.

Actually I'd say they both do - at least after Wolvie uses his claws. (But I do know what you're saying). And please don't tell Logan what I compared his old blue and gold spandex outfit to.

Both have fought big cosmic baddies and saved the world (and even the universe).

And in my mind neither are everymen even if they started that way. One was an everyman man on page 1 - the other was born with a genetic disposition for fast healing and wierd bone growths. Both have gone far, far beyond everyman status however.

If you are asking if my characters tend to be everymen on page 1, then while I have played both types, the vast majority are everymen on page 1; even if they moved well beyond that status by the time they actually show up in the story.