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<blockquote data-quote="B.T." data-source="post: 6075616" data-attributes="member: 84465">I'm going to have to disagree here.&nbsp; 3e did this fairly well, as long as you change your assumptions about the characters.&nbsp; &quot;A thief who was an apprentice magician and a match for his barbarian friend with a sword&quot; is a higher-level multiclass character.&nbsp; Rogue 4 / Wizard 2 vs. Barbarian 4, for instance.&nbsp; (Or he might be a bard or spelltheif.)Naturally, D&amp;D doesn't do fantasy stories well because D&amp;D is a role-playing game, not a storygame.&nbsp; If you want to play a fantasy storygame, I'd recommend Dungeon World.&nbsp; But even if D&amp;D went out of its way to accommodate specific fantasy stories, it would do so poorly because of its various tropes.&nbsp; Classes?&nbsp; No, not unless you create a special class for individual characters.&nbsp; Gandalf is an angel, Aragorn leads an undead army, and Frodo has something a little tougher than the Iron Will feat.&nbsp; There's no way to represent this in D&amp;D because you get people asking, &quot;If Gandalf can kill a Balrog, then why couldn't he just kill all the orcs?&nbsp; Why didn't he just summon the eagles to fly the Ring to Mt. Doom?&quot;&nbsp; There are all sorts of in-universe justifications, but the real answer is simple: because there wouldn't be a story.&nbsp; In any role-playing game, Gandalf could not exist alongside Frodo because anything that would challenge his abilities would destroy Frodo, and anything that would challenge Frodo would be a cakewalk for him.If you're playing a storygame, you can have all this.&nbsp; Gandalf doesn't use his powers because he doesn't want to use up his Fate points, and Frodo has the Indomitable Will trait, and Aragorn has Isildur's Heir background.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="B.T., post: 6075616, member: 84465"] I'm going to have to disagree here. 3e did this fairly well, as long as you change your assumptions about the characters. "A thief who was an apprentice magician and a match for his barbarian friend with a sword" is a higher-level multiclass character. Rogue 4 / Wizard 2 vs. Barbarian 4, for instance. (Or he might be a bard or spelltheif.) Naturally, D&D doesn't do fantasy stories well because D&D is a role-playing game, not a storygame. If you want to play a fantasy storygame, I'd recommend Dungeon World. But even if D&D went out of its way to accommodate specific fantasy stories, it would do so poorly because of its various tropes. Classes? No, not unless you create a special class for individual characters. Gandalf is an angel, Aragorn leads an undead army, and Frodo has something a little tougher than the Iron Will feat. There's no way to represent this in D&D because you get people asking, "If Gandalf can kill a Balrog, then why couldn't he just kill all the orcs? Why didn't he just summon the eagles to fly the Ring to Mt. Doom?" There are all sorts of in-universe justifications, but the real answer is simple: because there wouldn't be a story. In any role-playing game, Gandalf could not exist alongside Frodo because anything that would challenge his abilities would destroy Frodo, and anything that would challenge Frodo would be a cakewalk for him. If you're playing a [i]storygame[/i], you can have all this. Gandalf doesn't use his powers because he doesn't want to use up his Fate points, and Frodo has the Indomitable Will trait, and Aragorn has Isildur's Heir background. [/QUOTE]

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