D&D (2024) Should a general Adventurer class be created to represent the Everyman?

[bedir than]

Back to the topic, I think I'd use the Expert from Tasha's for an Everyman.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Eg Traveller.

Any of the Without Number games would work as well. That game is deadly. Combat is often and wisely a last result.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's almost zero monstrous races in Crit Role

Main Characters

Each campaign of Critical Role follows the player characters of main cast members Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Liam O'Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham. These characters are joined in their adventures by guest player characters played by various guest stars...

criticalrole.fandom.com

Define, "monstrous race". I dare you.

 

[bedir than]

self delete

 

[James Gasik]

Define, "monstrous race". I dare you.

Something old school players would attack on sight?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Something old school players would attack on sight?

Not bad.

 

[Remathilis]

Sure, but what about the description? The examples are just there for illustrative purposes. I don't see a lot of agreement in the thread about what an everyman is, so I was hoping for some discussion along those lines. It's hard to design a class without a clear idea of its story.

I was mostly quibbling about a few of the examples, because they are painting the concepting unnecessarily broad.

The article addresses this division, so I'm not sure why that's a reason to disagree with the examples. It seems to give examples of both types. For a more "protagonistic" use of James Gordon, see the show Gotham. I think he's still a good example of an everyman in that context.

I'd rather not ever see the show Gotham again.

I'm hearing you say there can't be a philosophical everyman or a cunning everyman or a tragic everyman. I don't think I agree. An everyman needs to be easy to identify with, and i think Hamlet's relatability comes from the audience's identification with his philosophizing, his plotting and ruminations, and the ultimate tragedy of his failures. Everyday life is full of tragedy. Inaction is key: the regret of not having acted in the right way at the right moment. It's so relatable. It's Charlie Brown getting caught up in his head and not saying hello to the little red headed girl when he had the chance. I also don't agree that a protagonist everyman (which I assume our D&D players want to play rather than a side character) can't be capable. The character suffers from inaction or ambivalence or avoidance, yes, but when faced with desperate circumstance, they rise to the occasion and show what they're truly made of.

The "Everyman" stock character is supposed to represent the typical person you meet every day. In the modern sense, your average middle-class working person. Hamlet is absolutely not that. He is a prince (technically should have been king if not for Claudius's machinations), a learned scholar (away from his studies in England), and far too cerebral for the Everyman. Compare him to Charlie Brown (a good-hearted but hopelessly average person) or Homer Simpson (probably the closest to a true Everyman) and Hamlet is not in the same field. As one person in a class of mine stated "he is an inaction hero", the action hero in perfect reverse. Hamlet in fact does NOT rise to the occasion; he only manages to kill his enemy once he realized he is going to die and Claudius had won. I pyrrhic victory if there ever was one.

Anyway, that has less to do with the idea of an Everyman class and more to do with nitpicking a Wikipedia article, but I think its worth noting that the Everyman doesn't just mean "an unskilled person" but literally "the closest to average human a person can be." So when the Everyman finds out he has a secret destiny, lineage, or hidden talent, he is NOT an everyman anymore.

And that's very hard to do in a RPG.

 

[Remathilis]

Back to the topic, I think I'd use the Expert from Tasha's for an Everyman.

I actually think all three Sidekick classes are pretty everyman; at least as far as a magical society would have. They are the closest we have to NPC classes at least.

 

[Dausuul]

A baker gone adventuring, a farmboy yearning for a new life, a sivovor of a raided village, or a princeling tossed out the family castle joining up with some trained but novice adventurers and surviving the first rats nest doesn't have Action Surge or Hide as a bonus action.

In D&D, they absolutely do.

D&D does not make any pretense of realism about training time. The difference between level 1 and level 20 is enormous to the point of absurdity, but you can develop those skills in a few months of adventuring.

So why assume that your 1st-level abilities took years to learn? Especially when another PC can pick up those same skills in a blink via multiclassing?

 

[Theory of Games]

In D&D, they absolutely do.

D&D does not make any pretense of realism about training time. The difference between level 1 and level 20 is enormous to the point of absurdity, but you can develop those skills in a few months of adventuring.

So why assume that your 1st-level abilities took years to learn? Especially when another PC can pick up those same skills in a blink via multiclassing?

I think this exposes the flaw inherent in Experience-based advancement, especially when the required amount is whittled down to almost nothing relative to actual in-game adventure time.

It's why, as a GM, I've always banned Multiclassing.