Should adventurers be "better"?

[Hand of Evil]

The game, the adventures, the history of the characters and the stories told of them is a factor. You use character creation to build the character and this goes to survivability and edge. Yes, it may make the character better than the norm but you as DM decides that during creation. It is the progression in levels that makes the character 'better' than most every one else.

 

[Desdichado]

Re: Re: Should adventurers be "better"?

Because the model for D&D is heroic adventure based on characters such as Merlin, Odysseus and Heracles. These heroic characters are smarter, stronger and more cunning than most normal people.

Nah, the model for D&D has always been a pastiche of Lord of the Rings, Robert E Howard and Fritz Leiber archetypes. Not all of those guys were smarter, stronger and more cunning than most normal people, although they did possess at least some of those attributes, as well as a fair helping of luck and maybe destiny.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I'm pretty amazed at the number of people who think that great strength, skill, wisdom, and charisma come from genetics.

In my experience and knowledge, most of the people who possess these qualities have to work damn hard to acquire and keep them.

I've always thought that part of the reason adventurers had high stats is that they did a lot of that work. Afterall, their educations and lifestyles are very different and more disposed to ability scores than those of the commoner.

 

[Voadam]

Re: Re: Re: Should adventurers be "better"?

Nah, the model for D&D has always been a pastiche of Lord of the Rings, Robert E Howard and Fritz Leiber archetypes. Not all of those guys were smarter, stronger and more cunning than most normal people, although they did possess at least some of those attributes, as well as a fair helping of luck and maybe destiny.

Conan, Grey Mouser, Fafhrd, bigger stronger(except the mouser), quicker, and full of cunning.

Of the lord of the rings most people I know want to play Aragorn, Gimli, Gandalf, or Legolas, not the hapless hobbits. Some do want to play hapless hobbits, but most want to be powerful heroes.

 

[Synicism]

Originally posted by Snoweel But are they head and shoulders above the rabble because of their stats or because of their exploits? Or because of their pride?

Some measure of the three.

You need the raw ability first of all. If you have two left feet and ten thumbs, well, it's doubtful that you'll make much in the way of a hero.

Ability is the potential from which a hero's exploits will be realized.

So should adventurers have better stats than other people? Well, it depends.

Are you running a gritty game where things like surviving the night and helping keep a town safe from a bandit king will be your claim to fame? Or one where your characters can wade Jet Li/Arnold Schwarzengger/Errol Flynn style through hordes of baddies, and hold the fate of creation in their hands?

Are you character sweating every fight they get in? Or are they characters in a John Woo film?

Honestly, for gritty, realistic games, I think D&D is just a poor tool because of levels and hit points. Even Batman or the Punisher - great gritty heroic characters who we would definitely consider "high level" worry about things like guns. I loved a line from a Green Arrow comic where Ollie Queen is ranting about how a guy tried to shoot him *in... the... head.*

A high level character in D&D has no worries about walking into a room filled with guys with guns (or bows or swords) because he knows he has enough HP to laugh at them and kill them all handily.

So most of my D&D games tend towards epic fantasy. In the Odyssey sense, not the ELH sense. Even a 5th level character can be an epic hero. But what separates them from everyone else is the "larger than life" of heroism and in D&D, when the dice hit the battlemat, that means better stats.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Honestly, for gritty, realistic games, I think D&D is just a poor tool because of levels and hit points. Even Batman or the Punisher - great gritty heroic characters who we would definitely consider "high level" worry about things like guns. I loved a line from a Green Arrow comic where Ollie Queen is ranting about how a guy tried to shoot him *in... the... head.*

A high level character in D&D has no worries about walking into a room filled with guys with guns (or bows or swords) because he knows he has enough HP to laugh at them and kill them all handily.

So most of my D&D games tend towards epic fantasy. In the Odyssey sense, not the ELH sense. Even a 5th level character can be an epic hero. But what separates them from everyone else is the "larger than life" of heroism and in D&D, when the dice hit the battlemat, that means better stats.

Guns equalized a lot of things but they also took away a lot, you don't see too many heros any more, those great men and women that rise above the masses but this is also due the the lack of story in the world.

 

[Snoweel]

Thanks for your contributions, everybody.

However, those of you who made the comparison between adventurers and average (or even weak, stupid, inbred) farmers missed the original post that was railing against guys with IQs of 195 who could bench-press 300 lbs and so on.

And that this thread was essentially in response to people complaining that 25-point buy created "weak" heroes.

While there are myths and legends about superhuman engines of destruction (such as Gilgamesh, Hercules and Arnold Shwarzennegger), those characters never adventured in a party of equally-gifted companions.

No. They would have "dominated the adventure", so to speak, and anybody they travelled with were essentially sidekicks (and would have felt as such at the gaming table).

While good stats make heroes more likely to survive, heroes don't need to be the "pinnacle of human development" espoused by proponents of the "Even 32 points isn't enough to create heroic characters" set.

 

[WizarDru]

No. They would have "dominated the adventure", so to speak, and anybody they travelled with were essentially sidekicks (and would have felt as such at the gaming table).

While good stats make heroes more likely to survive, heroes don't need to be the "pinnacle of human development" espoused by proponents of the "Even 32 points isn't enough to create heroic characters" set.

See, this is where the DM cheats, by dropping Heracles out of the adventure...and they haven't even gotten the darn Golden Fleece, yet. A little bit of railroading of the party there, but at least Jason wasn't so much more powerful than the Argonauts.

And therein lies the rub, I think. D&D can accomadate both styles of gaming, but I agree that I consider a 28 pt.-buy character to be more heroic than a 52 pt.-buy character. Yes, the challenges scale, but the 28 pt. character will always be risking more, challenged more and is striving against the odds more. And while a better stated character may have properly scaled challenges, he still applies to a baseline defined by others in the game, such as most monsters and NPCs.

Guys like Gilgamesh and Beowulf had few to no equals, and while I'd like to recapture the flavor of their adventure, I don't want to recapture their mechanics, per se. Gilgamesh, Heracles, Son Goku and Susanno no O didn't adhere to the D&D archetype in most ways, and as Snoweel points out, they were the central focus of most stories. I don't see their stats as being what made them heroes. Heracles certainly wasn't terribly bright or wise, and often was quite obnoxious. It was his burning desire to never surrender that made him a (at times) hero, IMHO.

 

[jasper]

um how about Jason with a 25 pt buy. Except for being the leader and good with a bow I don't recall any great thing he did alone. He had help along the way always.

 

[Ravellion]

While there are myths and legends about superhuman engines of destruction (such as Gilgamesh, Hercules and Arnold Shwarzennegger), those characters never adventured in a party of equally-gifted companions.

No. They would have "dominated the adventure", so to speak, and anybody they travelled with were essentially sidekicks (and would have felt as such at the gaming table).

Ah, like Aragorn and Legolas vs the Hobbits.

Check.

(Actually, the reason why I don't like point buy anymore is becuase the character's stats became formulaic, and you never had to deal with a flaw.)

The problem with point buy up to 28 points is that it punishes characters in all areas if they choose to excel at one. This is decidedly unheroic IMO.

Rav