Should adventurers be "better"?

[Voadam]

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).

Usually a story is about one hero but I wouldn't say never. For example, Gray Mouser and Fafhrd are a pretty equal two person party, in the Illiad you have Odyseus along with Achilles, and in Lord of the Rings Gimli and Legolas are about equal with Aragorn and Boromir in adventuring around and killing orcs.

 

[Psion]

Why?

Why should adventurers be better than normal people?

Why ask why? That's the aspect of heroic fantasy that appeals to some people. They want to play someone out of the ordinary.

I've heard this so many times and always wondered why. I always found that success was more to do with attitude and opportunity than ability. Actually, I'm an example of this - all through primary school, everybody thought I was gifted, in both sports and academia, yet a bad attitude and lack of opportunity handed to me on a platter (which a good attitude would have countered to a great extent) has seen me do very little with my life.

Some would call that "wisdom" (or lack therof).

 

[Mallus]

I think the way this question is being framed is flawed.

RPG characters shouldn't be compared to real people. No game I ever played was intended to accurately model real life. If you're super-smart in a fantasy game you end up a mighty wizard, either protecting the world or attemping to dominate it. You don't graduate from college at 12, find you can't deal with life, and end up underemployed obsessively memorizing train schedules, which has been known to happen IRL...

Heck, The Sims is a better real life simulator than any RPG...

Now RPG's are meant to simulate certain kinds of fiction, but even so, there's one critical difference that invalidates comparisons between game characters and characters in fiction. In fiction, one person is in more or less complete control of every situation/obstacle and its outcome. In game, one person sets up the situations, and the outcomes are dependant on several peoples actions, facilitated by a set of mechanics which are based on probalities, on die-rolls.

So its meaningless to talk about the successes of a "average guy" hero in a novel, but there is ultimately no chance he can fail, if that's the authors intent. Fictional characters don't need the deck stacked in their favor, because the whole thing is rigged from the start. A fictional character can be deaf, dumb, and blind and still play a mean pinball.... A game character in the same boat would be toast --unless he was psionic, could see be radar, etc...

Now I'm not against low point buys {I currently play a d20 Mod. character built on 25}, and I'm all for challenge, its essential to the game. But that's just one way to ramp up the games difficulty, and it does perclude a kind of naked power-fantasy style of play, which ultimately, is built into any interation of d20.

 

[Celtavian]

re

To do a big epic one shot story with a definite ending?

No, I don't think adventurers/heroes should be or have to be better than Joe Average.


To be an adventurer as a profession facing deadly perils and powerful monsters on a daily bases while exploring lost ruins or deep forests?

Yes. I think they should be far better than Joe Average to survive in such circumstances for any substantial length of time. What do you think it would take to survive the most dangerous profession in any game world: Adventurer?

For me its luck or divine intervention (both in fantasy), skill, experience, and an extremely favorable set of genetics that makes you an extremely well-rounded individual.

 

[Emiricol]

But are they head and shoulders above the rabble because of their stats or because of their exploits?

Or because of their pride?

There's certainly room for campaigns with normal people. I've heard of campaigns where everyone started out as a commoner at level 1, with human average stats.

However, that's not my cup of tea, nor my players'. We play "heroes", and our group feels that this means being *better* than the common man. Destined for great things. Capable of action the common man couldn't succeed at.

So yeah, it's the stats to a certain point. That point is: higher than the commoners.

 

[Desdichado]

However, that's not my cup of tea, nor my players'. We play "heroes", and our group feels that this means being *better* than the common man. Destined for great things. Capable of action the common man couldn't succeed at.

Believe it or not, since I'm apparently somewhat infamous for my proponentry of low magic, low fantasy, dark, grim, gritty, etc. -- I prefer to play a little bit over the top action hero type of game myself. I like stats to be relatively good.

At the end of the day, though, I think stats are more of a fixation than anything else. As long as you don't have a laundry list of penalties and at least one or two stats you're reasonably good at, you're probably in pretty good shape as far as I'm concerned.

By the way, doesn't anyone here play Call of Cthulhu? Lack of class abilities and a decent BAB/Save progression for anyone makes a much bigger difference than low stats, IMO. I'm perfectly fine with "average" stats.

 

[Will]

One of the only things I prefer about CoC's BRP system is that ultimately, high stats and skills don't mean all that much. There is the sense of advancement without much actual power growth.

As for other things... one solution that would work is deciding ECL for high stats. You want one guy to be mr. smart/tough/fast? Sure, +1 ECL.

I think that would be both fair, allow variation, and not break the system as written.

I figure 10 points for +1 ECL is about right.

Between 0 and 10 points... oh, I dunno. .5 ECL could halve all benefits of first level? Something like that.

There. You have naturally gifted people who are 'even' with less gifted, but more experienced, companions.

 

[Henry]

There's really not much to say, in that adventurers should be better if the group wants them to. Some DM's run games where tougher PC's are needed, and some run games that are weaker than standard.

(I saw one poster who said he ran game with 15 point buy - that's well and good, but I looked at the scores that generates, and decided that path leads to Martyrdom in the power level for our gaming group.)

point buy works if a group wants it. My group HATES HATES HATES point buy, and only use it if forced to. It doesn't matter if they are screwed by their rolls or not, they just want the chance of that "larger than life" hero.

 

[ergeheilalt]

I definitely think heroes/adventures should be better than the rest of the crowd (ie: merchants, commoners, stone cutters, etc). More often then not, heroes get to interact with nobles, great wizards, people high up in the church, and at higher levels - kings, queens, dictators, tyrants, etc.

For these great individuals to notice these people, there has to be something special about them. Imagine a court-aid talking with the king who wants to clear out some goblins from the lower dungeons of his castle. Who would sound better for the mission, "a man who claims to be a fighter - but swings his sword no better than a common his sickle." or "we've got a fighter here who has the strength of a full-grown ox". The ox of course.

Low point buy will allow ox-like strength with the comprehension of a ox as well. My games all tend to be of heroic proportion. I drop point buy and go for rolling stats in a matrix and going from there. I do not think that low point buy yields heroic characters, but rather par if not sub par adventures.

It depends on the tone of the game, but if your players are out to save the world, low point buy will not work in most cases.

Erge

 

[Emiricol]

I do not think that low point buy yields heroic characters, but rather par if not sub par adventures.

Erge

Oddly, my players find my adventures above-par. Perhaps it is a DM issue.