So what about the everyman?

[I'm A Banana]

pssst.

It's McLane.

*bonk*

That's what I get for posting on the virus.

Okay, but my idiocy aside, the message remains the same.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Sure... if you roll poorly.

But there will also be times when you roll well.

And those well-rolled PCs tended to survive -> were able to become high level -> eventually became super-heroes.

Cheers, -- N

At the same time, it was quite possible that an NPC "Normal Man" had better stats overall, but didn't choose the adventuring life.
Or, it was possible that a PC could get by on luck, guile, and planning and survive to high level even if they weren't all that outstanding.
The point is, the system didn't seem to feature as much mechanical differentiation between PCs and everybody else as 3E does, and certainly not as much as 4E promises to show. Good or bad, the point is, it's a difference.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Rolling 3d6 in order, then choosing your class, "felt" to me like the system was saying, "Okay, you're just some guy in the world, and now you're deciding to be an adventurer." You aren't necessarily superior by virtue of being a main character. You might or might not have more HP than the "Normal Man" barkeep.

Sure, but then by 2nd or 3rd level you could take on an entire bar crowd, especially with all the magic trinkets you got.

And even back in the 3d6-in-order days, the barkeep didn't even HAVE stats. So you did have more hp. His hp was "N/A"

You are superior. You gain XP. You wear plate armor. You wield steel weapons. You cast spells. You can hide in shadows. You can work miracles. The barkeep can't do any of that. Heck, it wasn't 'till 3e that we got barkeeps that we could even adjudicate if they HAD to hide in shadows, or what their hp would be, and it looks like we might not be getting that for 4e, either.

Even straight out the gate, you had more wealth, more power, more influence, and more statistics than the barkeep. 4e just seems to realize this and make it explicit: PC's are just better. If you wanted an everyman game, you would have to set up a setting where sword training was rare, armor was ornamental, arcane magic is lost and/or mysterious, and divine magic is more "headology" than magic. In other words, where everyone was an Everyman

I'm all for a setting like that, I'd love it, but D&D has never really been that setting, except for those who have house-ruled it to be such a thing. Which, again, I'm all for.

 

[glass]

Ahem. Sam IS the hero of LotR. Not Frodo. Not Aragorn or Gandalf. Sam.

Which is why I said above that I didn't dispute that the LotR was the story of the everyman, even though I did dispute the characterisation of many of the characters.


glass.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Sure, but then by 2nd or 3rd level you could take on an entire bar crowd, especially with all the magic trinkets you got.

And even back in the 3d6-in-order days, the barkeep didn't even HAVE stats. So you did have more hp. His hp was "N/A"

What you describe is certainly not the BD&D game I played, neither the actual game experience nor the game described in the Moldvay and Mentzer books.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sure, but then by 2nd or 3rd level you could take on an entire bar crowd, especially with all the magic trinkets you got.

And even back in the 3d6-in-order days, the barkeep didn't even HAVE stats. So you did have more hp.

Monte Haul much?

All of my TSR modules have the NPCs fully statted out, and in some hamlets, that barkeep was a retired army scout with a wallhanger behind the bar from his old adventuring days with more plusses than you had members in your group.

 

[ideasmith]

How's this for an everyman class?

 

[Hussar]

Monte Haul much?

All of my TSR modules have the NPCs fully statted out, and in some hamlets, that barkeep was a retired army scout with a wallhanger behind the bar from his old adventuring days with more plusses than you had members in your group.

The point still remains though, the PC, by 3rd, 4th level, can wipe the floor with any regular NPC. While you might start as an everyman, you're only that for 1, MAYBE, 2 levels. After that, you're pretty much Superman.

Heck, even at first level, you have more wealth than most commoners would see in their entire lifetimes.

What D&D does do well is the "reluctant hero". Which is quite different from the "everyman". Modern fantasy is chock full of the reluctant hero types. Everyman? Not so much.

As far as Sam being the hero of the LotR, well, everyone can have an opinion. I would say that Frodo's the hero, considering most of the text is about him and the only thing Sam does in several hundred pages is scare off a giant spider and bushwack a couple of orcs.

 

[Voss]

The everyman is the guy calling in the heros to save his farm from the evil goblins. Out in the Wild, he's quickly killed, eviscerated and hung up on posts as a warning to the next ten generations that the 'average joe' just doesn't cut it in Adventureland.

 

[Victim]

Monte Haul much?

All of my TSR modules have the NPCs fully statted out, and in some hamlets, that barkeep was a retired army scout with a wallhanger behind the bar from his old adventuring days with more plusses than you had members in your group.

So the game with fewer high level characters and rarer magic weapons is the Monte Haul one?

Considering John McClane's various feats even in the first DH movie, I don't really buy him as an everyman. He's ordinary seeming, perhaps.