The Essentials articles are atrocious.

[Dausuul]

I think it's dangerous to apply the M:tG player archetypes to D&D. The player types listed in the DMG are a better fit. If one is going to use the M:tG types, they have to be adjusted a bit for context:

Timmy is the roleplayer. He's not concerned with mechanics and is usually fuzzy on the details of the rules; he can manage "roll to attack," but gets confused when his bonus to hit with a basic attack doesn't match his bonus with an at-will. He takes feats like Linguist and plays an elf warlock because it fits his character concept. He doesn't read the CharOp boards because he doesn't care.

Johnny is the guy with character ADD. He always has a new class or mechanic he wants to try out. He plays an elf warlock today because he's thought of a cool synergy between the elf racial abilities and some warlock pact he found in Dragon, but two weeks from now he'll retire that character and make a half-orc wizard. He doesn't read the CharOp boards because using someone else's ideas takes all the fun out of it.

Spike is the tactician and optimizer (or, in his less group-friendly incarnation, the hypercompetitive power gamer). His goal is to deliver the crushingest possible beatdown in every encounter. He won't ever play an elf warlock; the stat bonuses are all wrong and the warlock class is total weaksauce. He reads the CharOp boards religiously and builds as close to their designs as the DM will let him get away with.

Of course, these are extremes, and in practice a lot of people are a mix of the three in varying proportions. I'd describe myself as 50% Johnny, 25% Timmy, and 25% Spike (and that applies in both Magic and D&D).

 

[Garthanos]

Stereotypes have historically been used to treat people badly... the same can happen here.. assuming Timmy doesn't want to win ... just because he wants to roleplay for instance. (hence recommending things that will almost assure he doesnt).

By win I mean feel useful and contributive to the team.

And yes wierdly in roleplaying having ones character seem strikingly ineffective can be a win .. if you planned it that way . Take a warlord and skin it right for instance and it seems like you are always missing but inspiring the other heros to protect you... heheh Jockster anyone...

 

[Dausuul]

Stereotypes have historically been used to treat people badly... the same can happen here.. assuming Timmy doesn't want to win ... just because he wants to roleplay for instance. (hence recommending things that will almost assure he doesnt).

If you try to slot everyone into one of those three categories, yeah, you'll have problems. I'm more Johnny than anything else, but I won't make a character that doesn't fit a cool concept (a Timmy trait), and I won't pick powers and feats that I see as unacceptably weak (a Spike trait).

But if you keep in mind that most people aren't 100% anything, the categories are useful to illustrate aspects of how and why people game, and to provide for their needs.

And Timmy wants to win like everyone else. It's just that he doesn't build characters with winning in mind. He wants his elf warlock who speaks five languages, and if that means he isn't as ruthlessly efficient as Spike's drow rogue or as mechanically clever as Johnny's half-orc wizard, so be it.

 

[Garthanos]

And Timmy wants to win like everyone else. It's just that he doesn't build characters with winning in mind.

Nyeah see you make it sound like timmy is a bit daft with this dont you?..
Timmy gets a win for taking linguist if you make linguist important to the
story... The D&D game with its endemic common tongue makes the linguist feat daft unless the DM works to make it so using the correct language now has a real benefit like making your Diplomacy checks much better when you do.. or giving you access to certain spells if you have the right language... etc. I am mentioning mechanic ways to allow Linguist to shine... but they dont have to be.
Somebody spent a feat for this.

 

[Dausuul]

Nyeah see you make it sound like timmy is a bit daft with this dont you?..
Timmy gets a win for taking linguist if you make linguist important to the
story... The D&D game with its endemic common tongue makes the linguist feat daft unless the DM works to make it so using the correct language now has a real benefit like making your Diplomacy checks much better when you do.. or giving you access to certain spells if you have the right language... etc.

*shrug* It's only daft if your goal in designing a character is to make a character who will win. Timmy isn't worried about that. Yes, when he gets into a combat encounter, he wants to win it just like everybody else, but the reason he wants to win it is that it's what his character would want. If his character would want to lose, for whatever reason, then that's what he wants.

Timmy has a vision of the character in his head and he builds, and plays, to fit that vision. He takes very much to heart the mantra that you can't win D&D - in contrast to Spike, for whom "winning D&D" is what it's all about.

And yes, I picked a deliberately "sub-optimal" combination (elf warlock with Linguist) as an example, to show that Timmy doesn't mind if his build is sub-optimal. It's simply not a problem for him. "Build" and "sub-optimal" are not in his gaming vocabulary.

As for making Linguist useful when a player takes it - sure, the DM can and should do that. But it doesn't change the player dynamic. If Linguist becomes a strong mechanical choice, then Spike will grab it next time he levels up, because Spike sees everything in mechanical terms. Meanwhile Timmy will take Linguist if it fits his concept, and not if it doesn't, regardless of whether the DM gives him goodies for it.

 

[kilpatds]

I've read them and I admit some are better than others. I just disagreed with about 90% of the advice given in the Avenger one.

Can I ask you to post in the thread with your concerns and suggestions? The guide is improved by many viewpoints, especially different viewpoints.

I found that as I was going through the list of powers, it would often say "Don't take this power, it only does 2[w] which is way too low for a Striker power of this level, instead, if you can, multiclass into Rogue and take this power instead".

I'm having a hard time guessing what power you're specifically referring to...

I wanted to discuss this, but unfortunately neither of the Avenger Handbooks that I can currently find seem to be complete enough to actually have a powers section at the moment...

He's refering to mine, which is here. There may be some internal link issues, but I believe it to be complete except for 1 build and the equipment. I can't find the energy to port the equipment information over to the wiki.

 

[nightwyrm]

I don't think we're doing a very good job of translating Magic archetypes into D&D here...first of all, the three archetypes have nothing to do with whether you roleplay or not. The three describes how you go about building your deck, or in this case your character.

Timmy likes big effects. Translated into D&D, he likes big damage, hitting lots of enemies etc. He's the guy who likes the 3e ubercharger or a blaster who uses a ton of metamagics to boost his fireball damage. He breaks things so he can enjoy the effect it will have on the game.

Johnny likes to find hidden synergies and interactions. In D&D, he likes to mix and match class features, feats, powers etc. to create something no one has thought of before. He's the guy who's playing a gish by combining 5 or 6 classes. He enjoys breaking things that seemed useless or weak at first glance. He's the dude who breaks mystic theurge by using ur-priest or likes being the first person to successfully make pun-pun at first level. He breaks things because he enjoys the challenge of breaking things.

Spike likes to win, but that's problematic when translating into D&D. I'd say that a D&D Spike likes efficiency. He's the guy who loves his SoD. He's the one who first understood the power of grease and glitterdust. The one who invents scry and die. He's the one who figures out the Cleric makes a better fighter than the fighter. His wizard is one level below everyone so he can ride the XP gravy train to craft a ton of stuff. He breaks things because he figures that it's more efficient to play the game in a way the game designers never thought about.

All three archetypes can be optimizers. They just prefer to optimize for different things.

 

[PoeticJustice]

*shrug* It's only daft if your goal in designing a character is to make a character who will win. Timmy isn't worried about that. Yes, when he gets into a combat encounter, he wants to win it just like everybody else, but the reason he wants to win it is that it's what his character would want. If his character would want to lose, for whatever reason, then that's what he wants.

Timmy has a vision of the character in his head and he builds, and plays, to fit that vision. He takes very much to heart the mantra that you can't win D&D - in contrast to Spike, for whom "winning D&D" is what it's all about.

And yes, I picked a deliberately "sub-optimal" combination (elf warlock with Linguist) as an example, to show that Timmy doesn't mind if his build is sub-optimal. It's simply not a problem for him. "Build" and "sub-optimal" are not in his gaming vocabulary.

As for making Linguist useful when a player takes it - sure, the DM can and should do that. But it doesn't change the player dynamic. If Linguist becomes a strong mechanical choice, then Spike will grab it next time he levels up, because Spike sees everything in mechanical terms. Meanwhile Timmy will take Linguist if it fits his concept, and not if it doesn't, regardless of whether the DM gives him goodies for it.

One must also realize, as the article on mtg.com points out, that few are one archetype and one archetype only--most people have a primary mindset and hints of one or both of the other archetypes guiding their thinking. Some share the considerations of two archetypes equally. Some try and achieve all three simultaneously, because much as some might like to believe it, winning big, winning creatively, and winning competitively are not mutually exclusive.

What you describe, Dausuul, is actually another archetype (or non-archetype, depends who you ask) called Vorthos. Ironically named for D&D character played by a mtg.com staffer, Vorthos spits in the eye of winning as a goal. To Vorthos, the inferior mechanic is one that does not directly correlate to the story. Indeed, winning--contextually defined as defeating one's M:tg opponent--is absolutely irrelevant to Vorthos, who just wants to build a functioning deck comprised of cards that all depict the same battle, or all have flavor text spoken by the same character, or represent characters that are plot-correct (a weatherlight deck that features all the crew, for instance).

Let's review

1. Spike ("optimizer") takes Linguist because he's traveling to a land where common is not spoken and he wants to be able to communicate normally. He retrains it away as soon as he leaves the land. If there was a feat that did something better than allowing one to speak, Spike would take that instead. Ceteris Paribus, there is no feat better than speech.

2. Johnny ("combo player") takes linguist because a paragon path requires one to speak Elvish. If the paragon path required another feat, he'd take that one instead. Power and optimization is secondary to working toward a mechanical goal.

3. Timmy ("power gamer") takes linguist because it allows him to speak the seven words that makes a woman fall in love with him. Timmy wants BOLD! SWEEPING! RESULTS! with less complexity than Johnny's combo and less nuanced than Spike's comparatively utilitarian build. Timmy seeks the awesome, the legendary. Spike's archer build might be better overall, but can Spike get a woman to fall in love with him by saying seven words?

4. Vorthos ("?") takes linguist because his background mentions his ability to speak more languages than his race would ordinarily let him.

I know this is a long post, but it's a complex topic. The essentials articles probably do not optimize very well. On the other hand, the Paladin handbook reads a lot like the local M:tg crowd describing the metagame.

 

[Dausuul]

Hmm... okay. PoeticJustice has a point; it's been a while since I read the definitions.

So, substitute "Vorthos" for "Timmy" in my posts above. However, while Vorthos's tastes don't really affect Magic gameplay - Mark Rosewater claims he belongs in his own category, separate from Johnny/Timmy/Spike - they have a huge impact on D&D, where flavor actually affects the mechanical game. Indeed, many of the big debates on these forums boil down to a running battle between Vorthos and Spike that's been going on since the birth of the game.

 

[nightwyrm]

Since we're talking about Vorthos, might as well throw in Malvin as well.

Although...do we even have Malvins in D&D?