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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5379497" data-attributes="member: 3820">"Only magical characters can be truly fantastic, but you can play a non-magical character" isn't the same thing as "a system that models Fafhrd, Conan and Pippin." A system that models all three of the above allows non-magical characters to be fantastic. For example, if using HERO System, Pippin might be about a 50-150 point character, and Conan or Fafhrd about 125-250, maybe more, depending on when you picked up on their careers. The trope that's being criticized is not the existence of the HERO System itself. It would be the equivalent of saying "you can't buy your attacks over 5 DC if you don't have the special effect of being magical," or putting a 150-point point cap on non-magical characters while levying no cap on magical characters. The trope under fire is one that promotes non-magical heroes as part of the source of inspiration but relegates them to a "mundane" role in a game. It's a game that tells you "Why yes, you can do something like the Hyborean or Newhon stories" but then mechanically sorts things out so that the sorcerers trump the swords. If magicians and magical weapons are the real power in a setting, that's fine: but act like Ars Magica or Stormbringer, and announce it up front. Don't pretend that you're inspired by Howard and Leiber.(Edit: Okay, that last sentence is probably unfair, but that is really more going back to the idea that you can be inspired by a work in which the hero is an exceptional being in two very different ways: by assuming that all the PCs are exceptional, like the hero, or by assuming that the PCs are typical of the world, and they aren't intended to be emulating the hero's prowess. Playing a mook in Hyborea can be fun, but the GM should be very up-front about the fact that you aren't going to be having the Conan experience.)</blockquote>

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