Varieties of Protagonists in RPG Parties

[Sword of Spirit]

So the collective wisdom of the adepts of literature and drama has, again, proven worthless and irrelevant to my needs. After imposing upon a friend to be the sounding board for my scathing rebuke of the professors of the arts, referencing six-legged spiders and centuries of failing to examine the root concepts of their trade, I realized--hey, why I don't I go ask the people who actually have to deal with these same issues?

So for the fellow RPG designers, I have a question.

I'm attempting to determine a list of the story roles and archetypes of characters that is appropriate to a multiple or group protagonist scenario, such as (surprise!) a party of characters in an RPG.

The reason I'm doing this is that in my system one of the play styles involves creating characters in a very narrative format without any sort of mechanical balance. The characters each fulfill a particular role and archetype, and should be designed to fit that role--even if one of them is Gandalf and the other is Pippin.

What I'm having the hardest time coming up with is the sort of list I need of different types of complimentary protagonists (I realize that Pippin barely counts as a protagonist; that analogy wasn't intended to be taken this far). This isn't just an RPG thing. Many movies have multiple protagonists. And it is an oversimplification to move all of them into traditional supporting/non-protagonist roles.

RPGs provide an excellent example. You often have comic relief characters, but rarely have sidekicks. You have wise characters, but usually lack mentors. There are anti-heroes right beside heroes.

So, what are some examples of "protagonistic" character archetypes in a story without a single protagonist? Heck, even a list of protagonist archetypes would help.

 

[Celebrim]

There are several standard ensemble hero teams.

Boy, Girl, Sidekick is a very common one. Luke, Leia, Han. Harry, Hermoine, Ron. Aang, Katara ,Saka. You also see this among villains - Zod, Ursa, Non, for example.

Hero, Dragon (anti-hero), Princess, Big Guy, Wierdo is also very common. In latter seasons, the 'party of 3' dynamic in Avatar the last airbender morphs into a 'band of 5' - Hero (Aang), Dragon (Zuko), Princess (Katara), Big Guy (Toph), and Wierdo (Saka). The classic five man band is of course Science Ninja Team Gatchaman - Ken, Joe, Jun, Ryu, Jinpei. You could argue that Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, C3P0 fit pretty closely into the Band of Five, with only R2-D2 on the outside..

Mentors generally are not part of the hero band, but stay on the outside of it providing advice and exposition.

 

[GMMichael]

I'll let you guess the genre on this list: jock, nerd, cheerleader, funny-guy.

RPG roles and story roles are going to look a bit different from each other, because they have different needs.

RPG roles might be, at their simplest: attacker, healer, and problem-solver.

Story roles, though, are about as limitless as the stories themselves. But, if these ideas aren't too meta- for you:
Survivor/resolver, setting exposer, relationships exposer, diversion, and fatal flaw/embedded antagonist.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Excellent suggestions guys! Much better than I was expecting given the poverty of useful results in my web searches.

There are several standard ensemble hero teams.

Boy, Girl, Sidekick is a very common one. Luke, Leia, Han. Harry, Hermoine, Ron. Aang, Katara ,Saka. You also see this among villains - Zod, Ursa, Non, for example.

Hero, Dragon (anti-hero), Princess, Big Guy, Wierdo is also very common. In latter seasons, the 'party of 3' dynamic in Avatar the last airbender morphs into a 'band of 5' - Hero (Aang), Dragon (Zuko), Princess (Katara), Big Guy (Toph), and Wierdo (Saka). The classic five man band is of course Science Ninja Team Gatchaman - Ken, Joe, Jun, Ryu, Jinpei. You could argue that Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, C3P0 fit pretty closely into the Band of Five, with only R2-D2 on the outside..

Hero teams...yes, that is an excellent way of phrasing it.

I'll let you guess the genre on this list: jock, nerd, cheerleader, funny-guy.

That could fit a few, though I'd go with horror on it, just because I find it the most interesting genre that those can fit.

RPG roles and story roles are going to look a bit different from each other, because they have different needs.

Absolutely. It's a bit of a unique beast when you are dealing with group creation of a story through improvisational acting, so I need to find a way to blend them somehow--especially given the way I'm intending to use them.

RPG roles might be, at their simplest: attacker, healer, and problem-solver.

Story roles, though, are about as limitless as the stories themselves. But, if these ideas aren't too meta- for you:
Survivor/resolver, setting exposer, relationships exposer, diversion, and fatal flaw/embedded antagonist.

Nope, not too meta at all. Quite interesting.

To reference the discussion so far, I'll basically need to have each player decide what they want their character's place in the hero team to be, including both character archetype and role within the story/group, with specific reference to how they each interact with the group as a whole.

I haven't actually seen this done before--which is what threw a wrench in my design goals. I thought I'd be able to find a few lists of such hero team archetypes and roles, analyze them, derive the theories, evaluate those theories, change them if I disagree, and then create my own handy-dandy list and instructions to put right where any new player can easily follow it.

That's not exactly a simple task, but it's something that wasn't unexpected. Finding a lack of the raw information I needed, though, that's a real wrench in the plans, so thanks for the suggestions and pointers.

Any further examples, thoughts, or suggestions, would also be appreciated.

I'll probably have to work on this for a while.

 

[Celebrim]

Excellent suggestions guys! Much better than I was expecting given the poverty of useful results in my web searches.

The answers to all literary questions can be found at http://tvtropes.org/

Start with Hero and Anti-Hero.

I'll see you in a month.

 

[trancejeremy]

Well, to use Hawk the Slayer, which despite the name, was more of an ensemble movie: You had a sword guy (hawk), an elf with a bow, a dwarf (who didn't do much other than comic relief), an old guy with a crossbow, a giant with a maul, and and a sorceress.

Their archetypes weren't really different, they just looked different.

Same with Star Trek the original series. With the exception of Bones, they were all pretty much interchangeable in terms of job. But they were all distinct because of their appearance/accent.

Not like say, Firefly, where every single character either had short brown hair (men) or curly long brown hair (women). Could not tell a single character apart.

 

[Quartz]

I'll let you guess the genre on this list: jock, nerd, cheerleader, funny-guy.

You forgot the virgin.

[sblock]The canonical list from The Cabin in the Woods is athlete, whore, fool, virgin, and scholar.[/sblock]

 

[Tonguez]

I liked the classes from Spycraft/Fantasycraft and how they were conceived

essentially Faceman who does the talking,
Melee and Ranged combatants (including offensive spellcasters),
Skills Specialist who solve puzzles by stealth or dexterity (ie theif) or magic,
Explorers who uncover stuff,
the Sage who knows stuff and solves mind puzzles (Gandalf is a Sage)
& the Support cast who make other characters better (Pippin would be a pure support* and of course Clerics and Bards using buff spells serve this role too)

I tried designing a Poltroon class for 3e that was a non-magic pure support character. They had negative BAB, but increased bluff, distraction (including trip) and escape abilities which meant that they were able to keep opponents occupied and allow the combat characters to take advantage of the opponents distraction. I never did get it balanced so abandoned the idea

 

[StooNasty]

The king without a kingdom or to a lesser extent the impoverished nobleman. Defrocked priest, wandering pilgrim, or naturalist.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Not like say, Firefly, where every single character either had short brown hair (men) or curly long brown hair (women). Could not tell a single character apart.

Are you actually claiming you can't tell these women apart?



And Wash's hair was blond.



Shepherd Book's hair was long and gray.



Anyway, appearances are only superficial; these characters were distinctly different from each other.