D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[TwoSix]

So "everyman hero from another world who gains strange powers" doesn't describe Isekai? I'm really confused, because I was certain anime like El Hazard took direct inspiration from Edgar Rice Burroughs.

This is starting to sound like a debate about musical subgenres, lol.

I think @overgeeked's definition is correct for the term's origin, but language gonna language.

If you say "John Carter is an isekai-type fantasy" and someone pulls a "Well, actually..." on you, they're being overly pedantic. (No, not that @Pedantic).

 

[Pedantic]

I think @overgeeked's definition is correct for the term's origin, but language gonna language.

If you say "John Carter is an isekai-type fantasy" and someone pulls a "Well, actually..." on you, they're being overly pedantic. (No, not that @Pedantic).

Heh. I'm firmly in the "general term of art" category at this point as well. I most often see isekai used as a verb these days, perhaps while describing the events of book: "John was isekai'd to Mars after a rocket accident" is a perfectly cogent and accurate sentence.

 

[overgeeked]

So "everyman hero from another world who gains strange powers" doesn't describe Isekai? I'm really confused, because I was certain anime like El Hazard took direct inspiration from Edgar Rice Burroughs.

This is starting to sound like a debate about musical subgenres, lol.

Maybe. But isekai has a long folk tradition in Japanese literature. According to wiki as far back as the 8th century.

Isekai - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That might have been the original intention, but I've generally seen its usage expand to mean any sort of "Earth character gets pulled into a fantasy (or virtual fantasy) world".

Sort of like how the usage of "gish" expanded from being a githyanki fighter-mage to being any sort of martial-caster hybrid, generally favoring melee attacks.

I think @overgeeked's definition is correct for the term's origin, but language gonna language.

Fair.

If you say "John Carter is an isekai-type fantasy" and someone pulls a "Well, actually..." on you, they're being overly pedantic. (No, not that @Pedantic).

Nah. Not even pedantic. Just trying to avoid unnecessary confusion.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Nothing new about isekai characters influencing D&D. John Carter is right in the 1e DMG's Appendix N.

I won't believe it until we have a genre accurate truck-kun class.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And in my view the strength of a class based game is that you can have a multiplicity of perspectives. Which means multiple goals.

And I'd say the goal of One D&D is the same as 2014 D&D - which is to be a game spread broad to appeal to the greatest number of those who show up. This is what the surveys are like both times. Neither of us are the same person we were in 2014.

Massive broad appeal may lead to a lot of money, but I still hold that's it bad game design to be so unfocused.

 

[TwoSix]

I won't believe it until we have a genre accurate truck-kun class.

Truck-kun is really more deity than class.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Massive broad appeal may lead to a lot of money, but I still hold that's it bad game design to be so unfocused.

And I hold that it's a legitimate focus of game design.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I would argue that isekai is a very particular subgenre of portal fantasy. John Carter definitely is not an isekai character. Isekai is exclusively Japanese otaku protagonists from the modern day that are sucked into a secondary fantasy world where their nerdiness is effectively a superpower, they are wildly OP compared to the native population, and they almost always form a harem. Only one of those points (wildly OP) even remotely applies to John Carter.

Isekai is literally just the Japanese word for Portal Fantasy. It has nothing to to with otaku or harems.

 

[tetrasodium]

So "everyman hero from another world who gains strange powers" doesn't describe Isekai? I'm really confused, because I was certain anime like El Hazard took direct inspiration from Edgar Rice Burroughs.

This is starting to sound like a debate about musical subgenres, lol.

Sometimes, but That's like saying science fiction involves FTL space ships & a handful of tropes from star wars or star trek. There's only so many times the standard "whoah I'm reincarnated" tropes can get rehashed & keep a reader/viewer's interest once anime started whipping that dead horse into paste. A lot of the time in modern stuff it's little more than an excuse to start the story with some degree of en media res & leave room to backfill some background experience that might be hard to swing otherwise. Ascendance of a bookworm overlord & mushoku tensei are in a lot of ways mold breaking in that they use it in new & interesting ways.

Having read all of the books I agree with @overgeeked about john carter though. Yes technically by definition they are an isekai story about a regretful confederate soldier(officer?), but they are so much else it does the series a disservice by trying to distil them down to a single genre that didn't really gain traction for about a century. The trouble with putting the John Carter books in a single specific box is that they were almost rule of cool kitchen sink stories so far back that almost everything* modern seems derived on one or more levels

* Multiple comic book characters may as well be crossover spinoffs, airships, the drow & so so sooooo much more. everything looks inspired by it on some level at this point

 

[M_Natas]

One thing you’d have to add, and this is a good add anyway so I’m for it, is the ability to intercept enemies as they move toward your allies more than once a round.

You need especially Battlefields that you can controll. With narrow passage you can Block, with bottlenecks, with height differences. And they need to be bigger.
If you have a wide open field without Cover, even in 5e Raw intelligent enemies with range attacks should attack the guy who looks like he can throw fireballs first.