D&D General What Should Today's Archetypes Be

[GMMichael]

Conan for Barbar and not like, Wolverine or Hulk or any other character who flies into a rage that makes them better at fighting? Or Characters like Iron Fist or Shatterstar or some Jedi who have a very similar end-effect that D&D ignores completely in Battle Meditation?

Mostly because Conan became a thing without D&D. Yes, that boat mostly sailed in the 80s. I wouldn't expect today's barbarian to rage, but I'd expect a viking to rage. Which, given the viking popularity boom of recent (?) years, could be the 5th archetype:

Dragonborn (no, the skyrim one), viking.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Mid 40s to early 50s.

People who were born around 1975 to 1980.

Why would they have anime and such as their primary game influences?

Nah, they’re gonna look to novels and movies and shows. LoTR, Legend, Princess Bride, maybe some of the old sci-fantasy cartoons like that.

That’s too small a range, too, but whatever.

 

[deganawida]

Just thought of something.

Without D&D, fantasy video games would have taken trends from kids fantasies that were popular in the 80s and early 90s.

Stuff like HeMan, Thundercats, She-Ra, Thundarr. Or like Saint Seiya and Power Rangers.

So

• The videogame side of fantasy would be a lot more scientific than 1e. Final Fantasy's Black Belt might be replaced with a Technician who has gadgets.
• The Paladin might be replaced with a Destined Warriors who is destined or granted a magic weapon as a class feature. Getting the Sword of omens, Sunsword, Excalibur, Sword of Grayskull, Sword of Protection, Mjolnir, or some other artifact weapon at level 5. Possiblity with a transformation.
• Theere would be a D&D equivalent of an Archmages as a guy it's the Evil Sword of Death or Blade of Chaos!!.

So yeah the party would have a player transforming into a HeMan or She-Ra while his buddy lobs grenades at the blue dragon.

Yep. The creators would likely be older millennials or younger Gen X, as they’d be at the right time, and the 80s saw an upswing in fantasy which was still independent of D&D influences.

 

[Reynard]

Gygax was 36 when he and Arneson created D&D. If we use that as an arbitrary benchmark, the fictional creators of "today's D&D" would be of a similar age and therefore solidly late 90s and early 00s kids. There is a huge amount of 90s anime and "now D&D" would likely enjoy influence from everything from DBZ to Princess Mononoke. Disney and Pixar were equally huge, with a dose of solid early super hero films (Blade, X-Men). Jackson's Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars prequels were around the same time.

"Now D&D" absolutely would not be bound to 80s fantasy.

 

[Minigiant]

Why would they have anime and such as their primary game influences?

Nah, they’re gonna look to novels and movies and shows. LoTR, Legend, Princess Bride, maybe some of the old sci-fantasy cartoons like that.

That’s too small a range, too, but whatever.

Wrong age

Older millennials and young Xers were kids during the HeMan through Transformers era.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Just thought of something.

Without D&D, fantasy video games would have taken trends from kids fantasies that were popular in the 80s and early 90s.

Stuff like HeMan, Thundercats, She-Ra, Thundarr. Or like Saint Seiya and Power Rangers.

So

• The videogame side of fantasy would be a lot more scientific than 1e. Final Fantasy's Black Belt might be replaced with a Technician who has gadgets.
• The Paladin might be replaced with a Destined Warriors who is destined or granted a magic weapon as a class feature. Getting the Sword of omens, Sunsword, Excalibur, Sword of Grayskull, Sword of Protection, Mjolnir, or some other artifact weapon at level 5. Possiblity with a transformation.
• Theere would be a D&D equivalent of an Archmages as a guy it's the Evil Sword of Death or Blade of Chaos!!.

So yeah the party would have a player transforming into a HeMan or She-Ra while his buddy lobs grenades at the blue dragon.

I mean, it’s still be a fantasy rpg, and it would be influenced by LoTR and the fantasy movies of the 80’s just as much as the cartoons like Thundercats.

So, yes, more science fantasy than current D&D, but definitely not just primarily those cartoons as an influence, and very little comic books, and anime but only fantasy anime, plus a very strong influence from LOTR and other fantasy series, as well as stuff like Legend, Princess Bride, The Last Unicorn, Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Neverending Story, David The Gnome, Narnia, plus a strong influence of modern problems like climate change leading to more wilderness and heroes of the wilds.

I’d expect races like Dryads and Satyrs, magical nature with sentient animals, much less human-centric, no focus on dungeons at all, more mytho-historically accurate folk lore races like trolls that resemble mythical trolls, plus more playable monsters out of the gate, from werewolves and vampires to trolls/ogres and goblins and other dangerous Fey.

The nature guy class would def be very magical, but I think your ideas of heavy comic book influence here just don’t ring true.

And much less hard line between magic and not magic than folks in the D&D community often want.

 

[bedir than]

You think people based comic book characters on high level D&D ones, rather than the opposite?

I do think that D&D permeated the geek space enough that things that began post D&D are influenced by it, yes

Was anyone arguing otherwise? All speculative fiction feeds off itself.

This thread stipulates a world where D&D didn't exist until today, and then asks what the archetypes would be.
So, yes, the order of inspiration matters.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Gygax was 36 when he and Arneson created D&D. If we use that as an arbitrary benchmark, the fictional creators of "today's D&D" would be of a similar age and therefore solidly late 90s and early 00s kids. There is a huge amount of 90s anime and "now D&D" would likely enjoy influence from everything from DBZ to Princess Mononoke. Disney and Pixar were equally huge, with a dose of solid early super hero films (Blade, X-Men). Jackson's Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars prequels were around the same time.

"Now D&D" absolutely would not be bound to 80s fantasy.

That’s a decent point, but has some holes.

I’m 38, so I was 10 in 1994, and I can tell you with certainty that no one I’ve ever met my age (or within about 3-5 years up or down) was unfamiliar with the great fantasy stories of the 80’s. “Bound to”, no, but absolutely strongly influenced by.

Whether Disney or Pixar would factor in much at all is a coin toss, at best. I don’t think anyone in my age group thinks of them much when they think of fantasy, and if they do it’s more their influence on the perception of fairy tales. Star Wars would be a bigger deal than Disney, IMO.

But Princes Mononoke absolutely. But 36 year olds were in high school in the early 2000’, and grew up consuming a ton of 80’s media as kids, so 80’s fantasy would absolutely be a large influence.

 

[bedir than]

That’s a decent point, but has some holes.

I’m 38, so I was 10 in 1994, and I can tell you with certainty that no one I’ve ever met my age (or within about 3-5 years up or down) was unfamiliar with the great fantasy stories of the 80’s. “Bound to”, no, but absolutely strongly influenced by.

Whether Disney or Pixar would factor in much at all is a coin toss, at best. I don’t think anyone in my age group thinks of them much when they think of fantasy, and if they do it’s more their influence on the perception of fairy tales. Star Wars would be a bigger deal than Disney, IMO.

But Princes Mononoke absolutely. But 36 year olds were in high school in the early 2000’, and grew up consuming a ton of 80’s media as kids, so 80’s fantasy would absolutely be a large influence.

Also, anime outside of some space opera stuff wasn't commonly available in the late 80s to mid 90s.
Especially not more available than The Hobbit movie, The Princess Bride, Conan, Highlander, Excalibur, Chronicles of Narnia, Robin Hood and dozens of other fantasy shows, movies and books.

 

[Minigiant]

Gygax was 36 when he and Arneson created D&D. If we use that as an arbitrary benchmark, the fictional creators of "today's D&D" would be of a similar age and therefore solidly late 90s and early 00s kids. There is a huge amount of 90s anime and "now D&D" would likely enjoy influence from everything from DBZ to Princess Mononoke. Disney and Pixar were equally huge, with a dose of solid early super hero films (Blade, X-Men). Jackson's Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars prequels were around the same time.

"Now D&D" absolutely would not be bound to 80s fantasy.

Because reasons, if created today, the D&D creators would be mid-late 30s or older. Likely 40s.