D&D General What Should Today's Archetypes Be

[Minigiant]

I would add to everything else that while people are welcome to talk about the influence of anime, I'm gonna say that video games would be a much larger influence by a wide margin. Forget the idea that video games were influenced by D&D because I do think that video games have a pretty good sense for the sort of archetypes that people in quantities far larger than D&D's audience respond well to.

In the absence of D&D video games would likely (especially in the beginning when they were heavily based in Japan) lean heavily on anime and manga for its archetypes.

Since why I said D&D likely based on FiveMan Band and Ensemble casts as big nonD&D team based anime, cartoons, movies, books, are based of 3-8 person ensembles with different abilities.

 

[Aldarc]

In the absence of D&D video games would likely (especially in the beginning when they were heavily based in Japan) lean heavily on anime and manga for its archetypes.

Since why I said D&D likely based on Fivean Band and Ensemble casts as big nonD&D team based anime, cartoons, movies, books, are based of 3-8 person ensembles with different abilities.

I'm sorry, Minigiant, but I don't care one iota for this whole "if D&D didn't influence media" aspect of this thread's hypothetical. I have said multiple times that I think that it's pointless. So your reply is here falling on deaf ears.

 

[Aldarc]

To me this is a feature, not a bug. I like opening up the warlock class to concepts outside the Faustian. To me classes are game devices, building blocks we build out characters from. I prefer them not having much built-in story. The One DnD warlock that had access to the entire arcane list was fine with me, especially considering the later patrons, like genie.

I am not in any shape or form saying you are wrong - different takes for different folks.

Your feature is my flaw as I don't think that I can build the characters or archetype that I described from the building block as it is.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm sorry, Minigiant, but I don't care one iota for this whole "if D&D didn't influence media" aspect of this thread's hypothetical. I have said multiple times that I think that it's pointless. So your reply is here falling on deaf ears.

I wasn't trying to theorize what would take the place of D&D in inspiring media but was describing what did inspire todays media in a world with D&D but not from D&D.

Basically, there is a lot of fantasy media franchise today in the real world that is not heavily inspired by D&D or D&D inspired work. So if D&D was created today the structures and archetypes from these big franchises that lived on themselves would have more space to possibly inspire a newly created D&D.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, that’s a take, certainly. I am Generation X, and I loved so much of the old stuff that was on TV or in the video store growing up, that I instilled in my own children a love for it that cost me a pretty penny in videos and associated manga so they knew what was coming up. Heck, I watched the Harlock CGI movie and praised it, and the Voltron remake, and my wife first saw Ninja Scroll with me when dating, and became enough of a fan that Jubei made her top five “cartoon characters I would have relations with” list (trying to maintain some decorum, as the words she uses for that list are not grandma-approved).

All of my friends, D&D players or not, loved “Japanimation”, and passed that love onto their kids.

I was a kid in the 80s, and cartoons of all stripes fed our imaginations and our play.

This reads to me like you read a different post from what I actually wrote, but maybe I just wasn’t clear enough.

Firstly, I don’t think that every thing I loved as a kid would be part of the list of influences if I and other people the same age and culture as me made a fantasy group ensemble roleplaying game. We’d make a fantasy group/ensemble roleplaying game influenced by our primary fantasy touchstones, which aren’t DBZ or Naruto or even my favorite childhood cartoons like TMNT or Galaxy Rangers.

 

[deganawida]

This reads to me like you read a different post from what I actually wrote, but maybe I just wasn’t clear enough.

Firstly, I don’t think that every thing I loved as a kid would be part of the list of influences if I and other people the same age and culture as me made a fantasy group ensemble roleplaying game. We’d make a fantasy group/ensemble roleplaying game influenced by our primary fantasy touchstones, which aren’t DBZ or Naruto or even my favorite childhood cartoons like TMNT or Galaxy Rangers.

Entirely possible that I misunderstood. Thanks for clarifying, and I understand a bit more from your example.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Entirely possible that I misunderstood. Thanks for clarifying, and I understand a bit more from your example.

Glad to clear it up!

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I think I misunderstood the OP - I thought it was about "modern" archetypes, based on 2020s Earth peoples.

Instead, it sounds like what are more modern Appendix N sources from which we might pull a new set of Archetypes.

I agree with the current discourse here around anime/manga - a new Appendix N would include many things like:
Bleach
Naruto
One Piece
DragonBall
Leading to an archetype of "Fighter with Special Powers" or as someone said above - "Martial Artist/Ninja"

Other Appendix N inspirations would have to be "schools", like Hogwarts or Camp Half-blood. So let's add
Harry Potter
Percy Jackson
The Magicians
Scholomance
(others?)
In most of the School types, there's someone who is really good at a vaguely or explicitly dangerous source of power but is strong in courage and loyalty. Let's call that person "The Rebel with a Heart"

Let's also look at Urban Fantasy, which is so popular in YA novels and TV shows et al. I won't list the so so so many possibilities. The archetypes are not about the "fantasy" parts of the settings; but more about the psychographic profiles of the protagonists. Of course Martial Artist and Rebels are there. But examination of the protagonists and their immediate circle of associates shows us the archetype of - Committed Beyond Sense. The person who for no apparently good reason will go through all manner of pain because of their belief in a person, place, concept, or thing. "The Committed" is an archetype I think would definitely cover the area of the Cleric/Holy person

Next, we come to the Expert. This is someone who is typically better at whatever "it" is than the protagonist, but also usually lacks that "special something". I think of someone like Uryu Ishida from Bleach; or even Hermione

And finally - the "Good Guy" - the fellow whose not very smart, and actually not really good at anything except being pretty darn likeable - your Ron Weaseley type, your Neville Longbottom, your Hinata...

 

[seebs]

I misread the subject line as asking about the basic archetypes for today. You know: Business, Technical, Social, Academia, Labor.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Other Appendix N inspirations would have to be "schools", like Hogwarts or Camp Half-blood. So let's add
Harry Potter
Percy Jackson
The Magicians
Scholomance
(others?)

The Worst Witch (Jill Murphy, 1974). Adapted to TV a couple of times.

And you could consider the non-fantasy boarding school genre that inspired them. Harry Potter is a rip-off of Mallory Towers (Enid Blyton).

Of curse, the interesting thing about Worst Witch is it's old enough to have made the original Appendix N. But with it being British, Gygax wouldn't have come across it. So maybe "what would the archetypes be if D&D had been invented in the UK?" would be a good question.