D&D General What Should Today's Archetypes Be

[Eyes of Nine]

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.

There's of course the ur-boarding school novel, Tom Brown's School Days - but not fantasy, no definitely not fantasy...

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'd like a school setting like Strange Days at Blake Holsey/Black Hole High or Buffy

Like create a setting where you weave Monster/Problem of the Week fun into a structured setting where the players have to navigate the structure to solve the problems.

 

[Jaeger]

My Tinfoil Hat alt-universe speculations:

I'd quibble; with people citing Anime/Magna; as I feel it's impossible to know what form they would take without D&D's early influence. And I don't see the average wargamer paying them much attention, because...

My personal opinion is; that a "D&D" type RPG as we know it would still have to come out of wargaming culture.

So a lot of how it would look would depend on the type of fantasy that the authors were into at the time.

My pure speculation: IF "D&D" were introduced Today...

LOTR, GoT, would retain a large influence. Conan would have some influence due to film, but I wonder how much other older sword and sorcery would have been influential, as by the 80's the 'High fantasy' Tolkienesque pastiche ruled the roost: Shannara, Wheel of time, and a few other novels and pastiches thrown in... There'd be some monster movie influence; Dracula, vampires, werewolves, and some other non-D&D derived films like Willow, Ladyhawke, beastmaster, etc, pitching in...

Potential classes:
Swordsman/Fighter
Strongman/Barbarian
Scout/Archer
Monster Hunter/Huntsman
Priest/Holy man - Healer/Alchemist...
Rogue/Thief
Wizard/Sorcerer - IMO very much a Gandalf/Harry Potter mashup - Lots of staves, wands, potions, and rituals.
Some kind of 'face' class - Smuggler/Fixer?

I think the monsters might be drawn far more from Folklore than current D&D.

I'm also not sure we would have had the huge zero to hero power curve that D&D currently has.

Religion in the game would really depend on the predilections of the authors. But I can easily see more of a leaning into Alt-Monotheistic mythology's.

 

[Minigiant]

Just realized something.

Due the influence of Magic School genre in media and the decades of "Specials vs Not Specials" in media, I can see the Wizard archetype be split.

First you have the Academically Trained Wizard.
And this can split into "Born into a Magic Family/Bloodline" and the "Normal Muggle who studied hard" variety.

Then you have the MagicSchoolDropout/FailedApprentice/FaustianBargain Warlock who makes up for shortcomings with a pact with a patron or blood magic or forbidden arts

• Academic Wizard
  • Accidental Wizard
  • Apprentice Wizard
  • Magic School Wizard
  • "Muggleborn" Wizard
  • Wizarding Bloodline
• Cheating Warlock
  • Blood Mage
  • Cultist
  • Death Mage
  • Defiler
  • Demonologist
  • Pact Mage
• Magic Priest

 

[W'rkncacnter]

i will say one thing - i caught a video from twitter today (that i'm not posting because there's a swear in the tweet and idk if i'd be allowed to post that given the obscenity filter) of what seems to be a fighter-type player from a work-in-progress game parrying the shockwave of a nuclear bomb.

take that how you will.

 

[Micah Sweet]

i will say one thing - i caught a video from twitter today (that i'm not posting because there's a swear in the tweet and idk if i'd be allowed to post that given the obscenity filter) of what seems to be a fighter-type player from a work-in-progress game parrying the shockwave of a nuclear bomb.

take that how you will.

Very cool (supernatural) ability!

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Very cool (supernatural) ability!

no, no, uh. it was a punch. he just punched really hard.

edit: ok, i found the game (it's called V.A Proxy)...it's scifi. everyone's robots. so i guess it's robot punching.