Adventuring group essential tropes?

[Boll Weevil]

Hi, 

 

I am finally starting a Fantasy Hero game. As I've posted here before, I have been playing Champions since the early 80's but have never played Fantasy Hero. I've had the Fantasy Hero books but could never convince my group (even with D&D'ers among them) to play. I've got Fantasy Hero Complete, Turakian Age and I just ordered Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds and Monsters etc. As we begin to make our characters for the big game, I find myself falling back on the genre I know best. In a successful Superhero group, it is always good practice to have a brick, a mentalist, perhaps a speedster and a martial artist or similar nimble melee combatant. 

 

Does a Fantasy Hero group of adventurers benefit from having a diverse group of character classes that line up with this roster? I remember watching Conan the Destroyer in 1984 thinking, "Ha, this could be my old D&D group!" They had the titular barbarian strongman, mage, thief, cleric and a kickass female warrior with a staff. 

 

In your games, do you often have such obvious archetypes fulfilling the various roles or do your players just bring their favorite characters even if that means a group of four stealthy thieves storming the castle?

[Ndreare]

In my experience the only indispensable character is the magic user. It seems like every Adventure there some magical trap reward that basically gets life threatening you if you don't have a magic user to disable it or dispel it. But that is just other people might have another character they consider key.

[eepjr24]

Generally if it is a gritty type campaign where folks take lots of body you need a healer of some type. Other than that it can be pretty varied. Some groups focus on just killing things fast so they take less damage (this can be mages, fighters, rogues or whatever). Some do the more traditional Tank, DPS, Crowd Control in some variation. Rogues are helpful for traps and locks, but sometimes you can avoid it with a mage that has the right spells or just power through.

 

- E

[Nolgroth]

I don't think any specific balance of character types is required unless the campaign revolves around combat as a central theme. At that point, it becomes less of a matter of specific archetypes as much as a matter of specific roles being filled. D&D 4th did a really good job at codifying those roles in a meaningful way. See http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Leader#Role for more details on that. Those roles are just taking the tactical combat to the nth degree are not really necessary. They do give a good idea of how you might break down a combat intensive game. 

 

I find that some people naturally gravitate towards those kinds of roles anyway, but they may not fit inside any of the specific pigeon holes described. For instance, somebody who is playing a magically adept warrior might fall somewhere on the line between Defender and Controller. Alternately, a warrior with the ability to do large, sweeping attacks, might also cross that line. I think the description of combat roles was one of those eye opening moments for me as it defined a lot of the background process that I saw happening anyway. Even if you don't aim to follow those specific guidelines, knowing that they are there is valuable.

 

How you structure combat is also important. Those roles work really well when you have large groups of mooks and henchman, whittling away at the characters' resources that culminate in a big boss fight. If combat is more of a narrative expansion, then it becomes less important. For example, if the characters just ticked off the local crimelord and two or three strongmen step out of the shadows to teach them a lesson, the whole role thing is likely not going to be a factor. If those strongmen are accompanied by a mass of faceless mooks, then maybe those roles are more important.

 

If your game is more about exploration and interactions, those roles become even less prominent. I've found that some of my games rarely deal with combat. Others, it happens all the time. I've even tried to diminish the importance of combat, only to find one, some or all the players chomping at the bit to put some hurt on the "bad guys."

[womble]

Can't go adventuring without a Cleric (mostly for healing), a Mage (if it's a magic-heavy world; in magic-rare worlds this is less hard-and-fast) and a Rogue (expect things to need sneakiness/technique). But the ref can mitigate the need for all these.

[Manic Typist]

Interesting. My thoughts go to tropes such as The Face, the Leader/Tactician, the Bruiser/Heavy, the Team Mascot/Moral Center, etc.

[bluesguy]

Here are examples of characters in the two campaigns I have run over the last ~5 years.

 

• Valdorian Age Campaign - gritty and very limited amounts of magic and 'monsters'.  Most people think the gods are dead or 'sleeping' and monsters are something you tell children to keep them in line.
  • PCs
    • Bounty Hunter with sorcery type spells (mental attacks)
    • Archer/"Plains Indian" horsewoman with some minimal spells
    • Noble sword fighter (think Three Musketeers)
    • Dwarf warrior
    • Priest who treated being a priest as a 'con' because she didn't believe what she was peddling.  Also she did everything to avoid fighting. 
  • Notable opposition
    • Necromancer - big mover and shaker who the didn't encounter until the final battle at the end of the campaign
    • Main henchmen included fighters, assassins and the occasional mage
    • Orcs - huge deal because no one had seen orcs in centuries
    • Trolls - see above
    • Bandits/Pirates
    • Dire wolves
    • Undead - skeletons
    • Very powerful, old magical creature
    • City guards who were corrupt beyond belief
    • 'Jack the Ripper'
• Nyonia - High Fantasy; Lots of magic;  Monsters and creatures are known.
  • PCs
    • Two very high SPD/DEX characters - imagine 7' tall cats
    • Knight (brick) with some magic to help enhance his ability and others ability
    • Berserker (brick)
    • Shaman who can 'summon' full versions of her Kachinas
    • Mage with telekinetic/telepathic powers
  • Notable opposition
    • Orcs (Gargun)
    • Were wolves
    • Vampires
    • Bandits/Pirates/Thieves/Assassins
    • Cyclops
    • Giants
    • Wyvern and its army (a few giants) and a bunch of orcs
    • A Cthulhu nightmare - Purple, tentacled, mental blasting/controlling horror
    • Corrupt officials

[Boll Weevil]

Interesting. My thoughts go to tropes such as The Face, the Leader/Tactician, the Bruiser/Heavy, the Team Mascot/Moral Center, etc.

Yes! When I first started playing Champions our team looked very much like the A-team with superpowers. It was 1983 and I was 14

[NuSoardGraphite]

It really depends on how you run your games. Certain archtypes become more important depending on what elements are found in the games. For this reason, I vary the elements in my game fairly frequently. They will run the gammut from action adventure, to exploration, to treasure hunting, to combat heavy to political intrigue. This gives everyone a chance to shine at some point in the game.

 

Fighters and mages are always useful. And if you require a specialized mage to heal such as a cleric, they can be extremely useful as well. Rogues become essential in an action adventure campaign where there are lots of doors to pick and traps to disarm or in political intrigue as spies and sabeteurs. Ranger and Druid types become important in an exploration scenario and Bards excel at political intrigue but their knowledge can be invaluable in other games as well and if they can fight (as well they should) then they'll always be useful in some capacity.

[Wardsman]

Hi, 

 

I am finally starting a Fantasy Hero game. As I've posted here before, I have been playing Champions since the early 80's but have never played Fantasy Hero. I've had the Fantasy Hero books but could never convince my group (even with D&D'ers among them) to play. I've got Fantasy Hero Complete, Turakian Age and I just ordered Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds and Monsters etc. As we begin to make our characters for the big game, I find myself falling back on the genre I know best. In a successful Superhero group, it is always good practice to have a brick, a mentalist, perhaps a speedster and a martial artist or similar nimble melee combatant. 

 

Does a Fantasy Hero group of adventurers benefit from having a diverse group of character classes that line up with this roster? I remember watching Conan the Destroyer in 1984 thinking, "Ha, this could be my old D&D group!" They had the titular barbarian strongman, mage, thief, cleric and a kickass female warrior with a staff. 

 

In your games, do you often have such obvious archetypes fulfilling the various roles or do your players just bring their favorite characters even if that means a group of four stealthy thieves storming the castle?

A lot depends on your setting.

 

Unlike D&D FH does not have classes per se. If you want a setting like Glorantha (Rune Quest) where everyone has access to some magic you can.

Mages and Priests are just specialists at magic in that type of setting. But even a barbarian warrior know some healing spells in that setting.

Of course Jacks-of-all-trades are masters of none.

 

On the other hand you can have something more traditional like D&D. Or somewhere in between. It is up to you.

 

I'm not up on 6th but I'll bet it has a lot of little rules like 5th does  that make healing without magic easier. So you can take that onus off you.

Healing could herbalism by hedge wizards by the way.

 

Decide how much magic you want. High power or low, Can everybody use some type magic(doesn't have to arcane)? Or only a few?

Are things like healing herbs common and available to those who know how to use them?

 

How gritty do you want the combat? Are you going use optional rules like bleeding and impairing(more danger and healing? Or is it going to be more swashbuckling like a what you are used to?

 

Just think about those ideas a little.

[bigdamnhero]

"I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but..."

 

The whole "balanced D&D adventuring party" trope is kindof a pet peeve of mine, and a large part of why I largely quit fantasy gaming years ago, because every damn adventure felt like the exact same cast of characters. Hero doesn't restrict you to narrow class/race pigeonholes, so I don't feel like the plot should either. Your players want to all be different flavors of wizards? Great - write adventures for wizards! They may occasionally find themselves at a disadvantage because they don't have a tank to hide behind, but that's called dramatic tension which is supposed to be a good thing. Don't have a healer? Awesome - the stakes of every single battle just got exponentially higher, and each scratch is now suddenly a VERY BIG DEAL. That should make your story more interesting, not less.

 

I think part of the problem is most of us have played so many published D&D modules, "living" campaigns, and so forth that are intentionally written for a mixed party and in many cases can't even be successfully completed unless you have The Right Classes in the group. That's not a complaint, it's just the nature of the beast. But that doesn't have to carry over into home campaigns which should be written for the PCs you have, not "a random party of 4-7 X-level characters." As long as your players know they're not going to be punished because they don't have a rogue in the party - let them play whatever characters interests them, party balance be damned. 

 

[/rant]

 

[sigh]

 

That said, I know from long experience that trying to convince a bunch of D&D players that party balance doesn't matter is nearly impossible and more likely to just create fear and frustration on everyone's part. So think in terms of standard D&D classes and build your world accordingly and you'll be fine.

[Nolgroth]

Your rant is justified. At the same time, defining roles helps define how the character fits into the scope of the game. If the players and gm already have a comfortable relationship with the system and style, then those definitions need not apply. It is very similar to the Campaign Limits versus Open Campaign arguments I've seen here. Some groups can just throw together characters without any need for artificial limits. Others like to have those limits in place. All a matter of taste.

[Doc Democracy]

Actually I think it comes down much more to the players you have than the archetypes in the characters.

 

I am currently playing a D&D game in Roll20 and while the characters appear to have a balanced look, they dont play well because the players are not the best mix.  Too many similar personalities not pushing the archetypes within their characters and so they are not really fulfilling their roles and so not delivering as expected from the on paper analysis...

 

Doc

[Nolgroth]

A good counterpoint. Finding a good team of players is almost alchemy in and of itself.

[Wardsman]

Your rant is justified. At the same time, defining roles helps define how the character fits into the scope of the game. If the players and gm already have a comfortable relationship with the system and style, then those definitions need not apply. It is very similar to the Campaign Limits versus Open Campaign arguments I've seen here. Some groups can just throw together characters without any need for artificial limits. Others like to have those limits in place. All a matter of taste.

 

N may have point. Some people freak when you take them out of what they know. Others find it exhilarating.

We don't know his/her group. But if the GM wants to show them "this how you can do what you know" BUT your are not limited to that if you want get out of the box, he can.

 

Ironically Fathrd and Grey Mouser were earlier D&D Icons and they broke a lot of D&D tropes. A thief who was a former Wizards apprentice? Come on?

A singing Barbarian? WTF?

[Nolgroth]

A singing Barbarian? WTF?

 

So he was a BarDbarian? 

[Wardsman]

"I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but..."

 

The whole "balanced D&D adventuring party" trope is kindof a pet peeve of mine, and a large part of why I largely quit fantasy gaming years ago, because every damn adventure felt like the exact same cast of characters. Hero doesn't restrict you to narrow class/race pigeonholes, so I don't feel like the plot should either. Your players want to all be different flavors of wizards? Great - write adventures for wizards! They may occasionally find themselves at a disadvantage because they don't have a tank to hide behind, but that's called dramatic tension which is supposed to be a good thing. Don't have a healer? Awesome - the stakes of every single battle just got exponentially higher, and each scratch is now suddenly a VERY BIG DEAL. That should make your story more interesting, not less.

 

I think part of the problem is most of us have played so many published D&D modules, "living" campaigns, and so forth that are intentionally written for a mixed party and in many cases can't even be successfully completed unless you have The Right Classes in the group. That's not a complaint, it's just the nature of the beast. But that doesn't have to carry over into home campaigns which should be written for the PCs you have, not "a random party of 4-7 X-level characters." As long as your players know they're not going to be punished because they don't have a rogue in the party - let them play whatever characters interests them, party balance be damned. 

 

[/rant]

 

[sigh]

 

That said, I know from long experience that trying to convince a bunch of D&D players that party balance doesn't matter is nearly impossible and more likely to just create fear and frustration on everyone's part. So think in terms of standard D&D classes and build your world accordingly and you'll be fine.

 

I remember some of those Thieves quests or Wizards quests.

In our D&D group this wasn't an issue as two of the Main characters were Elven fighter/mages and one was a Fighter/mage/thief. The latters backstory was he was really a scout. They didn't allow Elven Ranger/mages then. They didn't advance fast but they were tough to kill. The other main character was Paladin. 

Plus some NPC hench men A druid here a Cleric there. the FTM had an illusionist apprentice.

 

Like I said before when start translating D&d to hero things warp. Clerics and paladins become pretty much the same thing. Just one is better a Clerical magic and Turning undead and one id better at Martial skills. 

 

I think Arcane magic should be based on EGO(arcane is bending reality to your will) and Divine on INT(knowledge of your gods rituals).

 

How are clerics really different from a someone who makes pacts with other supernatural entities?

And shouldn't  what the cleric be able to do be based on what God he worships and not on him being a Cleric?

IE in a polytheistic setting not all clerics should be able to turn undead. Not all clerics should be able to heal.Only the ones who serve healing gods.

[bigdamnhero]

Ironically Fathrd and Grey Mouser were earlier D&D Icons and they broke a lot of D&D tropes.

Most early fantasy classics broke a lot of D&D tropes, before they became tropes.

 

It's also worth noting that in some class-race-level systems there really isn't all that much difference mechanically within the pigeonholes. So a party consisting entirely of 5th level fighters may seem boring and homogeneous, and the players may not feel like their character is unique. Hero allows a lot more specialization and differentiation between characters.

[Doc Democracy]

A good counterpoint. Finding a good team of players is almost alchemy in and of itself.

As GM I discovered that I was the player in our group that wanted to be leader and wanted to make decisions about what we did as a group.

 

It is strange, I always thought that the others might resent that I dominated this aspect of our gameplay. As it turns out, I am the only one inclined to do it. A year of adventuring and I still have to prompt them to make decisions, remind them of the leads and things they might want to follow up and (most frustrating of all) push them to develop long term goals for their character that I can try to weave into a broader game narrative.

 

No more guilt. When I play it is almost a gush of relief to actually do this stuff in game...they all provide the opportunity as GMs fir people to develop stuff, just don't seem motivated as players to do it.

 

I have slowly traversed back to the railroad style of campaign I trained myself out of as it is the one that best delivers the experience to that particular group of players...

[bigdamnhero]

I have slowly traversed back to the railroad style of campaign I trained myself out of as it is the one that best delivers the experience to that particular group of players...

Yeah, I've had groups like that. Know Thy Players and all that.

[Ninja-Bear]

Of course its the classic Warrior, Cleric, Thief, Dwarf and Elf!

[Ninja-Bear]

I once ran an intro game with a party of dwarfs but each one was a different class. The biggest problem I had was my brother could understand the concept of a dwarf thief and why would anyone hire a thief in a party. Fwiw, my dwarf thief is called a Lockbane and they really focus more on traps and mechanisms. They aren't evil per se but are considered queer (in the old proper sense) by other dwarfs and are watched by dwarf guilds. My justifaction is that other dwarfs may build a trap of lock and if they pass away, someone might have to disable it, like a locksmith.

[bluesguy]

Long long ago one of our players insisted that he wanted to GM.  We were pretty sure this was not going to work out but we decided to go along with him.  Everyone in the group got together, without the GM and created mages.  Each mage specialized in different kinds of magic.  He approved the characters, although he did ask if anyone wanted to play something besides a mage because it might be useful to have some of the standard "trope" adventuring character types.  We told him no (we had covered 'bricks' and 'sneaks' with magic).

 

The very first adventure we were told that we had to transport an important message to another country across the continent (deserts, mountains, swamps, oh-my).

 

The mages put there heads together and came up with a plan.  My character could create shaped force walls - big ones.  So he created one the shape of a large canoe.  Someone else summoned air elementals or some other kind of flying elemental, who were strong enough to lift the 'boat' and all of us in it.  They then carried us across the continent in a few days. 

 

Poor GM was almost in tears because he had things planned out for the crossing not for the end of the journey.  That was the one adventure we played with him as a GM.

[Wardsman]

Of course its the classic Warrior, Cleric, Thief, Dwarf and Elf!

Why? Especially on the last Three?

[Wardsman]

I once ran an intro game with a party of dwarfs but each one was a different class. The biggest problem I had was my brother could understand the concept of a dwarf thief and why would anyone hire a thief in a party. Fwiw, my dwarf thief is called a Lockbane and they really focus more on traps and mechanisms. They aren't evil per se but are considered queer (in the old proper sense) by other dwarfs and are watched by dwarf guilds. My justifaction is that other dwarfs may build a trap of lock and if they pass away, someone might have to disable it, like a locksmith.

I always felt given that Dwarves in AD&D were Lawful Good, took negatives to hiding in shadows, Wall climbing, backstabbing while getting bonuses to pick locks and find traps, that they locksmiths not thieves.