Pointless Champions in a Fantasy Campaign.

[Mr. R]

Just as it says in the title.

 

Take the concept of Pointless Champions (As per the Article: Pointless Champions.  )  And apply it to you game.  

 

How would you make it work?

[GDShore]

Oy, that one is simple. Take one old man, put him in mismatched piece's of armor, seat him on a bedraggled charger with a chubby MPC companion riding a donkey. Voila!

[Steve]

The best literature example might be Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring. Gandalf and Aragorn on one end of the scale and Frodo and the other hobbits on the opposite end.

However, I think it could be said that the top end in power characters didn’t seem to gain as many XPs over the course of the campaign as the four hobbits did. Sam and Frodo both showed quite a bit of growth. Aragorn seemed to be mainly gaining perks along his storyline. And Gandalf didn’t seem to be more powerful, but more like he had his restraints removed.

 

Maybe not quite pointless, but fantasy seems to favor growth in power and ability more than superheroes seem to emphasize. Peter Parker hasn’t seemed to change a lot in his powers from when he was a teenager, but Frodo and Bilbo both changed in their abilities over the course of their heroic journeys.

[unclevlad]

On 3/23/2024 at 1:10 PM, Steve said:

The best literature example might be Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring. Gandalf and Aragorn on one end of the scale and Frodo and the other hobbits on the opposite end.

However, I think it could be said that the top end in power characters didn’t seem to gain as many XPs over the course of the campaign as the four hobbits did. Sam and Frodo both showed quite a bit of growth. Aragorn seemed to be mainly gaining perks along his storyline. And Gandalf didn’t seem to be more powerful, but more like he had his restraints removed.

 

Maybe not quite pointless, but fantasy seems to favor growth in power and ability more than superheroes seem to emphasize. Peter Parker hasn’t seemed to change a lot in his powers from when he was a teenager, but Frodo and Bilbo both changed in their abilities over the course of their heroic journeys.

 

Aragorn was 90 at the start of Fellowship.  He'd been helping Gandalf, scouting, and serving in Rohan and Gondor for decades.  Gandalf was a millenia-old Maia.  They'd developed fully, in terms of capabilities.  Gandalf...yeah, restraints removed almost literally, as the wizards were barred from countering power with power, lest they simply replaced the old bad guys with new bad guys...themselves.  Saruman's the perfect case of *that.*  And, heck...note that Gandalf almost never shows powers, in  the game sense.  To a point, the fight with the Balrog.  He lifts Faramir's body and stretcher off the pyre, as Denethor's madness reaches its culmination...ok, so he's got some super-strength, but that doesn't require much.  

 

Frodo and Sam...what abilities?  Their PRE rose.  Their EGO probably rose.  One could argue they lost disads.  What abilities did they ever show?  I'd also argue that in game terms, Merry and Pippin gained more...mostly definable as skills, like CSLs and Leadership.

 

Points are a game concept.  In literature that isn't LitRPG or close, there's no such thing.  Players like getting more powerful...in part because players often want to reach the points-free capabilities and flexibility of their comic/literary characters.  Another aspect is, going all the way back to 1st Ed D&D...players get more powerful.  That became the norm.  More recent game systems sometimes take approaches that are more analogous to how literary characters grow...milestone events.  Bilbo's got 2 major milestones in The Hobbit, IMO:

 

--helping the dwarves to escape, entirely on his own, twice...from the elves, then the spiders.

--Thorin's forgiveness and death

 

Note that neither milestone results in him becoming more powerful in the normal sense, but they definitely lead to changes.

 

So...translating this?  It's kinda hard.  Much of this really belongs on the player side.  My first Living City character was...a halfling fighter-thief.  Yeah, OK, it was Bilbo, more or less.  I was lots younger back then.  Started as a country bumpkin, had to join the Nightwatch cuz...he needed a job.  He grew *in my mind* quite a bit, over the course of several sessions.  Things go from "OMG we're all gonna die!!!" to "oh man...again?  OK boys, we've got a job to do!"  Mechanically...add narratable flexibility.  Don't add damage...add skill levels, and encourage the players to play out how they're fighting...that's how the levels get set.  For casters?  Say your norm is "long-ish incantations"...Incants and Delayed Phase.  OK, well, a spell that gets used a lot maybe loses Delayed Phase first, then the incant...which helps visualize the pattern...either becomes too short to be meaningful to anyone else, or unnoticeable (remember the textural requirements for something to be an Incantation)...or just goes away entirely.  Maybe some spells even rise to "quickened"...zero phase actions executable once per phase, that do NOT terminate your phase even if they're attack spells.  Maybe it's at half strength compared to the normal, terminating casting...still be nice.  

 

 

 

[Steve]

I think all the hobbits gained in abilities of various sorts. Frodo didn’t seem to change as much because he probably kept having to pour his XPs into buying up his EGO.

 

The other three seemed to gain quite a bit of fighting ability. Merry stabbed the Witch King, and Sam singlehandedly fought off Shelob, which was no mean feat.

Edited March 25 by Steve

[Old Man]

On 3/25/2024 at 8:59 AM, unclevlad said:

 

Aragorn was 90 at the start of Fellowship.  He'd been helping Gandalf, scouting, and serving in Rohan and Gondor for decades.  Gandalf was a millenia-old Maia.  They'd developed fully, in terms of capabilities.  Gandalf...yeah, restraints removed almost literally, as the wizards were barred from countering power with power, lest they simply replaced the old bad guys with new bad guys...themselves.  Saruman's the perfect case of *that.*  And, heck...note that Gandalf almost never shows powers, in  the game sense.  To a point, the fight with the Balrog.  He lifts Faramir's body and stretcher off the pyre, as Denethor's madness reaches its culmination...ok, so he's got some super-strength, but that doesn't require much. 

 

Gandalf also turns pinecones into fireballs against the Wargs, and at one point drives off a Nazgul with a frap ray.

 

Aragorn might have bought off his hesitant-to-take-the-throne psych lim.  Legolas in the books is arguably more badass than Gandalf so there's not much room for improvement, though I suppose he and Gimli bought off their hatred for each other's races.  Or at least replaced the psych lim with DNPCs of each other.

 

 

Quote

 

Frodo and Sam...what abilities?  Their PRE rose.  Their EGO probably rose.  One could argue they lost disads.  What abilities did they ever show?  I'd also argue that in game terms, Merry and Pippin gained more...mostly definable as skills, like CSLs and Leadership.

 

Frodo arguably lost points, picking up physical complications from being stabbed with a Morgul-blade and having a finger nibbled off.

 

But not as many points as Boromir.

[unclevlad]

7 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Frodo arguably lost points, picking up physical complications from being stabbed with a Morgul-blade and having a finger nibbled off.

 

 

And being poisoned by Shelob.  Also...physical or psychological complications from the mental battle against the Ring, and when in Mordor, seeing the Eye.  It's no surprise that he only stays in the Shire for less than 2 years.

 

But he did pick up Favors...really big ones...and Reputation.  So maybe it's close to a wash.