Classes and character arcs

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
jt
Knight
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2018 5:41 pm

Classes and character arcs

Post by jt »

I'm trying to map character ability-archetypes to the most common personality that'd be associated with them, and from there to character arcs. The archetypes I'm working with are more fine-grained than D&D classes - brute force smashy fighter and jumps on tables swashbuckly fighter instead of just fighter. For personalities and arcs, the more cliche the better, and character arcs are allowed to branch.

This is easy enough for paladin types - you take whatever belief they're a paladin of and the obvious crisis of faith / more nuanced understanding / perverted understanding paths. You believe in patience and have patience-themed powers, fail because your enemy already completed their plan, and decide that it's ok to lose sometimes so long as you're advancing your goals too, or your enemies need to be more patient so you'll make them.

Other archetypes are harder. I'm struggling with fighter and rogue archetypes in particular. Does anyone have any ideas for those? Or just in general: if you have branching character cliches instead of traditional classes, what would be a weird thing to leave out?
User avatar
erik
King
Posts: 5861
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by erik »

I struggle to come up with something because I find the goal terrible. There isn't just one archtype/belief/personality for anything. There isn't even just one cliche. If TV tropes is to be believed, everyfuckinthing is cliche.
jt
Knight
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2018 5:41 pm

Post by jt »

erik wrote:I struggle to come up with something because I find the goal terrible.
That's fine, not every idea jives with every person. But maybe next time you recognize that you have nothing to add you should, you know... add nothing.
Last edited by jt on Sun May 13, 2018 11:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
erik
King
Posts: 5861
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by erik »

No, I'm telling you you're barking up the wrong tree. It's a fool's errand. Your paladin cliche is just as valid as the complete opposite. The paladin believes in passion and passion-themed powers, fail because your enemy exploits your predictability, and decide it's okay because you answer to a higher power. Etc. etc. etc.

Every cliche you choose can be inverted and be just as valid.
User avatar
Chamomile
Prince
Posts: 4632
Joined: Tue May 03, 2011 10:45 am

Post by Chamomile »

The original Thief was basically Bilbo Baggins: the class. So, I guess the archetypal Rogue is a bumbling parochial Englishman who fakes being a master thief until he stumbles across a ring of invisibility and uses it to cheat his way to victory.
User avatar
nockermensch
Duke
Posts: 1898
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 1:11 pm
Location: Rio: the Janeiro

Post by nockermensch »

There's a structural difference at work here, that is causing you trouble:

For Paladins, "being true to their code" should be the answer to the question "What do you want to do?". That's it, being a baby kobold killer upstanding person it's also their roleplaying goal (at least one of their goals), so it makes sense to build a character arc around it.

But I don't think you'll find a common goal that all the brute force smashy fighters share, so unless you go full Den and make a mandatory character arc for these characters "to figure how to contribute at levels 7 and up", you risk writing something that the player of any particular brute force smashy fighter won't feel engaging.

So, you should first look to other classes that have easier roleplaying prompts (like Druids or Necromancers) to more write character arcs that make sense to an entire group. Every necromancer needs to find their balance between the living and the dead, for druids is the same with civilization/nature. Throw in some HARD CHOICES and you're golden. :P
@ @ Nockermensch
Koumei wrote:After all, in Firefox you keep tabs in your browser, but in SovietPutin's Russia, browser keeps tabs on you.
Mord wrote:Chromatic Wolves are massively under-CRed. Its "Dood to stone" spell-like is a TPK waiting to happen if you run into it before anyone in the party has Dance of Sack or Shield of Farts.
User avatar
Ancient History
Serious Badass
Posts: 12708
Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:57 pm

Post by Ancient History »

I can think of something stupid: instead of making level-ups automatic, you can lock advancement to the next level until the character achieves a specific in-character step toward their ultimate goal.
jt
Knight
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2018 5:41 pm

Post by jt »

erik wrote:The paladin believes in passion and passion-themed powers, fail because your enemy exploits your predictability, and decide it's okay because you answer to a higher power. Etc. etc. etc.
That's an entirely valid paladin. There can be paladins of passion with their own set of arcs.
Chamomile wrote:I guess the archetypal Rogue is a bumbling parochial Englishman who fakes being a master thief until he stumbles across a ring of invisibility and uses it to cheat his way to victory.
Bilbo is the archetypical rogue but far from the typical rogue. I wouldn't base much on him. That said, the way I'm handling magic items is the same way I'm handling becoming stronger or growing as a person, so you really can gain a level by finding a magic ring, and there really can be a character arc around growing corrupted by your magic item's power.
nockermensch wrote:There's a structural difference at work here, that is causing you trouble
Yeah, I'm aware. Of standard classes the paladin fits the most easily, and some others work out alright. I've considered only using archetypes that have built-in hooks. You can do a whole cluster of stuff on variants on possession - demonic, werewolf, corrupted demon arm from Princess Mononoke, whatever. You can make a whole class out of bullshit powers you don't understand and don't know where you got them, too.

But I can't get around the fact that someone should be able to play Robin Hood, and he's a dual-archetype fighter based on the swashbuckly and archery styles. Someone who picks those two styles should end up with the system assuming you're trying for someone who looks passably like Robin Hood.
nockermensch wrote:But I don't think you'll find a common goal that all the brute force smashy fighters share, so unless you go full Den and make a mandatory character arc for these characters.
Oh, I'm entirely willing to make mandatory character arcs. If we assume everyone going the brute force route has anger management issues, I'm happy with that. And "going full Den" is why I'm posting this here.

This whole thing is predicated on the realization that tying all the elements of character progression into the same system actually does some neat things. If you want to focus on cherrypicking whatever levels fit the most with your character arc, you're still going to get a character with an interesting set of abilities for all situations. If you want to focus on making the best melee monster possible, the system is still going to start pushing a bit of personality onto them, and hopefully it'll be something interesting to roleplay. You might chafe against it if you have very specific ideas about how you want your character to work with every aspect of the game, but just as many people are going to think navigating that is entertaining, and I care much more about making something that a few people really like than some formless blob that's theoretically palatable to everyone.
Ancient History wrote:I can think of something stupid: instead of making level-ups automatic, you can lock advancement to the next level until the character achieves a specific in-character step toward their ultimate goal.
I'm actually doing this. But advancement is more like feat chains than like D&D classes - classes are just chapter headings that contain a thematically linked collection of feat chains. So if you stall out on some goal, you can still advance somewhere else. And you can have the big bad end guy kill your family and start an entire feat chain giving you more powers as you go on a Captain Ahab style quest to stop him.

I'd like the more class-like chains to be more generic so you can default to "get better at hitting things" as a way that you're advancing, but I'm ok with the system forcing personality onto your characters at all steps.
Last edited by jt on Mon May 14, 2018 12:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Pariah Dog
Knight
Posts: 371
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2010 1:44 am

Post by Pariah Dog »

Ancient History wrote:I can think of something stupid: instead of making level-ups automatic, you can lock advancement to the next level until the character achieves a specific in-character step toward their ultimate goal.
Be wizard

Ultimate goal is to accumulate arcane power (megalomania type thing)

Accomplish some step in your goal (say find the lost research and spellbook of the famous Archmage Knobgobbler) and level up.

Get more arcane power by leveling up

Level up again because you've gained more arcane power, your ultimate goal.

Repeat ad infinitum or until the DM cockslaps you IRL.
User avatar
Dogbert
Duke
Posts: 1133
Joined: Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:17 am
Contact:

Post by Dogbert »

Pariah Dog wrote:Repeat ad infinitum or until the DM cockslaps you IRL.
That's more or less how I play 5E: Keep perpetual Inspiration by selecting traits I'm constantly playing out... the "Path of what I was going to do anyway."
Image
MGuy
Prince
Posts: 4774
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:18 am
Location: Indiana

Post by MGuy »

So I don't get the point of doing this. It sounds like you want to prefab a character's story arc before a game has even started. That sounds pretty dumb but maybe I'm missing what you're trying to ultimately do other than just create new feat chains (which I also think isn't a good idea).
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
Iduno
Knight-Baron
Posts: 969
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:47 pm

Re: Classes and character arcs

Post by Iduno »

jt wrote:Other archetypes are harder. I'm struggling with fighter and rogue archetypes in particular. Does anyone have any ideas for those? Or just in general: if you have branching character cliches instead of traditional classes, what would be a weird thing to leave out?
Step 1: Buy a life insurance plan that will pay out to your next character
Step 2: Off yourself by 6th level.
merc1138
NPC
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2017 11:06 am

Post by merc1138 »

jt wrote:Oh, I'm entirely willing to make mandatory character arcs. If we assume everyone going the brute force route has anger management issues, I'm happy with that. And "going full Den" is why I'm posting this here.

This whole thing is predicated on the realization that tying all the elements of character progression into the same system actually does some neat things. If you want to focus on cherrypicking whatever levels fit the most with your character arc, you're still going to get a character with an interesting set of abilities for all situations. If you want to focus on making the best melee monster possible, the system is still going to start pushing a bit of personality onto them, and hopefully it'll be something interesting to roleplay. You might chafe against it if you have very specific ideas about how you want your character to work with every aspect of the game, but just as many people are going to think navigating that is entertaining, and I care much more about making something that a few people really like than some formless blob that's theoretically palatable to everyone.

I'm actually doing this. But advancement is more like feat chains than like D&D classes - classes are just chapter headings that contain a thematically linked collection of feat chains. So if you stall out on some goal, you can still advance somewhere else. And you can have the big bad end guy kill your family and start an entire feat chain giving you more powers as you go on a Captain Ahab style quest to stop him.

I'd like the more class-like chains to be more generic so you can default to "get better at hitting things" as a way that you're advancing, but I'm ok with the system forcing personality onto your characters at all steps.
Let me get this straight. Instead of allowing a character arc to occur organically(which can certainly happen), you want to pidgeonhole an entire personality and character arc onto a player based solely on class selection?

It's annoying as it is that in at least some systems the actual breadth of choice for mechanically advancing a character(numbers and abilities on a character sheet) are effectively littered with trap options but you want to take away the opportunity for someone to actually come up with a creative character to RP in an RPG as well? This is honestly a worse idea than governing every player action based on the 3x3 alignment grid. What actually sounds more interesting, every smashy smashy fighter in your head having to deal with an anger management issue, or a smashy smashy fighter who actually tries to rub two braincells together every now and then, and instead of having an anger management issue actually tries to rely on something else to accomplish his goals on occasion?

Let's even look at the Paladin since it gets mentioned very early on in the thread. They can be smashy smashy fighting types, they can also be deus vult screaming zealots with an eye twitch the moment they hear anything blasphemous in a conversation, they could also be into the passion thing like someone else said, but that doesn't mean everything gets resolved with the swing of a sword. If you have to include 20 different personality archetypes per class, then why even bother forcing anything on the players in the first place? It's just busy-work by then. Also, the idea of actually telling players if they want to have a certain personality, that they need to start picking levels of this and levels of that... I wouldn't even say in most systems that would be terrible but in quite a few you're just going to end up with a horrible to play homunculus of clashing abilities and numbers on a sheet in any system where this is tied to an actual class. Congratulations, you've got players with an interesting character to RP but formless blobs of characters to game with.

How about instead of knee-capping a player who has a creative idea in their head about how their character would react to things that may be entirely counter to your ideas based off of their class, you make sure that your players actually have something of the start of a developed character in their backstory before the game even begins? Not only does this resolve the issue of PCs at your table being nothing more than a pile of stats(and if you think about it, forcing personality based off class is really just that PC still being a pile of stats and nothing more), but you aren't cramming something down someone else's throat because you assume it's not possible for them to be interesting at the table without their hand being held. That doesn't mean every character needs a 5 page backstory either since it's pretty rare for a group to sit down and play that character's backstory, but it's not unreasonable to hand a player a series of questions that involve more than just their physical attributes and then tie some of their responses into overall story hooks during the game.

Just because you're happy with the overly simplistic idea of every brute force type of character having anger issues, doesn't mean other players of those characters are ok with that. Then there's the more obvious problem... that just means every brute force smashy smashy character in your game is going to be a clone of one another in both stats(as they tend to be already in some systems) but actual character as well.
Last edited by merc1138 on Fri May 18, 2018 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

If you go back to the roots of roleplaying as a cooperative storytelling game, I can legitimately see why you'd want to have your character classes be Cambellian archetypes rather than skillset archetypes. So you'd define your character in terms of story beats they are intended to hit - that the unrequited love the character has at the beginning will ultimately be overshadowed by a more worthy love interest as by the time the original love interest realizes that the character is worthy of them the hero's perspectives and understanding of their own worth have expanded and they realize their original idol was never what they really needed. Or that they see their mentor figure die and stop rejecting the call to heroism. You know, story structure.

The game which most plainly moves in this direction (other than obviously Munchhausen) is FATE. Characters get to their heroic moments by building up FATE points by hitting pre-established story beats. But even then, that game is defined in terms of character abilities and character disadvantages. That the story beats are supposed to be things you want to avoid despite the fucking obvious fact that you need to hit them in order to actually do anything.

Broadly speaking, once you structure the game's character advancement around story structure rather than character powers, there's no particular need to have classes match to ability sets at all. Your three main character types aren't Warrior/Expert/Mage, they are Intentional Hero, Reluctant Hero, and Serendipitous Hero. And your characters subdivide based on Cambellian adventure thresholds and supporting casts. Whether a character has fire powers or masterful swordsmanship is as much a personal flare choice in such as a system as the choice to be haughty or serene is in Dungeons & Dragons.

-Username17
Post Reply