Quote from: yosemitemike;869806It's definitely a mentality that fits four color super heroics better than it does a game like D&D.

It doesnt even fit that because while your group is off saving the day. So is XYZ other groups in the comics. The invaders are dealing with one group, the Liberty Legion another in WWII. Later you had the Avengers, Defenders, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and a couple of other groups all doing their own thing on oft massive scales.

The thing some players forget or dont want to accept is that in their little corner of the world THEY are important now. RIGHT NOW! Who the hell cares if Elminster is banging a goddess over there? The illithids are trying to snuf out the sun. Here. And theres only your group between that and eternal brain noshing darkness.

But boo-hoo-hoo! Mean ol Dri'zzt is doin stuffs in da book. Me not important! waaah!

Quote from: Omega;869850It doesnt even fit that because while your group is off saving the day. So is XYZ other groups in the comics. The invaders are dealing with one group, the Liberty Legion another in WWII. Later you had the Avengers, Defenders, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and a couple of other groups all doing their own thing on oft massive scales.

It fits better anyway.  If you were reading a Fantastic Four comic (when there was a Fantastic Four), pretty much everything revolved around the Fantastic Four and other heroes hardly ever showed up or mattered even ones that operated right there in the same city.  The fact that the X-Men were off somewhere doing some mutant related thing hardly mattered.  Lots of titles only nominally take place in a shared world unless there is an event going on.  This is especially true of DC.  

It fits even better for prime time soap opera stuff like pre-Angel spinoff Buffy or Charmed where the main characters are the destined chosen ones and pretty much nothing significant happens that doesn't revolve around them.

Quote from: yosemitemike;869782Some mean that the PCs should be like the protagonists/main characters of a lot of TV shows and book series with everything important happening where they are and all significant events revolving around them.  This is the crowd that would call a persistent world with significant events unfolding here and there that the PCs have no part in de-protagonism.  This is the crowd that doesn't want to play in licensed setting because the canonical characters are the ones who do all of the "cool stuff".  They want their PCs to be like SG-1 from Stargate SG-1 or the Charmed Ones from Charmed.  Everything important happens where they are and all significant events revolve around them right from the beginning.

Although ... some can be educated.

I started up a new group composed of folks from my martial arts class.  The sensei was one of the players, and not unnaturally, did up a martial artist.  He was somewhat frosted out of the gate when his character couldn't do some things he thought he ought to be able to do.  I started to explain the zero-to-hero concept (me still being on my heavily VD&D homebrew at the time), and he slapped his forehead and said, "I get it!  You're telling me that I'm thinking like a black belt, only my character is just a green belt."

Certainly a better summation than I was giving.

In Old-School, sometimes PCs of the same class (or race) start out kind of alike, but if you're doing your work right, after a short while they'll become different from each other and be better at different things.

Quote from: RPGPundit;870453In Old-School, sometimes PCs of the same class (or race) start out kind of alike, but if you're doing your work right, after a short while they'll become different from each other and be better at different things.

That is true of anyschool RPG. About any RPG you can have pretty much identical characters sometimes even with random rolls for stats, class, race.

For that matter, overlapping character roles can occur because of overly random chargen, or even normally random chargen. You can end up with an all fighter group simply because that is all everyone qualifies for with their stat rolls. Or an all fighter group because everyone rolled a fighter on the random class table.

Example: RPG Quest from I believe Brazil you roll for race and class. With Ranger, and Paladino at the bottom of the bell curve and the Guerreiro the most likely to be rolled by a small margin, closely followed by the Ladrao.
A quick test and got 3 Ladrao and 1 Barbaro.

Quote from: Omega;870602That is true of anyschool RPG. About any RPG you can have pretty much identical characters sometimes even with random rolls for stats, class, race.

For that matter, overlapping character roles can occur because of overly random chargen, or even normally random chargen. You can end up with an all fighter group simply because that is all everyone qualifies for with their stat rolls. Or an all fighter group because everyone rolled a fighter on the random class table.

Yeah this is why I find it completely hilarious when someone tries to defend the need for 300+ page rule books with the old " you need all these options to make unique characters" bullshit.

All those options and yet two players have pretty good odds that if they build heavy fighters that they will resemble clones of each other. So after hundreds of mechanical options and all the bloated rules to go along with them, we are basically back to name and personality as the only unique traits. Much as the case was back in OD&D.

The more things change.....

Quote from: Lunamancer;869579Outside of that? Yes, your moment will come to you, even if only by dumb luck. And it doesn't become any less substantial just because someone else had two or three in the time it took for you to have one.

Quote from: Omega;869661Hammering this revelation into some players heads is like mining granite with a mop.

More clerics = less sustained wounds and deeper delves because we are intact longer. And more undead popping.
More thieves = less falling into pits, more locked chests and doors opened.
More magic users = more detection, buffing or crowd clearing effects.
More fighters = stuff made dead faster.

The important thing is this: No matter what your PC's level or abilities or equipment, you need to find a way to MAKE yourself useful to the group. I had a 1st-level cleric who was a best slightly above average. The party already had a much better cleric, and a paladin to boot. On top of that, I rolled a below average amount of starting money. Clearly I was "de-protagonized" from the get-go, right? Wrong.

I used my cleric's meager amount of gold, not to buy the usual: a suit of mail, shield and mace, but to buy a mule, a horse and as much oil, torches, rope and other gear as possible. Yes, he had to make do with padded armor, a wooden shield and several clubs as his starting arms and armor, but thanks to the extra gear brought to the dungeon, as well as the ability take more stuff from the dungeon, everybody made 2nd level on one trip. Being able to stockpile along the way all those arrows and spears alone made it worthwhile, since ammo was scrutinized by that particular DM.

Now I know what someone who believes he is just too good to play a supporting character must be thinking right now: "But, but I want to be the center of attention, not a travelling quartermaster. That's worse than a medic!"

Brother Geoff soon became the center of attention as the enemy went after him and the pack animals. This wasn't DM revenge dickery, but a realization on the part of the brigands and their allies just how important my PC had become to the group, combined with the erroneous assumption on their part that the cleric, horse and mule were easy meat.

I've had similar luck being the mediocre fighter or thief who brings up the rear. Thanks to the DM's fondness for trying to have the enemy stalk and attack from the rear, my PCs got their share of action and more -and appreciation from the rest of the group.

Are y'all saying "it ain't the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean"? :teehee:

(I do feel the same way, too. But inappropriate analogies are fun.)

You know, in my old Conan game the players really had to specialize physical combatant characters to find their niche. Using the Netbook of Feats really helped facilitate this action.

One player decided to play a typical barbarian, and didn't invest any time differentiating. He did however enter the game believing that he was going to be The Beef. Once he saw that "old fashioned" was underwhelming, he became frustrated.

He didn't give up on the character though. Instead he began to role-play his deficiency to the hilt - behaving as a drunken braggart that was never able to live up to his own boasting. It was hysterical to watch him run his mouth, and then fail miserably. In the end, he was the most memorable of his band.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;865631How do you deal with the problem where the party has 2 characters that fill the same role?

Like D&D Wizards and every other character in the game, save for the healing spells of the cleric?  No one's ever cared about it at the tables I've played at.

Quote from: Omega;869850It doesnt even fit that because while your group is off saving the day. So is XYZ other groups in the comics. The invaders are dealing with one group, the Liberty Legion another in WWII. Later you had the Avengers, Defenders, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and a couple of other groups all doing their own thing on oft massive scales.

If I remember correctly, there was a statement in the X-Men comic made by Magneto back in the 80's (One of their perennial villains) saying something that the X-Men individually, they were powerful, but when they got together (in their team of 5 operatives) their innate powers increased greater than five-fold.

Most of my crews have more or less ascribed to that philosophy.

And if you look at it, a lot of the iconic loners have a crew of close to equally skilled partners or aids.  Batman and his 'family' is a prime example.

It's not what you 'are' stat-wise that's really interesting to me, since that's just a matter of non-play paperwork. What's interesting is what you DO, which is where the play is.

Now, it's true that some variety gets cut out when you reduce the game form to one in which all characters are members of a monolithic party on the same expeditions probably for the same overall goals. However, in my experience that still leaves plenty of room for distinction.

You cut out still more when it's negligibly a role-playing game, having been thoroughly boiled down to a tactical combat exercise. Fighting is more the same than the reasons men fight, also the reasons they at other times choose a different course of action.

It's in the larger context of relationships that Patton is very entertainingly different from Montgomery or Rommel, not in the business of hurling shot and shell.