Role/Archetype/Class Question

Summary:

Responding to a question about characters who occupy mulitple party roles

Role/Archetype/Class Question

quarkstomper 17 Aug 2014 17:09

Cryowhite asked a question over on the "Welcome to ArcanaWiki" thread that I think would be better addressed over here.

I have one question. :)
Do you think each and every one of use can have more than one 'Role/Archetype/Class' in whatever game you love to imagine? :)
Like me for example, if I'm the 'Glass Cannon', the 'Sniper' and the 'Nuker', I can be one most extremely excellentastic and excellentabulous 'Long-range Ice Magic/Cryomancy/Cryokinesis Grandmaster Supreme' EVER! :D

Certainly individual characters may perform multiple roles within the group — and often they do. But this works best, I think, when you have a very small party.

Traditionally, role-playing games have striven for what they call "Game Balance"; making sure every character has something to bring to the table and making sure that no one gets overshadowed. That's why we have the specialization of the D&D class system. Everybody has an area of expertise and everybody gets a chance to shine at doing something or other.

Cryo's "extremely excellentastic and excellentabulous 'Long-range Ice Magic/Cryomancy/Cryokinesis Grandmaster Supreme' " makes me think of Bottom the Weaver in A Midsummer Night's Dream, who not only wanted to play the lead in the play his friends were putting on, he also wanted to play the girl and the lion too. "You can play no part but Pyramus," the director scolded him; because if he played all the parts, there'd be nothing left for the rest of his friends to do.

Which is not to say that a character can't have multiple specialties; or that mutliple characters can't share the same specialty. But RPG's are a collaborative adventure, and the wise GM will want to keep everybody involved.

---

"All the World's a Stage and Everyone's a Critic" — Mervyn Alquist

Re: Role/Archetype/Class Question

The Colonel 17 Aug 2014 20:34

Although it's important to note that you only get real niche formation in class based RPGs - I suppose you could mimic it in a class-free system but I don't see the point. Also that all of these archetypes tend to be based around combat roles, which makes them more suited to combat heavy gaming - and ideally combat heavy gaming with a variety of different styles. If you run a game without a significant emphasis on combat, or one in which combat is fairly abstract or uniform, then these archetypes go by the board.

Re: Role/Archetype/Class Question

Cryowhite 18 Aug 2014 01:12

Wow. :|
I must say that I most absolutely must agree with you on everything Quark Stomper. :)
It would be a thousand percent wise to pick only one 'Role/Archetype/Class' and let the other players pick theirs, and that's a real truth. :)
A thousand thanks for finally correcting me there pro. :)

Re: Role/Archetype/Class Question

The Colonel 31 Aug 2014 23:03

Of course, if you are playing "that sort of system" Quark is quite right that you need to make sure no-one ends up as a fifth wheel, but there is some space for multi-niching. For example, in the archetypal D&D four man band (wizard, cleric, fighter, thief), it probably would be okay to have the wizard as Glass Cannon/Sniper/Nuker, since they can all fit aspects of the wizard's artillery role - the fighter will be having to combine most of the melee archetypes, with the cleric as backup melee with healer/mezzer/buff/debuff roles and the thief as, frankly, a bit of a jack in combat - ambush melee, backup ranged and backup debuff/mezzer. In larger parties, of course, you will need to think about splitting archetypes as you start to double up on slots - one fighter might be a DPS specialist, another might tank, that sort of thing.

Yes, after getting the whole Sniper/The Sniper thing confused, I went off and did some reading and now almost think I understand the business.