The Modern-Day Party: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue

[Wavefunction]

Hey all,

So I got to thinking recently about modern day settings, and character roles within them, and I began to muse about parallels between modern-day 'real' world settings and fantasy settings.

Most people who have some experience with RPGs know the 'standard' party archetype: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue. Even with the lack of classes in GURPS, players often tend towards these roles, and not without good reason, the above combination makes for a well-rounded party, provided the characters have more to them than just their 'class'.

The above classification becomes more difficult in a modern, real-world setting, without magic or divine power. What would you guys say would be some good equivalents to these fantasy archetypes? Understand that I ask purely out of curiosity, one of the things I love about GURPS is the freedom from classes.

Both the Fighter and the Rogue are fairly obvious, with options ranging from street thug and petty criminal, to commando and secret agent. Wizards and Clerics are a bit more troublesome however. You could argue that the Wizard is all about versatility, so perhaps a millionaire character might be the best bet, or a technician, who can put together clever equipment like a D&D Wizard memorises spells. The Cleric seems like a medic of some kind, but the inability of real-life medics or priests to instantly heal wounds, turn undead, or smite their foes reduces their versatility, and I'm not sure how one might go about replicating or reinterpreting such feats.

So, what do you guys think, how would you re-imagine these classics for the modern, less fantastical age?

[Miles]

Originally Posted by Wavefunction

Hey all,

So I got to thinking recently about modern day settings, and character roles within them, and I began to muse about parallels between modern-day 'real' world settings and fantasy settings.

Most people who have some experience with RPGs know the 'standard' party archetype: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue. Even with the lack of classes in GURPS, players often tend towards these roles, and not without good reason, the above combination makes for a well-rounded party, provided the characters have more to them than just their 'class'.

The above classification becomes more difficult in a modern, real-world setting, without magic or divine power. What would you guys say would be some good equivalents to these fantasy archetypes? Understand that I ask purely out of curiosity, one of the things I love about GURPS is the freedom from classes.

Both the Fighter and the Rogue are fairly obvious, with options ranging from street thug and petty criminal, to commando and secret agent. Wizards and Clerics are a bit more troublesome however. You could argue that the Wizard is all about versatility, so perhaps a millionaire character might be the best bet, or a technician, who can put together clever equipment like a D&D Wizard memorises spells. The Cleric seems like a medic of some kind, but the inability of real-life medics or priests to instantly heal wounds, turn undead, or smite their foes reduces their versatility, and I'm not sure how one might go about replicating or reinterpreting such feats.

So, what do you guys think, how would you re-imagine these classics for the modern, less fantastical age?

The standard party is standard for a for fairly tightly defined scenario. It provides a reasonable combination of solutions to the problems encountered by a small group raiding an enemy stronghold with the intention of engaging in combat and stealing valuables, in a world with monsters and fairly common access to supernatural powers.

"Modern Day Earth" isn't nearly as tightly defined. A SWAT team and a party of dinner guests drawn into an investigation are both modern, but will have entirely different goals, face different problems, and bring different approaches to bear. So don't go looking for a direct comparison.

With that said, the following are very common "classes", aside from "Fighter" and "Rogue'. In rough order of how often I see them:

The Face: The modern equivalent of the bard is almost universal. Has some combination of social skills and wealth that opens doors and gets people to talk

The Academic: Knows stuff about whatever the focus of the campaign is. In a campaign with some fantasy aspects, he'll be closer to a straight wizard. May be wildly inappropriate in some campaigns that are all about implementation or where the new GM doesn't know how to make him feel useful. Doesn't seem to stop people.

The Investigator: Typically a law enforcement officer or journalist. Has some of the social skills of the Face, but narrower in scope and augmented with high Perception and skills and advantages tuned to uncovering clues over charming people

The Techie: Interacts with modern machinery. In a truly modern day or latter campaign, likely to be a computer hacker. Slightly earlier, will probably be a mechanic of some sort.

The Medic: A doctor or some other trained medical professional. May wind up frustrated with the slow pace of real world healing, but can be indispensable in a sufficiently bloody campaign.

The Driver: Or the pilot, or the boatman. If vehicles are a big point in the campaign, someone's going to want to drive them. Honestly, this can create problems (because vehicles are usually sort of their own subgame in any system and one that only the driver is good at).



(Not) Surprisingly, nearly all of these are found in Action!

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Wavefunction

So I got to thinking recently about modern day settings, and character roles within them, and I began to muse about parallels between modern-day 'real' world settings and fantasy settings.

Most people who have some experience with RPGs know the 'standard' party archetype: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue. Even with the lack of classes in GURPS, players often tend towards these roles, and not without good reason, the above combination makes for a well-rounded party, provided the characters have more to them than just their 'class'.

The above classification becomes more difficult in a modern, real-world setting, without magic or divine power. What would you guys say would be some good equivalents to these fantasy archetypes?

The standard advice I give to players, if they're making characters for a fantasy campaign that's going to be party-based (not all are), is that their party needs to contain these five abilities, since otherwise their collective ability to successfully engage in adventures and survive dangers is going to be low (as there will be no GM intervention to save their bacon):

1. Combat
2. Stealth/intrusion (including lockpicking/traps).
3. Healing, whether magical or mundane.
4. Social/communications skills (very much including Languages, and Cultures)
5. MetaMagic (as per the College in GURPS Magic - the kind of magic that specifically interacts with other magic, by detecting it, analyzing it and nullifying it. Other forms of magic are optional but the party needs this one).

For a modern campaign, the only change is that item #5, "MetaMagic", gets replaced with "Working with Technology", e.g. sabotating and repairing machinery, and piloting and repairing vehicles.

In a sufficiently dungeonheaded/old school/stuck-in-the-70s campaign, one can ignore item #4, which means we're back at your 4 fantasy archetypes, with the AD&D-type Wizard then being replaced in a modern era campaign with the Techie (someone like MacGyver, which interestingly overlaps somewhat with Stealth/Intrusion).

(Sean Punch wrote a post once, in reply to my list-of-5, that was much more elaborate (with 10 items, not 5), and also GURPS-specific. Perhaps someone can search it up for you, or else you can find it in published form - I think it's in the GURPS Character Template Tookit PDF. But if you want to Archetypize Sean's list then you'll have to do so on a Talent-by-Talent basis and I don't think that can be boiled down to as few as 4 or even 5 Talents.)

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Miles

The standard party is standard for a for fairly tightly defined scenario. It provides a reasonable combination of solutions to the problems encountered by a small group raiding an enemy stronghold with the intention of engaging in combat and stealing valuables, in a world with monsters and fairly common access to supernatural powers.

"Modern Day Earth" isn't nearly as tightly defined. A SWAT team and a party of dinner guests drawn into an investigation are both modern, but will have entirely different goals, face different problems, and bring different approaches to bear. So don't go looking for a direct comparison.

I think the genre definition here is action-adventuring. Action implies combat, and the occasional "other" kinds of physcal conflict (e.g. chases), but "adventuring" also implies a cerebral aspect, e.g. figuring out conspiracies or solving mysteries, something you shouldn't find (or at the most playing a very, very minor role) in a pure-action RPG system such as Feng Shui.

Dungeoncrawling can be pure combat, but it doesn't have to. GURPS DF seems to me to suggest a good balance for action-adventuring. Lots of combat, but also plenty of use for non-combat adventuring skills (and with non-adventuring skills being explicitly omitted or else defined as "backgrund skills").

[mlangsdorf]

Riffing off Miles' theme, my experience in play for well-rounded high tech parties looks closer to:

Face: Social skills are important.
Shooter: Someone is going to play a gun nut. You'll probably need one.
Detective/Sniper-Scout: High perception, observation and scouting skills, and good ability at shooting things from ambush. There are variations on the theme, but that's how I see the role.
Smart guy: Medic, technician, gadgeteer, and Mr. Exposition. Again, there are going to be variations on the theme, but most Smart Guys end up doing a little of everything.

My experience is that no one plays a dedicated medic or driver unless the scenario specifically calls for one. The Smart Guy will have some medic skills, and the Shooter or the Detective might know how to drive, but in practice healing and driving aren't primary focuses.

[johndallman]

It really does depend on what you're doing. The Infinite Cabal party I was GMing this evening contained:

a) Mad Wizard (Megalomania, healing, detection),
b) Mad Wizard (Scientific investigation of magic),
c) Mad Wizard (Astral plane, philosophy),
d) Fighter-Diplomat,
e) Token sane person and psionic.

[Nymdok]

Saw this comparison done once as this

Fighter - Fighter (Ranged or Melee)
Cleric - Medic, Doctor, EMT etc
Wizard - Scientist, Computer Guy, Other Techno Wonk
Rogue - Spy, Criminal
Druid - Hippie, Guru, Environmentalist
Barbarian - Hermit, Mountain Man

Whats kind of funny is that it works really that simply, but there are of course other ways to break it down.

Things that generally have no real counterpart.

From Fantasy to Modern - Illusionist, Cavalier, Paladin, Ranger
From Modern to Fantasy - Wheel Man, Wire Rat

Nymdok
You know now that I think about it, having several different Magic Systems and Styles that correspond to different computer bailiwicks might be fun. Programming, Security, Networking, Database, Graphics.

[dcarson]

A real world version for combat without being a regular military mission with supporting units and such is Special Forces.

The ODA is led by an 18A (Detachment Commander), usually a Captain, and a 180A (Assistant Detachment Commander) who is his second in command, usually a Warrant Officer One or Chief Warrant Officer Two. The team also includes the following enlisted men: one 18Z team sergeant (Operations Sergeant), usually a Master Sergeant, one 18F (Assistant Operations and Intelligence Sergeant), usually a Sergeant First Class, and two each, 18Bs (Weapons Sergeant), 18Cs (Engineer Sergeant), 18Ds (Medical Sergeant), and 18Es (Communications Sergeant), usually Sergeants First Class, Staff Sergeants or Sergeants. This organization facilitates 6-man "split team" operations, redundancy, and mentoring between a senior specialist NCO and his junior assistant.

Their mission includes training locals and forming combat units from them so not the same as a raid and loot mission but gives some basis.

[lachimba]

Don't real world modern parties seem to be more about redundancy? Two+ detectives, multiple seat team members, team of doctors.


Its more their minor abilities (my doctor is a Muay Thai student) and their specialties (mine is a Neuro surgeon) that define their differences.

[mook]

Some ideas here as well (including Kromm's take on common group roles).