Dungeon Fantasy party compositions

[Kalzazz]

How do you avoid Telegraphic Eye Poke syndrome and such when berserk?

[Crakkerjakk]

By killing things in range of you really really quickly, and having companions rushing around distracting things that aren't within range of your weapons but could still take advantage of the telegraphic eye poke. And also being a gigantic pile of heavily armored hit points.

I believe Mrugnak WAS blinded in both eyes in one combat, but just kept going.

[Nosforontu]

Additionally I have been playing RPGs since the D&D Red Box Era virtually every out of the box Fantasy RPG system that I have played in has had Elves, Dwarves, Humans and frequently Halflings/gnomes as the playable races. To be honest unless the specific RPG has a really good hook for one of those races that I have not yet seen I am bored with them, so very, very bored with Elves.

Other gamable pc races gives me the opportunity to try out new mind sets and like Bruno said it is not about being a special snowflake (except insofar as the world really does revolve around PCs for plot reasons). Also if it is ultimately a PC race then it is probably not that remarkable in that world otherwise it would be restricted to NPCS.

As an example in Earthdawn the Playable races out of the box are Tskrang who are river trading lizard men with a habit for flair. Dwarves who are considered the cultural norm and whose language everyone speaks. Elves not much different than they are elsewhere except for the blood elves. Orcs an impetuous race that is both raider nomad and fierce enemy of slavers. Trolls who fly sky ships and are very vikingesque in their personality. Obsediemen asexual living earth elementals who are spawned from Life Rocks. Humans probably the original race (except for perhaps Obsediman, Tskrang, and pixies) and the only ones able to exist without magic (if you accept Earthdawn and Shadowrun taking place on the same Earth). Pixies small flyers who depending on the edition make absolutely vicious beast masters with their huge Karma Die.

Several of those species are unusual even for regular fantasy gaming, yet in their world a party encompassing any of those races would be considered fairly normal, as those races are established as Name Givers. The world overall is fairly dark with lingering monsters in it but those races are not considered monsters, they are the species that heroes are made from. A young elf child being pursued by real monsters is likely to be glad to see a Orc Sword master standing between him and the real monsters in that world.


Sometimes also PCs will chose the other simply because they want to see what the Others culture is actually like. We rarely visit it in game with normal pc race choices except when are looting it after a successful battle. Sometimes you simply want to pull back the curtain and see things on the other side of it.

[Jürgen Hubert]

To me, part of the fun of RPGs is to play someone utterly unlike yourself. Thus, very strange characters are part of the fun of the game, and not something I would dismiss as "Mary Sues" - unless they are really blatant examples of min-maxing.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I mean, making a front line fighter with Berserk and no Combat Reflexes is supposed to be a GURPS death sentence. *shrug* It might just be that I'm really good at playing the character type.

Well, Combat Reflexes is a waste of points if you're expecting to be berserk in most combats. You can get a lot of survival advantages for those points.

It's also surprising what you can get away with once you have some sense of tactics. My university OD&D group had a fashion for Odin-worshipping berserkers at one point, and we regularly had parties of 6-8 berserkers and one really good healer. There were more deaths than in normal parties, but not that many, considering what we took on. Playing the healer, which I usually did, got tricky given the lack of coordination amongst the berserkers...

[Ji ji]

Originally Posted by Ji ji

I stress that in a overly freakish game world there's no odditiy in a pixie, a minotaur, a halfhobbit/halfdwarf and a fire fiend going to restaurant together.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Incidentally, in my experience if you allow players options other than "Human, elf, dwarf, halfling" and "Fighter, wizard, thief, cleric" (expressed however is appropriate for your game system) you WILL end up with gnome barbarians wielding garottes, half-celestial assasins, and minotaur sorcerers. The "freak show" aspect seems to be a major attraction for my group. They like doing something unusual for the entertainment value.

Originally Posted by Ji ji

It really seems that contemporary players are ineluctabily attracted by the most special kind of creature they can play.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I'm not sure it's about being a "Mary Sue" per ce, so much as wanting to be just kind of unique and special.

Originally Posted by Ji ji

Yet there's no much so special when everybody is a freak. Perhaps this can explain why so much players quickly grow unfond of their characters.

Originally Posted by Bruno

"When everyone is special, nobody will be special" is a horrible argument against letting everyone be special. If I'm playing a minotaur barbarian and you're playing an elf cleric and he's playing a half-ogre psychic, we're all special, and Syndrome can just go hang.

Here there's a misunderstanding. I didn't talk about not letting this or that, nor I deprecate weird fantasy.

In my campaign a werewolf, an enchanter or a juggler midget definitely are special. In a lot of campaign I know about, an half-demon pixie necromancer/paladin is only another freak in a world of freak. To say nothing about freaks built on optimization issues.

There is weird fantasy and a lot of people likes it. Yet I can remember of old fantasy a là D&D/DF, when being a dwarf was special and cool and where a band of orcs, a bunch of ghoul or a dragon where scary wonders. GMs' concerns about a circus party often are these: am I running a weird setting, a classic setting, a dark setting, or what?... Does this party make sense in this setting, or it doesn't?
If you are looking for subtle magic atmospheres, then it's not so good that your party is much more odd and freakish than anything else you can encounter. On the other hand, if you are looking for weird cosmopolitan multiracial fantasy, a party of humans can be unsuitable.

If a person plays a minotaur because she likes minotaurs, she will be content. If a person plays a minotaur because she wants to be special and unique in a world of freaks more strange than her, it's likely she will be not so content.

[aesir23]

I very rarely get the opportunity to be a player (and even more rare a player in Dungeon Fantasy), but when I do I tend to go for sub-optimal/unusual combinations (I've never played GURPS DF, but in that other game I've played Halfling Barbarians, Dwarven Rangers, and my all time favorite: a half-orc Monk/Paladin).

Part of this is a gut reaction against having my options limited by Classes and Templates, I think. Another part of it is being bored of the optimal combinations showing up everywhere (I think the "Favored Classes" of D&D 3e were the worst idea ever--why intentionally limit the number of viable options for character creation?).

Lastly, it's a fun challenge to make such combinations work and to come up with a back-story that makes them make sense.

If I were given the chance to play in someone's GURPS DF game, I'd be tempted to play something fairly boring (probably a human Swashbuckler-Scholar (I call it the student duelist archetype)). But that's just because there's a great amount of character customization available in default mode in GURPS.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

How do you avoid Telegraphic Eye Poke syndrome and such when berserk?

Never go berserk while near an intelligent combatant with a cool enough head not to panic when faced by a crazy enemy.

This directive, of course, is really difficult to follow when you have the Berserk Disadvantage and routinely fight foes that are capable and dangerous.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

By killing things in range of you really really quickly, and having companions rushing around distracting things that aren't within range of your weapons but could still take advantage of the telegraphic eye poke. And also being a gigantic pile of heavily armored hit points.

I believe Mrugnak WAS blinded in both eyes in one combat, but just kept going.

Two separate combats, including the famous "folks I'm about to make a death check at -5xHP and Berserk doesn't help" fight.

As Bruno and I played more games, I got better at killing up-armored minotaurs, and she got better at making sure her minotaurs didn't go berserk all the time.

[cbower]

Originally Posted by Bruno

But the absurd effectiveness of minotaur barbarians has been a delightful surprise, not something I really expected. I mean, making a front line fighter with Berserk and no Combat Reflexes is supposed to be a GURPS death sentence. *shrug* It might just be that I'm really good at playing the character type.

In my campaigns over the years, huge berzerkers tend to die in two ways:

1) They fail the post-fight death check,
2) They get mental-stun lock and die before they ever go berzerk.

That +6 to mental stun checks is a hidden gem in Combat Reflexes.