Why is the "jaded grizzled veteran takes in an orphaned teenage girl as apprentice" trope so common in all things...

Don't you need to get to /pol/ for your daily white power meeting?

When has this ever happened in any, let alone all, things tabletop?

True Grit
Kick-Ass

Nerds want to be dads.

Aeroplane: 1d4chan.org/wiki/Incest_Smith

Those are my two favorite TABLE TOP games

>True Gtit
>Kick-Ass
>Tabletop

Also so sum up True Grit as "grizzle guy takes in little girl" is to kinda admit you never saw True Grit. Or read it. Haven't seen the John Wayne one so not sure if they fucked with the plot.

Do you have PDFs for either of those

This. Everyone wants a daughteru.

if you fucking dare try and pull up a board game i'm going to punch you in the goddamn mouth

Sorry, sorry, I misread his post, I thought he said "when has this happened in anything, let alone tabletop"

You're more annoying than the people who find ways to relate every piece of symbolism they come across to sex.

Pretty much. There might also be something about the adoption scenario skipping out the mother and complications about relationships, but I'm not so confident there.

I've seen it done in l5r with the dependent disadvantage.

Something, something, Sigmund Freud...

Ahh, yeah the post was def a clusterfuck of a sentence

I find it fascinating seeing how many people assume that OP has made a remotely accurate claim. Or maybe OP actually has made an accurate claim and I just haven't experienced enough tabletop?

Has there been a bunch of splatbooks about this that I don't know about?

>takes in an orphaned teenage girl as apprentice and lover

ftfy
In the book they end up fucking and whenever you have a girl at the table and she chooses the "raised by a grizzled veteran" backstory for her character she always specifies that eventually got sexually intimate as well.

It's not but
>Because nobody else gives so little fucks as to let a woman into non-sexual mercenary life, much less waste time teaching them the trade.

Onizuka is an interesting way to take on the 'grizzled' veteran, even though it's not a direct translation.

Closest I've seen was one of our games where we ended up as school kids in a sort of Shadowrun: Innocents game. When one was found to be magically active, they were sent to a special class to be taught sorcery and magical theory. The teacher was one of two survivors from the last campaign, and he's basically the walking embodiment of the line "What I learned today is that really old wizards don't get that way by being easy to kill."

Ended up teaching the kids how to make pipe bombs and got arrested, died in jail after sodomy and massive internal bleeding. whoops.

Yeah, being a single dad with a cute little daughter sounds comfy

I had a character that did this, he was probably one of my favorite characters ever. He was a paladin of a war god, turned ruler of a colony. The girl was one of a couple other orphans that lost their parents in the ship voyage over, her father was a soldier so when another party member took them in, she wanted to learn from my character. She ended up getting adopted by him later.

It's almost 2 in the morning though, so I'll storytime later if the thread's still alive.

Because in many settings, particularly ones based on medieval shit, there are only so many believable reasons why women would even know to do killy adventury shit, much less want to do it.

If you set it up so that the girl has been exposed to that stuff from an early age and has largely been kept away from the social structure that would normally ingrain gender roles it makes it more believable that she would be doing it.

>Because in many settings, particularly ones based on medieval shit, there are only so many believable reasons why women would even know to do killy adventury shit, much less want to do it.
In a lot of systems men and women are mechanically equal therefore women of the setting wouldn't be as discouraged as IRL.

by the time you get too medieval periods social traditions have become so well ingrained that physical ability doesn't actually matter.

>In a lot of systems men and women are mechanically equal

It's not really about the mechanics.

Settings very rarely conform to the logic of their mechanics (If they did every D&D setting would be tippyverse). A lot, if not most, still have irrational social conventions and whatnot, and since a lot of settings are based closely on real-world history, ones involving gender are often carried over.

You don't need -4 Str for women to be considered the Fairer Sex.

But all of human history would have lived with women being equal to men so the social traditions (as we know them) would not get a chance to develop.

Lazy GMs, got it.

>Lazy GMs, got it.

Or, you know, ones interested in telling a fucking story instead of exploring the strict logical consequences of a set of rules and numbers.

>telling a fucking story
>worries excessively about role of women in society

Being equal mechanically doesn't mean actually being equal. Women still get knocked up and become fairly useless for somewhere between 7 and 10 months, depending on how active she is early on and how long it takes to recover, and then at least one of the parents needs to spend most of their time taking care of their offspring for at least a few years after that. And since the woman was already basically staying at home anyway, she might as well be the one to do it rather than needlessly shake up the local workforce by switching a regular out and a person who hasn't been working at all recently in.

Yeah what a faggot right? I mean, how could an established society with developed social norms that the players can understand and use to interact with the world or inform their characters POSSIBLY contribute to telling a story.

You fucking idiot?

Don't you realize that there are no mechanical rules for being pregnant? Clearly a woman in her 3rd trimester is JUST as capable a combatant as any male and would be just as readily accepted on in a mercenary company or army.

After all, nothing in the rules states otherwise, so it MUST be the case.

Why is it always a girl? Why can't it be a boy? I'm seriously confused.

I would rather have a character in legitimate danger. You know the kind of guy where I think "oh no he might die." not "Oh no he might get himself killed to protect a kid I don't care about."

Hence why I said
>social traditions (as we know them)

It can be, and sometimes is. Making it a girl puts both characters further out of their comfort zones, so it's often going to be the choice.

>hy is the "jaded grizzled veteran takes in an orphaned teenage girl as apprentice" trope so common in all things tabletop?
Because we all want to be that little gir.

I mean, I know there's stories where it's a boy instead, but most of what I've seen and read has a girl instead. It sort of upsets me, because I assume that the reason for this is that society, for some reason, views girls are as more innocent and good? Like, why?

Because there is nothing more heroic than selflessly protecting people you love. And the male lead only works when that someone shows up in his life unexpectedly. And what's further from grizzled veteran than teenage girl?

>I assume that the reason for this is that society, for some reason, views girls are as more innocent and good? Like, why?

I don't think you're completely off the trail here, but I also think there's more to it. A big part of it has to do with the father reevaluating his values and the way he lives his life. Since he too was once a boy, he isn't forced to do it with a boy as he would be with a girl.

Having said that, look at a character like Iroh from Avatar. Losing a son caused the grizzled veteran to go through a much more powerful and profound change than raising either a boy or a girl.

there's probably also a factor of contrast that makes it an attractive pairing for writers. An innocent little girl is pretty much opposite too an old jaded man.

lucky trips confirm

You still don't want your baby factories getting killed.

Alright, now that I'm up and have time to waste, I'll start typing up storytime.

Okay, so the first thing to understand about Markus Greyiron is his origins. Markus was technically a noble, though he never really acted like it. His parents had both been major figures in the military at some point, and were good friends with a man named "Iron Hands" Mathias. Mathias happened to visit the family while Markus' father was giving his son sword lessons, and Mathias was impressed enough by what he saw that he offered to take the boy in for training at the Temple of Gorum.

For those that don't know Pathfinder's pantheon, Gorum is the Chaotic Neutral god of war, a big man in black plate armor wielding a greatsword. He's fought for both good and evil on a couple occasions, serving on the side of whichever gave him a better challenge. On more than one occasion, gems completely flipped sides in the middle of battle and just fought whoever came at him. Point being, morality doesn't matter to Gorum, all that matters is the fight. However, he has just as many good-aligned followers as he has evil ones, and when the GM gave me the OK to play a paladin of a chaotic-neutral god, this is how I flavored the temple.

The temple acknowledges that war is an inevitable phenomena which will never end so long as people live. Both large-scale and small-scale, people are always gonna fight. Likewise, there's always gonna be people out there who take advantage of this to harm and oppress the innocent for their own means. To stand against those villains, the temple's sect was formed as a counterbalance. Here, people trained in the arts of war for one purpose; To protect the weak and smite the wicked who would use their strength to harm them. In addition to their training, they worshipped the god of war, Gorum, so that they might receive his blessing. Gorum has no concern for morality, all that matters to him is strength. Likewise, the temple acknowledges that no amount of good deeds or purity of heart will defend someone if their enemy is stronger. Thus, they sought to become the strongest they possibly could, so that the weak would always have a champion. In Gorum's eyes, might makes right, so if these people choose to use their strength for others, and win, then let them do as they please.

Another thing to note about the temple of Gorum was it's traditions. Like other churches of Gorum, the priests wore spiked plate armor and were trained in martial combat as well as spellcasting. The Paladins were likewise trained, and almost universally wore spiked plate armor just like their god. Some used Gorum's favored weapon, the greatsword, but not all of them.

The last thing to know about the temple is that it's training was brutal. Very brutal. Initiates would be girded in plate armor that was weighed down to the point of being impossible to move in, then told to recite the holy texts of Gorum from memory. If even a single word was wrong, he was bashed over the head and knocked over, then left there until he picked himself up. Sparring matches were between the initiate and his instructor, and were often deliberately unfair. The instructor would call in other instructors and gang up on the initiate, the initiate would be forced to spar while wearing the aforementioned weighed-down plate, he'd be told to fight with just his fists while the instructor was wearing plate, and all manner of other unfair scenarios. This was because not all fights would be fair, and the initiates would have to learn how to come out victorious despite the conditions. An initiate would only graduate after defeating his instructor in a sparring match, and keep in mind the average instructor is level 5 or higher, while the initiate is usually level 1 at best unless he's been training for a while. When you became a sworn member of the brotherhood, you came in a hardened bastard from the start, because you managed to tough it out through all the challenges your mentor set, and came out all the stronger for it.

So, Markus managed to pass his training after a few years, and then served in the kingdom's military as many within the temple did. Markus served for a couple years, and ended up becoming the leader of his own squad. At some point in his military career, Markus was wounded in battle and taken to the nearest village for medical treatment, where he met the girl that would end up becoming his wife. They had two kids, a boy named Daniel and a girl named Erika. Grizzled as he was, he always did become a bit of a softie around his family.

That's it for backstory, god damn that turned out longer than I'd expected.

>One of my players watched Léon and made a character inspired by it. I have a disorder that makes me think everything that ever happens at my table happens everywhere and is part of a huge trend. Wat do?

At the start of the campaign, a new land was discovered across the sea, and the king decided to send settlers to colonize the new land. One of those people invited was Markus, and when he was invited he assumed it was to act as a sort of general, set up defenses around the colony and start training a standing army, that sort of thing. What he wasn't told until he and his family were ready to go, was that he'd be the acting governor of the colony, making him the colony's ruler.

Thanks Bard, for flaking and leaving me with that.

The voyage over was rough, but things were alright in the new land for the most part. We became allies with some of the natives, set up defenses, and discovered a few ancient ruins. Eventually though, our spymaster, the magus, came across a group of orphans living with a butcher. The butcher was a kind man that found them on the street and took them in, but he really couldn't afford to keep them all forever. The spymaster ended up deciding to take them in, so they started living with us in the castle we'd built. She also had the idea of maybe letting them all train under the party as their apprentices, which was fine with most of the party but Markus...well, I already mentioned what training was like. He was hesitant to do that with the young girl the spymaster brought to him, but in the end he decided to ask. He told the girl that training would be hard, but if she was sure then he would teach her everything he could.

The girl's name was Ophelia, and her father was a soldier. Both her parents died in the voyage over, and she still held onto her papa's axe. She wanted to be strong like her father, so when Markus asked she told him she was sure.

Thus started training.

He put her through all the stuff I mentioned before. She had a set of practice armor which was so heavy she could barely move at first. He made her recite Gorum's holy texts from memory, when she messed up she was knocked over and left there for hours until she could pick herself up. If she was still lying there at sunset, Markus would verbally berate her before helping her up. The first time she managed to pick herself up, she had the biggest shit-eating grin. He made her spar in the same armor, and didn't hold back. Keep in mind, she was 10 when she started training.

When Ophelia was 13, she got into a bit of an argument with the spymaster's apprentice, which ended up turning into a fight. Both Markus and the Spymaster were there when it was happening, but rather than split them up they basically went "Dis gon be gud", and let them fight. Ophelia ended up winning, but she ended up pinning the other apprentice down and kept punching her in the face until her nose started bleeding. She might have kept going, if Markus hadn't decided this went on long enough. He got up, grabbed the practice greatsword he had on hand, and swung at Ophelia so hard she actually got some airtime. At which point, he healed the other girl's nose, carried Ophelia back to her room, and fussed at her for going too far. Ophelia wasn't happy about that at all, she thought she hadn't done anything wrong. She challenged her fair and square, what did she do wrong? Markus explained that she went too far. Ophelia was getting strong, but if she used that strength to hurt people like that, what made her any different from a common thug?

The next day, Markus was waiting at the training grounds but Ophelia never came.
He asked around but no one had seen her all day. Immediately he started to get worried. He started running all around the castle, searching for her, then he came to her room and there she was, packing her bag. She said she was leaving. Ophelia had finally had enough of Markus' training. That was enough to give Markus pause. He took a moment to think, sat down next to her, and asked if he could tell her a story. Ophelia didn't respond, so he went ahead.

Markus told her about when he was an Initiate, back he was being trained by "Iron Hands" Mathias. He told her how he went through much of the same training she did, and like her he decided one day that he was going to run away. He couldn't go home, his parent would send him back, so he ended up running off and living in the streets of the capital. It was rough, he had trouble finding food and if it rained he had no place to take shelter. Days went by, but then one rainy evening, Mathias found him. The first thing his mentor did was punch Markus right in the jaw as hard as he could. The second was to pull him in for a hug. His mentor had been worried sick about his missing student, and had been looking all over the city for him ever since he left. When Markus asked why, Mathias told him that despite the harsh training, he cared about his student's well-being. The reason he put him through such harsh training was because he wanted Markus to grow strong, because if he wasn't harsh on Markus now while he was in training, he would never be ready to deal with his enemies, who would undoubtedly show no mercy. Markus ended this story by telling Ophelia that he felt the same way training Ophelia. He wasn't harsh because he enjoyed it, in fact he felt horrible putting her through all that. But he had to do it, because if Ophelia really was going to be a paladin of Gorum, she would need to be strong to survive.

Finally, Markus got up and told her to think about what she wanted to do. If she wanted to leave, he wouldn't stop her. If she wanted a new mentor, he would find one for her. But if she wanted to continue her training, he would be at the training field tomorrow. waiting for her.

The next day, Markus went to the training field at the usual time. Hours passed, but he stayed put, not budging an inch. Just as it seemed Ophelia wasn't coming, however, she came bounding from the stables, riding the Warden's horse, practice axe in hand and armor donned. They fought, we rolled initiative and everything. Strangely enough though, Ophelia was rolling like a champ. Markus was level 5 at the time, she was level 1, but she was rolling pretty high. Then, with a lucky crit, she actually managed to knock Markus out. When he came to, Ophelia was sitting next to him and smiling.

By all rights, Ophelia just passed her training.

The next morning, Markus woke her up with a gift, something he had sent over from the mainland in preparation for this day. A fresh set of magic armor and a magic greataxe, bearing a letter from the main temple. It read as such:

"To our newly inducted sister, we send our warmest congratulations. You have endured years of harsh training, and have proven you have the strength, fortitude, and heart to be inducted into our order. Please accept these gifts, may they serve you well for years to come. We welcome you to our order with open arms, Sister Ophelia Greyiron.

Sincerely, Captain Mathias Ironhands."

Ophelia read over that last name attached to hers a couple times, and Markhs gave her a salute to welcome her to the order. Rather than salute back though, Ophelia got up and gave her new father a hug. That was the only time in the campaign that Markus actually shed a tear.

To this day, Markus is still one of my favorite characters ever. The GM's said that moment when Ophelia became a paladin was probably one of his favorite moments in a game he ran as well.

That's my story, hope you enjoyed it Veeky Forums.

I read somewhere that a bunch of people at wotc have adoptive daughters

Onizuka was also trying to get into their pants most of the time.