Why is

Why is
>male human fighter
a meme?
Genuinely asking, because a thing I enjoy roleplaying out is a guy who looks very common but has to find his own distinction in the world, he can be another run-of-the-mill Human Fighter, but, to put it in meta-speak, not every Human Fighter gets to become epic, solve a campaign and have his happy ending. And every person has their own quirks and character.

Is it down to the relative mechanical boredom of most fighter archetypes or does it just strike you as a character chosen by people with no imagination?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Dunk_and_Egg
twitter.com/AnonBabble

Because of the meme:

>A fucking white male

Basically a bunch of ''tollerant'' people hating something that's common standard.

Basically people attempting to subvert the "everyone plays a special snowflake" meme became so common that they in turn became a meme

The male human fighter (when regarded as a trend) is deliberate counter piece to super special snowflakes. A more normal grounded believable character is often seen as more mature and better roleplaying. Then of course, as is often the case some people overshoot and turn right to a philosophy of only playing the blandest characters and calling everything unique or remarkable a mary sue.

It is basically the anti-sue counterpiece to half demon angels or whatever.

Come on, at least try to get it right

>male human fighter with brown hair who uses a sword

I think there's also supposed to be something in there about all-brown clothing.

>Those numbers
>All-brown clothing
Sure. Like we don't know you're shitposting here, Adi.

>Is it down to the relative mechanical boredom of most fighter archetypes or does it just strike you as a character chosen by people with no imagination?
Pretty much this.

There are exceptions of course. I'm sure some people roleplay male human fighters with idiosyncracies but I honestly wonder why, given the plethora of options in today's RPGs, you would choose to play the most mundane character available.

I would play a human fighter in a low magic or pseudo realistic setting. If the system makes a distinction between the swashbuckler who fights with finesse and the dumb brute who smashes things with a club I might consider playing one, but if given the option I'd probably rather play a spellcaster or a shapeshifter or a vampire or whatever.

Different strokes.

There is nothing wrong with a male human fighter in any setting/edition.

If you have to rely on "what" the character is, instead of "who" they are, then its a bad character.

Bad players will be these half-drow, half-dragon wizard-ranger-paladins with a derpy tragic backstory where his family was killed, and thus they are perpetually angry and/or melancholy.

Good players will have a setting-appropriate character with amazing depth.

There is in Engine Hearts.

Meme games don't count.

I feel like it's got to do more with what is saying than anything else. They basically serve as an anti-christ to the special snowflake community because it shows them that even the most bland and unimaginative race/class combo can have depth and character. And then as he said again, it's turned up to 11 by some people who regard anything that isn't as basic as that to be special snowflake.

I think it's an enticing option.

Imagine if you role played so well your human fighter became the most magnificent and glorious of the option.

He's a run of the mill guy but becomes the back bone of the group and above all else shows us that heros are made from the will of man and merit of one's abilities not their super powers.

Because it's always a moron with inadequate armor, no helmet, and only uses swords, and everyone else has to slow down for them.

If the issues above are addressed then I don't bitch about it.

>the most mundane character available

See, this is just lack of imagination. Both "fighter" and "human" are very flexible. They don't come with fluff built in, like sorcerer or dark elf, but that doesn't mean a human fighter is going to have less interesting backstory than a dark elf sorcerer. Or, more importantly, a less interesting personality. A list of race and class special abilities does not substitute for character-building.

That's not to say your dark elf sorcerer can't be interesting. But the male human fighter might be a sandworm-riding whirling dervish, or a legionnaire from the Dark Lord's mind-controlled army who escaped, or a scarred veteran vampire-hunter who's a father-figure to the rest of the party, or whatever. Last male human fighter I saw was an evil prince type. Wound up really driving the story, promising the rest of the party anything they wanted if they helped him conquer a kingdom for himself. Fun times.

I'm sure a good roleplayer can make any type of character compelling. Personally I'd rather play something a bit more "fantastic". Of course, it all depends on what fits the setting.

That's true. Thematically, there's no reason a male human fighter can't be interesting if played well.

Unfortunately, most systems don't really make much of a mechanical distinction between a fencer and a barbarian. You just make the same attack roll.

It would be cool if there was a system based purely on martial characters with different fighting styles that really felt different from one another.

Better all brown than all black.
I hate all black.
Only thing I hate more than all black is red on black.
People are shit at colours.
Wanna spruce up your all back faggot, go with silver trim, or gold trim, dark purple insignia, shades of grey that only show well when they catch the light right in a broad ornate pattern.
Fuck all black and fuck Red on Black.

>Unfortunately, most systems don't really make much of a mechanical distinction between a fencer and a barbarian. You just make the same attack roll.

Which systems don't? I mean, D&D does. World of Darkness does, and it barely has combat rules. GURPS does, Dark Heresy does, Deadlands and Savage Worlds do. What system are you playing that doesn't make that distinction?

>It would be cool if there was a system based purely on martial characters with different fighting styles that really felt different from one another.

There are many systems that do this. My favorite is probably Legend of Five Rings, in which you could have a 20 different "male human fighters" with distinct fighting styles passed down through their families.

Is there anything that isn't a meme?

>Is there anything that isn't a meme?
see
Short answer is "everything I don't like is a meme", because it's a great dismissal. Your opponent has to spend valuable wordspace rebuttling you, and the more they write, the easier it is to dismiss them with whatever the CURRENT MOMENT's "lol u mad" is.

No clue what you're referring to. But sure buddy I bet this ties into SJews somehow.

Or disregard black altogether and dress in purple and green, regardless of class.

Because stop playing D&D.

It's a meme in relation to D&D.

Because it's a default archetype in D&D.

It's actually a very unique concept that can be attacked in very diverse ways, as long as you aren't playing D&D.

For example, you could have a noble knight, a barbarian with rotting teeth, a scholar who had to abort his magical training for some reason and can now fight and cast a few utility spells, a demigod fallen from grace and a shitload of other stuff.
As long as you don't play a class-based piece of shit like D&D.


As an aside, nothing wrong with D&D. It's very good for dungeon crawls.
Kill yourself if you use it for things it isn't intended for and then whine about the results, though.

That's the thing, saying something is a "meme" is just saying it's "a popular idea." If you mentally replace meme with "popular" you will understand that these people are just stupid hipsters.

>male human fighters are popular, that's why you shouldn't make one
>lots of people do it, that means it's bad
>the Beatles are for sheeple, let me tell you about Nick Cave

...

>valuable wordspace
Where the FUCK do you think you are

Cheers, physician.

>doesn't comprehendate the post
>posts the absolutely plebbiest-tiered japanimation reactionate image
Not surprised in the leastest tee bee aych.

Black and green is top-tier color combo. Also white and red.

Because of cuckolds who think that they're so cool for playing a normal average and usually gritty or grizzled fighter. And that anyone who has fun any other way is a mary sue.

Milhouse.

Why is it more dull than play a "mage", "rogue", or a "cleric"?

I thought the issue with
>male human fighter
was that since the protagonist of fantasy stories is more often than not a
>male human fighter
, then someone playing a
>male human fighter
was pretty much admitting they wanted to be the protagonist of the campaign?

Well played.

Play what you want just don't act like your choice its the only good way to play.

whelp found the best post on thread right here.

In most settings the human 'advantage' over other races is war. They do it on a scale unthinkable to elves and dwarves. And that's just talking sheer numbers. As a result, a normal human with military training is more common then say, a human wizard who spent the first three quarters of his life learning enough magic to be a Level 1 wizard.

Fighters are by definition very vague as a class. They can be soldiers, mercenaries, militamen, all that jazz. That means you have to put a bit of work into them to make them stand out in any sense, but at the same time they don't have much to them as far as mechanics go.

On the other hand, paladins, clerics, and barbarians are straightforward and simple as far as backstory goes, and have a bit more utility and fun, while not being spellcasters.

Humans are also the most 'standard' race, and males are often the most common gender played, so they feel unimaginative. Even a female human fighter seems a bit more interesting by just what pops into your head - a woman pretending to be a man, a swordswoman who's earned respect by skill. As you yourself admit, the male human fighter feels very run of the mill, and nothing makes me more unhappy than feeling like I have only one role in the party, and no interesting roleplay opportunities to enjoy.

Nice.

Because this happened, so people did that instead.

Comprehension is a meme.

In a sense, fighters in D&D are great opportunities in roleplaying but kinda straightforward mechanically like any mundane. Battlemaster archetype in 5e mitigates than a bit by giving them a lot of available manoeuvres, skills and what not, but the core of the class is basically "a dude with a weapon able to wear armor", just like other mundanes are "a sneaky dude with no armor", "a dude who fights naked and get mad" or "a dude who fights with a pet". All of those archetypes come with an impressive freedom for backstories. On the opposite, wizards all studied hard, sorcerers all have a definite source of magic, druids are all about nature, etc. They have way less freedom in terms of roleplaying.

>not orange and blue

I personally hate orange. Also yellow.

sound like you'd love Tales of Dunk and Egg
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Dunk_and_Egg

I think they've got equal, if not more, roleplaying options, but people are lazy cunts who play them as an excuse to not put in work.
I'm just pulling from my experiences here, so it's not accurate in regards to most players, it's just how I see it.

I don't think it's the male human fighter. I think so much of media and literature these days has been focused on 'gritty down to earth' stuff, that a fair number of people are sick of it and would rather have exotic races, exotic classes and skills. They don't want another Stark or whatever.

>Elan is never capitalized aside from the title

This is the worst part.

>valuable wordspace
>on a sumerian kite making forum
wut?

The meme is pushed by weebs who exclusively loli catgirl wizards

I usually use them for contrast of an entirely different kind. I ask anyone who wants to play a Paladin what seperates their character from a Lawful Good Human Fighter to elevate them to Paladin status.

My only complaint about Male Human Fighter is that I'd rather have a Male Human Warblade, because Fighter isn't a class but a mechanic that lets you trade a level for a BAB and a feat. Other than that I'll generic it up any day if I have an interesting world to play in otherwise.

Honestly Rogue seems almost more generic to me in the onset, but much like Fighter can then be played in a billion different ways.

do you capitalize human all the time?

no, you don't

You capitalize things in a title, usually. It's just in this case the title is also in all caps, so it gets confusing.

>the 90's and 2000's came and went
>you missed the glory days of bright Orange
Damn it all to hell.

>implying that red and black, if done correctly and not just for 2edgy4u, is not one of the sexiest color combinations out there

That's orange, mate.

Which I don't mind, 'cause some shades of orange are my favourite colours.

Seriously? I always thought it was red, dunno how I didn't realize it was orange until now.

Not the best game, but these guys looked great.

It's true, the cute anime gril reaction images on all the fuckig threads prove it

Do you even fucking know what a meme is?
This shit is like "autism" or "cuck" where it loses all meaning if you just use it a buzzword to mean anything you don't like that you want to imply is illegitimate.

stop being such a meme, cuck

lol

you forgot to call him autistic

Black and Orange is always cool. Styling like a tiger

>mechanically boring
>usually paired with looks and personality that is equally dour
>no flaws, no quirks, no ambitions, no beliefs, rarely talks or interacts with the world outside of combat
>"I just want to get back to my farm/military career/mercenary guild/family"
>GM may have written an epic campaign with events that may change the face of the world
>male human fighter still doesnt give a shit

I've never played with a male human fighter that brought anything other than damage to the table.

Shit roleplayer detected.

>I've never played with a male human fighter that brought anything other than damage to the table.
That wholly a problem with you.

thanku for the explanation user, I was wondering this too.
but isnt a major issue with the entire paradigm that your basic fighter martial deal very neutered in most systems?
I kinda wanted to play an anti-sue character to contrast my party recently, but you really need to build some obscure setup to even be a martial in pathfinder (system we're using)

In a game where you completely control the looks, personality, flaws, quirks, ambitions, beliefs and interactions your character makes this is entirely your fault.

it more or less became a meme as a response against people throwing 'snowflake' around like it was going out of fashion - where one side would exaggerate and hyperbolize any non-standard character into a rainbow half-angel half-demon half-elf sparkeldog, the other would represent those pushing these opinions' ideal characters as being a boring, featureless clone described only by his class, race, and sex.

which makes sense, because the entire basis of the argument was about characters' base features - their class, race, and sometimes sex.
ultimately it's all bullshit because it only really matters how you develop the character beyond their base features, and neither the mary sue sparkledogs nor the uncreative and bland will be able to manage that.

>Unable to read

Then the players you have are shit.

Not really.

Even in PF they can be more than meatheads.

Because Veeky Forums lacks the creativity to make an intereating character out of one so they rely on the falsehoods that going directly against the norm or by playing whatever the newest flavour of the month unique race is they achieve interesting character design.

Probably not the answer you're looking for, but if Path of War is included, you could play an initiator martial. (Warlord, Stalker, Warden, Harbinger, Mystic, Zealot)
They're not "mundane", but eh, you can fluff them how you want, if the idea is making an anti-sue. Why do you want to do that, anyway? Are the other players making loli kitsune sorcerers?

Drows and Tieflings (lol ima demon from hell) mostly.
thank you for the recommendations though, I'll check them out.

>"I just want to get back to my farm/military career/mercenary guild/family"
Kek, hit the nail on the head right there.

No problem.
Well, that sounds nasty. Those races can be cool, but they're also an edge magnet. Don't let them know about the Harbinger, trust me.

I wholeheartedly prefer someone who plays a simple and plain human fighter over the dumb fuck who picks the fifth half-elf/half-orc/half-dwarf in the party.

Half-races are the worst fucking idea ever. "Hey, I want cool abilities, but still be a human so that I won't be treated badly by racists in the setting". Fuck off.

Sure it may be less original than a half drow half dward, but it's always up to the player to make an interesting character. Male human fighter include a lot of things; you can still include many traits, qualities and quirks to him, no matter the race or class.

I'm playing a dwarf fighter this time because the DM told us beforehand the campaign starts in the mountainous north.
I almost always pick humans because they fit in most with the setting.
For example for our last campaign the DM told us it would be in a human kingdom, where half orcs are actively genocided, elves and dwarves aren't welcome and halfbreeds are treated as non-citizens. The party was me, a human fighter, two half elves one druid and one mage and a dwarven rogue.
Made the game nearly unplayable.

Some people will baulk at the idea of anything "unrealistic" in fantasy games about robbing demon dragons from the pain dimensions and selling their shit for extraplanar coke and insist that dude with a sword is the be-all end-all answer and solution to everything and since realistically a dude with a sword can fuck you up then you're a faggot for demanding you have bullshit powers protecting you from that and want to make everything dumb gritty where the world is covered in shit and everything is brown.

OR, some people are so fed up with everyone playing half-fae catboy wizard cleric dragoncaller knight prostitutes that they take the blandest concept imaginable and run that to contrast with them. Sometimes to the benefit of the campaign, sometimes as the TTRPG version of shitposting (nothing loses you games and friends faster than that by the way).

OR, in a fantasy world where (bla bla bla) and you can be a half-demon half-angel eidolon summoner hulkamania apostate, some people laugh at the idea of someone playing something as "bland" and "stupid" as a simple human fighter and will call you names for it, claiming you don't have "imagination".

OR, because some people insist it's the easiest character to make in a game and subject every new blood to that forced choice. Usually this happens in D&D 3.X where Fighter is codeword for "fucking useless sack of shit" and the least they could do is let you experiment with roleplaying whatever you want but nooo, your race and your gender because fuck trying to actually role fucking play. Yes I have seen that happen and be fervently advocated.

OR, art direction insists that since marketing says their game is bought by almost exclusively white males, the posterboys for the game must be themselves white males and fighters because REAL men want nothing but to be huge buff brutes and are 100% incapable of identifying themselves as anything but a white male human fighter. See the Redgar case in D&D 3rd edition.

>playing the blandest characters and calling everything unique or remarkable a mary sue.
>It is basically the anti-sue counterpiece to half demon angels or whatever.

Truthfully I have yet to see that happen. Veeky Forums likes to pretend that this is a thing but I have never seen someone play a human fighter and be bland or deliberately "anti-sue".
And heck, I am saying that as someone who was part of a all human fighter party (as we played a part of the city watch).
On the other hand I have seen many Special Snowflakes in different groups that were just hot garbage.

I think we can also agree that being human fighter is not the issue, the issue is that your roleplayers suck if they cant even make a human fighter concept not boring and bland.

>not having proper heraldry which is a smorgasbord of color
I bet you're an unchivalrous faggot.

we should change this

Fuck off Milhouse.