Does no one make normal characters anymore?

>I have never played a roleplaying game

>I have never played a roleplaying game, right.
Fify

Well we are now getting into setting specific stuff.

If a setting has half-dragons as fairly common, for example, it would make sense for the players to be able to start as one.

Your syntax makes no sense.

Even in d&d half-dragons and dragonborn are rare, just every party seems to have one.

It's like if every dark heresy party had a blank(I know some do, but the point still stands)

While lazy hipsters go "ugh destiny is so BORING i want to an everyman with nothing remarkable about him at all, it's so SUBVERSIVE and COOL"

Well that's because breathing fire is rad.

Also iirc dragonborne have slightly alternate stat bonuses from half-orcs, making them another route to go down if you want a Str-based slapper.

>What's wrong with making a dude that isn't special in some way.
Because in any sort of narrative, characters should have something special or the plot is not worth reading/watching/playing. You can be special in subtle yet powerful ways though, such as a human fighter who is the only one gifted with the ability to undo a spell that's dooming a nation, for example.

>I mean nobody plays humans rising to the challenge.
I do. That's not nobody.
>Is it so wrong for a dude to have gone to magic college, or train in combat?
Those are the default origins for two core classes in every edition of D&D so I can't tell what game you're talking about.

Nah, I just don't believe in destiny and overall feel the concept has done more harm than good to our society.

I prefer characters who do stuff because they want to do it, not because some spooky shit told them that they had to.

Or you can be special in that you are the only one who happened to find the trick to undo the spell. Everyone else got eaten by the troll.

>I prefer characters who do stuff because they want to do it
Then why don't YOU play characters like that? You claim "nobody" does, which includes yourself.

Of course, and maybe finding that secret is precisely what ties you into the plot.

Your character has to be special, or rather, plot essential in some way.

PCs are exceptional.
That being said however, people do frequently use that fact as a justification for deviating greatly from characters that fit the tone of the setting.

As much as I enjoy a good old "farmer, turned big damn hero" story from time to time, I don't want that to stop me from ever being allowed to play a Teifling-Dwarf Sorcerer, or a Psychic Rogue Trader, or whathaveyou.

> You claim "nobody" does

It's 2017 and you assume I'm OP?

I'd hope that OP is implying that "special" is separate from "plot essential"

Because you want to be somebody, be somebody soon?

What happens if he MAKES his plot importance?

Instead of having a destiny to kill the big bad, he really wants to rule something can't do that if someone else is.

He doesn't need some special spell quality, he went on the adventure to get rich and talk to hot women.

He learned magic because he wanted to, and couldn't get a job because of the economy so he decided to become a bounty hunter.

He doesn't sit back and let plot happen, he makes plot happen.

A high level character that comes off as "normal" is just a different kind of weird. If you're just talking about your "humble origin" types that don't have dragon or demon blood I don't think they've really gone anywhere
I think he's trying to say
>I have never played a roleplaying game correctly
but it's an incredibly open to interpretation type

Oh come on, that is total rubbish and you know it. For example you can write a perfectly exciting book about a company of soldiers in WWII even if none of them is destined to kill Hitler.

Okay so you are fundamentally misunderstanding what a plot is but I like where your head is at.

The last time I did that, I was a peasent just trying to make some cash with my trusty boomstick. After the end of our first quest, the BBEG started to make a speech. Me, being a man of action, not of words, rolled to blow his brains out. Naturally I rolled a twenty, ending the game then and there. The DM sighed, looked at me, and told me to leave immediately.

Well I was a level 1 Expert (Blacksmith), but then the Bandits killed my dad so I made myself some mail and a bident and multiclassed into fighter. Next level I'll train to use nets and a mancatcher and I'm gonna hunt me some bandits for the slave markets.

Both are intertwined in some way. But this also begs a question: what does OP mean with special? Because no plot stands a regular Joe as a character at all, but this shouldn't be an excuse to make Mary Sues/Gary Stus or characters that don't fit the plot or setting.

>He doesn't sit back and let plot happen, he makes plot happen.
It would mean he's dramatic, which is good and every character should have this! But what is special about him? Why should we like him or empathize with him?

Think of Star Wars. Every character is special somehow, even the most seemingly mundane ones. One example? Finn wasn't a regular guy, he was a Stormtrooper, who unlike his kindred, he decided he didn't want to be there. That on itself makes him unique.

At the end of the day it's just preference and the explanation for why your character is a badass is inconsequential.

The better question is why do you think "dude I'm super strong because I worked hard lol" is somehow superior as a concept to "I was born with badass genes and also worked really hard"

You Rock Lee loving faggot

Rock Lee is best character.

Yes you're right, only if these characters are special somehow. Otherwise it wouldn't be too exciting to read about some everyday soldiers with nothing going about them.

Yea but i don't need to be unique to take place in the plot.

If I'm minding my own business then the villain attacks my village, I'm gonna put my years at wizard school to good use.

>being an adventurer requires being special
what a toxic idea.

>I'm gonna put my years at wizard school to good use.
Considering that wizards are scarce, that DOES make you unique.

>I mean nobody plays humans rising to the challenge
I smell bullshit. Anyone who actually knows how to build characters and knows how to play the game will go with vanilla humans, since the bonus feat, skill point and floating stat bonus are often better than most other racial traits

I'm you play with idiots and scrubs who can't build a character for shit, then again I doubt you actually play tabletop at all

>Anyone who actually knows how to build characters and knows how to play the game will go with vanilla humans, since the bonus feat, skill point and floating stat bonus are often better than most other racial traits
Let's not forget that in D&D regular npcs have stats at 10, and characters have much higher stats. Players should justify those numbers narratively.

WHFRP

Consider Band of Brothers: these characters feel special to you because you're following their story not because they're unique.

Statistically speaking, those NPCs should have at least one stat at 12, since if 10 is the baseline, then they still have to apply their racial bonus to one stat

Then again, in a world that is obviously more dangerous, lethal, and is chalked with more dangerous, powerful, and paranatural phenomenon, I would personally be surprised to see a peasant survive at all with only a baseline score, and I doubt most adults would still be only level 1 by age 30

I think Finn would actually be a good example of what OP is talking about. He's just a regular stormtrooper with no special power or ability - he's important because of his choices and actions, not his gifts.
Rey is more the "magically good at things just because" type.

People who don't play variant humans in 5e aren't automatically bad at building characters, dude. Some of us just don't care about picking the mechanically superior option every time.
(They're not even vanilla humans anyway, it's an assumed-available optional rule.)

Lets talk about this
Say I had two level 1 fighters, one special and one normal

Normal fighter lived his life in a normal job, and was drafted into the military. He then continued his life training until he retired from being a soldier to be an adventurer.

Special fighter was an orphaned princess who was raised by the head general. She was then given a family sword and told by the three witches to go fight the big bad.

They both have motives explainations for powers and tied to the plot.

However the normal one trained by himself, got his own motive, and was handed nothing by the world.

The special one was given special training, a reason for the plot, and was handed everything by the world.

One drives himself and doesn't rely on the world. The other has the plot forced upon them.

Not really. In such stories, each character generally needs some manner of characterization to set him apart as an individual amongst his peers, as well as at least a few having some manner of motivation/characterization that is able to bring the audience's interest into them and also be able to hold onto it. That in and of itself makes each member of the band unique in some way, as they are explicitly given traits that allow them to be separate from eachother

>he's important because of his choices and actions,
But that still makes him unique though, since he ends up being "that one guy who was DIFFERENT!" By virtue of his actions, as they deprecated him from the rest of the "normal" characters and making him unique

Well it's a good thing I wasn't talking about 5e then

Sure, but none of them is Special in the way meant, which is the point.

Basically a big shift in marketing in the 2nd edition D&D days. They realized nerdy losers wanted to be Dragonlance characters, so they shifted the game rules towards that and its been a feedback loops since. Power fantasy sells more. Probably also anime.

There are lots of people who don't play like that though. People who are interested in the struggle of man seen to end up in osr or story games. or both

>ITT OP makes an argument starter thread based on vague and open-ended terms that have different meanings to different people, which they then argue about not realising they're all operating under different definitions

If you actually read the thread you'd see that people are specifically arguing about those definitions.

I always play randos whenever I make characters.

>Cleric who became an adventurer so he can pay for medical school.
>A barbarian with an above average intelligence (score) who wants to become a novelist.
>Farmer (fighter) who's yearly crops were stolen, so he has to find some way of getting money so he doesn't starve during the winter.
>Ranger who makes and deals drugs.
>Druid who does drugs.

One makes himself unique, one is made unique.

Except doesn't a lot of anime that isn't Bleachruto trash tend to be about the individual rising to greater and greater heights through sheer willpower and determination?

I mean the whole point of shows like TTGL and BnHA is supposed to be about digging deep inside oneself to overcome adversity through determination and guts

Then he's still unique because the narrative demands that they are made The Special, which then makes the whole point moot.

In the case of BnHA though, he had the willpower and the will, but not the actual power.

No he grows because he pushes himself to grow.

One grows because a prophecy tells him to grow.

Or to put it, one starts off life normal then becomes special.

The other started off special, and will continue to be special.

Or as I like to call it, character development.

Is there any point in which you're going to make an argument, or are you just going to continue to deflect with psuedo-intellectual rambling that doesn't actually have any point? Because you've yet to make a single statement that supports or disproves the original statement of both being "special/unique" in effectively the same narrative way, and instead all you've been doing is just rambling the same phrase over and over again.

Do you not know how conversations are supposed to work? Or is English just not your most fluent language?

My. My Hero Academia.
Get the fucc out, boku boys. Only ore posters allowed on Veeky Forums

I have no idea what your talking about, but assuming you're getting pissy over how to title/name a chinese cartoon, I'm.going to assume that this is something that happens on /a/
In which case, please fuck off back to your home board and leave your dumb meme name arguments out of this.

Everyone's unique, user.
Finn is *special* because of his choices.
Rey is *special* because of her abilities and then her choices.
Both of them set themselves apart from the rest of the world, but one of them is also a magic space wizard.

A lot of new players who haven't gotten past the desire to constantly play something "out of the box" and find the joy in a simple, grounded, believable martial character.

So when the fuck are you going to actually correlate this to a point in regards to the original topic of discussion and contention and state which side of the argument you're trying to bat for?

>Martial character
>Being useful/successful
>Believable
Nah mate. Human Casters only

I would, but seeing as some fucking OVERLORD OF EVIL burned my goddamn families farm to the ground, I gotta join up with these fucking snowflakes to put a stop to that so I can get back to growing potatoes to trigger Veeky Forums

I like playing normal, down homey types who turn out to be exceptional

That depends completely on the campaign you fuck.

At this point, a "normal" character is special.

Jackpot quads confirm.

I've always loved low power level stuff myself.

Maybe it's just an extra challenge or something but I've always been drawn to playing sub-optimal or flat out weak/rubbish things in games.

From the rpg side I've mostly played WFRP 1st and 2nd editions so that's kinda built in, but even within that I've had no dream of clawing my way up to being some heroic champion, I like being a mud covered forester or farmer (or shit covered rat catcher).

Also from a story perspective, a "normal" person doing something extraordinary is way more interesting to me than an extraordinary character overcoming something even if that something is infinitely bigger than the challenge the regular guy had to face.

This.

OPs question is basically "how come so many people prefer to play Superman instead of Batman?"

The answer is Why Not? Batman's an obnoxious faggot.

Lots of people play humans rising to the challenge. And dudes who trained or went to college.

If your character is part of an adventure, they're exceptional.
Most people wouldn't take part at all.
Most of my characters have been commoner-tier folk, but the simple fact that they rose to the challenge of whatever the fuck was going on, whether they wanted to or not, made them one-in-a-million.

People only become adventurers because they don't know how to have a successful living doing Normal People Things.

It doesn't make them special, it makes them weird rejects whose existence is defined by brushing with death on a daily basis. In surviving they may find they're talented, but you don't risk getting raped to death by ogres if you got tenure at the Wizard Academy.

That's what I did too user. Took 4 levels in Commoner before the party fighter got fed up and began hitting me with a wooden sword until I fought back. I ended up going through the equivalent of an adventuring boot camp + hazing and got a free level in fighter out of it.

One of the most fun roleplaying experiences I ever had was playing a stick up his ass sheriff who left his town to personally track down and jail a smug elf con artist who'd escaped from him a dozen times before. The elf would pop up in the story from time to time and play anything from a mustache twirling villain to an anti hero aiding the party if the plot demanded it but always disappearing as soon as the party was safe and the chase began anew.

a shame you feel that way with your group(s), I would say that it's just their way of enjoying it, experimenting is fun.
In DH2 and DnD, I've usually made normal characters, not basic citizens but not holding much ranking if at all, with the exception of a Nobleman with a fever for explosions, too bad he was too weak to carry his rocket launcher along with his equipment (ha).

I don't think you're talking to who you think you're talking to.
Either way that's not how you get people to do what you want.

usually because when people do there's questions, even complaints about how a supposedly normal person does all that.

That's...Right if i think about it. In my party rn there are a half-dragon sorcerer, an urgali (i still don't know what those are, something like elf/orc) barbarian, a druid trained by a special dragon in a special forest and then me, human cleric trained in a church in the city

To be honest it's fucking lame, when people post shit like this. Seeing people who go out of their way to make what's interesting about their character their mundaneness, and act like they're hot shit. It's just as bad as trying to make your character as special as possible. Maybe worse cause at least they don't have their nose up at people.

You're saying it like Princess can't make her own choices. It's just a different character arc, exploring different motivations. Nothing in your post makes one background better than other.

Not playing purple-haired metrosexual semi-dragon demigod vampire fruitcake does not excuse you from having bland character without character.

Character should have a set of defining characteristics. Two ex-military fighters are different- they had previous commanders, have opinions about life, preffered styles of fight, moral codes, old scars, looks, maybe families.

Same for young and naive clerics or old mages. That you are a bit of everyman does not mean you should be mr. Nobody. It's like american war movies- even if it's a single quirk or being Italian, every soldier has something to be remembered by.

My current character is a just a regular dwarf fighter who had a feeling to go on an adventure

>Nah, I just don't believe in destiny
Do you believe in magic?
Do you think dragons are real?

No? But you still use them in your campaigns, don't you? So why is it specifically the concept of fate that offends you when all these other unrealistic things get a pass?

If somebody wants to play the Great Chosen One, that's his call. You can play Urkel Urkelsonsonson, whose family has worked as dirt farmers in Urkelville unto the umpteenth generation and who have never even so much as laid eyes on anyone who ever achieved anything remarkable, and that's fine too. Maybe the two will party up and you'll get some keen stories out of it.

I mean, it really depends on the type of game you're playing. If it's starting at level 0 or whatever, then sure, random peasant brigade go. Though you're still not going to be 'normal' unless you're really going hardcore and getting a peasant statblock, which will either result in some very rapid character development into competence, or some very rapid loss of bodily fluids.

But at level 1, with PC classes, you are inherently not 'normal'. You're not exactly special, but by virtue of having a non-NPC class, you are cut out for adventuring. Might not be destined for anything, might not have some dark secret, but you must have got your skills from SOMEWHERE, right?

Doesn't need to be some super epic background. Sellsword. Village alchemist's apprentice. Catburgler who grew up on the street. These are interesting ideas, even if they're fairly generic. Point is, they're not 'normal' because

And here is the secret

Normal is boring.

Sounds more like your group is shit at backstory.

Jesus, people. Doesn't need to be a six volume epic. A couple of paragraphs explaining why your fighter can fight is fine.

>Naturally I rolled a twenty, ending the game then and there. The DM sighed, looked at me, and told me to leave immediately.
Either this is pure fiction, the OMH-style GM crafted and allowed a situation where a single gunshot would end the campaign but was upset enough over it to ask you to leave, or you left out the rest of the story where you were a terrible player.

I'll take things that never happened for 200, Alex

And then they fall in love, right?

If I wanted to be a fucking nobody I'd just play myself.

like people dont read tolkien anymore. the hobbits weren't special, that's what makes them heroic.

Because that's 'boring' and 'overdone'.

People these days need to be hipsters.

You are a retard tho.

>I cant make my characters interesting without them being Half-Dragon/Half-Fey/Half-Kitsune/Half-Drow with a tragic past

Sucks to be you.

The point he's making is everyone joins the campaign as an absurdly unique concept and/or a character who has a backstory of how much of a badass they already are. In doing so they set their character in stone leaving little room for character development over the course of the story, the grand adventure is no longer that just being another day at the office for joe bloodlord who slayed a demon at 8. Starting as billy bob the baker who got pulled into this mess leaves infinately more room to develop him over his experiences in the campaign and everyone grows far more attached to him as such.

Because normal people lead normal lives..

A normal person deals with problems in a fairly mundane way. They'll do their best to maintain the status quo of their life. This is what normality is - a stable status quo, a well maintained routine.

When you decide to set out on an adventure, when you decide to throw away your status quo and take up a quest for whatever motivates you, you've thrown away normality. You've become abnormal.

The only way you can play a normal character is by playing in a slice-of-life game. Which, come now, we both know that's not what you meant.