I've noticed a lot of players have a really hard time not viewing everything in games as a sort of 'symbols'...

I've noticed a lot of players have a really hard time not viewing everything in games as a sort of 'symbols', almost as if they've been so overexposed to fantasy genres and can't immerse themselves in a setting.

I feel like this is partially why people don't seem to have fun being weak or in danger anymore, its a fucking ordeal convincing people that just being farmers that get roped into an adventure and grow along the way will be fun, its like they have this idea of what D&D or RPGs in general are supposed to be and they just want to be part of the fantasy avengers or some shit.

How do you guys break down these pretenses and shatter the symbolism that prevents players from being properly immersed?

"farmers that got roped into an adventure" is nu-fantasy garbage.

By not starting every single campaign at "farmer" level for over 20 years.

If your complaint is that players have become jaded to certain D&Disms, try some variety.

That Conan is like 8 years too old for Tower of the Elephant

You stop using barely concealed badwrongfun arguments.

Preferences for different kinds of storytelling and different playstyles exist. And that's fine. What you like is not superior to what they like, it's just different.

If you really want to convince them to give your kind of game a try? Go for it. Maybe they will enjoy it. But there is no magic bullet for convincing them it's superior, because it isn't superior. It's just different. And if they don't enjoy it, they have no obligation to play it or to join games with that premise in future. You'd be better off going and finding a group who do enjoy that kind of thing.

Okay, my point isn't so much always starting at farmer level, more that players have a hard time actually thinking of the game as an actual setting or thinking of themselves as real people.
The only reason I'm partial to the "you're just a farmer, you have no class" start is because it stops them from thinking of themselves like "I'm a ranger, I use a bow, I'm good with animals"

If they want to be a wizard maybe they'll meet a magic user that can teach them some things, they don't magically become an archtype, they're still that guy they started as, they just spent a few months learning about basic rituals and learned how to cast magic missile or some shit.

The issue I'm having is the symbolism of the genre's tropes preventing people from really looking beyond the surface and thinking "wait, what would that actually be like?"

Survivalist dungeon-delving is no longer a niche in which human DMs are competitive. The swift iteration and meta-progression offered by the Roguelite trend is better at scratching that particular itch than you can be.

Plenty of people willing to try it once IRL so that they can label themselves as members of the grand RPG tradition, but the vast majority will go back to their laptop afterwards, if not mid-session.

Again, it just sounds like a playstyle problem. Some people don't want to look deeper, they just want to enjoy a tropey fantasy adventure. And that's fine.

I've had no problem with that, user. Everybody's a character first, that had to be squeezed and squashed to fit into the narrow confined of whatever system the game is using.
So, yes, sometimes amazing jim IS dumbed down to "I'm a ranger, I use a bow, I'm good with animals", but that is because he had to be to even fit into the system.

I'm sure everyone here will agree with me when I say that having a session zero can be helpful in this situation. By talking through player expectations and deciding what kind of game you want to run you can set the tone for the campaign.

I wouldnt say everyone, but I agree with you. Having basic communication and compromise between players and the dm/gm can go a long way to making a fun and memorable game that everyone wants to play.

>If they want to be a wizard maybe they'll meet a magic user that can teach them some things, they don't magically become an archtype, they're still that guy they started as, they just spent a few months learning about basic rituals and learned how to cast magic missile or some shit.

Are there good homebrew rules for handling classes like this?
As in, instead of choosing classes and taking levels in classes to just get new abilities in chunks all at once, is there a way to do organic progression in classes and obtaining skills?

GURPS, etc.

>you start as farmers

This is some '3d6 roll in order no exceptions tier' where getting a PC past 4th level is a herculean effort that requires making upwards of 100 forgettable characters who die to get him there.

>3d6 roll in order no exceptions tier' where getting a PC past 4th level is a herculean effort
There are people that don't play like this?
I still make my players roll 3d6 for stats in order, but I let them roll 4d6 drop lowest on their 'preferred' stat to help give them a little control

I've never played D&D that didn't use pointbuy. It just makes so much more sense IMO.

I just find pointbuy so boring, I really like making people roll stats before they decide who they're going to play.

I've had my players come up with some really great characters based on their stats and they usually RP them pretty well and have a good time,

It's just a different playstyle I guess. I always prefer to come up with my character first, and then use the tools presented by the system to represent them mechanically. The system effectively giving you prompts to build your character around is never something I've really enjoyed.

The randomized inspiration can be kept by just rolling a d6 to decide your highest and then lowest stat.

>"farmers that got roped into an adventure" is nu-fantasy garbage.

Thanks for summing up everything that's wrong with Veeky Forums so succinctly!

Yup, people who know what they're talking about and disagree with me ruin my day too.

I always have players fill out the following, as I feel it helps them identify with their character:
Early Childhood:
>What were the circumstances of your birth?
>Who are/were your parents?
>Do you have any siblings, biological or otherwise?
>Who raised you? (If not your parents)
>Who was closest to your character as a child?
>What was a defining moment of your childhood?

Young Adult:
>What was your family's situation like, rich? poor? working? etc?
>Who are three NPCs you knew as a young adult?
>Would you say you had an easy youth?
>How did you come to be the class you are, did you have a mentor (or possibly education) or were you self taught?
>If you had a mentor, who were they? If you received an education, where?
>What is a defining moment of your young adulthood?

Adulthood:
>Did you ever complete your training for your class, if not why did you leave early?
>What drove your character to seek adventure?
>Did you have a moment of extreme stress/risk that pushed your character to become who they are now?
>The people from your childhood/young adulthood, do you still keep in contact?
>Do you have any professional ties?
>Who employees you? (if anyone)
>Do you still live near/with your family?

This normally gives me a list of NPCs, motivations, etc. However I always expect players to work within the campaign concept I give them.

Unfortunately our world doesn't empower people. Back in the day, a lot of people had plenty of options to feel empowered. The thought of loss and danger was therefore exciting since everything else was so comfortable.

You don't see that a lot anymore. People at the bottom don't want to deal with more bullshit, people in the middle are worried about losing everything, and people at the top are worried about losing their private jet.

I get what you’re saying OP, but the language you are using here is way too convoluted to what you’re trying to say, which either means you’re overthinking it or don’t have a strong grasp of language in the first place for whatever reason.

To say it briefer; the issue here is that you have a problem with your roleplayers being relatively shallow gamers who don’t do a lot of thinking when they RP and shit like that and would rather just be generic archetypes. They aren’t “symbols” or “symbolic” in any way, they’re just lazy or uninterested in being anything other then generic.

>They aren’t “symbols” or “symbolic” in any way, they’re just lazy or uninterested in being anything other then generic.
Sorry, I guess I explained it poorly, I used 'symbols' in the same way I do when talking about art. One of the first big steps in learning how to draw is changing how you perceive the world. Our brains have a habit of creating symbols of things and people can struggle to overcome that and really look at the object for what it is, which is why you'll see so many people drawing such misshapen faces and shit, because they aren't drawing what they're looking at, they're drawing the symbols that represent what they're looking at, and in my mind this was a good analogue for the way my players tend to perceive the world we play in