Hey guys, I've been wanting to share my DnD knowledge for a long time. I'm going to check if I can write some interesting things.
Rolling for performance...
Archetypes
One of the things I like most about DnD is that you can tell stories that anyone can influence. However, a few things you can't really influence, are archetypes. Because of this, they play exciting roles.
A few archetype examples:
The wise wizard: Gandalf, Dumbledore, but also Yoda and possibly the Doctor from Dr. Who.
The scoundrel: Jack Sparrow, Han Solo, Rick from Rick and Morty, Scanlan Shorthalt
That tormented one (this is a background, isn't it?): Shadow from teen titans, Gollum, Gunther from friends
There are many more examples, like the witch, the fairy, the goody two shoos, the nerd, the jock, the creep etc.
You know them
What happens is, when we experience one of these archetypes everyone goes "aha!" I understand this person. It's built into our brains in a certain way, that's why you can find these characters in many cultures around the world. Trickster gods, seductive harpies, bold heroes.
So your players will almost always automatically try to fill one of these different roles. Which is fantastic, because now it becomes really simple to give them awesome stories.
What I recommend is to mainly look at how players play their characters. Maybe you know from their backgrounds who they want to become, or what they want to achieve. Now every archetype has an archetypal story (who would've guessed!). And any good story has a struggle.
Characters are interesting when they develop. One of the ways to make this happen is to try and let them do things that go against their archetype. For example, Jack Sparrow at some point did something for Natalie Portman, instead of for himself. That's a weird move for a scoundrel. Same thing happened with Han Solo, when he came back to fight with the rebellion.
These moments are very defining, because a character grows beyond their archetype.
Archetypes change only to become better or worse
An archetype is a character's greatest source of power. When Captain America went against the government in civil war, he did something against his lawful good nature. However, it only strengthened his archetype of 'the one that does the right thing', the classic hero. Captain America can't go against this archetype, or he wouldn't be him anymore. Just like Deadpool wouldn't be himself without being, uhm, well you know, crazy. If in a story a character's archetype would change, that would usually be one of two things. Either ascension, like Aragorn going from lone ranger to king in Lord of the Rings. Or descent, like Thor when he's only drinking in the last Avengers movie - the Thor we knew (as king) is basically dead (but he could redeem himself). Or, they can sometimes, maybe, change sideways. This is where they become something different, which doesn't happen very often, so I can't even think of an example. It would be like Batman permanently becoming the Flash. Maybe it's like Fjord from CR becoming a Paladin, however this somewhat feels like ascension.
In essence, any archetype is interesting if they need to make choices that would make them descent or ascent. In DnD characters want to ascent to more powerful versions of themselves. This is different from leveling up. Any character can level up without a story. The point is, if you want a cool story, give the players a choice to let their characters ascent or descent.
Generalizations
Many things make us think of archetypes and this is where we get into dodgy stuff, because an archetype is always a generalization, Dumbledore and Gandalf are similar, but not the same. Some of the similarities are part of the wizard archetype. Though Dumbledore is mainly arcane (an archetypal kind of magic), while Gandalf has some holy (another magic archetype) attributes (the lore describes him somewhat as an angel).
Currently in society, we talk a lot about the unfairness of generalizations. This is an interesting thing for archetypes. Most things in our current state of culture suggest archetypes in DnD: classes, races, backgrounds and dare I say genders. Please read the word suggest again. It's only something we're currently used to, but in DnD, it can be anything. We all enjoy a good wise wizard. But a fighter can be like Dumbledore. Not in the sense of magical prowess, but in the sense of combat. How cool would a Genasi battlemaster be with a sage background? Knowing a lot about magic, speaking wisely, but with that, most expertly analyses their enemies and battlefield and they also swing their great axe with great power.
The only thing is... The strength of Dumbledore's magic is directly correlated to the strength of his intelligence. While the Genasi we just met will never swing their axe harder thanks to that same intelligence. In that sense that fighter can never fulfill the same archetype as Dumbledore. That is unfair in a sense. But if you consider this deeply, you realize it's inherent to the nature of reality. If you are one thing, there is always something that you are not. And that is weird. It's inherent in the class. A fighter is not a wizard. If it would be, they wouldn't be different. This difference brings with it different potential. That's also weird. It's like a kind of magic in and of itself. Picking a class already defines your potential.
Some people had cool ideas to expand archetypes and for instance thought of magical warriors who also cast spells. They did this with special subclasses, multiclassing or taking feats to make themselves unique. That's really awesome, because in this sense you change the potential of your character and you can even change the archetype. For instance a rogue that takes levels in paladin really becomes a different kind of character - if they truly follow their oath.
How to find archetypes
Below is a whole list of things that belong to archetypes, in random order. When you read one of these words, take that thing to the max in your mind, what would be a manifestation of that, what picture comes up? That is an archetype. You can combine the words, like 'warrior' and 'nature' what do you get? Ranger! What if you combine 'neutrality' with 'purpose'? I see some kind of unforgiving God that's neither good nor bad, but does decide how purpose goes. Sounds almost like the Grim Reaper, totally neutral, but will come when it's your time. See how this works? Notice what that thing is that you find and also notice what it is not. Archetypes have clear and fuzzy boundaries at the same time.
So looking for the specific properties a character has, makes you figure out the archetype. This is where alignment does things. Being lawful makes you not chaotic. It does make it interesting when some chaotic actions are need. What happens then? When you figure out these words, you easily find great stories. A cleric has to do with light right? Put them in darkness. A Great Old One warlock is weird. Put them in a place of reason and order. You get an immediate, albeit small struggle. If you take the attributes like darkness to the max, what do you get? The Shadowfell? Evil? Undeath? All interesting for the cleric. What about reason? The plane of Mechanus? An extremely ordered Dwarven society?
These simple words almost always lead to some interesting archetypes, for every level of play! Take chaotic, that leads to classes (bards), races (goblins), subclasses (wild magic), outsiders (demons), gods (Gruumsh) and planes (Limbo). The same goes for most other words. Try it!
It also works the other way around. Take a class, monster, god or plane and think of what attributes they have. You will find many other things having that attribute. You can then easily connect the dots and put all these things in one story. If you have a character that also has that attribute, they will feel right at home. Take a look at attributes where they differ, enlarge those differences and you might find a struggle!
Example archetypal struggles in DnD classes
After writing for way longer than I thought I would, here are a few examples of typical archetypes with classes and how you can give them interesting stories by going against their archetype.
Wizard - Let them get confused or seduced, get them on their emotional side. (This happened with Dumbledore when he got that cursed ring) Let them grow even wiser/smarter after this. Make it possible for them to be more relatable or let them be stronger, more able because they discovered this new side to themselves.
Fighter - Let them fail because they only use their muscle. Let them lose their honor, but it can be regained by being friendly, clever or by being a leader. Remember to let them feel extra strong in the next battle with their new friends.
Rogue - Put them right where they can be seen. Let them choose between their goals and the greater good. Try to make them feel bad for choosing themselves, let them redeem themselves. And if they do, reward them with even greater treasure, of possibilities than they had before.
Cleric - Let them get angry. Put them in a place without faith. Let them choose to die to save others or to choose themselves. Remember to give them the ability to shine twice as bright as before when they get through this.
Bard - Bards can be many types of people. Let them be whatever they want to be. Let them be it so much until they're bored (if they ever get bored). Let them forget what they want, then help them to find a new reason to live. Maybe they can be greater heroes than they ever thought. Make the bard more then they thought they could be.
Druid - The druid wants to protect the land, they are often very much in tune with nature and not so much with the "human" side. You can let them experience greed. Maybe a piece of nature suffers, in cooperation with the nearby town it can be restored, but the town takes too great a toll on the land. Then the druid finds out their is an awful political scheme playing out. Suddenly they need to dig deep into social contacts. Maybe they can get large amounts of gold somewhere to buy of the villagers. But just when they find the gold, there's an easy way to get more, the more they get, the more they safe nature... Remember to let the druid redeem themselves! Let them connect with nature and again experience that exactly that is always better than money.
Sorcerer - The sorcerer is a very wide archetype, because the story of the archetype is: because of who you are, you have power. The story is almost like that of a super hero. They find out they have powers. Now what? Since their story is about who they are, they need to find out who they are. Spider-man is a good example and the X-men stories. A good approach is to lure them into situations where they might go against their personality. Let them use their powers when they're not themselves. Show them the consequences. Remember to give them the opportunity to repent and show themselves who they are. Reward them for this.
Paladin - This one is a little easy. Put them in a situation where they might have to break their oath. Another really cool one: because they followed their oath, things get out of balance, they did too much... Never thought you could be too much Paladin? Remember to let them be good in the end, maybe they experience that they did exactly the right thing after everything settles, they just didn't see the big picture. Or maybe they made a mistake indeed, but the lesson is that they're only humanoid - unless they're Satyr, then they're only fey.
Warlock - Well, how to make a warlock f*** up. This is not hard at all. The easy way is to let a warlock feel they are almost always in too deep, never really knowing what their Patron is up to. It's always nice to let the warlock feel regret for what they got themselves into, as long as you reward them sometimes and make them feel awesome. Basically a warlock tries to get what they want, but they often don't get it, but sometimes do. Nobody knows what to think of them, except sometimes and then that disappears too. Let them feel exceptionally smart about one thing and incredibly stupid about another. At least, that's how all warlocks feel that I've met.
Barbarian - Hulk vs Thanos? Yeah, good to let the barbarian feel outclassed. Grog in critical role also lost this battle against a half-orc. Only made him more determined to become stronger. You can make the barbarian feel strong by letting them connect with that primal rage. Let them find a way beyond it. Maybe by tapping into their rage further, or, like in critical role, by letting him realize that his greatest strength comes from his friends. Tune in anime song...
Ranger - The ranger is awesome for this. Let them hunt! Let them lose track. Because of it, bad stuff happens. Or better. Let them work together with their favored enemy to take out another favored enemy. A ranger often is a loner, let them depend on another party member, preferably one that doesn't care about nature or who can't stealth. Remember to give the ranger the possibility to organize a magnificent hunt. Maybe let them find respect for the favored enemy. Good times!
Monk - Monks could be a little hard, if you assume they're already enlightened when they start at level 1. If instead you make it so they have to keep themselves together - which is a very reasonable thing to ask - you could try to find out if there are things that bring them out of balance. Or again, bring them too much into balance. Maybe you can lure them into reaching so far inside themselves, they can't read emotions anymore, basically giving them a 1 on insight. The lesson being that it's always more important to stay humanoid - fey doesn't matter, what Satyr would become a monk?
Wow. This is great advice on building dynamic stories around characters flaws. One thing I would suggest for monk is to give them something they don't understand that challenges the way they think about themself.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Hey guys, I've been wanting to share my DnD knowledge for a long time. I'm going to check if I can write some interesting things.
Rolling for performance...
Archetypes
One of the things I like most about DnD is that you can tell stories that anyone can influence. However, a few things you can't really influence, are archetypes. Because of this, they play exciting roles.
A few archetype examples:
The wise wizard:
Gandalf, Dumbledore, but also Yoda and possibly the Doctor from Dr. Who.
The scoundrel:
Jack Sparrow, Han Solo, Rick from Rick and Morty, Scanlan Shorthalt
That tormented one (this is a background, isn't it?):
Shadow from teen titans, Gollum, Gunther from friends
There are many more examples, like the witch, the fairy, the goody two shoos, the nerd, the jock, the creep etc.
You know them
What happens is, when we experience one of these archetypes everyone goes "aha!" I understand this person. It's built into our brains in a certain way, that's why you can find these characters in many cultures around the world. Trickster gods, seductive harpies, bold heroes.
So your players will almost always automatically try to fill one of these different roles. Which is fantastic, because now it becomes really simple to give them awesome stories.
What I recommend is to mainly look at how players play their characters. Maybe you know from their backgrounds who they want to become, or what they want to achieve. Now every archetype has an archetypal story (who would've guessed!). And any good story has a struggle.
Characters are interesting when they develop. One of the ways to make this happen is to try and let them do things that go against their archetype. For example, Jack Sparrow at some point did something for Natalie Portman, instead of for himself. That's a weird move for a scoundrel. Same thing happened with Han Solo, when he came back to fight with the rebellion.
These moments are very defining, because a character grows beyond their archetype.
Archetypes change only to become better or worse
An archetype is a character's greatest source of power. When Captain America went against the government in civil war, he did something against his lawful good nature. However, it only strengthened his archetype of 'the one that does the right thing', the classic hero. Captain America can't go against this archetype, or he wouldn't be him anymore. Just like Deadpool wouldn't be himself without being, uhm, well you know, crazy. If in a story a character's archetype would change, that would usually be one of two things. Either ascension, like Aragorn going from lone ranger to king in Lord of the Rings. Or descent, like Thor when he's only drinking in the last Avengers movie - the Thor we knew (as king) is basically dead (but he could redeem himself). Or, they can sometimes, maybe, change sideways. This is where they become something different, which doesn't happen very often, so I can't even think of an example. It would be like Batman permanently becoming the Flash. Maybe it's like Fjord from CR becoming a Paladin, however this somewhat feels like ascension.
In essence, any archetype is interesting if they need to make choices that would make them descent or ascent. In DnD characters want to ascent to more powerful versions of themselves. This is different from leveling up. Any character can level up without a story. The point is, if you want a cool story, give the players a choice to let their characters ascent or descent.
Generalizations
Many things make us think of archetypes and this is where we get into dodgy stuff, because an archetype is always a generalization, Dumbledore and Gandalf are similar, but not the same. Some of the similarities are part of the wizard archetype. Though Dumbledore is mainly arcane (an archetypal kind of magic), while Gandalf has some holy (another magic archetype) attributes (the lore describes him somewhat as an angel).
Currently in society, we talk a lot about the unfairness of generalizations. This is an interesting thing for archetypes. Most things in our current state of culture suggest archetypes in DnD: classes, races, backgrounds and dare I say genders. Please read the word suggest again. It's only something we're currently used to, but in DnD, it can be anything. We all enjoy a good wise wizard. But a fighter can be like Dumbledore. Not in the sense of magical prowess, but in the sense of combat. How cool would a Genasi battlemaster be with a sage background? Knowing a lot about magic, speaking wisely, but with that, most expertly analyses their enemies and battlefield and they also swing their great axe with great power.
The only thing is... The strength of Dumbledore's magic is directly correlated to the strength of his intelligence. While the Genasi we just met will never swing their axe harder thanks to that same intelligence. In that sense that fighter can never fulfill the same archetype as Dumbledore. That is unfair in a sense. But if you consider this deeply, you realize it's inherent to the nature of reality. If you are one thing, there is always something that you are not. And that is weird. It's inherent in the class. A fighter is not a wizard. If it would be, they wouldn't be different. This difference brings with it different potential. That's also weird. It's like a kind of magic in and of itself. Picking a class already defines your potential.
Some people had cool ideas to expand archetypes and for instance thought of magical warriors who also cast spells. They did this with special subclasses, multiclassing or taking feats to make themselves unique. That's really awesome, because in this sense you change the potential of your character and you can even change the archetype. For instance a rogue that takes levels in paladin really becomes a different kind of character - if they truly follow their oath.
How to find archetypes
Below is a whole list of things that belong to archetypes, in random order. When you read one of these words, take that thing to the max in your mind, what would be a manifestation of that, what picture comes up? That is an archetype. You can combine the words, like 'warrior' and 'nature' what do you get? Ranger! What if you combine 'neutrality' with 'purpose'? I see some kind of unforgiving God that's neither good nor bad, but does decide how purpose goes. Sounds almost like the Grim Reaper, totally neutral, but will come when it's your time. See how this works? Notice what that thing is that you find and also notice what it is not. Archetypes have clear and fuzzy boundaries at the same time.
Wizard, warrior, healer, nature, arcane, intelligence, wisdom, constitution, mind, kind, altruistic, forceful, evil, law, neutrality, chaotic, create, destroy, think, make, dance, conjure, mislead, persuade, beauty, seduce, weird, extraordinary, wrong, thief, eternal, dark, misunderstood, crazy, life, death, light, dark, succes, fail, luck, purpose, love, magic, hate, peace, war, anger etc.
So looking for the specific properties a character has, makes you figure out the archetype. This is where alignment does things. Being lawful makes you not chaotic. It does make it interesting when some chaotic actions are need. What happens then? When you figure out these words, you easily find great stories. A cleric has to do with light right? Put them in darkness. A Great Old One warlock is weird. Put them in a place of reason and order. You get an immediate, albeit small struggle. If you take the attributes like darkness to the max, what do you get? The Shadowfell? Evil? Undeath? All interesting for the cleric. What about reason? The plane of Mechanus? An extremely ordered Dwarven society?
These simple words almost always lead to some interesting archetypes, for every level of play! Take chaotic, that leads to classes (bards), races (goblins), subclasses (wild magic), outsiders (demons), gods (Gruumsh) and planes (Limbo). The same goes for most other words. Try it!
It also works the other way around. Take a class, monster, god or plane and think of what attributes they have. You will find many other things having that attribute. You can then easily connect the dots and put all these things in one story. If you have a character that also has that attribute, they will feel right at home. Take a look at attributes where they differ, enlarge those differences and you might find a struggle!
Example archetypal struggles in DnD classes
After writing for way longer than I thought I would, here are a few examples of typical archetypes with classes and how you can give them interesting stories by going against their archetype.
Wizard
- Let them get confused or seduced, get them on their emotional side. (This happened with Dumbledore when he got that cursed ring) Let them grow even wiser/smarter after this. Make it possible for them to be more relatable or let them be stronger, more able because they discovered this new side to themselves.
Fighter
- Let them fail because they only use their muscle. Let them lose their honor, but it can be regained by being friendly, clever or by being a leader. Remember to let them feel extra strong in the next battle with their new friends.
Rogue
- Put them right where they can be seen. Let them choose between their goals and the greater good. Try to make them feel bad for choosing themselves, let them redeem themselves. And if they do, reward them with even greater treasure, of possibilities than they had before.
Cleric
- Let them get angry. Put them in a place without faith. Let them choose to die to save others or to choose themselves. Remember to give them the ability to shine twice as bright as before when they get through this.
Bard
- Bards can be many types of people. Let them be whatever they want to be. Let them be it so much until they're bored (if they ever get bored). Let them forget what they want, then help them to find a new reason to live. Maybe they can be greater heroes than they ever thought. Make the bard more then they thought they could be.
Druid
- The druid wants to protect the land, they are often very much in tune with nature and not so much with the "human" side. You can let them experience greed. Maybe a piece of nature suffers, in cooperation with the nearby town it can be restored, but the town takes too great a toll on the land. Then the druid finds out their is an awful political scheme playing out. Suddenly they need to dig deep into social contacts. Maybe they can get large amounts of gold somewhere to buy of the villagers. But just when they find the gold, there's an easy way to get more, the more they get, the more they safe nature... Remember to let the druid redeem themselves! Let them connect with nature and again experience that exactly that is always better than money.
Sorcerer
- The sorcerer is a very wide archetype, because the story of the archetype is: because of who you are, you have power. The story is almost like that of a super hero. They find out they have powers. Now what? Since their story is about who they are, they need to find out who they are. Spider-man is a good example and the X-men stories. A good approach is to lure them into situations where they might go against their personality. Let them use their powers when they're not themselves. Show them the consequences. Remember to give them the opportunity to repent and show themselves who they are. Reward them for this.
Paladin
- This one is a little easy. Put them in a situation where they might have to break their oath. Another really cool one: because they followed their oath, things get out of balance, they did too much... Never thought you could be too much Paladin? Remember to let them be good in the end, maybe they experience that they did exactly the right thing after everything settles, they just didn't see the big picture. Or maybe they made a mistake indeed, but the lesson is that they're only humanoid - unless they're Satyr, then they're only fey.
Warlock
- Well, how to make a warlock f*** up. This is not hard at all. The easy way is to let a warlock feel they are almost always in too deep, never really knowing what their Patron is up to. It's always nice to let the warlock feel regret for what they got themselves into, as long as you reward them sometimes and make them feel awesome. Basically a warlock tries to get what they want, but they often don't get it, but sometimes do. Nobody knows what to think of them, except sometimes and then that disappears too. Let them feel exceptionally smart about one thing and incredibly stupid about another. At least, that's how all warlocks feel that I've met.
Barbarian
- Hulk vs Thanos? Yeah, good to let the barbarian feel outclassed. Grog in critical role also lost this battle against a half-orc. Only made him more determined to become stronger. You can make the barbarian feel strong by letting them connect with that primal rage. Let them find a way beyond it. Maybe by tapping into their rage further, or, like in critical role, by letting him realize that his greatest strength comes from his friends. Tune in anime song...
Ranger
- The ranger is awesome for this. Let them hunt! Let them lose track. Because of it, bad stuff happens. Or better. Let them work together with their favored enemy to take out another favored enemy. A ranger often is a loner, let them depend on another party member, preferably one that doesn't care about nature or who can't stealth. Remember to give the ranger the possibility to organize a magnificent hunt. Maybe let them find respect for the favored enemy. Good times!
Monk
- Monks could be a little hard, if you assume they're already enlightened when they start at level 1. If instead you make it so they have to keep themselves together - which is a very reasonable thing to ask - you could try to find out if there are things that bring them out of balance. Or again, bring them too much into balance. Maybe you can lure them into reaching so far inside themselves, they can't read emotions anymore, basically giving them a 1 on insight. The lesson being that it's always more important to stay humanoid - fey doesn't matter, what Satyr would become a monk?
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think.
Wow. This is great advice on building dynamic stories around characters flaws. One thing I would suggest for monk is to give them something they don't understand that challenges the way they think about themself.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Thanks! That Monk idea sounds great.