archetype-discussion
Latest
Storyboard: Archetype discussion -- a brief conclusion
Before I started writing up the archetypes that have made up a 10-part series (with two meta columns including this one), I only wrote out a very brief preamble in front of the Soldier column. As I said at the time, the goal was to provide character templates that work, in a broad sense -- characters that adapt easily to specifics and serve as a good jumping-off point for making something more original. It's a good way of glossing the series, made only slightly worse by the fact that it's not altogether true. From the first column, the archetypes I've been discussing have a long list of blanks for players to fill in, and that's been by design, because -- when you get right down to it, archetypes aren't characters. I touched upon this a bit when I stepped into the meta column, but now I want to be more explicit: Archetypes are at their core about motivation. They're not set to answer any questions about your character except for why he or she is out on the road, adventuring and questing and doing all sorts of unpleasant things.
Storyboard: Of straw men and specifics
I was originally going to wrap up the initial little series of archetypes this week, but I decided to hold off for a week for a couple of reasons: first, because I don't want to just be rehashing what I said two weeks back when discussing how the series actually worked; and second, because there are a lot of smaller and assorted topics that I wanted to talk about for this week's installment of the column. We're approaching the first anniversary, after all, and that means it's a good time to start thinking about the next year. There's also more to be said about the archetype from last week, and that's where I'm going to start off. It seems as if pretty much everyone got the joke about that column; it was meant as a parody of an archetype that's all too common in MMOs: the Mary Sue in roleplaying form, the person who can do no wrong even as the player breaks all sort of rules for no reason beyond ego. But there's a reason I went with this archetype instead of my first idea for an April Fools' Day article -- I think this archetype can actually work in a game, if played with care and with a gentle hand.
Storyboard: Archetype discussion -- the recursion
There are a lot of reasons a character would head off on the road to adventure. Sometimes it's out of a sense of duty, to a nation or to morality or even just duty itself. Other times it's a quest for knowledge, or acceptance, or cold hard cash. You might not want to be there, you might be seeking one profound goal, or you might just be along for the ride while everyone screws up around you. We've talked about each of these roles in turn, as archetypes for characters to fit into. But an archetype is not a character. An archetype is the idea of a character, boiled down and stripped of everything but the skeleton. You need more to make a character that isn't one-dimensional. I've spent the better part of the past several months discussing how the various archetypes work, but now I want to talk a little more about making them work together beyond just a character overview. (We still have at least one more installment of archetypes proper, but I wanted to write this up first.) So once you have the seed, what do you do from there?
Storyboard: Archetype discussion -- the Defiant
If you were born around the same time that I was, then the odds are good you have the plucky princess seared into your brain by means both dark and Disneyean. You know the one I'm talking about: the girl possessed of a fair bit of good sense and independent thought who doesn't want to be a stay-in-court princess, despite her father's insistence that she'll get attacked by a bear within five seconds of leaving. So within 15 minutes she leaves anyway, and lo and behold, the next two hours of the film are devoted to the variety of bear-related mishaps that ensue. But there's more to this than a line of somewhat nauseating merchandise for young girls. There's an archetype here, one for people of both genders who kick convention to the curb and opt for something just a bit more stimulating and challenging -- even though they're not always well-suited to those challenges. So let's take a look at the Defiant archetype past the cut. (And you can go ahead and hum Part of your World while you do so, if necessary. It's OK.)
Storyboard: Archetype discussion -- the Trapped
Up until now, all of the archetypes we've discussed have had one major element in common -- they've wanted to be out in the world. Maybe it's out of a sense of duty, maybe it's a desire for something, or maybe it's just a need to teach. Whatever the actual reasons, these archetypes are made up of people who aren't going to be totally happy just sitting at home right now. Many want to end up in a nice home, but that's further down the road. The Trapped just wants to get out. She doesn't care about larger goals, she doesn't care about adventure, she doesn't want to make money or learn new things. She wants to go home and stay there. Unfortunately for her, she doesn't get to make that decision, and for whatever reason, she's out in the midst of an adventure when she never really wanted to be a part of it in the first place. So queue up your listening material and let's talk about being trapped in the midst of awesome.
Storyboard: Archetype discussion - the Mentor
I keep expecting to run out of ideas for the various archetypes that I've been discussing, but more of them keep coming to me. The past six columns have all highlighted characters who are distinct from one another yet at the same time make compelling centers to their own stories. For roleplaying purposes, they move to the forefront of the ensemble cast when needed and slip to the middle the rest of the time. But not everyone whose name is in the credits is necessarily going to be The Hero. Today's archetype probably won't be remembered as the one who accomplished any great deeds, unless you look at it by association. But she's still a vital character to any group, someone who provides an emotional and moral center amidst a horde of conflicting personalities -- even if no one might remember it. Today we're taking a look at the Mentor and all of the things that she brings to the table even from a more subtle role.
Storyboard: Archetype discussion - the Errant
If you've seen The Princess Bride but haven't ever read the book, you have excellent taste in movies but you're missing out. There's a lot that by necessity had to be cut from the film, but the lost detail that stands out is just how much time Inigo Montoya spent training and preparing to hunt down the six-fingered man. It's one thing to be told that he strove to kill this man for years; it's another to be told in detail how hard he fought, how long he quested, and how much effort he poured into his goal until there was almost nothing left. Today's archetype is Inigo Montoya. He is Roland Deschain, he is Alessan di Tigana, he is Captain Nero and James Ford and Depth Charge. He is the Errant, and he is anyone devoted to a singular purpose that drives every second of his actions. And he's probably the most problematic of the archetypes out there, because sooner or later he's going to have to deal with what it means to complete that purpose. So take a seat, and let's go on a single-minded journey.
Behind the Mask: What Archetypes really need
One of the main draws of Champions Online is character customization. Costume creation is one part of that, while open power selection is another. The two elements allow players to make heroes that truly feel unique. No two Champions look the same, and while it's very possible for two different heroes to play similarly, there are enough ways to express yourself in the system that creating a truly unique hero is a simple matter. As we near the big launch of F2P, I can't help but be stuck on the idea of Archetypes. Having a hero fixed into a particular power build seems contrary to the nature of CO, and when those builds are inferior to Custom characters built for the exact same things, well... let's just say a lot of people, including many of you readers here at Massively, don't see eye-to-eye with the Archetype design decision. Naturally, I have my own ideas. Restricting F2P players in some way to encourage premium subscriptions is definitely something Cryptic should do, but there are quite a number of reasons why the existing path is... just a bad idea.
Storyboard: Archetype discussion - the Partisan
Clarity of purpose is a wonderful thing, made all the more likable by its usual absence. The fact is that most of us have only the vaguest idea of what to do, and we're all making things up as we go. It's the central ripoff discovered when you become an adult. Moral clarity is a joke, and whether you try to save everyone or just focus on saving yourself, it's a morass without any clear purpose for most of us. The partisan puts the lie to that. He might follow a religion, he might follow a nation, he might follow an individual -- but whatever his leader might be, the partisan follows it without fail. He has his moral clarity at all times, even if keeping it might mean sacrificing his own judgment. And it's his view -- his vision of what is right -- that tells him exactly what he wants. So let's look at the partisan, in all of his one-true-path glory.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: In the case of Brutes
It's the start of a new year, and that means it's time to start getting fired up again. I have been taking a little break from being online for the new year weekend -- after all, when you're always online, it starts to wear on you just a little. But now it's time to get back in the saddle in City of Heroes and everywhere else, and I can't think of a better way to do that than to start in on the archetype overviews once again, especially since I had a friend tell me he was looking forward to his current favorite archetype. We're not on that archetype today, however. No, after having taken a look at the Scrapper to kick things off, we're going to be moving on to a character type that's just down the street. It's the second of three archetypes with an offensive melee/defensive secondary mix, it's one of the four heavily melee-oriented options available, and it's the sort of character type that just makes you start hitting until everything is broken in half. That's right, we're looking at the Brute today, for players who are new to the Brute or to the game in general.
Storyboard: Archetype discussion -- the Paladin
Archetypes, by their very definition, are idealizations. They aren't people; they're abstract concepts that people approach in varying degrees. Most of them aren't conscious aspirations, just a direction and a set of overall goals. Nobody really wants to be amoral in pursuit of a single goal, or an engine of war, or an endless question mark. You just kind of wind up in a place where you can be abstracted in that fashion. Paladins are not like that. Staggering numbers of different games have a class named "paladin," including nearly every class-based fantasy game in existence. But that's just a name, a collection of statistics and abilities and genre conventions. There's more to the archetype than that, something that taps into a very fundamental part of the human psyche. So as always, queue up some appropriate listening material, and let's take a look at an archetype that's almost always named as a class but has much more substance than a few holy-themed spells.
