I mentioned in a previous post that I am playing Pathfinder, but outside of one game I'm not to enamored with it. I was a little off-base to blame Pathfinder, as it is all traditional fantasy of which I have grown bored. Pathfinder, like other versions of D&D just highlights my problems with the genre. Now, one of my pet peeves has only to do with traditional fantasy RPGs while the others have to do with the genre as a whole.
My problem with Pathfinder and it's ilk stems from its level based design. I agree that it gives a good way of measuring progress, but in the end you are not a very competent character at the beginning. The trope is that you are leaps and bounds above the common man, but a wolf will still eat you for breakfast. This is my recreation. I want to be competent. If I wanted to struggle with mundane challenges, I would go to work and shuffle paper not play D&D. I've been playing for over twenty years and I have played enough low level characters to understand that I hate it. It is not my bag, baby. When I state that I don't enjoy this level of play I get the same tired aphorisms trotted out as well. "You can't get into your character unless you bring him from level 1." Really!?!? I can write a back story book just as good as the next geek, and talks of immersion in D&D are just like an addict chasing a high. In the end, I want to be Porthos, not some poor mook trying to make it through to the next encounter. Just telling me that I am one in a million does not change the fact that if I fall off my horse I could die.
This ties in neatly with why I'm bored with the genre as a whole. I'm tired of the tropes. They do nothing for me in their current forms. I think the worst is "the prophecy". Nothing causes me more angst than a story that starts out with a prophecy foretelling of a great warrior from simple means. It is tired and trite, and the only way I've seen it freshened up is when it is used in a modern setting. Next on my list is the trope of a world filled with magic and the hero has none. The village idiot becoming the savior is just mind-numbing for me. I have to say dwarves and elves are pretty tiresome as well. I will admit that I do not have fresh eyes, and have read a fair bit of bad fantasy fiction throughout my life. I've then had those same bad tropes repeated to me in the form of adventures where any deviation from the story line was tantamount to treason. So, fantasy tropes are leaving me cold unless they are given a modern twist.
I also do not like the disconnect that seems built in to the genre as well. The hero is an orphan/foundling/last of his city. I want to see the character that gets up and heads out because he has something to fight for and to come home too. I want to see a character agonize over choices because he has someone that they will affect back home. You can not even get that in D&D either. Most characters have no family. If you do create a family, it is never brought into play. I think I could give a story a chance if it was built from the principle and moved forward.
this is not to say that I am not enjoying the one Pathfinder game I am in. I am, but I just have no room for much more of that type of story. I want to be competent and connected. I don't want to spend my time wandering from encounter to encounter with a nothing but a dim prophecy as my guide. I would rather be Harry Dresden than a D&D wizard because at least I could stand toe to toe with the things that go bump in the night. I would be a scary individual myself.
I apologize for the rant, but I needed to get this off my chest.
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