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Who Is Ellen - 39 - HD
🕑 Added 2022-09-27 03:00:02 +0000 UTCClassy!
Commentary
I'm not assuming everyone reading this is an expert of RolePlaying Game tropes, so there will be brief summaries of what these classes are, and why YOU should care.
This is especially the case because this is more about the players than what they're playing, and this isn't turning into a full-on RPG parody storyline.
I might also deviate from what someone might expect based on their favorite games, so this should put all of us on the same page. This is same-page-making action, right here.
Paladins
I should point out that nobody HAS to play their paladins as sticks in the mud. At least, not in most games. I've heard some games, or editions of games, had it so paladins could lose their fancy powers if other people in their party did things their god(s) wouldn't approve of, so...
Kind of hard to blame them for being sticks in the mud in THAT case.
Were Rich interested in being an unreasonable problem player, and not just a challenging one, I imagine he would've gone with a Rogue / Thief class. I've heard several stories about games that have involved problem rogues (mostly as a result of them using thief skills for the purposes of trolling with excuses like "but that's what my chaotic neutral thief would do!").
Not that I'm calling out rogue-class players. Ultimately, how you play matters more than what class you play.
It's just if you want to be a jerk character who steals from their own party and does sneaky stuff, a high dexterity stat is going to help with that.
BACKGROUNDS!
I'm taking a chance by pointing out something people might not even be thinking about, but...
I feel I need to be willing to be more minimalist on backgrounds in general, as not every panel needs a background. This is especially true in greyscale, in which not having a background can really let the characters stand out more.
(It's even MORE especially true in 100% black and white.)
But I get used to backgrounds being present, and when they're not there, I'm always asking "where's background"?
While too many backgrounds is a better habit than too few, I'm not the best at picking and choosing when to use them.
So, naturally, I was divided on what I should do with backgrounds while they're at the table. Just, um, a FEW factors resulted in me deciding to go minimalist...
1 - I'm going to be cheating the heck out of character positioning in order to show faces and poses, which could have some strange results combined with backgrounds.
2 - The various things Rich and Ellen should be overlapping with in this comic don't contrast well with their hair.
3 - Where they're sitting in the comic shop would end up showing a lot of what's behind them (ESPECIALLY with George, but also with Rich). I'd end up feeling compelled to show other customers (and Justin) to keep the store from feeling empty.
4 - Depending on who's talking to whom, there should be characters overlapping characters. Invisible George being invisible is easier to accept without background details reminding you that there should be a George there.
Comments
Some Ed
Did they do away with Assassins, Barbarians, Monks, and Druids? These are very different classes, but they all have a moderate amount of backstory driven behavior that could be used to excuse intra-party grief.
Some Ed
All of the AD&D I've played was 2nd ed. In that version, the stick up the bum was almost part of the description of the class. That said, the people I've known who preferred that class would strongly contest the idea that they are sticks in the mud. They *bathe*, which is more than they can say for most adventurers. (I do recall that there was a scene in the Dragonlance Chronicles with bathing. *A* scene. Across something like 12 books? Also, the bather in that scene wasn't even really an adventurer. She was just traveling *with* the adventurers.) (Edit: Further recollection, I think there were a few other scenes that were *after* bathing had occurred. At least a couple of these were "bad guys", and in the one with the most people, the people weren't adventurers. Even with that said, it's probably worth disclaiming that it was 12 books I read more than 30 years ago, so there are definitely bits I've forgotten.)
John Trauger
The Paladin and the Rogue are the two character classes where players can most esily hide behind "It's what my character would do" to cause inter-party grief.. Perhaps because they represent moral extremes.
Stephen Gilberg
When I started on Pathfinder, I thought the paladin sounded very much my type, but that's why I didn't choose one.
M.
Everything I've heard and read about paladins being played the way Rich plans to play one comes from both bad players and bad DMs, the latter being too eager to take away a paladin's power. The stories were always about DMs who constantly threatened the paladin with having their abilities taken away, which led to paladins being hard on other players and trying to force them to play a certain way so the paladin didn't lose their powers by associating with them, and it was a real mess. I haven't heard about it as much recently, what with the current edition of D&D treating paladins very differently than before. All the same, the fact that Rich is deliberately looking to cause trouble (even in-character) and reacting to Ellen not doing what he thinks she'll do with "How dare" means I'd never want him at any table I was playing at. :|
Opus the Poet
I played ChG Warlocks for over a decade, technically the same Warlock for over a decade, 27th level by the time we disbanded the group as half had to take jobs out of state. Most of the time I lived up to the Good part of my alignment, but every so often I had to let the Chaotic part run free, especially when interrogating an NPC that I would have rather just outright killed, but the group needed the intelligence from the NPC, so I played Really, Really BAD cop, like detonating an Eldritch Blast next to his head during questioning.
KC
The sad thing is it feels like you're getting more and more players these days who play Paladins in interesting ways, partly because people are slowly realizing that playing a moral character or a character with a cause doesn't mean you have to automatically be a dick. But you'll still get players like this who automatically assume that Paladin=stick in the mud and either play Paladin to be annoying or play a Oathbreaker Paladin so they can be an angsty edgelord
Thisguy
Any class can be a problem if the player makes it a problem. Paladin, Rogue and Bard are probably the 3 which get most of the bad rep because The stereotype gives excuse to be annoying & players who want to be problems are drawn to these classes because of that. As such, these classes are memes unto themselves. Of course, each class can be played perfectly reasonably, even if slightly leaning into stereotype, but as everything, can be played so completely different that you the class is merely a set of mechanics underneath the character. Paladins can be fun, and in a role play heavy group, can really drive FP and characterisation. Beyond anything else, a Paladin represents devotion.
Ethan Cobb
I stopped thinking of paladins as sticks in the mud after I played with a chevalier of Cayden Cailean. They were kinda of like if Uncle Ben was an alchoholic.
AstroChaos
How do you know that there is a Paladin in a party? Just wait, they'll tell you! Also, you said "backgrounds" and I immediately thought of character backgrounds and got really confused really quickly.
The Sunroses
provably
Carl Fink
An essay I wrote a long time ago (10+ years!) explains why I still miss color. https://finknetwork.com/EGSAnEssayUponDeparting.html Scroll down to the third section, starting "So is anyone else .." (Note: originally a series of posts in the old Keen forum for EGS.)
