Dwarven Inferiority Complex
Nothing’s uglier than a dwarven inferiority complex. We can thank Peter Jackson for this one. When the opening voiceover tell us that the elves are, “Immortal,
wisest, and fairest of all beings,” it’s hard not to want to punch the closest Nordic dude in his smug face (assuming you can jump that high). And then, insult to injury, the dwarves are thrown a bone for being “great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls,” only to have it ripped away by the lore. They’re forever second best in their trademark thing, trailing Mr. Silmaril Himself in the crafting department. And even if you’re tempted to point out, “Well sure. Elves are pretty and elves are skilled. But dwarves are tough as rocks and hard to kill!” You’ll only be met with the drinking scenes in the extended editions. What unmitigated and unconscionable elf fanboyism! Let us take up our torches and pitchforks and forum posts!
But then again, I offer you this counterpoint: Who freaking cares?
You may have guessed that we’re not actually talking about dwarves and elves here (though you can feel free to wage that battle down in today’s comments). What we’re really talking about is stepping on your party mates’ conceptual toes. My advice remains the same as before: When it comes to coexisting with other PCs, try to carve out your own little niche. You’ll be happier if you’re king of your own specialized hill.
But if you and your buddy are both out there trying to put up big damage, and if you really are doing the full on body-count competition, try to remember that a staff measuring contest is beside the point. Fantasy adventure is supposed to be a team sport. Everyone contributes to the same goal and the same story.
So if you find yourself looking up at the badass archer thinking that your thrown weapons build is underperforming; or if your charming sorcerer can’t seduce as many nobles as the bard; or if your sword-gish doesn’t have the rippling pecs of a dedicated fighting-man, maybe don’t sweat it. This is literally not a competition. Just be satisfied with what you’ve got. And remember that elves sometimes bump their heads on things, those too-tall jackasses.
So what do you say, Handbook-World? Have you ever dealt with jealousy among party members? Give us your group’s version of the old “dwarven inferiority complex” down in the comments!
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What comes to mind right off is when our whole party got turned into drow, and my goblin remarked how this was a very different perspective for him.
“Usually, I’m stuck looking up your noses.”
It’s the being at fart-height that would get to me.
For someone who grew up in a goblin cave, that’s usually not even worth remarking on…
Played a World of Darkness campaign once, my character was a politician, another was a minor celebrity. Toes were trodden on when we needed to get into an exclusive club and the bouncer hadn’t heard of him (GM had him roll his fame merit like a skill) and he had to wait in line, but I used my connections to jump the queue.
Most of the time, I think it’s cool when there’s overlap between what the PC and the player is feeling. This is not one of those times.
Don’t worry, no feelings were hurt IRL, just an in-character reality check for the other guy.
Oof… There was that time when a Kineticist with just the right trait and ranks in Disable device entered the group… and suddenly my Rogue felt completely useless because he kept sniping all of the trapspringing jobs. I did not handle that too well, I must admit. :-/
Was that me? Because I have a PFS character like that. Not only can he Disable Device, he can do it from 30 feet away. Not as good at spotting them though, and can’t do anything about magical traps, so that’s two area’s your rogue could excel.
It was a Curse of the Crimson Throne game.
If your Kineticist was in that AP, joining in with an established group, then maybe.
What’s your Kineticist’s name?
Drama! Recriminations! Tearful reconciliation!
Start the popcorn machines!
A bit too quick on the popcorn there, Claire. I was thinking about a Pathfinder Society game.
Peter Jacksons JRRT based flicks where a crime against Tolkiens writing style.
JRRT’s writing style is a crime against cinema. Happily, they doesn’t mean it’s bad writing.
My group considers JRRT’s writing style a crime against writing.
We have one good thing to say about the LotR: Tolkien was a master of making you feel as though you walked every step of that almost 6 month journey…
.** I know, everyone has their favorites, for me I considered JRRT a fav until I finally went back twenty years later and reread the stories that I’d read when I was ten… and discovered I only loved them because I’d skimmed the hell out of his books. I’d skipped all the “boring sloggy parts’, all the overly verbose descriptions, //all// the songs… (I thought the songs were an invention of the animation and Jackson movies, the whole reason I went back to reread was a buddy saying “No, Peter Jackson didn’t make up those songs, they’re in the Hobbit…”)
I could follow your argument if JRRT had tried to write a book for the movies.
Jackson spending his budget at the wrong places is what makes the movies bad. The characters have as little depth as the backdrop at Galadriels mirror.
My argument is that film and literature aren’t trying to do the same thing. It’s better to consider their successes and failures on their own terms for their respective media.
Here’s where I’m coming from:
https://www.coursera.org/learn/interactive-media-gaming
Can’t recommend that course highly enough. It’s what got me back into the academy after many years working a 9 to 5.
In my One Ring rpg, I have a minor case where the party Elf feels inferior compared to the Hobbit. One paper, the elf has a deadlier weapon and greater combat skill (a rating of 5 compared to the hobbit’s 3) but the Hobbit is just darn luckier with his little tooth-pick of a shortsword.
If the Hobbit ‘crits’ in a fight, he can spend Hope (a willpower-esque resource) to ensure that whatever he’s stabbing suffers a Piercing Blow, which either kills most foes, or cripples legendary ones. Now he has a troll and a great wolf amongst his kills.
The hobbit has also emerged as the social powerhouse of the fellowship, with the group gently joking that “Hobbits always end up stealing the show.”
Concept clashes do happen surprisingly often… played a game some years back where two of us found we’d built near-identical characters. It actually worked out pretty well in that case… tweaked the backstories to explain it, and the double-act proved quite effective on the battlefield.
But yeah, it can be frustrating when characters are less similar, but end up overlapping in role or concept… one of them ends up being better at it and overshadowing the other. About all you can do is talk to each other, and try to coordinate evolving them in different directions as you go… maybe a little multiclassing to add versatility, or maybe just rethinking how the character approaches things, what tactics they’ll use.
I’ve not had too many issues with people stepping on one another’s toes, because I actively try to manage it and ensure everyone gets some time in the spotlight. If we have two rogues and one is straight up superior for whatever reason, I’ll add a nice magic item only the inferior one can use, or make an important aspect of the plot specific to them alone. I might design encounters that require two thieves being rogue-y at the same time. It’s a balancing act to ensure all characters are roughly equally relevant and spend approximately the same amount of time being the star of the show. If a player feels redundant, that sucks, and I as the DM should prevent that from happening.
Had a few problems like that when last starting a campaign. First, I picked the exact class and archetype someone else had. However, that came up before the first session, so I could still swap to another class. I picked an archetype that combines Inquisitor spellcasting and Occultist implements. Session one, turns out we have an Occultist as well. And we were planning on taking the exact same schools. So for diversity, I tweaked my choices a bit. Now I’m more support while he remains more combat.
Makes me wonder if you could go for “exact same class and archetype” intentionally? Make it a “discovering our powers together” sort of thing.
Hm…based on the two fighters in my 2E Al-Qadim campaign, I’d say yeah. One’s a male firbolg, while the other’s a human female, but they grew up in the same village, both picked fighter for a class, both picked the faris (holy warrior) kit, and both picked the god of Wisdom.
Neither is wise.
Watching the two develop in parallel time in completely different directions has been both educational and entertaining as a DM.
I always have a thing for having to be unique in TTRPGs. There can be a bit of overlap, but I always have to have at least *something* only I can do mechanically. Otherwise I feel like there isn’t really a point to my character being there, because someone else can just do the thing instead (and usually better, since I’m not the best at optimizing).
One particularly memorable example was a campaign where I was playing a wild magic sorcerer. The campaign was just beginning to start off when one of the other players came in late. Which was fine, until it turned out that he was *also* a wild magic sorcerer. With the exact same skills as me, even.
I was kinda offended that my niche was overrun, but no one else really had a problem with it. Our characters were very different flavor-wise, after all, but that’s not much of a consolation prize for me when we’re constantly jockeying for the same spots to do the same action in combat. Heck, I even looked at his sheet after a few sessions (with the player’s permission, of course) and he even had almost the same spell selection as me, spell-for-spell! Needless to say, when practically the only thing my character could do that his couldn’t was cast Light, I felt the need to swap out for a new character. It was a short campaign, so I really didn’t have the time (or the patience) to multi-class to anything different to differentiate us. This is another reason why I insist on session 0s now, or at least knowing what everyone’s character is prior to the game beginning so that I can avoid scenarios like this from the outset.
You’d think that a bit of coordination in terms of spell selection would make the difference. :/
“Have you ever dealt with jealousy among party members?”
Yeah… and I didn’t even know it at the time but I was the one stomping all over someone else’s niche.
It was the dawn of 3e and our GM decided to run Night Below, an older 2e campaign. First session we make Characters, an “off-standard” 4 man band: Dwarven Fighter, Human Mage, Gnome Druid, and my Elven Rogue*.
A few session in and we leveled up, well since the adventure to date was //all// woodland stuff, I multiclassed into Ranger, gaining two-weapon fighting and track. I kept the levels close enough and at 5th level we picked up a new Player, they wanted to bring in an Elven Ranger…
You can see where this is going. I’d made an INT-DEX-CHA build, but I’d boosted DEX (and would go on to boost it several more time, including using two wishes) so while their 2W fighting was slightly better than mine, due to SNEAK ATTACK, well, I did more damage over all.
Also I multied into Wizard for the familiar (and one specific spell), right before the Ranger got to Animal Companion levels… so… yeah.
Better woodland trap spotting, roughly equal 2W fighting, better ranged fighting, ‘better’ animal companion… far, far better diplomancer, better REF saves, etc… sure the Ranger could //take// more hits, but I was almost never hit.
I did tend to lag slightly (by one level oin average) to the party, but the Ranger always felt like they were overshadowed at fighting and we’d switched to being in the Underdark where they’re woodland skills (which finally surpassed mine) were almost useless… and not to mention 3e Ranger was just an underwhelming class over-all… so they left the group.
I found out a couple of years later why (which was during one our break-up fights – yes, the Ranger’s Player was my girlfriend who joined the game because I asked her to, she liked rping and D&D, so I thought it would be a good fit…).
.* Who ended up being the party leader because I was the defacto face //and// the local Duke took one look at the party and decided for political and personal reasons I had to be the new baron of the Barony we ended up running. The Duke was a Dwarf, but couldn’t put a Dwarf in because the locals in the Barony hated Dwarves (old emnity), he didn’t trust gnomes and Wizards were right out… so… the noncy Elf was a “shoe in”, despite my many, many, many protests – but it was the “good” choice as I’d made friends with all the townships in the Barony already and ended up solving orcish raids diplomatically and even brought a semblance of peace between the dwarven mines and the locals).
I’ve done the thing with divergent evolution. Hill dwarves tend to be short, simply because the terrain their particular distant forbearers settled was not conducive to massive carved halls and tall corridors. Constantly chasing the ore veins through this type of rock meant keeping the shafts low and well supported. They also tend to live on the surface, since there are few places they would actually be able to carve out a community. They have a few extra abilities that tie in with that.
My mountain dwarves are human height, but still with the dwarven bonuses. Their forbearers settled in the granite highlands, where the substrate was well able to support grand halls, tall and open corridors. Plus, the areas were usually well populated with aggressive fauna and other dangerous species. Getting underground was mainly for safety at first, but ended up being a defining characteristic of their offshoot.
As too the characters being jealous. Main system is set up with skills. Actual character class brings some benefits, but just about anyone can pick up a skill if they have the minimum statistics for it and can find someone to teach them. Even the lowly fighter can learn to throw spells if intelligent enough. All it takes is a teacher proficient in the skill (level 5 or above) and a certain amount of time spent with them learning.
Characters have to spend time with a trainer to go up skill level anyway, so this is usually rolled into the time spent “off camera” for the group.
There is the caveat of similaritie/rivalries being alright if that’s how the players wanna roleplay it. It’s pretty funny when the elven archer of Artemis and the hobgoblin marksman get in a Robin Hood style archery competition and each one keeps putting their arrow through their rivals’ shot again and again and again, with their players giggling all the while.
In my groups not-really-a-oneshot Level 16 game, one player used a weird side class called the Vampire Hunter to make a two-weapon-fighting/thrown weapon build about throwing pickaxes at people. Another player made a two-weapon-fighting Gunslinger who was all about shooting people. They both had the same number of attacks, but the Gunslinger had a higher attack bonus (full BAB instead of 3/4ths), higher DEX (DEX to damage and no need for STR) and bullets that ignored most armor AC. So while both characters had an equal number of attacks, the Gunslinger landed hits about twice as often. This meant that (shockingly) the hyper-optimized build was doing the let’s-be-wacky build’s shtick much better.
The pickaxe guy generally took this in stride (he had chosen to do a wacky build, after all) and he did get to use some weird powers like running on the ceiling and fighting an actual vampire. But I also made some effort in my narration to throw the Vampire Hunter some bones and play the situation for laughs. For example, one time the Gunslinger got a kill right after the Vampire Hunter’s turn, and so I described how the VH saw an opening and threw a pickaxe at the enemy’s weakpoint, only for, in slow-mo, a bullet from the Gunslinger to deflect the pickaxe away and hit the weakpoint instead. The VH got a fair number of “you’re pretty sure you killed it” or “you definitely softened it up” descriptions, which let the player have fun roleplaying an excessively-egoed character.
Still, I think it might have become a problem if the campaign was not relatively short. Even good-natured players can hit their limit eventually.
I’ve dealt with jealousy among players, but my most recent 5e one-shot was different, and I’d prefer to think about that.
It was somewhat poorly organized, so we wound up with four players showing up with character sheets all made in vacuums, with little thought given to party composition.
I brought two sheets with me, as I usually do. In this case, a wizard and a barbarian, figuring I could fill whatever role turned out to be lacking. Usually I bring a cleric, and whatever I actually wanted to play, but I was tired of playing clerics, and this DM is fairly competent, so I figured he’d be able to make it work if the party turned out to have nobody who could heal.
Then the other three players showed up, with two wizards and a barbarian.
So we had a party of Barbarian, Barbarian, Wizard, Wizard. It was honestly pretty fun. My tiefling Storm Herald and the half orc Berserker bonded over similarities, but also had their own individual niches. He hit harder and took hits better, while I had a decently powerful Fire Bolt cantrip, and could grant fire resistance to my allies while doing constant chip damage to our enemies. The wizards meanwhile bonded over magic, but were very different with one being a human Necromancer and one being… uh… I think an Aasimar (don’t remember) and something other than a Necromancer.
On the lore of the setting i made i resolved that, there is no dwarves 😀
Only elves that are better than everyone else 🙂
Or at least that is what they say since the elves are lesser than the alfar and even less than the fey 🙂
Probably, hard to say, i made them and i am not sure if the elves, alfar and fey are the same, branches or different things and i like it that way 🙂
Had a version of that where we were both dumbass magic fighting men, but I came up with a neat solution: I was a part barbarian with shit stats in everything except str and con (can thank a very fun way of running point buy for that one), and thus relying on magic in combat would gimp me severely. Therefore, while I specced into one-enemy-at-a-time massive pain, he would focus more on the spellcasting, setting up things like hold person/monster for those vicious paladin crits, spike growth for the classic cheese grater, fireball for a mook swarm, etc.
A) In one campaign years gone by, between the sorcerer learning *knock*, the druid picking up a *gauntlet of rust*, and the fighter gaining a bonus to bull-rushing doors, my rogue suddenly had a lot less to do in the door-opening department. Instead, I leaned into sneak-attack death-dealing, where I had less competition.
B) As DM, my most recent group features 5 PCs, 3 of which are mistreated 1/2 human orphans with mystical powers. The half-drow and half-elf were both going to be sorcerers, too, until the former switched to wizard for the greater spell selection.
C) I’m not wholly blameless, either. When one of our regular players brought his girlfriend to join the game night crew, I surreptitiously checked her character sheet to make sure that my cleric was still the strongest and prettiest gal in the party.
(She was and remains so.)
It is kinda boring that it’s always the elves who are the awesome superhuman race. Give dwarves or orcs or lizardfolk a chance!
But it’s traditional!
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurElvesAreDifferent
TRADITION! Tradition… tradition.
Hobbits are the true superior race.
I may have told this story before but I was a mutli-classed forge cleric (1st level fighter for con saves and to be a “boot-leg paladin” never went back for more fighter). I was in the same party as a moon druid with Healing Spirit pre-nerf. Needless to say I was more than once 1 level too low for the spell they thought could fix everything, the druid was hands down best healer and tank. Couple with being dice cursed and a frontliner in a party where crit fumbles meant you auto hit your teammates despite their AC build it was often a rough experience.
It was my first time back to DND after a 2 years hiatus due to my last parties implosion. Thankfully this game had a fantastic grognard DM and very good players, crit tables aside I still miss them. I’m now a forever DM with a good group.
ROCK AND STONE to everyone even filthy leaf lovers
In order to have an inferiority complex there would need to be a group Dwarves are inferior to. No such group exists.