Stereotypical Behavior
Well then. I wasn’t expecting this one to be quite so cute. Hnnnngh and such.
Draconic nail polish does make a certain amount of sense if you stop to think about it. I mean sure, the old 3.5 Draconomicon is the definitive resource for decorating your wyrm. But I always liked the idea of “talon sheaths” from the Temeraire books. And if you follow that concept to its natural conclusion, it’s just a hop, skip, and flap from there to 60-Foot Cone Red and Smaug Hoard Gold.
I digress though. We’re not here to talk draco-fashion. We’re here to talk about iconoclasts. You see, Pug is our poster girl for playing against type. In the immortal words of The Bard, “Though she be but little she is fierce.” And I think that impulse towards weirdness lives in all of us. We want our PCs to be special. We’re heroes because we’re unique. That special quality is what defines us. So who wants to be yet another pyromaniac goblin or tinkerer gnome or half-orc rage monster? You might as well be a boring vanilla humie at that point!
Here’s the thing though. Characters are complex beasts. You can have a unique-gimmick-that-makes-my-guy-special without repudiating every other element of the racial description. Your dwarf can love beer AND follow an elven deity. Your kobolds can dote on dragons AND be deadly little melee monster. Even your dull-as-dirt human can be a stereotypical small-town orphan AND show some unique character traits. The conventional elements help them to feel like part of the setting, while the unique traits set them apart.
So for today’s discussion, why don’t we do the opposite of our usual “my guy is interesting because” conversation? Tell us how you favorite PC follows the tropes for their race. Do those tropes help them to fit into the game world, or do you feel constrained by them? Whatever you take, we’ll see you down in the comments!
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This actually makes sense to me.
Pug loves power. She wants the world to see it in her, she strives for it, covets it. What are dragons, if not power made manifest? Also, Kobolds claim they have dragon ancestry, so an honest-to-goodness dragon right in front of Pug would be like a combination of inspirational poster (“You, too, can be this awesome”) and rock star to her, rolled into one scaly package.
As for PCs of mine that did the stereotypical… My Goblin Abjurer was very fond of using fire. Both in battle and in general. ^^;
One of the great joys of gaming (and of this comic) is watching stock characters grow more complex as they go. 😀
My current character is an uplifted bear in Starfinder. He loves honey.
My previous character, a Kobold, was very much into dragon worship as well and considered himself one.
Please tell me that your group played a one-shot of Honey Heist set on Absalom Station.
https://gshowitt.itch.io/honey-heist
Pug looks so adorably chubby when sitting down.
The body shape Laurel uses for kobolds always cracked me up. They look like round little rubber chickens. XD
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/tanking
When’d Jeremy move into the fortress of solitude?
After the Heroes cleared it of the last tenant.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/sneak-attack
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/hoarding
You caught me by surprise with that bit of continuity. Nicely done! 😀
Illustrator saving time on backgrounds, or purposeful storytelling? YOU BE THE JUDGE!
Honestly? Why can’t it be both? Sometimes, the best storytelling comes from the constraints of the source material.
My current character is about as far from stereotype as possible… intentionally so, which is arguably a stereotype in itself, but I digress.
My first D&D character though… yeah, that was a big dumb half-orc barbarian with a greataxe. Not the deepest character, and he didn’t last very long, but a fun introduction to the game. I’ve played a few other stereotypes over the years — notably, a pair of elven rangers — though not quite sticking so close to formula.
Usually these days, I’ll be more like Pug… pick some parts of the stereotype that might be fun to play to, but look to subvert other parts of it. I’ve got a Bugbear concept, for example, and their themes are that their gods value both strength and cunning, and they tend to be lazy. Okay, so my guy isn’t lazy as such… he just applies both strength and cunning to find the path of least effort… such as bullrushing people off cliffs instead of wasting effort fighting them. Work smarter, not harder, you might say.
I dig the bugbear example. You’re able to pull in deities from the setting, then parlay them into unique, playable character traits. Solid stuff.
It’s often how I create characters… some piece of setting lore catches my attention, usually something not at all important to the actual campaign, but which ends up being the nucleus of a character.
In the Bugbear case, they’re not the most common playable race, but their writeup in Volo’s Guide is surprisingly flavourful given its brevity, and the dichotomy of their twin gods was what caught my eye… a race for whom both brute strength and subtlety are equally regarded as virtues.
Well there was my dwarf who hated elves. And my half-orc who hated elves. And my human, halfing, gnome, warforged, aasimar, tortle,dragonborn, kender too. OK, this might be less ‘following a trope’ and more ‘personal racial prejudice.’
It’s not Orlando Bloom’s fault! He was written that way!
Yeah! Leggy Lass is perfectly good character!
My half-orc cleric of Heracles: despite his high Wisdom and vanilla-Intelligence, he relied on Strength to settle most situations because that’s what he believed his god valued most. (Until his death and *resurrection*, but that’s another story.)
My halfling rogue with a ring of invisibility: he railed against the taller races and unfair racial stereotypes but was nonetheless a halfling burglar with a ring of invisibility. (This also fuels why he was the surliest and most intolerant and violent tiny trap-smith this side of Rocket Racoon.)
My son’s multi-classed gnome: irritating, verbose, talkative, and obsessed with minutiae. Half the time, the rest of the party wanted to kill him. Instead of gears and machines or magical esoterica (though we was a wand-crafter), his obsession was finding loopholes to exploit in civil law and the division of land and property. (Profession: Barrister)
Love that halfling embodying and protesting his own stereotypes. That’s good shtick.
My dwarven cleric is a firm believer in a Dwarven Deity that is almost exclusively worshipped by dwarves and the rest of the party jokes my dude is an alcoholic. This is less because he is always drinking and more that he is a beer snob; he needs to drink like 5 human beers to even have a risk of failing the fortitude roll so he insists on drinking “the good stuff.”
I find the best way to be “unique” and still fit stereotypes is to expand the lore, if the GM is okay with it. For instance, as a Cleric of Trudd, my cleric is a crazy exercise enthusiast and never skips leg day. This has been expanded to all clerics of Trudd as well.
It helps me burn off the calories from the all the alcohol and worship Trudd. Rising even with the hangover to perform the blessed exercises shows devotion and willpower.
Today’s happens to be my birthday. And I can assure you: showing such devotion becomes harder with age. 🙁
Happy birthday!
😀
I don’t show it IRL and I 100% agree. But I figure Trudd must understand dwarven limitations.
After that third century, you’re just a little slow getting out of bed mornings.
One of my friends likes to play a stereotypical dwarf. I like to play a non-stereotypical elf. But there is one stereotype that we both like to play… the general enmity between dwarves and elves.
We’ll rag on each other’s preferred species but at the end of the day, we know the other is just kidding.
Cultural exchange at its finest. 😀
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/cultural-exchange
Every now and then I get the urge to play the meme, huge human fighter, dumb as rocks. Always fun. The one I played the longest went from having the gnome fighter “babysitting” him to him getting smart (yay magic!) and ended up the party leader.
My husband loves playing textbook (AD&D 1e) gnomes and kender. Watching them trying to avoid responsibility is like watching a border collie herd kittens.
You remain married to a kender player? You must have the patience of a saint. 😛
My female human gladiator/mage *hasn’t* slept with anyone of any non-human race and/or species. Does that count as going against stereotype?
My half-giant gladiator is actually rather smart (not Super Genius, but still Above Average Intelligence according to the Monstrous Manual) and has started a merc company that patrols the wasteland roads.
My thri-kreen psionicist is obsessed with hunting both Food and Thought – information to keep his pack from following in the steps of another pack that went evil and started torturing captives before killing (and eating) them. Sort of like Pug both embracing and rejecting some parts of the stereotypical kobold.
I was a little bummed that we didn’t vote “desert” for the crowdsourced mini-dungeon over here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adventureaweek/mini-dungeon-tome-ii/posts/3812223
Swamps are cool and all, but I was REALLY stoked to riff on some Dark Sun themes. BRING ME THOSE BUG PEOPLE!
This is why I’m so upset at WotC removing all mechanical impact from cultural traits. Without their culture Dwarves are just perfectly-average-sized people with strong livers. How your X interacts with X culture whether they embrace or oppose it makes them more interesting.
My Dwarves tend to be extremely Dwarf-y. If I’m playing a Dwarf it’s to roleplay a Dwarf. The statblock is incidental.
My current character is a LE Githyanki Psi Warrior Fighter. He’s very Githyanki, and all in on the “Hail Vlaakith, kill the Illithids” kool-aid. (Though honestly if a species can only persist through the murder of sapients it is kind of ethical to genocide them) The only divergence is that he’s part of the canonical secret society that wants to reunite the Yanki with the Zerai. Being trapped on the material plane during a mission for them is why he can’t go back.
When I played a LE Hobgoblin Artillerist Artificer he was channeling some Sun-Yat Sen energy: He had been to Gnomish lands to study artifice (And exposure to the more progressive Gnomish social ideas was how he realized he was a trans-dude) and realized that Hobgoblin society needed to change if they were to take their rightful place. He convinced several Hob Legions to rally under his banner and got support from the Lord’s Alliance to go attack Drow cities. He rode off into the sunset to be the villain of someone else’s campaign.
I liked the move PF2e made with “heritage” and “ancestry.” It’s nice to really zero in on the parts of your race/culture combo that you want to explore.
Why was my first thought that Jeremy is lucky Pug is sold on dragon worship, because alternative would give us example on how to grapple dracolich?
Perhaps the first girl Jeremy has been able to successfully interact with. Makes me wonder if there are sudden confusing FEELINGS in his cold, dead, pre-teen heart.
Jaun “Aegis”, an Aasimar who’s unfailingly heroic and self-sacrificing. Interestingly, I’ve tried a couple of times to play him as a Warforged instead, and it has fallen flat every single time, even though that’s still playing into type. My guess is that that’s because even an Aasimar paragon still has the implied character arc of having overcome his flaws, but a Warforged was built to be a self-sacrificing defender and thus lacks that implied character growth.
Anduril, an elven archery ranger. Basically Legolas. But let’s be honest, playing ‘basically Legolas’ is a ton of fun in 4E (and presumably the other editions as well).
Ruin, an ancient undead who is tragic and sad and a little bit arrogant. If they were a vampire instead of a poltergeist, they’d almost be *too* stereotypical.
Helena is an in-universe example, and it’s a problem for her. She’s a demon, and because she comes across as brutal, capricious, and downright uncaring, people assume that she’s deliberately playing to the stereotype and treat her accordingly. In reality, she’s just extremely bad at interpreting emotions and social mores, and is completely non-malicious (although by no means harmless; she’s amazingly skilled with blades).
I can’t remember where I encountered this theory, but someone on the Internet once argued that the way to consider fantasy stereotypes like this is that the stereotype has several components and while most members of the group check some of the boxes, very few check all of them. Some might even strive towards some features, but fall short. This way of thinking helps demonstrate that they are all individuals with different personalities, while also allowing characters to fill the theme and avoiding everyone being a subversion of the stereotype.
I might have talked about this before, but I once ran an all dwarf game. Where I had everyone take some tests before hand to figure out their honor score. Most of them made real dwarfy dwarves, who loved ale, mining clan and honor. Which helped build unity and really helped highlight just how much the one guy who chose to play a hippie druid dwarf stood out from the rest of them.
I have a dream of at one point doing an all elf game, but it just never seem to be in the cards. I think you can have a lot fun playing to the stereotypes, or at least acknowledge them. Because for me it is part of why I play a class. If I play an elf I want to be an ancient being, that is either wise and mystical, or an elitist asshole. When younger I loved playing dwarves, both because of my love of the Hobbit books, but also because I like them being gruff tinkerers, who care deeply about their friends.
Then there is Cyberpunk 2020, where the Nomad “class” is able to call upon family members of aid. Which is a great tool for halfling characters. I have played a lot of cheerful halflings (often thieves) throughout the years, who had a fondness for their home and friends.
Of course, it is also fun to run counter to these or make up something new based on them. But I personally like to at least acknowledge the sterotype of the class, if only in the way I avoid them.
I have an entire clan of little bastard kobolds, who all have -y names that describe them, e.g.: Skippy, Nippy, Grippy, Stabby, Slappy, Toasty (he likes toast), Spicy (HE’S the pyromaniac), Scrappy, Zippy, Yippy, and Army, Leggy, and Headley
(I just have to say, Pug, and Wizard, are two of my favorite characters from this comic. They all have their points, however I find Pug to be quite adorable, and Wizard’s drama queen nature is something I find most enjoyable.
Now, I don’t have much for trope following, however one PC I had was set in the Warcraft setting, and an Alliance born human. Humans from the Alliance tend to value honor, and that was him to a T. For him, one’s personal honor as a warrior was more important than pretty much anything else, and he exemplified a willingness to self-sacrifice, and a need to always keep his word and never shirk from duty, or kill an opponent dishonorably.
That honor helped balance out his character flaws, which was an entirely understandable but ultimately harmful hatred of orcs, and a vicious and ruthless anger that he had to be in constant control of, and showed itself in his fighting style. Definitely one of my more fun characters.)
I’m currently playing a celestial who is sometimes comically inept at pretending to be a mortal. They also have five eyes and four wings in their True Form. And I think I’ve had them say “Be not afraid” once or twice. Sometimes it’s fun playing up the tropes.
I love the multiple eyes thing with aasimar:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/a2urwf/art_oc_a_more_biblical_aasimar_interpretation/
I have a half-elf bard with the thief background whose father was an attractive elven thief who (gasp) died when the bard was a teen during a scheme gone wrong. He experienced the half-breed bias from his wood elf cousins and the human townsfolk he grew up around.
He internalized the dislike differently. The bard is now close to 40, looks late 20s, his mom is nearing 60 and he can tell how immature a 17yro human is. He considers his father something of a pedophile. To be honest, an exceptionally stupid pedophile who took orders from his 150+yr-younger wife who had never been more than 10 miles from her home.
Party needed a big meaty meat-shield to deal damage and soak it.
i made a human fighter with all the basic cookie cutter stuff: greatsword, power attack etc. high on str low on int and cha. He was great and effective.
but just to make a point i named him ‘Ijanai Cook’
(when read repeatedly it turns into ‘cookie ja nai’ as far as my weeabu knowledge it’s Japanese for ‘I’m not a cookie’)