Needs Help: An Adventurer Is You

There's a whole slew of closely related articles on this subject, but An Adventurer Is You seems to be the worst of the lot, so that's what I put in for this thread. In addition to An Adventurer Is You, there's Damager, Healer, Tank, Fighter, Mage, Thief, Common Character Classes, Fantasy Character Classes, and Modern Day/Sci-Fi RPG Class Equivalents. Plus there are probably more that I'm not aware of — one of the major problems is that there's not much crosswicking between them all.

There are two basic tropes here: the traits of common classes (what they are, eg "powerful but slow" or "quick but vulnerable") and the combat roles of common classes (what they do, eg "heals allies" or "deals damage to enemies"). Both of these are certainly tropeworthy, but it's still only two tropes, and we've got (at least) six pages right now.

About those individual pages:

• An Adventurer Is You: Seems to be the oldest and most popular of the pages; it's got 466 wicks and nearly 10,000 inbounds. However, the title is a random quote from Kingdom of Loathing that has nothing to do with the trope (and isn't even an example!), the description is long, rambling, and confused, and many of the examples need cleanup (particularly the large number of zero-context examples).
• Damager, Healer, Tank: A much cleaner and more concise description, but a much newer and less popular page: only 30 wicks and 50 inbounds.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The oldest of the "class trait" pages (433 wicks, 2,000 inbounds). The problem is that it doesn't actually seem to be that popular of a trope; most of the examples are variants, exceptions, or otherwise not played straight, suggesting that people are using the trope as a dumping ground for anything that's close enough, which is classic Missing Supertrope Syndrome. It seems like someone was trying really hard to build a trope around the Quest for Glory example.
• Common Character Classes: The description is short and to the point and seems to cover the material the best, but the page has almost no exposure; it's only got 19 wicks and 400 inbounds, and relatively few examples on the page itself.
• Fantasy Character Classes: An enormous, rambling list of other tropes with needlessly subtle distinctions and no examples. I see nothing of value here, but it does have 110 wicks and nearly 8,000 inbounds. Without going into the numerous subtypes, has the same list as Common Character Classes (fighter = warrior, magician = nuker, cleric = support, and ranger and rogue are the same in both).
• Modern Day/Sci-Fi RPG Class Equivalents: Seems to be basically the same page as Common Character Classes, but missing the rogue (soldier = warrior, sniper = ranger, medic = support, and sapper = nuker). Only 8(!) wicks and 650 inbounds, and the examples are completely unsorted.

Here's what I would suggest:

• Combine An Adventurer Is You and Damager, Healer, Tank into a single page that talks about the "tank, DPS, healer" party system. I'd call the page MMO Holy Trinity as that's the most common name I'm aware of for the concept, but it's going to need a lot of redirects in order to make it searchable anyway.
• Merge Fantasy Character Classes and Modern Day/Sci-Fi RPG Class Equivalents into Common Character Classes, and clean up Fighter, Mage, Thief's examples by moving the dodgy ones to Common Character Classes as well. Keep Fighter, Mage, Thief as a Sub-Trope if there are enough examples to warrant it, otherwise merge it too. Spend some effort crosswicking Common Character Classes so that it's not languishing in an ignored corner of the wiki.

edited 24th Feb '16 7:21:42 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I agree, though I suggest RPG Combat Roles and RPG Character Classes for the two articles instead. They're different concepts that overlap. The Character Class System is focused on character building & party-balance; while combat roles are a subset of tactics and can be determined by anything from class to equipment, depending on the work in question.

Oh, did this finally get opened? Huh.

In any case, the class role trope is going to need a lot of redirect farming to make it easily searchable in any case, so I'm not especially concerned about the name we actually use for it. My only problem with the name "RPG Combat Roles" is that it's only common in the specific MMORPG subset. The system doesn't work at all unless you have some mechanic for "holding aggro" (otherwise the enemies can just bypass the tank and target the healer or the DPS first, which makes the whole thing break down).

As far as the character class trope, that one is explicitly not restricted to just RPGs, but includes any game with a class system (which includes everything from shooters to strategy games), so putting "RPG" in the name is misleading. I honestly think that Common Character Classes is pretty much fine as it is, it just needs to be expanded a bit and turned into the primary point of that whole trope family instead of spreading focus across three or four largely-similar tropes with separate articles.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I would say rename An Adventurer Is You to something like a Class And Role System which is a supertrope to the specific trinity's Damager, Healer, Tank and Fighter, Mage, Thief. Which would include support classes like FFXIV's Archer class, which is built around increasing other's damage and does less damage on its own than healers did before the current expansion, and hybrids like Wo W:Legion's Discipline Priest and their original intention for Druids in vanilla.

Fantasy Character Classes and Modern Day/Sci-Fi RPG Class Equivalents are fine since they list the common names for classes but not roles and Sci-Fi's use of equivalents are really a trope to themselves. If anything Modern Day/Sci-Fi RPG Class Equivalents could be expanded to rebranded spells with Sci-Fi names too, like Mass Effect's Overload is just a rebranded Chain Lightning.

Its not just RPG Roles, action games do it like Overwatch.

Then you got the typical MOBA roles, Carry, Assassin, Support, Jungler and Pusher. Or Heroes Of The Storm's roles Assassin, Specialist, Support, Warrior.

edited 29th Apr '16 4:17:34 PM by Memers

Character classes and character roles are two separate things, so Class And Role System doesn't really make sense. Either you're talking about classes, or you're talking about roles. If a game uses both, then it's just an example of both tropes, it doesn't need a separate trope for that. Besides, this thread should be focusing on fixing the mess of existing tropes that we have on the subject. If you want to propose a new trope, that's YKTTW's bag.

Modern Day/Sci-Fi RPG Class Equivalents is literally The Same But More Specific for Common Character Classes. The trope being described is the same, except that the modern version is combines "rogue" with "ranger". We don't need two separate articles that talk about the same concepts but use different names for them, and Common Character Classes is already written as genre-neutral. Fantasy Character Classes, on the other hand, is a giant, unwieldy list without any actual trope being described ("this is a list of things that happen in some works" isn't a trope) and has zero examples — it's basically unsalvageable.

edited 29th Apr '16 9:48:32 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Reading An Adventurer Is You it is about classes, characters and roles though, and its being used as such. Then what about splitting into 3?

• Class System
• Role System
• Character Choice System

As supertropes. Class System covers well Class systems like World Of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV.

Character system covers things like Overwatch and Heroes Of The Storm where you are a specific character and name among many and they fit a specific role. As well as things like Star Ocean 2, Dynasty Warriors, almost all fighting games.

Role system covers those games which use well Role systems like Damager, Healer, Tank and Assassin, Specialist, Support, Warrior. A Class System and Character system can use this as well for random queuing and group makeup, like World Of Warcraft uses 1 tank 1 healer 3 dps for a dungeon, 2 tanks 6 healers 17 dps for random raids. And Final Fantasy XIV uses 1 tank 1 healer 2 dps. And Heroes Of The Storm will have groups of "No more than 3 Warriors, No more than 4 Assassins, No more than 2 Support, No more than 2 Specialists No more than 3 Melee heroes."

As for Fantasy vs Sci-Fi, I still think there should be a trope about Fantasy To Modern Or Sci Fi Counterpart Classes And Skills because that is seriously a thing on its own. As for common classes and fantasy classes, those can be merged I think, the big list is pretty much what is up on Elemental Powers.

edited 29th Apr '16 10:19:02 PM by Memers

An Adventurer Is You is about roles. The list it has is tank, healer, DPS, etc. Those are job descriptions (roles), not character descriptions (classes).

Class system is covered under Character Class System (seriously, it's the first hit if you search the wiki for "class system") and Common Character Classes. The only problem is that we have extraneous pages that confuse the issue, and the good pages that we do have aren't crosswicked very well.

Role system is not something I'm convinced is tropeworthy, but even if it is, it's a new trope and thus should go to YKTTW rather than here. An Adventurer Is You and Damager, Healer, Tank both talk about the MMO Holy Trinity (whatever your preferred name for the concept is), which is why I'm trying to focus on in this thread.

I have no idea why you think "Common Character Classes, but Modern/Scifi" is tropeworthy, but I've already explained why I disagree. It's not "seriously a thing on its own". It's the same thing with a different name. Maybe a more general Sci Fi Equivalent trope talking about porting fantasy concepts to sci-fi settings would be tropeworthy, but again, that's YKTTW, not here.

edited 29th Apr '16 10:23:11 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Since Character Class System is already there, maybe it could be something as simple as consolidating the other pages into a "List Of Character Classes" covering both fantasy and scifi equivalents. It may not even need work examples, it could just be a definition page to keep it's size down.

"Team Combat Roles" could work for the other name, if you're including non-RPGs, that way it could have a RL section for armed forces & sports teams. Plus, pen & paper RPGs as well as some non-MMO videogames use character roles, they're just not always clearly defined as such. Like a Druid taking the place of a Cleric, even the 4th edition of D&D had a section on combat roles and how they work.

Also, should Class and Level System and Character Class System be merged? Or perhaps altered to be Character Class System and Level System? Because I can't think of many examples of character systems without levels, but there's a lot of level-progression-only systems out there, like in Call of Duty multiplayer.

Oh man all these pages are a mess yikes. Can we rebuild the thing from the ground up?

Overwatch uses a character and role system but no combat levels what so ever. FPS really started to use it lately and levels seem optional.

edited 5th May '16 9:46:48 AM by Memers

Lists are not tropes. What's tropey about certain commonly-seen character classes is the effect they have on the gameplay of the works that use them — that's why Common Character Classes is genre-neutral and describes both the classes and how they interact. "Common Character Classes but Fantasy/Modern/Sci-Fi" is The Same But More Specific, and not tropeworthy.

Hell, my problem with Fantasy Character Classes as it stands is that it's basically just a giant list rather than a coherent trope.

It's not a generic trope for "players in teams take on individually defined roles". It's a trope for the specific system common in MMO games where a high defense but low offense "tank" character holds the enemy's attention, high offense but low defense "DPS" characters kill the enemies, and "healer" characters with low offense and low defense use support abilities to keep their teammates alive. There shouldn't be any real-life or sports examples.

Character Level is already a thing. It's linked right at the top of Class and Level System. And there are plenty of level-less class systems; many of them listed on Character Class System.

Let's try to focus on the subject at hand rather than trying to fix a dozen pages at once. This thread is broad enough already.

Then that's a Character Class System (and possibly an example of Damager, Healer, Tank; I'm not familiar with the game), but not a Class and Level System.

edited 5th May '16 5:21:43 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

This is a weird page, and a mess of really similar concepts with a lot of overlap. It definitely seems like it can be merged into something much more clearly about the roles it describes.

Overall, I agree with the opening suggestions.

I'd definitely support MMO Holy Trinity as a page. It's something that has started to grow beyond MM Os (Final Fantasy XIII very blatantly uses it), but it definitely got its start there. There's something a bit contrived about those exact roles that makes its use significant (though I'd hope to avoid the negative connotation of that wording to avoid issues). In a more realistic situation, most enemies wouldn't fall for taunts while other people make that guy essentially invincible, no amount of armor would save you from being crushed by a colossal dragon, and a dedicated battle healer isn't much of a thing outside video games. In other words, they're very clearly game balancing mechanics, in a sort of rock-paper-scissors sort of way, rather than a logical form of in-universe combat.

I think that leaves room open for pages about other kinds of role setups though. Team Combat Roles should maybe be a supertrope for MMO Holy Trinity and those.

All character classes could probably share a page, like suggested. I feel Sci Fi Equivalent is definitely a thing that could certainly go through YKTTW, but I do feel it's part of a trope series involving classes and their uses and meanings.

I'd hope Fighter, Mage, Thief could survive the clean-up. It serves a purpose of giving a basic amount of variety to character archetypes. Plus, I feel it was the standard before dedicated healers became a thing and shifted character class setups from "distinct ways to fight" to "distinct roles to play during combat." (I feel it's relevant that Fighter, Mage, Thief has a much longer non-game section, and more of those examples aren't just homages to RP Gs. A variety in fighting styles is something that can apply to a lot more things than game balance mechanics that don't exist in real life.)

edited 6th May '16 3:25:21 AM by Jokubas

I mostly agree with the proposal. Merging is a good course of action given the overlap. However, I feel like a trope or concept is missing. Both the proposed merged tropes seem to deal with gameplay elements. But what about the character archetypes and their personalities/behaviors, etc? This seems isolated from character tropes somehow.

Also, I don't understand how the two merged tropes are really different. Character choice vs character combat. But, yall seem to distinguish them just fine.

Thanks for pointing those out, I'd forgotten about games with static classes like Team Fortress and Overwatch. Still, I can only find 2 other level-less class-systems (Mario Kart and XCOM) in the examples on Character Class System, with the other examples overlapping with other pages on the big list.

In an attempt to make some progress on this, I've put together Sandbox.MMO Holy Trinity. I still think that all we really need is this page replacing both the existing An Adventurer Is You and Damager, Healer, Tank, with Common Character Classes picking up the slack from Fantasy Character Classes and Modern Day/Sci-Fi RPG Class Equivalents (with Fighter, Mage, Thief as a subtrope).

Thoughts?

Edit — Forgot to mention. In the process of writing up the sandbox, I realized it might be useful to have a separate article on aggro mechanics, which is a related-but-distinct concept. We have Draw Aggro but that's not actually about the game mechanic (though the game mechanic is also an example).

edited 28th Jun '16 9:01:20 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Draw Aggro should be the name of the gameplay version because it's a common gaming term, while the current trope should get a new name.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

"Draw Aggro" is too narrow for a general trope about threat and aggro mechanics as a whole, I think. And that's sort of a side issue anyway; we need to focus on An Adventurer Is You and related tropes in this thread, we can deal with creating new tropes via a Trope Launcher thread.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Yeah it would be under a more general Threat Mechanics description with Hate Mechanics and Aggro Mechanics as redirects. It would need to go into detail about

• high threat attacks,
• moves that instantly put you on top of the threat meter and attacked, sometimes only a temporary effect.
• threshold mechanics where you might need 120% of the threat of whoever it is attacking to actually have it turn and attack if they are at range,
• fixate mechanics where for a period they do not obey the rules,
• bouncing aggro between people the avoid stacking debuffs or make it so the one tanking avoids a big hit
• and aggro drops where the whole threat meter goes down to 0 thus the mob turns and attacks the first thing that pops up on the threat table.

And so on.... Ok I nerded out there.

Anyway I like the sandbox mostly although we might need a paragraph on hybrid classes that can do 2-3 at once but never as good as a pure class or can not pull off the other spec for very long.

As well as some games and classes who allow you to respec and switch roles out of combat and are just as or almost as good as pure spec classes.

edited 29th Jun '16 6:13:21 AM by Memers

I figured that details like that would go in the examples, rather than the main article. The trope is about the roles, not the classes or individual character builds.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Adding a paragraph about them would let people know it's ok to talk about them in the examples.

As many games only have a specific amount of 'Pure Role' classes that specialize in that one specific role and many that have different varieties of 'hybrid' roles to mix it up. But they still almost always keep them like 75% into 'Damage' if there are any elements to the game that involve doing things outside of the group. 'Damage' ends up being a dumping ground for everything not a tank or healer.

Like Final Fantasy XIV's Bard which is like 75% DPS 25% Buff Class but is counted as a damage class.

Also might want to specify that in the Damage role are usually split into Melee Dps and Ranged DPS or 'Physical' and 'Magical' subroles as well but only a few games make this a real big deal outside of the fact that things get crowded with too many Melee DPS.

edited 29th Jun '16 7:02:59 AM by Memers

That's fair enough; I added a line about hybrid characters to the "other roles" section. Different types of DPS (melee vs ranged, single target vs AOE, etc) are already mentioned in the DPS section.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

This is all wrong!

Actually, I cannot speak for the MMORPG tank/support/whatever thingy, but Fighter, Mage, Thief is a subtrope of figther/mage/thief/cleric, which was popularised by ye olde advanced dungeons and dragons. Designed so that every player was essential for something, and had a clearly scriptable role to follow. The fighter/mage/thief trichotomy comes about in single player games where you have just one character, because cleric is pure support, and cannot properly translate to one character gameplay.

Also, anyone else getting a big Four-Element Ensemble / Five-Man Band vibe?

Oh wait a minute, Damage=mage, healer=cleric, warrior=tank. This would be some sort of holy trinity that would form in any game that didn't feature trap-ridden corridors and trap-ridden chests. (Without those, the rogue has no purpose.)

This one is going to take me a while to review. I hope it survives the week.

edited 30th Jun '16 12:36:50 AM by war877

What is so wrong about the Holy Trinity of Tank Damage Healer? Its what you want to do as a role in the party not class. When compared to say Fighter, Mage, Thief sometimes the Fighter is a tank and sometimes its a damage. Hell sometimes a Mage is the healer.

That's the way things work in multiplayer games and customizable character games now, especially those with Random Group features typically called Looking For Group or Group Finder.

World Of Warcraft for example uses Tank Damage Healer and an option to check if you are willing to lead the group. [1]◊

The only odd man out outside of MOBA games that I can find is Rift has an additional option for support [2]◊.

edited 30th Jun '16 1:17:54 AM by Memers

I made a bad joke. Sorry.

Yeah, the Common Character Classes don't line up one-to-one with combat roles.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Guys, I just found Splat. We gotta do something with it.

Ahem.

So, well, I've got comments:

• I agree with merging Fantasy ans Scifi Character Classes to Common Character Classes.
• Damager, Healer, Tank, during its conception, was based and named after "MMO Holy Trinity". So yeah we got that covered.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief and Common Character Classes are technically different ways of looking at the same things. Respectively, Fighter is Warrior, Mage is Nuker/Support, and Thief is Ranger/Rogue. Can we left them as is or should we merge them?
• When you try boiling all of them down to their functional value, you get Combat and Support. Everything you do is either one of those two things. (Except perhaps for Mechanically Unusual Class.)
• The problem with Common Char acterClasses is that they're not classes, they're roles. In many RP Gs, many classes can fill the same role in CCC, their difference being their skills, flair and gimmicks. E.g whether you're a sword-swinging knight class or a Bare-Fisted Monk class, their primary role is still direct combat (Warrior).
• An Adventurer Is You is quite the mess, I'd agree. But I think they might be merge-able to Common Character Classes, in that Tank (insofar as they tank damage for their friends) is Support, DPS is either Ranger, Warrior or Rogue depending on the case, Healer is Support, Buffer/Debuffer and Mezzer are Supports, Resource Master is Support and Nuker is, well, Nuker. Petmaster is, well, kinda gimmicky, but I think it depends on what the individual Petmaster can do with their "pets". In the end those 2 tropes could be just 2 ways of looking at the same thing.
• I agree that Fantasy Character Classes is not a trope per se, but as written it looks rather like an Useful Note (in that you can see what kind of ideas fantasy has thrown for making classes). So yeah, repurpose it as UN instead of cutting it.

MAX POWER KILL JEEEEEEEEWWWWW