"Making Fighters interesting to play..." Topic

NOTE: This topic is about ways to better role play Fighters within a D&D campaign, long term. If you do not enjoy complex role playing outside of dungeon crawls, this thread will not interest you. Hit the "Back" button, and move on. Thank you.

I just discovered two videos, on YouTube, detailing the more than 15 Military Orders of Knights, during the medieval period. These really gave me food for thought! Shockingly, there was the Order of the Hatchet: a military order of women warriors, who fought because the Christian men were disappearing, and they didn't want their Muslim enemies to take their castle!

Every Major Crusader Order Explained in Under 14 Minutes

Every Other Major Crusader Order Explained in Under 12 Minutes

I ran a 2e BattleSystem game, a couple of years ago, with a Dwarven Army. I had a Unit of Female Dwarf Fighters I used in that game, which prompted me to dub them, The Widow's Brigade: their husbands had died in battle against Humanoid enemies, so they took up arms because they had little left to live for. This was before I knew of the real-world historical Order of the Hatchet…

Watching these videos made me realize that when I created a couple of military mercenary orders, 30 years ago, I had only scratched the surface of what was historical, and what I could do in my games.

I gotta say, I like the idea of military orders for PC Fighters to join: advancing through Order Ranks (Soldier, Sergeant,… Grand Master), as well as character levels; role playing conflicts arising from the Order's escapades; non-Fighter PC's could also join the ranks; what to do if they leave the Order, or they get kicked out? Loads of ideas can be gleaned from the brief histories presented in these two videos.

I have always hated how DM's are never really given any ideas in the rule books over the past 50 years, on how to build out Fighters as more than simple, one-dimensional, Fighting Men/Warriors, into something more fun and exciting to play.

Obviously, the Paladin and the Ranger, are basically Military Order types of characters. The Cavalier could be considered a member of a Military Order, but it was never discussed by Gary, in his Unearthed Arcana book.

One of the interesting aspects are how these Military Orders were created: often they arose out of a single battle, being recognized for their heroism and combat prowess, but they went on to grow into whole Orders, with land holdings across entire kingdoms, and beyond. It could be a lot of fun to create one from an in-game battle, and then allow the PC's to see it grow from there, over time.

These Orders often had more than just titled Knights within their orders: they had clergy; nurses and medical doctors running their hospitals; regular soldiers who were commoners; smiths and armorers; merchants; bankers; and many more types within their ranks!

I could see multiple temples forming their own, non-Paladin, Military Orders, controlling them directly through their clergy, or better yet, having them as an off-shoot, run independently, by their Grand Masters. Of course the affiliated temples could always declare them heretics… (Where have I seen this before?…)

Some of these Orders became immensely wealthy, and surprisingly powerful. The Knights Templar have a storied history as wealthy bankers who had Kings beholding to them -- this is thought to be why King Philip IV of France (who was incredibly deep in debt to the Templars, in desperate need of moneys to pay them off…), and the Pope at that time, condemned them, so they could split their wealth between them, after they labeled them heretics, executing their Grand Master, and killing others within the Order.

Take a look at the two videos. If you are interested in making Fighters more than one-dimensional characters within your game world, perhaps these videos will inspire you. Cheers!

You can't teach "Making XYZ Class Interesting". It all depends on the real-life person playing the character. If their idea of role-playing is sitting quietly until they are told to roll dice then it doesn't matter what idea seeds you give them. They will sit quietly until told to roll dice.

On the other hand if they player is wildly creative, then their characters will be a hoot to have in your adventure.

Just my two copper pieces

Dave

Military and religious orders would help give a fighter charachter more dimension.

There are plenty of excellent suggestions that can prompt players, help them add depth to their characters. The tone of the group and example of fellow gamers around the table are also a huge influence, to stifle or encourage.

But end of the day I'm with PzGeneral here; engaging with the narrative is ultimately in the hands of the individual.

Giving the player the all the right ingredients doesn't mean a thing if they don't want to cook.

A lot of players just don't have any ideas how to play a Fighter -- they need inspiration. That is my purpose: to offer examples for both players and DM's.

I've always struggled with the AD&D Ranger class. They were copied from LotR, which I've never read beyond the first book. Having watched the movies several times, I still know practically nothing about how to play a Ranger, other than as a loner warrior.

History has a lot of material to mine for ideas. I agree, a DM can only present ideas, and options, to the players. It is up to the players whether they wish to do anything with those options. However, if their DM does not present any ideas for them to pursue, the player may find themselves swimming against a strong current opposed to their ideas. Cheers!

So here is my problem with Rangers, and its not the Ranger that is the problem. For the Ranger to be a Ranger, you have to essentially be doing a Hexcrawl, with lots of wilderness things for the ranger to be doing. Done properly, that means having a hex map, most likely scaled to 1 mile per hex, and have a meaningful world to be adventuring in. a 30 mile hex just doesnt cut it, and doing a point crawl, just teleporting from town to dungeon (etc) doesn't cut it either.

Doing this is a LOT of work for a DM, and not easy to get right, and from my experience, it will not be appreciated by most players either, as they are mostly to lazy.

Now if the player who is playing a ranger, has his character die, and he starts a ______ ( fill in the blank) any character other then a Ranger, oh, you by default NEVER let a pc get killed? then what do you do, back to the point crawl?

Lots for the DM, and most player only want to hack-n-slash anyways. And if your playing a 5e railroad game, there is not much for any character class to do, other then just "stack their character sheet" just like they " Stack their deck" in that other game by WoTC.

Albus Malum, I can't speak to much of what you wrote. There are many types of gamers in RPG's: some enjoy hex crawls, some do not; some enjoy dungeon crawls to the exclusion of all other types of adventure, some enjoy a wide variety of adventure types and tropes; some DM's enjoy creating a game world that is big and expansive, complex, and diverse, and some limit their game world setting to a simple one-page map of a town/village, and a dungeon entrance. The list goes on, and on…

I like/enjoy role playing. The style of murder-hobo'ing where the PC's smash the monsters, and grab their treasure to level up, wash, rinse, repeat, is not my style. I enjoy a form of hex crawls (my point is the encounters, so I skip the boring stuff, and get straight to the encounters -- like an episode of Law & Order…), point-to-point adventures, as well as dungeon crawls. I like variety. I enjoy the work of prep'ing a game, as long as the players get fun out of what I create.

I have only played 5e a few times, literally. I have no idea what its style is, to be honest. I've been playing since 1980, with 1e, switching to 2e AD&D rules when they were published in 1989. Never saw a reason to hop into any of the later versions. Cheers!