My Life as a Gamer: The Iconic Ones Are Most Playable

I'll post something about the start of the E3 2016 conferences after the Bethesda conference this evening. Until then, something almost completely different.

The armored warrior pictured here is a NPC from World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor by the name of Tommork. He defected from the decaying empire of Ogres known as the Gorian Empire, which the Alliance & Horde finished off during their war against the Iron Horde, and came to become part of the personal bodygyard of one of the generals of the Alliance and Horde armies (i.e. your character). He has his origins, as most of his sort do, in the gladitorial games. That gave me an idea.

Palladium's fantasy RPG has both playable Ogres and a Gladiator character class. Building up to a character like this is a worthy campaign goal, and Draenor is a setting that is actually quite friendly to Palladium's ruleset. (You'll have to move homebrew and hybridize, but it IS doable.) A D&D/Pathfinder version is also viable, especially under some editions. (As for more obscure games, TORG can do this easily. Earthdawn may be doable.)

So, when I find a table suitable for it, I'm rolling a character of this sort and playing Ogre Gladiator. Seek out challenging opponents, be they men or monsters, and sword them into submission (or death). Adventuring suits that motivation just fine, makes it easy to provide playable scenarios, and creates an iconic character that's not hard to relate to. Also, this character concept allows me to play the fucking game and dispense with the frustrated novelist/actor bullshit. (This is something far too many people who get paid making this stuff forget, and slip said bullshit into their product instead. Then they wonder why they get shit on for unplayable content.)

So, let's nail this down: The iconic archetypes are most playable. Stick to those and you cannot lose.