The Fighter is a Commander
The fighter who doesn't become a leader is a static character.
In my video on the Fighter that I released on Monday, I brought up several times the idea that a fighter of sufficiently high level must become a commander at some point. Today I wanted to take the opportunity to expand on that idea because it really does lie at the heart of the problem with the modern fighter. The fact that mass combat has largely been expunged from modern role playing means that the fighter is an incomplete character class missing a large portion of his historical, literary and mythological significance of that character archetype. Today, we’re going to discuss that significance as well as why modern players balk at the idea of becoming commanders and how to overcome those objections.
Why is it so important that a fighter ultimately become a military leader? As I said in my video, it’s a reflection of the career arc of real-life warriors. Hell, it’s a reflection of most every profession. In my civilian job, I recently accepted a promotion that has me working as part of the management team as well as on the sales floor. My bosses decided that I was good enough as a salesman to be put in a leadership position over my office’s sales team. This is the way it’s supposed to be. Those who are successful in a certain profession are also expected to be able to lead others. That’s how you become a qualified leader. You prove yourself to be capable of the task and are therefore promoted to lead other people and serve as an example for others. This is what the Fighter does. A skilled fighter will learn to lead soldiers. The best fictional example of this is my beloved Berserk. When we first meet Guts, he is a skilled but undisciplined warrior. Casca refers to Guts as a wild dog and questions whether or not he actually cares enough to lead men. Guts does actually learn to be a commander though and becomes one of the most feared mercenaries in the world…before things go horribly wrong. The ability to lead men is a sign of growth not just in skill but in intelligence and character. In reality, all classes should become leaders of some variety or another, but the fighter especially needs that level of development.
Why do players seem so allergic to the idea of leading armies though? You see examples of it in almost every fantasy story. Conan, Aragorn, Guts, Eragon, Harry Dresden, Luke Skywalker, etc all end up leading armies at some point in their story. Why is this a problem in an RPG? Well, firstly, the war gaming has been bred out of most strains of role playing game because of its perceived complexity and lack of narrative elements. This will require its own article, but I will say that war games are not devoid of narrative. However, the second reason that players shy away from commanding armies is what I like to call the God of War/Total War problem. Players like myself who grew up with video games usually view table-top games the same way they view narrative-heavy single-player video games. It’s all about experiencing a story that you are the central focus of and you play a one-man army of massive power and destruction. The best example of this is Kratos from God of War. It’s easy to see Kratos in the 5e fighter; a one-man engine of destruction who starts out powerful and only to become more powerful as time goes on. Commanding armies though? That’s a different genre. I want to play God of War, not Total War. I want to be involved in the combat, not directing it from a bird’s eye view. You can see how this objection would be natural, but it rests upon two incorrect assumptions. It assumes that table-top games are like video games and that commanding an army is a hands-off experience.
Let’s start with that first assumption. Video games are not like table top games. Video games are, even today, a limited medium. They have to be mechanically focused due to hardware limitations. You don’t get to build an army of Spartans that you can command in God of War because that would require an entire set of mechanics to recruit, manage and command those Spartans. Code has to be written and run at the same time that the game has to render other things. Likewise, Total War cannot allow for the kind of individual control of a unit in battle that God of War offers. A table-top game can offer that though and should offer it. There’s nothing to render. It’s all handled with rules in a book, dice and imagination. You can recruit and command your army and control your character as a unit in that battle. In fact, a Fighter is a devastating unit to have on your side in mass combat. At least he should be.
I’ve already partially addressed the second assumption, but commanding an army is not hands-off in a role playing game. Your fighter has abilities that are necessary for combat, notably the cleave ability that allows for attacking multiple units. This is not modern military command from a safe distance. This is medieval combat where nobles and rulers lead their armies on horseback. You are Charles Martel or George Washington, commanding your men from the front. This is only possible in a table top format. The primary problem that modern gamers have with understanding the potential of role playing games is that they think too small. Your brain is so much more powerful than even the best PC. Your imagination and the dice are the only limits on what you can do.
To tie this all back together, there are very compelling reasons why a high level fighter should be commanding his own army and nothing short of an untimely character death preventing this from happening. Do not put constraints on your game that don't belong there and don't treat your table top games like video games.