For instance, EVE online has the normal tank setup in PVE, but you can also spider tank. Everybody does some repping (healing) so, if any person takes aggro everyone can focus on keeping that guy alive WHILE doing their damage.

You could do the same in WOW with a group of nothing but pallys in theory as well.

So, tanks arent *needed* they just make it easier.

Apparently this piece must have gotten some play somewhere to have attracted people to this site a year after the fact.

So, having missed the opportunity to actually engage in some kind of timely discourse, I’ll weigh in with my repetitive statement that it may be that doing away with the “tank” archetype is impossible.

I realize that RPG and MMORPG folks do not want to exist in a world where a single arrow through the neck, or dagger in the back would do in a character independent of their “stats.” Hit points are the convention here, it’s not like some Counter-strike style twitch game.

So should there be a happy medium? Is there some way to include a little bit of realism to the fantasy, or is the convention really the only way?

Faucet Eye mentioned a few examples of tanks, but only one of the four applies.

The only one of the four mentioned (Aragorn, Conan, Chewbacca and The Thing) that fits the current “tank” archetype is The Thing. A blaster or lightsaber would kill Chewie as certainly as it would an armored stormtrooper. Swords and arrows would quickly end Conan’s reign if he were to simply puff out his chest and say “go ahead and put it in me… that’s what your mom said earlier today.” And Aragorn certainly did his best not to require elven healing despite the comeliness of his favorite nursemaid.

Only The Thing talks trash at his opponents while allowing himself to be bludgeoned, shot at, exploded, flung or death ray-ed until either he, or his foe finally gave in to exhaustion.

Maybe this is what fantasy games had in mind all along?

Of course, this “answer” only applies to computer games, and not to RPGs like D&D – in that case, the DM is just fail.

Time for anecdata:

In the couple of times I’ve dabbled in D&D, having a tank barely helped, because at starting levels everyone gets their ass kicked by everything. Sensible.

In the time I’ve played WoW, I’ve come to despise tanks. Mostly because they are THE, number one, most difficult-to-find class on my server. ARGH. In this situation especially, I am fully of the opinion that the tank-system needs to be revised. It is ridiculous and fun-reducing to be forced to rely so fully on one character.

RAWR.

One guy does good damage, but can’t take a hit. One guy can get pummeled for hours, but can’t kill anything. Another guy maybe has range attacks, but is useless in melee. Someone else can heal, but doesn’t do much damage.

They’re all very simple and specialized roles which may or may not have real-life/literary/fictional counterparts – but it makes the job of the game developer much easier.

You don’t have to worry about any one class being overpowered, because they’ve got built-in drawbacks. And you don’t need to work too hard to make people group up, because the game mechanics do that for you.

In games where a single character can, more or less, do it all themselves you’ll see very little incentive to group up. Look at something like Diablo II or Hellgate, where the entire game could easily be soloed… Even when you were doing multiplayer there was seldom any actual cooperation.

The tank is a tough guy that can take a beating. Hercules was a tank. Conan was a tank. Gimli, William Wallace, He-Man – all tanks. Tough as nails dudes that you can’t beat down.

Aragorn

Chewbacca

The Thing

Tanks one and all, my friend. They just didn’t have hitpoints, so the mechanics are somewhat different.

What I am trying to do is get people to start thinking about the classes they are playing in terms other than the ones which have been served up so repetitively that most gamers have become conditioned to simply accept and look right past the obvious incongruities.

Are tanks in MMOs implemented in the only practical way?
It’s possible, I suppose, but in my opinion unlikely.