Millie: "Why do you suppose superheroes are all such jocks, anyway? People who write superhero comics aren't jocks. They're even bigger nerds than us."
Ozy: "Maybe it's a form of Stockholm syndrome. An identification with, and internalization of, the values of an oppressor."
Ozy and Millie 2006/05/18 (navigate back a few for the start of the joke)
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Since before I was born, gamers have suffered a morbid sort of Stockholm syndrome through their avatars, prentending they're grunting barbarians even as they memorize page after page of feats and backstory. In fact I had barely started this blog before noting that Half-Life's nominally hard science protagonist was a rare blip in a sea of marines, space marines, ultramarines and randomarines, and even Gordon just shot shit up. Entering a realm of the mind to define yourself by physical stats seems like pretty classic Nietzschean slavishness, defining your happinness by the standards of the rabble you're escaping by diving into virtualia in the first place. I especially grit my teeth at e-"sports" aping jock leagues.
So where's the flip-side? Where's the nerd supremacism? You'd think D&D for example, which back in the '90s would get you physically beaten for even admitting you knew of its existence, would wholeheartedly embrace a revenge of the nerds. But balancing spellcasters vs. grunts remains a major talking point in any discussion on RPGs. As a reminder of this, last year it turned out Baldur's Gate 3 got limited to lvl 12, explicitly so as not to allow wizards their high-level pay-off.
Um, wizards damn well should be overpowered. Reason deserves to be held superior to emotion or physicality.
Everything we have, everything we can do in the real world that no other animal can do, we owe to intellect, to individuals of superior reason. Everything you wear, eat, drive or type on had to be thought before it was made. Nobody makes a computer monitor by praying at it or punching it, and don't even start on investors, publishers or profiteering companies patenting their employees' work. At an even more fundamental level, thought is existence. Intellectual superiority is existential superiority. Add some universal force called "magic" and you are only adding new levers by which to move the world - and those best suited to do so would still be those smart enough to know where to place the fulcrum. The mental intricacy and fortitude to shift the very laws of nature leaves "hulk smash" a class below by its very concept. So stop trying to equivalate brains with brawn.
And alright, I'll concede a wide mix of classes definitely adds some spice. Occasionally even I play something other than an elvish wizard/druid. But classes can also consist of nothing but spellcasters differing in their means of interaction with baser matter like jocks. It's pretty common for cRPGs to just hand fighters stupidly overpowered swords and boards for endgame viability, but I'd rather keep all classes relevant by enforcing interdependencies. Stop giving wizards "nukes" and have them work through their teammates: buffs, crowd control, mobility, clairvoyance, etc. Better yet, make nonmagical classes into mooks for casters.
In fact, every time this issue comes up I can't but recall M.A.X. in which you, the player, were a brain in a jar directing largely robotic forces and an automated colony base. Spellcasters, istari, and in a wider sense "the wise" direct matter inert or living. A game with wizards should only feature sword-swinging grunts as tools for wizards.
("and high disdain from sense of injur'd merit")
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