Can DnD ever approximate the heroic literature?
It has the mood that you are looking for, at least... Wuxia said:
I really don't know why you believe that "realistic" must be at odds with "heroic". In _The Return of the King_, Eowyn and Merry ganged up on the Witch-King and killed him that way. In the Appendices of the book, it's mentioned how King Earnur was challenged by the same Witch-King to face him in Minas Morgul. Earnur paid the price of his folly, and was never seen again.
Furthermore, D&D is, in the end, a game about cooperation. Each character contributes an equal share to overcoming challenges, and gets an equal amount of spotlight time. Sometimes, that means everyone gets a kick at the big bad guy. The situation is different in a legend or folktale, where usually one character is the focus of the story, and everyone else is his backup. This is fine for literature, but not for a game.
It sounds like your fellow players simply aren't very heroic, regardless of what ruleset you're using.
Again, that's not a problem with D&D as such, as with the design of the campaign and the adventure. It doesn't really matter which system you use; strength of numbers is usually an advantage, all other things being equal. In this situation, the questions to ask are:
- why was the party able to call on the resources of the city guards?
- why are the guards strong enough face the challenges of the bad guys?
- why are the bad guys in a place where the guards can come down and fight them?
All of these questions have to do with how your DM designed the adventure. Personally, I don't think any adventure where the PCs have the option of calling on big brother to help them out is that great -- it cheapens the PCs' contributions and results in questions being asked as to why they're necessary at all.
