Piracy And Other Malfeasance

[Thomas Shey]

It's telling there that you used the word "heroes" where bolded, rather than "characters"; as if it's a baseline assumption that the PCs are always going to be heroes.

Yes. I'm remarkably uninterested in running a villains game, especially of the degree that doing an authentic version of this requires. If that's what someone wants, they can do it somewhere else. Shades-of-grey protagonists? Sure. Blackhearted scoundrels? Absolutely uninterested.

WotC (and before them, later-era TSR) market the game as "people playing heroes" because they have to, in order to avoid backlash from the ignorant public (cf Satanic panic, 1980s). That doesn't mean we who play the game have to pay any attention whatsoever to that marketing.

I wouldn't have cared how they marketed it. I have no interest in engaging, either as a GM or a player with genuine hardcore bad guys. Not in the least.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes. I'm remarkably uninterested in running a villains game, especially of the degree that doing an authentic version of this requires. If that's what someone wants, they can do it somewhere else. Shades-of-grey protagonists? Sure. Blackhearted scoundrels? Absolutely uninterested.



I wouldn't have cared how they marketed it. I have no interest in engaging, either as a GM or a player with genuine hardcore bad guys. Not in the least.

And that's fine, but it has nothing to do with anyone else's table or some general idea of how the game "should" be played. It's just your preference.

 

[Tonguez]

Yes. I'm remarkably uninterested in running a villains game, especially of the degree that doing an authentic version of this requires. If that's what someone wants, they can do it somewhere else. Shades-of-grey protagonists? Sure. Blackhearted scoundrels? Absolutely uninterested.

I wouldn't have cared how they marketed it. I have no interest in engaging, either as a GM or a player with genuine hardcore bad guys. Not in the least.

So you wouldn't consider something like Blades in the Dark or Dragon Heist?

 

[Reynard]

So you wouldn't consider something like Blades in the Dark or Dragon Heist?

Neither of those things require villainous/evil protagonists.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And that's fine, but it has nothing to do with anyone else's table or some general idea of how the game "should" be played. It's just your preference.

Try not to read things into it that aren't there, Micah. I didn't say it was. I was responding to Lanefan's response to how I handle things. Given that, my counterresponse was entirely appropriate.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So you wouldn't consider something like Blades in the Dark or Dragon Heist?

Probably not, from what I know of the first, and I don't know enough about the second to say.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Neither of those things require villainous/evil protagonists.

I'd been under the impression Blades kind of did, but perhaps I'm in error. And perhaps people are not reading my use of "blackhearted scoundrals" properly.

 

[Voadam]

I'd been under the impression Blades kind of did, but perhaps I'm in error. And perhaps people are not reading my use of "blackhearted scoundrals" properly.

Blades in the Dark looks like it is mostly about fantasy heists and not assassinations or necessarily full on brutal villains. It looks like it could accommodate either non-villainous or villainous play.

 

[Tonguez]

Blades in the Dark looks like it is mostly about fantasy heists and not assassinations or necessarily full on brutal villains. It looks like it could accommodate either non-villainous or villainous play.

It's dark and gritty and plays in to characters having vices, gaining turf and being on the wrong side of the law. That's balanced by the City itself being dark and largely corrupt, so PCs can take a vigilante stance if they don't want to be outright gangsters - still not really a place for heroic pcs

 

[bloodtide]

That seems like a session 0 problem.

I wish.

Sadly it is more like:
DM: "So When I say Pirates I'm saying the absolute pure dark evil horror, something close to the TV show "Black Sails".
Player(s) "ok" Spills some Mt. Dew.... (not listening and have never seen the TV show and will never watch it)