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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CruelSummerLord" data-source="post: 3443823" data-attributes="member: 48692">Well, as was just pointed out, Buffy gave other characters a great deal of screen time and development of their relationships, and some of them definitely grew in power as time went on.  Some characters would be written out of storylines, and new ones would appear and be worked into the story.  They didn't just pop out of nowhere; they were introduced.  Same thing with a show like C.S.I.: Although Grissom is technically the main character, as supervisor of the team, the characters all have their own quirks and personalities, and more about them has been revealed as time has gone on as well.  One new character became a full-fledged investigator after being a "lab rat": an upcoming episode focuses on the secondary "lab rats" as well.  Record of Lodoss War is another classic example: There is a main protagonist, but he himself becomes a much better fighter as time goes on, all while other characters have their own conflicts and their own time in the spotlight.  Some of them die, while later on, new "PCs" show up and become part of the cast of "protagonists" in their own mind.  None of these franchises want for fans.  And, like you yourself said, Star Trek rotates the protagonist from one character to another.  Why should it be any different for a party of adventurers?  As to why I would insist on writing it in "Game Fantasy", that is to say, with all the tropes of the "Fantasy Heartbreakers" Ron Edwards wrote about, it's a lot like the analogy Gary Larson made in "The Far Side Tenth Anniversary Book": If he tried writing "Blondie", it would still come out looking like "The Far Side"-Dagwood getting bitten by his rabid dog, for example, and then killing his boss.  (Seriously, that's what Larson said.)  Similarly, I've already pointed out what would happen if I tried to write "A Tale of Two Cities" or "King Lear"; some of the characters would end up becoming elves or orcs, and it might be set in a game setting.  Why?  Because I love D&D/stereotypical fantasy motifs, and I enjoy including them in my work-for me, writing in a world where only humans existed, would be personally unfulfilling, and I'd hate every minute of it.  I wouldn't enjoy writing the work, and it would show in the poorer quality.  I personally refuse to believe that innovation always means coming up with something totally new: writers like Shakespeare freely recycled plot ideas, putting their own gloss and execution on them that made them stand out.  Renovating and updating old ideas and stories, and innovating them, is a common theme in fiction-would the likes of Howard, Lieber or Moorcock have made up every last part of their creations from their own minds, without incorporating other ideas and myths into their work?  I wouldn't think it diminishes the quality if they borrowed elements from classical myth, for example.</blockquote>

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