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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 4603499" data-attributes="member: 198">In my experience, D&D can be about many more things than that, and forcing it to be only about heroic fantasy means one doesn't get to try out a lot of different options. So, to me, D&D is about whatever my group and I choose to make it. Heroic fantasy is only one on that list.As above, I think that's a pretty limited way to define characters, and I'd hate to play in a game where my PC's primary motivation has to be wanting to save the world. Sure, it can be, and sometimes is, but I think there can be many other motivations. Heck, I don't even like "save the world" plots that much any more. They're just one among many kinds of plots, and no more objectively interesting than any other. I'm running a campaign now in its 3rd year where the PCs are trying to save the world. And playing in one where the PCs are trying to find out what the god in the box in the paladin's codpiece is. Both games are pretty damn good. I haven't played many CRPGs and not in a long while, but aren't most CRPGs focused on the good guys who are out to save the world (or their little corner of it)? I do. People play the game for different reasons. And usually they play it for many different reasons simultaneously. Someone may want to play an evil character as a power fantasy. Someone may want to play an evil character to explore a part of the human condition they don't normally engage with. Someone may want to play it as a roleplaying challenge. Someone may want to play it since they really like the blackguard PrC. I figure that I'm there as a DM to allow a player's vicarious enactment of many fantasies. Some are selfish, some are altruistic, and some involve pretending to be an elf. I doubt that playing an evil character is any worse, psychologically or otherwise, than pretending to be anything else in the game, esp. since D&D was built around socially unacceptable behaviour (killing things and taking their stuff).I think it's just as valid a part of the game as most others. As far as characters go, if someone plays an evil character which will fit in with the other characters and not be disruptive, that's just fine by me. The same goes for any character, whether neutral or good.</blockquote>

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