'Heroic' games and the setting of tone in games

[Sundragon2012]

This sounds interesting. Do you think the game would have worked if you continued to present choices to the players between good and evil, and showing their consequences? For example, the player in question found evil distasteful. Perhaps he could have his character leave the mercenary band and strike out on his own, hunted as a deserter.

Oh, now that would have been really interesting. I wish he thought of it. However the others were also disgusted and unwilling to go on. However, I would have certainly embraced them having a change of heart due to the grim reality of their situation and instead going from the hunters to the hunted.

That would have been fun.


Chris

 

[shilsen]

For myself, I don't set an overall tone for a campaign outside of perhaps being -DARK-, but I don't specify what the PCs can be or how they'll react to that. I take what PC ideas the players present to me and then I present them with multiple plots that make sense based on who they are and where within the game world they happen to be. I guess it just seems a bit foreign to me to emphasize 'heroic' rather than 'realistic' in a game. The PCs are in a complex world that has obvious blacks and whites, but it's all floating in a gray ocean in which being a 'hero' isn't always as clearcut as superman in a superhero game.

On the whole, I'd say this is similar to my approach. I've warned my players before and during each of my two current campaigns that they shouldn't expect black-and-white morality in the game. It also helps that I don't restrict PC actions based on alignment (alignment changes to match the PCs' actions, not the other way around) and frankly, PCs can do whatever they want in my game. All actions have in-game repercussions, of course, but that's a given. All I do is put the situation on the table, and the PCs can respond as they like. Ironically, both of my groups' actions quite clearly put them in the "good guys" category, though they're likely to dirty their hands enough to not count as spotless heroes.

 

[boredgremlin]

I would say i am most influenced by stephen king and micheal morlock. I create worlds and situations, not alignment tones. Such and such invasion is happening, or assassination, or dark long imprisoned fiend rising from a crypt.

I may push characters in one direction or another but i never punish them for being what they want to play and what they feel follows the characters developement. The only exception to this is when it creates inter-party turmoil. In those cases i try to arrange a resolution. Otherwise what characters do they do. I have the timeline and powers set up, what the players do determines how they fit in and what might happen but not the world itself.

I took out all the alignment specific spells or made them more focused and less general. I dont even ask players thier alignment or expect them to write it down. I tell them they all start nuetral and campaign choices will direct where they actually stand. If they want to pick and alignment and try to play it then thats fine. But it has no game affects beyond thier players roleplaying decisions and some fluffy plot stuff. I find it makes heroes more heroic. They arent heroes because they wrote lawful good on a sheet, they are heroes becuase they choose heroic things and they knew the whole time that it was thier choice what to do and how to do it.

 

[Clueless]

We expect dynamic characters in my gaming group.

In Shemmie's first SH, my character started off with a 'blank slate' - literally, as an amnesiac, on his character sheet under alignment was a large question mark. He swung over the campaign pretty wildly between alignments - at times whimsically chaotic, though always a little Too calculated to be truely chaotic - at times horrificly evil, and then regreting it two days later, and then at times good to the point of actively freeing slaves and wiping out slavers. *All* of it was perfectly in character and obvious developments of his personality. Eventually we concluded he was simply TN and left it at that.

Clueless wasn't the only one in the game whose alignment changed/was established through playing as opposed to playing to the alignment on the sheet. The current campaign has alignment on the sheets for most of the characters, but again we're playing with the expectation that if we change as a result of the character's personal reactions to the story, then the alignment will as well.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I run a heroic game because that's what I like to DM. Those are the kinds of stories I like to help create. I don't particularly care for statting up good guys to get beaten down, or to adjudicate how many child sacrifices it might take to complete a pact with Orcus. I want to see Good trouncing Evil, so that's the game I run. I have no problem with others running other games, but that's what I enjoy running.

I enforce it by telling the players before the game starts that I'm going to be running a heroic game. Players who don't understand what this means can be taught. Players who decide to play against my wishes with regards to this are booted. Or if that's not feasible, I merely shut the game down and let another pick up the DMing reins.It should be noted that one can run a heroic campaign in a very deep world as well. The fact that the PCs are "heroes" doesn't make the game world "a rose colored world" unless the DM makes it so. I, personally, do not. I have oppressive Lawful Good churches and prostitutes and drug abuse and rape etc. etc. The point of a heroic campaign is that the PCs will oppose these things, rather than support them. That the PCs will, at heart, be good people, people who will fight for their convictions. The world can be as dark as dark gets. The PCs, on the other hand, will not be.

Wow. It's like what I would have said if you hadn't beaten me to it.

Another problem I've had with 'evil' campaigns so to speak, is character trust issues, and character survivability issues. In many campaign settings, the good guys are generally in power and in those settings where they're not, the evil guys who are in charge, are such viscious enemies that your best bet is to never attract their attention.

 

[WayneLigon]

Perhaps it's a combination of how I run, what the players want, and frankly the setting. 3e Planescape, and Planescape and planar games in general, seem to be very morphic on alignment and can take and support all sorts. Other settings might, by their very nature just support PCs being heros right from the start. Dragonlance comes to mind whereas say Shadowrun just wouldn't.

But back to the overall question: Do you encourage a specific tone to your campaigns to emphasize good, or even go so far as to restrict anything outside of a rubric of good and heroism? How do you do it, and why? Has it ever conflicted with what the players wanted? Has it ever seemed to not quite fit within the game world? I'm curious.

It depends on the type of game I want to run at the time. In general, I want a high-fantasy heroic epic. So in the pre-game notes, it will generally say things like 'No evil alignments, no more than one neutral in the party, PC's are expected to have heroic origins and motivations'. I'll tailor the encounters to the theme and tone (probably no 'kobold babies' scenarios).

If the players don't want that or I'm not in the mood for such a thing, then I'd do something else like Midnight, or Thieve's World, or Black Company. I'd chose or design a setting that was tailored to the needs of the campaign.

 

[Clueless]

Admittedly - I'll say flat out it *seriously* helps to have players who are willing to work with each other and really *trust* each other. Evil games can work - it just takes a lucky balance of style, characters, and players - rare but possible.

I know half the reason Shemmy's asking the question is b/c it's so different from his own experience. He's always had that lucky combination. Our current group has an evil character. We know she's evil. She knows we know she's evil. But the player - he follows the thought of "Evil people have friends too." Evil *fiends* might not (a distinction nessecary in a Planescape game where they are living embodiments of evil essence), but evil people - do.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

If the only choices that the players can make are heroic ones, are they really heroic?

LostSoul, I don't expect my players to be heroic. If I give the players the option between saving the innocent virgin or selling her body to the death cult, and they pick saving the girl, that doesn't make them any more heroic than a child reading a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. There aren't any real heroics involved.

The heroics I'm interested in are in-game. And in-game, the hero always has the choice of just walking away. But if he does so, then he's no longer a hero. Basically, when a group of players accepts me as a DM, they are accepting that they'll be RPing heroes. Heroes that may struggle with difficult choices, but in the end will always prove themselves heroes.

You seem to be trying to make the point that if there is no choice involved, there can be no real heroics. I agree with that. But there are two points to consider. The first is that the choices here are PC choices, not player choices. And the second is that, by putting my players on notice that I will be DMing a heroic game, I am already telling them which choices I expect their characters to make.

I am not a simulationist. I do not enjoy running a "virtual world" for the players to do whatever they please within. If there are players who are unwilling to roleplay the kinds of characters that would make heroic choices, they are welcome to their opinion, but not to my game.

[I guess that would be the difference between simulationist (we want to play heroes) and narrativist (we want to struggle with the choice) play. I could be wrong about that.]

I am not entirely sure, but I would swap the definitions. A simulationist may want to have free reign to struggle with his own choices in the confines of a neutral virtual world. A narrativist is more interested in the story. In my case, a heroic story.

Then again, I've never been too concerned with the whole G/N/S deal, so I could be the one who has it wrong.

So let's say that, in the example above, going to the clocktower would be heroic, but the PCs won't face death. Going to save the village will probably result in at least one PC death, but it is the more heroic action.

As a DM, I wouldn't mind either choice. I give my players the opportunity to take their PCs in any direction they can imagine, provided it's a heroic one. Some PCs may be more self-sacrificing than others. Some may want to do good, but still get paid if at all possible. There are a myriad possible characters that can be created with a heroic mein.

We expect dynamic characters in my gaming group.

We do as well. There are a thousand different ways for a character to be dynamic, other than Good-->Evil or Evil-->Good.

 

[The_Gneech]

I have oppressive Lawful Good churches and prostitutes and drug abuse and rape etc. etc.

Strictly speaking, if they're oppressive, shouldn't they be LN, or possibly LE?

-TG

 

[ForceUser]

I run a heroic game because that's what I like to DM. Those are the kinds of stories I like to help create. I don't particularly care for statting up good guys to get beaten down, or to adjudicate how many child sacrifices it might take to complete a pact with Orcus. I want to see Good trouncing Evil, so that's the game I run. I have no problem with others running other games, but that's what I enjoy running.

I enforce it by telling the players before the game starts that I'm going to be running a heroic game. Players who don't understand what this means can be taught. Players who decide to play against my wishes with regards to this are booted.

I also prefer to run heroic games, but I don't force players to make their characters act heroically. My aspiration is to set up a campaign world in which the players look around, see the world's problems, and decide to try to make a difference. Players who do this get huge rewards from me as a DM; I lavish them with coolness in many forms--awesome gear, respect from important NPCs, etc. PCs that choose to act despicably or without heroism, well, in the end they get what they deserve. Every action has a reaction, and bad deeds done will come back to haunt them eventually.

My dream is to have a player choose to play, say, a paladin, and when s/he plays that paladin, they strive to act with selfless grace in everything they do. Man, I would love that as a DM. But I never mention it because I don't want to prod someone to act with nobility--I want them to choose it on their own.

I'm still waiting. :\