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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dungeonman" data-source="post: 6290041" data-attributes="member: 6775975">Cool thread. I registered just to give my two cents that I think heroes -- if they were real-life personalities -- lack self-awareness when it comes to their superhuman abilities and mortality.Take a typical movie action hero, and imagine you could make them real and sentient, and if you could ask them a barrage of questions like: Why did you seem afraid and hesitant in the first battle, and why did you seem invulnerable by the final battle? What were you thinking about your odds of success when you drove the car off the highway and jumped out just before it smashed into the helicopter? Why doesn't your superhero suit rip and burn all the time, and where do you find the time to sew a new one? How come we never see you bored in a dark alley, killing time playing Candy Crush on your iphone, waiting for a crime to happen? How come we never see you held up in traffic and show up too late to save the dame? I think they would stare at you blankly, laugh and change the subject, or any avoidance behavior that would betray a complete lack of self-awareness. Or... they break the fourth wall like Deadpool and tell it to you straight. Compare to a character taken out of a realistic World War II movie and I think they'd be much more likely to give you satisfying answers like "Gosh, I was just lucky" or "In the beginning, I was sh*tting my pants but then I was just desensitized."D&D heroes are even more oblivious, I think. Why did they go to the bar and accept a total stranger into their party? Why do they almost consistently risk their lives adventuring to the death instead of retiring to a different lifestyle once they're rich? Why aren't they curious why so many monsters sit around in dungeons for no apparent reason? They don't know.The player can certaintly try to roleplay a character as if they knew their hit points, but really, the character couldn't be self aware of anything. They couldn't understand the true motivations that drive their behavior and most of the things that happen in their world happen for reasons that are completely external. Truly, heroes are idiots.</blockquote>

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