Celebrim said:
Well, as far as that goes, I'm going to go with the Alex Ross/old school take that being a hero is more about being morally heroic than it is about being good at beating people up and capable of avenging insults against you.
I tend to use the "
Higglytown Heroes" definition, which seems to boil down to: someone who has special skills, and uses them to help others. In my view, it is easier to achieve than the Alex Ross definition you mentioned (but does not rule it out), while still being able to prevent the game from becoming a "kill, loot, level up, rinse, repeat" treasure hunting or mercenary campaign.
Pretending to be, playing at being, and fantasizing about being a hero who is merely good at killing things and not moreover morally heroic is about the saddest, vainest, and least productive pursuit I can imagine. It is a certain amount of onanistic behavior. The phrase stroking ones ego comes to mind. If that is all we are doing, then we really are the pathetic losers popular culture makes us out to be.
While most of this is probably true, I don't see what this has to do with us, or with roleplaying. You don't need dice or rulebooks to do it. In fact, the dice and rulebooks sometimes get in the way because you can roll low, or the rules impose restrictions on what you can imagine yourself doing.
If we aren't actually tackling serious questions, creating worthwhile stories, learning history, math, cartography and anything else we can, improving social skills otherwise latent in typical nerds, and otherwise being productive, then we are greatly overindulging a childish pasttime and need to find something else to do with ourselves.
Well, I don't know about tackling serious questions, learning history and cartography, and improving social skills, but it looks like 4e will still support math, creative thinking, imagination and tactical decision-making, even if it does not support long-term injury or being crippled.
I'm reminded of the X-Files episode where they say they 'didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage'. That's either pathetic or wise, I've never been certain which. Maybe it's both. Sometimes irony can work on several levels. Let's just say that I would certainly hope that you couldn't play Dungeons and Dragons and not know what a hero was, even if you manifestly weren't one.
I'm not a big fan of the X-Files, so I don't feel the need to regard everything said by the scriptwriters as wisdom handed down from on high. I do think that you can learn about courage from D&D, but there's nothing in the game that requires you to learn about courage or heroism. It all depends on the DM, and based on the stories that I hear, the problem with some DMs is not so much that thay don't teach what heroism is, but that they teach that heroism is stupid at best, and suicidal at worst.
I'm not normally one to come down on the side of 'narrativism', but sheesh, if you are above the age of 15, either do something interesting with your game or go play something like Chess or Counterstrike. Spend your skill points on something for crying out loud.
I agree that you should go do something else if you don't find your game interesting. I would also like to point out that "interesting" should be based on your point of view, and not anyone else's.
