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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 4955747" data-attributes="member: 3820">It's interesting to follow manga back, actually: modern fight manga derives a lot from kung fu movies, which are themselves derived from kung fu novels, which themselves follow on from classics like Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh, which themselves borrow a lot from oral traditions. Humility is a big virtue in many of those stories, as it is over here, but it's often applied to attitude but not to power. I don't know if it's so much that computer and video games are the reason, mostly because it's hard to say how much is the influence of one thing and how much is the lack of influence of another. In the early 80s or so, dirt-poor farmer's sons were the dominant RPG paradigm. Even Champions and the like would start out awfully tender in point value compared to what you saw in the comics. Gradually, though, you started seeing more games where you started out closer to what you'd eventually end up as, such as the WoD games. It's very hard to actually tell, of course. But I can't help but wonder just how much of the shift is due to outside influences gaining dominance, and how much is due to the "start lowly, end heroically" play style just not having the same sort of first-to-the-market, duplicated-by-all status it used to. I suspect it's a mix of the two and of other factors I may not be tracking, but it's damn hard to tell. Well, technically one would hope that the protagonists who start humble and those who don't all have sufficient flaws and weaknesses to make them interesting. But I quite sympathize. I tend to be more eclectic in my preferences, but I'd be unhappy if I didn't have the Prydain Chronicles and Lord of the Rings to sit alongside my copies of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and Orlando Furioso. I enjoy a humble protagonist as much as anyone.I wouldn't call Beowulf brought down by flaws or hubris; "betrayal" maybe, but he fought the dragon out of duty and bravery, really. To Howard's figures I'd add Ruggiero, Bradamante, Orlando and Astolfo from the Italian romances, Sun Wukong and assorted company from Journey to the West. The real question is "is this a story where we get the 'happily ever after', or is it a tragedy?" Power level may or may not attach to that; the Orlando romances have happy endings, Arthurian stories don't. Journey to the West ends with everyone becoming Buddhas and Outlaws of the Marsh ends with the heroic bandits mostly slaughtered. LotR and Prydain end with the decided mixed blessing of magic leaving the world. D&D tends to try for happy endings, That's what it all comes down to. I just tend to suspect that the desire to start stronger isn't a new thing. I also wonder if it isn't partly because the start-low-end-high model was "unusually" strong during the nascent days of RPGs because that's what the biggest and first-to-market game was doing. But like I say, it's all theoretical.</blockquote>

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