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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 5731346" data-attributes="member: 2205">I'm not quite sure what you mean by "should."  The game itself should allow for multiple interpretations of the fantasy genre, and how it can be played.  Especially in recent years, where darker fantasy the likes of George R. R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie, Glen Cook, Brent Weeks, R. Scott Bakker, Scott Lynch and probably a dozen other guys who write about anti-heroes or even outright villains in societies that are manifestly not good, and yet manage to be bestselling authors in the fantasy genre, the game should not be so prescriptive.What's the appeal of these kind of non-good dark and gritty types of stories?  Same thing that made James Bond super popular in the '60s, The Godfather super popular in the '70s, and more recent offerings like The Sopranos, Dexter or dozens of others--we're a more cynical society than we used to be, and we want some of that represented in our entertainment, because it reflects society and the world as we perceive it.On top of all that is just the appeal of doing something new.  If you've been playing the "good guys" for the better part of thirty years, like I have, then playing the anti-hero in a dark and gritty setting is a nice change of pace that I won't get tired of anytime soon.So, whether or not they should be good; that can only be answered at each individual table, and is subject to each individual suite of tastes and preferences that the players bring with them.  For me personally, the answer is "no."  For that matter, I also don't want to have anything to do with elves or dwarves either--my setting has neither.As to your other question, what should such a society represent--I don't know.  To me, the purpose of good societies in the game was always just about easy and obvious hooks to lead players and their characters to adventure.  The good society is threatened.  You have to protect it.  The good society is where you go after you've been adventuring and you need to rest, recuperate and spend your loot, without worrying about something happening to you.I also don't have much use for that paradigm anymore either; taking your loot into society is probably one of the most dangerous things you can do, because society is full of criminals, con men, thieves, fantasy Mafia, and corrupt rulers.  Then again, I've also abandoned the notion that adventures are something that you have to go seek out.  Adventures can happen anywhere, and since I'm a big fan of crime and spy stories, urban "adventuring" is actually my favorite kind.Granted, I know my game doesn't really resemble D&D as its creators envisioned it anymore.  Probably doesn't resemble D&D as it's played by most gamers either.  But I'm OK with that.  In many ways, I think my game more closely resembles fantasy as it's been written by a lot of new writers in the genre, though.  I'm not a fantasy traditionalist; I've been caught up in the zeitgeist that's changing the face of the genre right before our eyes, and have been for a long time... before a lot of these writers became prominent or well known.</blockquote>

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