Where have all the heroes gone?

[sckeener]

Well, my orientation is closer to Nietzsche than Rand, but Rand will do.

Take out the wanton cruelty part, and you've pretty much got the whole orientation of The Fated faction from Planescape.

I enjoyed it.

I once played a divine champion (aka paladin) of a non-lg goddess (a tri-aspect earth mother type goddess)....who had the belief of survival of the fittest. Your post reminded me of that character...

He was basically a goodish character except he had an order to who he would save...

Church Hierarchy (top down)
Family
Worshipers of my goddess
Friends
strangers​

so you can see from the list that my adventuring buddies, aka friends or worse strangers, might not be the people I cared about saving in any given fight.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

He always wants to play a character whose ultimate goal is to screw over the party in the end.

Ah. He's a jackass.

 

[buzz]

Ah. He's a jackass.

Yep. We're obviously talking about a player issue, not a system issue.

Give him the boot... or, play a game in which PvP conflict is supported.

 

[takyris]

I get this in Mutants & Masterminds, too. I say, "Okay, guys, think Silver Age, and with heroes who don't have powers that react specifically to the powers of other heroes -- that's more meta than I want. Give me super-hero ideas."

And what I get is:

- One guy who wants to play a Flash knockoff (wooo!)
- One guy who wants to play a mercenary whose only power is nullifying the powers of other heroes
- One girl, not in costume, with no powers, who has the power of hell but can't use it because it turns her evil to do so
- One guy who wants to play a borderline-psychotic ghost who kills people (Con drain) in order to gain power

That'd be fine if I hadn't said "Silver Age", but man... could everyone stop trying to murder and kill and betray and just, you know, go out and whomp bad guys? It's Mutants & Masterminds, so you don't even have to take their stuff.

So yeah, whatever you play, there's somebody who's going to want to be evil in it.

 

[sckeener]

Yep. We're obviously talking about a player issue, not a system issue.

Give him the boot... or, play a game in which PvP conflict is supported.

agreed. Sounds like he should be playing chess or something where the game is to beat the other players.

I like playing rpgs to tell stories...not to 'win.'

 

[haakon1]

But this has got me thinking why is so hard now a days to find a game where the players want to be heroes not just powermad looters who use their power to further their own agenda and gods help the poor villagers. The other players have said the same thing that they to are tired of playing in a game filled with anti heroes.

Is it just in our area that this is common thing or is it more wide spread?

Why? Because people are coming to gaming from playing computer games, not from reading sci fi/fantasy or watching sci fi/fantasy. It's not all about role playing a character, but about the player getting a great build.

Also, some players are immature and want to test out what it's like to be evil in a consequence free environment. This is usually a short-lived phase.

And in our modern culture, we're back to a pre-Star Wars 1970s view of things. If it's not tatoo'd, pierced, wearing spikey armor, and worshipping evil, it's like a total lamer. Tune in, turn on, drop out, and rock hard, dood!

My ways of dealing with this as a DM:
1) Let people play whatever evil character they want, once. But give evil in game, logical consequences. It helps if you ground your game in a society, with laws, social norms, and law enforcers. For really clueless players (like the one who wanted to eat peasants that orcs had killed to save on iron rations), I will warn them that if someone finds out they are a cannibal, they will be subjected to medieval justice.

2) Don't play with people who you don't like/people who are annoying gamers. Generally, if a person is not a pain in normal life, they aren't nuts at the gaming table either.

 

[Banshee16]

The default setup of D&D is that PCs are professional adventurers who live outside of the normal social structure. Given that there is no default reward for "heroism" other than possible XP in D&D, I don't see any reason why people should be surprised that "What's in it for me?" is a common question heard from a player. D&D PCs need XP and loot to function.

If you want altruistic heroism, you need to encourage it.

• Work with the players to create PCs that have connections to society. Minor noble families, thieves' guilds, churches, knightly orders, wealthy patrons etc. It's hard to ask "What's in it for me?" when it's your father asking you to rescue your infant cousin.
• Give them a default budget for equipment using the wealth-by-level table; i.e., eliminate the need to loot every dead body.
• Make use of the Affiliations rules from PHB2 to reward them for working for the people I mention in my first point above.

Anyway, Elf Witch seems to have realized this, but, basically, if you as DM have made clear the tone of the game you want to run, and the group has bought into it, then any player who doesn't want to play the same game needs to be shown the door.

To add to this point, if your characters are being played as good, and *are* being less mercenary, then as the DM, you can use things like the fact that they've got alliances, have made friends etc. as a chance to funnel items and such to them, to replace what they're not getting since they're not mercenary.

Banshee

 

[Imagicka]

Greetings...

A character's background doesn't not an interesting character make.

Your character is only as boring as you choose to make it. If this fellow thinks that his character concept hasn’t been done a million times over, he’s sorely mistaken. Oh look! Another ‘I’m going to backstab the party members because they don’t know I’m evil!’ -- How friggin’ boring!

You think your being original playing ANOTHER evil character hiding amongst the heroes? It’s so common now, it’s cliché! It wasn’t original the first time you did it… and it isn’t original now. You want to do something original? You want to play something impressive? Start with a good-aligned character, and slowly slip into becoming evil… and become a necromancer. Impress me with your roleplaying, and rationalize it for me.

I have a friend who designs *fantastic* character backgrounds. But somewhere from the page to the dice, he would fall short. He was such a boring player to play with. One of those guys who would sit back and do nothing, waiting for his turn… With a little poking and prodding from the GM, and where his character is placed into situations and encouraged to take advantage of his background, did he really shine. His character? A fighter with poor stats.

The problem I find is that whenever someone comes up with some whacky atypical character background, all it does it cause problems for the party because they don’t want to be part of a group. Usually they aren’t a good roleplayer at all. They somehow think screwing over the party is roleplaying.

When everyone wants to play anti-heroes (correction… villainous-heroes), I break out the Vampire books… or run an all-evil campaign. But the problem always seems to be that one person always wants to be the one who’s ‘different’. If they want to play an evil loner. I tell them to go buy Everquest or some other MMoRPG. Where they can be ‘unique’ just like all the others out there.

Why don’t they want to play a ‘vanilla’-hero? They say it’s boring. I say it’s laziness and selfishness. That they don’t have the roleplaying chops or are just too lazy to pull off a seemingly boring/normal character and make that character interesting. That they couldn’t care less about being part of a group, and don’t care about the other players’ enjoyment. They also don’t want to be just like everyone else. The balk at the idea of being in an all-evil group. They need to have that advantage that they are the wolf hiding among the sheep. That they have to make their character interesting by hiding behind non-common classes, races, templates, concepts and magic-items. You don’t think so? Prove me wrong.

If anyone ever comes to my table wanting to play the anti-hero right off the bat, I usually reject the concept. No one ever gets a free ticket, unless they’ve proved to me in the past that they can pull it off, and do so for the benefit of all the other players at the table. You want to roleplay becoming the anti-hero? That’s another story! But I never let players play the odd-man-out.

As for D&D bringing out a mercenary streak. Well I’ve always thought that this was a method of outlet for these people. One person I’ve mentioned before that I’ve played with, who always has to play the odd-man-out… who has more than once played the ‘I’m evil but no one knows it’-character is a milk-toast kind of person in real life. Straight-laced. That he’s too cowardly to let off some steam berating some obnoxious-rude woman in the checkout line who’s complaining because it isn’t moving fast enough for her… (Which incidentally… I did the other night…)

The best played evil characters who don’t believe they are evil.

 

[Imagicka]

Greetings…

I may be a do gooder, but adventuring is dangerous and specialized business. I expect to be well compensated for risking my life to rescue that prince. Just because some human wears a crown, it doesn't make him any more important, especially if I am an elf, dwarf, or kobold who isn't actually one of his subjects.

Actually, it does. In my games, my nobles are better than you, and if you don’t give them the respect they deserve, then you’re going to be taught to respect them.

I don’t know where people got this idea that every man is equal. After all, you are playing a class-based game, in a class-based world… Of course those people are better than you; the gods made them nobles. You’re just some grubby adventurer who has to skulk around dungeons so you can feed yourself.

I’ve beaten this idea out of my players, because the party isn’t the only people that the king has hired to rescue the prince. Not to mention, there are lots of knights and hanger-ons that would love to gain the king’s favour. You don’t want to be treated like the mercenary you are? Do something noble.

If my players play some money grubbing mercenary who thinks they are in some-way special, I do my best to beat that idea out of them. I never go with the idea that players are professional adventurers that live outside the law. I might go with the whole ‘privateer’ thing. Where nobles and the powers that be give the players special discommendation.

And all that being said, the king's own people down the road need more help fending off the goblins attacking their village. A village of 100 people I've never met is more important to me as a do gooder than one person. An unfortunate fact of do-goodery.

So Mr. King, explain to me again why I should leave those hundred people to fend for themselves and go looking for your one misplaced kid, who is probably in a much more dangerous place (if he wasn't, you would have sent your soldiers, and not called up me).

”First of all, it’s ‘your liege', not 'Mr. King’. Second…I don’t know why I’m even going to bother to explain this to you. In fact… if you wish you can leave right now. -- Oh, you haven’t left yet? Okay, then I will explain it to you. Why? Because they are peasants. My son is a prince of the realm.

“Tell you what, evidently you don’t know what it is to be noble. Since you don’t want this noble mission and you think it’s more important to save a few peasants on the fringes of the kingdom, from some goblins. Instead of securing the freedom of the heir-to-be, I’ll just have you outlawed, and have every two-bit greedy mercenary bounty-hunter like yourself come looking for your head, unless you want to be shot down like dog right here?“

How's that for an answer?

 

[haakon1]

Me: The king's son has gone missing in the Swamp of Evil Nastiness. The general call for adventurers goes out....

Players: How much will the king pay us to get him back?

Me (as King's advisor): Well, you get to keep the treasure you find.

Players: We want some cash. Or some magic, up front.

Me (as King's advisor): Hmmm. You know those horses you have? If my troops were to check the brands, I wonder if they'd be from the merchant caravan that went missing?

Players: But we got them from some bandits we took out!

Me (as King's advisor): So you say. I'm sure the "real bandits" would say something similar. Did you know the penalty for horse theft in this kingdom is death by hanging?

Players: Hey wait a minute!

Me (as King's advisor): Of course I could overlook this peccadillo for those who give service to the Kingdom . . .

(No, it's not volunteering, but it stops the "will adventure for cash" mode!)