Where have all the heroes gone?

[mhacdebhandia]

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.

I think there's something of a difference between "powermad looters" and "antiheroes". The original definition of "antihero" was a protagonist who lacked traditional heroic qualities such as honesty, generosity, courage, or idealism; today, it's generally reserved for protagonists who lack these heroic qualities but nevertheless perform heroic acts.

Either way, "powermad looters" sounds more like a thin excuse for a character used by the player to engage in a power-fantasy.

I prefer playing antiheroes because I think that characters who lack heroic qualities - especially particular virtues like courage or idealism - are simply more interesting to play than people who are fully emotionally capable and eager to Save The World. That doesn't mean, however, that in a game like yours (where the premise is "You're going to help save the world from the forces of darkness") I would choose to play someone who won't engage with that premise.

Rather, I'd play something like a "modern" antihero (doing the job without necessarily wearing the shining armour), or a reluctant hero, or even someone who does possess traditionally heroic qualities but who is also classically flawed in some way.

I guess what I'm driving at is that I, too, find uncomplicatedly noble and self-sacrificing characters ("goody two-shoes" types) incredibly boring to play, but that doesn't mean that you can't get a player like me to sign on for a heroic game of Saving The World. The problem with your player appears to be that they want a power-trip, not an antihero.

 

[Elf Witch]

I have to say, this guy sounds like a selfish jerk and I wouldn't want to play with him either.

I like playing heroes. The one time I played an evil character was not nearly as much fun for me. I guess I'm lucky that my group is pretty much of the same opinion.

One point regarding the above, though: Elf Witch, I hope you don't really mean that your character won't trust this guy's character even if he plays a paladin. I can understand if you don't trust the other player, but your character shouldn't know that about his character. At least not until there's some in-game evidence that the character is going to be untrustworthy.

Actually I did mean character. If I play in a game he is in. I wait to see what he is going to play and I make a character that will have reason to be wary of his class. If he plays a wizard I will play a monk who does not trust mages.

I have learned that it is better to be prepared and if he starts with that screw over the party crap, the DM can't say to me but you have no reason not to trust his character.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Here's what I hate...

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?

Can't they go out and do good deeds for the sake of doing good deeds and worry about rewards as a secondary concern?

Maybe but wouldn't the king reward them? I mean, seriously, it's the Prince lost in the frickin' Swamp of Evil Nastiness. I can't speak for LotR (though I'll point out Aragorn regained his Throne and the rest had their own motives for joining the Nine) but most of the "stories of yore" involve pretty mercenary heroes. The farther back you go, the more mercenary they get. Jason was a right, uh, a right.... well, Eric's Grandma would blush if I was to comment on Jason and his Argonauts.

I admit, though, I don't put a GP amount on these kind of "heroic rewards." IMC it is a knowledge:nobility or Diplomacy check DC10 to realize that asking "how much do you value your kid?" is a rude and insulting thing to say, especially to nobility. I just point out that there is a reason the phrase "king's ransom" is a generic term for "boat load of money."

My players, even the evil, greedy ones, know that working on the side of good means a) you usually get paid, b) you live to spend your pay, c) the rest of the people on the side of good are likely to help you if something goes wrong. This is because I make sure they generally get paid, aren't double crossed, and the people they helped in the past tend to be helpful in the future (exceptions are made for rude, insulting behavior).

I also tend to have the "dark siders" get arrested by the town guard, charged with crimes, and punished. If they wipe out the town guard, bounty posters go up left and right, with every innkeep, bouncer and itinerant adventurer vying for the reward. The most fun is when the rest of the party turns the dark sider in for the reward. Makes me warm inside.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Wait a second...

...you're saying that the powermad looters who want to use power to further their own agenda... aren't heroes?

I'm afraid you're very confused.

The D&D alignment system is all screwed up; what it calls "good" is altruism and self-sacrifice, which, is not in of itself good. In fact, it leads to stagnation and is ultimately destructive, as it allows weak individuals to survive and pollute the world with their presence and the presence of their weakling spawn. What the game calls "evil", the deliberate inflicting of suffering and self-centered behavior, is actually what is "good", noble and heroic- it promotes the survival of the race, the improvement of race (through the destruction of weaker individuals), the acquisition of power (which is itself nobility), glory, and the establishment of the proper aristocracy of power.

It sounds like your Necromancer is, in fact, the only character that truly understands nobility and heroism. Hopefully the rest of the players (and their DM) can figure it out too.

Hah! This sounds like a book I had in one of my old campaigns Is Evil really evil, and other lies paladins tell. It was in a pile of loot and the paladin's sentient evil armor made him read a chapter out loud at least once a week.

(Why did the Paladin have sentient, evil armor, you ask? Because he was the only one the party trusted to have sentient, evil armor and they couldn't bring themselves to "execute" the armor.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I also tend to have the "dark siders" get arrested by the town guard, charged with crimes, and punished. If they wipe out the town guard, bounty posters go up left and right, with every innkeep, bouncer and itinerant adventurer vying for the reward. The most fun is when the rest of the party turns the dark sider in for the reward. Makes me warm inside.

Strangely enough, this is what's going on in my Midwood campaign. The naughty folks have a badass bounty hunter after them, giving them a lot of bad choices as to where they can run to escape the law. Adventures before and adventures behind ...

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Why? Because people are coming to gaming from playing computer games, not from reading sci fi/fantasy or watching sci fi/fantasy.

Man, what?

I agree with the rest of your post, but what the heck do electronic games have to do with not playing heroes?

I can think of all of three examples of console RPG main characters who weren't LG, NG or CG by D&D standards for most of their games, and one of the exceptions was from a comedy game. Only a tiny fraction of playable characters wouldn't fall into at worst neutral territory on the Good/Evil axis. Certainly in the Final Fantasy series, I can't think of a single long-term playable character who would have an Evil alignment.

Up until Baldur's Gate, PC RPGs generally offered no quests for an evil path or opportunities to be evil (Might and Magic, Gold Box games), or made it impossible to complete the game if you behaved in an evil manner (Ultima). Fallout, IIRC, allowed you to be evil and gave plenty of quests, but still didn't actually allow you to finish the game if you were. Even in Baldur's Gate and its descendents, I recall ending up in battles with worse villains no matter how badly the PCs behaved in the course of the game.

World of Warcraft, from everything I've heard, doesn't really give much support to 'playing evil;' certainly neither of the two playable factions are bad guys in the Warcraft canon. Since it completely dwarfs other MMORPGs, it would seem the definitive word on them.

So unless players are coming to fantasy roleplaying from Grand Theft Auto, I'm not sure where you're coming from...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In WoW, the undead storyline is decidedly evil -- they're intending to unleash a plague that will kill everyone in the world (including the other members of the Horde) and raise them as undead under their control. Otherwise, though, yeah, everyone is at worst Neutral Greedy, and many, many of the NPCs are definitely Good and many of the quests are. Even the neutral stuff is, for the most part, motivated by the fact that they're at war with the Horde and killing the enemy is of strategic importance.

GTA, on the other hand ...

 

[Ace]

D&D doesn't work like that, in my campaign.

If somebody tried to take on the ruler, they'd discover, just among the things I've thought about:
- The chief adviser is a 10th level druid. That's relatively high level in my campaign.

Bottomline: Kings aren't stupid or weak, and PC's who try to mess with them should meet the full fury of the DM, assuming the DM doesn't want munchkin players. Much more fun to throw a 20th level party at the 15th level know-it-alls then to just rule the gods instantly annihiliate them all for challenging the divine right of kings, or you could have the king press the "teleport them to the Isle of Apes/City of Brass/666th level of Hell" button.

Amusing -- I don't have any functioning monarchies on my campaign world for various reasons.

Styles of D&D very but my campaign is Cold War + Cuthulu with an apocolypse just around the corner (and two next week)

within the last one hundred years of campaign history there has been a great war verus the undead (which killed half the worlds population)

within 60 there was the destruction of the entire population of a nation state by magic

Within 10 a single character took down the worlds most powerful empire (well smashed 5 of its cities and killed 75% of its soldiers)

Every nation has one or more epic wizards with Colourless Reign of Fire (yes that is the correct spelling) or various Abysal Rippers (these open a hole to a plane filled with war demons that want to kill) or worse -- say Viral Chained Disentegrate Weapons cloaked with non dispelling and non detection spells -- This nasty does 240 points (45 if save vs DC 20) than bounces to a new target -- its guarenteed death for a civilization if used

There is also far realms stuff thats much worse than this and it WANTS TO BE USED

Now the basic meta logic of the game is as follows

There is Good, Evil and Neutral. Default is Neutral. Most (66% maybe) of the population is a Neutral Human member of a NPC class from 3-5th level stats are 3@10, 2@11, 1@12 roughly

Power Rewards Power. The more you can have the more you can get

Magic Rewards Magic -- The more magic there is the more magic there will be

Pressure Builds Power -- Unless you die, the harder you try the faster you get power.

There is No Limit Except Age if You Have Will and Opportunity -- Even Age can be Mastered (its hard though) and if you do there are no limits other than Other Wills.


Game style very though and thats the key issue -- getting players that match what you want to do. If you do this you will have no shortage of heros

 

[Quartz]

I concur that the player's a jerk. His main enjoyment seems to be ruining the fun of others.

 

[Kristivas]

When I was younger, and first started playing, I didn't like the idea of playing evil characters. They always ended up stabbing each other in the back, looting each other's gold, raping each other when camping, and general baby-kicking nastiness. I was always the 'good guy'.

Getting older, I took a different look at things. I think the movie Pitch Black inspired it.

In Pitch Black, Riddick was a murderer who ended up crash-landed on a planet when he was being transported back to prison. All these monsters end up hunting the survivors, and in the end Riddick ended up saving the day (for a few of them, anyway).

After seeing that, I was amazed. Probably the first time I'd seen an evil character played in such a way that I could see him in a DnD game. So, I tried it. I talked about this in another thread. It worked out very well.

As for why there are so many villains or anti-heroes, out there.. times change. Hell, look at Pro-wrestling. Back in the 80's and early 90's, the "good guys" never cheated, never did or said anything bad, and had the Superman mentality. After people started getting bored with that, pro wrestling changed. The lines began blurring a little. The good guys began talking trash, hitting their oponents with chairs, and generally stuck it to the man.

Rebels are cool (to a lot of people), and if you think you can't compare pro-wrestling to role playing, you're nuts.

Still, I like playing heroic games. I like being good for the sake of being good. Even if that old-ass farmer can't afford to pay my character for killing the monsters eating all of his sheep, who cares? Heroic games are fun, but so is being the neutral (and even bad guy) too.