White Knights or Black Hearted Villains

[shadow]

In your games do the players play knights in shining armor, or are they essentially treasure-looting thugs? (Or the extreme end are the all-evil campaigns where players play depraved villains?)
The D&D game has the reputation as being a game of heroic fantasy where players play larger than life heroes fighting evil villains to save the day. Most of the games I played in followed that philosophy. Sure there was the occasional greedy rogue (although, ultimately having a heart of gold), but the party was clearly on the side of good, fighting against evil. I played a few games where the party was treasure hunters (or rather, tomb raiders!), but such games were the exception, rather than the rule. For the most part, morality seems to be fairly black and white in most D&D games I've been in; the conflict is between good and evil, with the party being on the side of good.
However, that paradigm doesn't seem to hold true in other RPGS. In many games there is no true black and white. For example, in many cyberpunk games, such as Shadowrun, players are assumed to be amoral mercenaries for hire, if not downright villains. Many of the World of Darkness games place conflict not on good vs. evil, but rather evil vs. evil.
How does morality factor into your games? Are the players heroic warriors fighting evil, simply adventurers out for personal game, or villains? What about other games and genres? Is it possible to have a "heroic" cyberpunk or World of Darkness campaign, or are those simply oxymorons?

 

[DarrenGMiller]

In my games, PC's are always heroically struggling against evil. Not that they don't have flaws or don't get greedy over treasure sometimes, but they try to destroy evil, sve the girl, the village, the world, whatever. I don't care for heroes who are as much anti-hero at this point in my life and will not run evil PC's (though neutrality works in Greyhawk). I like the Elric books, but want my gaming good guys to wear shining armor, or at least the proverbial white hats.

I agree that some systems do not lend themselves to this. That is why I will not play WoD. The Storyteller that I know is all about the moral amiguities and quandaries of the heroes being bloodthirsty vampires and what not. That system lends itself to that. I choose not to participate.

DM

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

The PCs in my games are usually ends-justify-the-means special agent types involved in national conflicts and in saving the world from destructive entities.

Objective 'good' as most people (certainly in the modern era) would see it rarely plays a role, but objective evil does crop up quite often in the form of Lovecraftian monsters and truly vile villains.

More like Shadowrun than D&D, I suppose.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

(sigh) My players tend to amoral thuhgs out to kill things and take their stuff. Anything heroic they do is a simple by product of stuff removal from something that once had the stuff.

One of these years I might get them to actually play a group of hero's. (sigh)

-Ashrum

 

[Angel Tarragon]

As one of my friends would say....

"Welcome to the land of the freaks, and home of the depraved."

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I've played the whole spectrum. To keep it within Third Edition/d20:

• Planescape campaign: party evenly split between neutral and evil characters. Very self-serving, backstabbing party and the best campaign I ever played.
• Wheel of Time: party generally heroic, one member slowly going mad from being a male spellcaster, one member having mysterious and suspicious insider knowledge about evil factions.
• Britannia: party heroic, several members possessing avatarhood in multiple virtues. Very "white-hat".
• Forgotten Realms: party generally neutral, former slaves serving with the mercenary company which freed them from Thayan slavers.

 

[Gold Roger]

At the beginning I always tried to make heros of the PCs, but their preferences allways had them end up as antiheroes. Sure, most of the time they would end up beating the bad guys, but ,though around 50% good aligned, they never where very heroic.
Because of thiswe mostly played mercenary and "almost heroic" campaigns.
I'll soon master a one shot adventure with evil PCs working for a villain organization, that may have some follow ups. Many of us outright enjoy playing the bad guys and gals and I love mastering good opponents. Evil games have in our groups often more potential for "real" roleplaying than others.
I also plan a Iron Heroes campaign of high action, free spirited, jolly seafaring adventure. No heroes, antiheroes, mercenarys or villains, but pure adventure.

 

[Aus_Snow]

In your games do the players play knights in shining armor, or are they essentially treasure-looting thugs? (Or the extreme end are the all-evil campaigns where players play depraved villains?)

Yes, yes and yes.

that paradigm doesn't seem to hold true in other RPGS. In many games there is no true black and white. For example, in many cyberpunk games, such as Shadowrun, players are assumed to be amoral mercenaries for hire, if not downright villains. Many of the World of Darkness games place conflict not on good vs. evil, but rather evil vs. evil.

I suppose this is due to the sociological (and other) assumptions in the game world, and the target consumer's likely mentality, in the case of each product.

How does morality factor into your games? Are the players heroic warriors fighting evil, simply adventurers out for personal game, or villains?
Never player character heroes and player character villains in the same group at the same time, but that's the only configuration that hasn't occurred, so far.

Is it possible to have a "heroic" cyberpunk or World of Darkness campaign, or are those simply oxymorons?

It certainly is. Possible, that is. I've played in the first and run the second, so yep, no problem there.

 

[MonsterMash]

In the campaign I GM with the Wilderlands setting, which is pretty amoral in the classic Sword & Sorcery style of Lankhmar, the characters are generally good aligned, but this doesn't prevent them from killing things and taking their stuff, but it does mean that they don't cut down 1st level commoner peasants for the XP (not that I'd award XP for that).

In the game I'm playing in things are a bit more complex as we have a Moorcockian alignment system (L-N-C) and a couple of characters, including mine are Lawful, but there is also a Chaotic Fighter/Rogue in the party, giving some in game conflict between the characters. But I don't make the my Lawful Cleric necessarily the LG do-gooder type, as he's an evangelical priest of his god and will eliminate the followers of chaos quite happily if they don't take the chance to see the error of their ways.

With the literary influences on D&D, there are a mixture of amoral and highly moral characters, in the more amoral camp: Fafhard and the Grey Mouser; Cudgel from the Dying Earth; Conan, with the Tolkien and Arthurian influences pointing towards the Knights in shining armour.