Worlds of Design: The New Heroes

The way heroes are portrayed has changed. Multimedia previously positioned heroes as muscle-bound monsters or barely-clothed sirens. Things have changed for the better, and it affects how we think of our characters in role-playing games.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

Physicality​

Instead of the big burly male heroes of the past (influenced by John Wayne and Arnold Schwarzwenegger movie success), wiry fellows are now more common in modern media, sometimes androgynous (likely due to the influence of Japanese anime/manga). This is more obvious in video games than in tabletop RPGs.

Female heroes have changed too. Decades ago, right back into the Pulp age, the common tendency was to depict female adventurers as showing a lot of skin while wearing ineffective bikini-shaped armor. And to depict female non-adventurers as nearly naked. Nor were there many female adventurers, most females (often princesses) were in the story to be rescued. Now heroines look athletic rather than voluptuous, and they're far more capable of saving themselves than in the Pulp era. Female armor actually makes sense, in many cases!

Like tabletop games, characters are increasingly customizable (this is a tenet of how video games are sometimes considered RPGs because you can change your character’s appearance). This often includes physique. You can make your character look however you want of course, but the barbarian archetype (and its progenitor, Conan) now feels like a throwback to an earlier age.

That’s not the only way heroes have changed.

The Heroic Attitude​

Roughly speaking, this attitude difference is about Pulp heroes (pre- and post-war) vs. modern heroes (21st century). The nominal divide in science fiction and fantasy is 1980. For how the Pulp attitude contrasts with more modern attitudes I rely on SF/F author Misha Burnett’s explanation (my emphasis):

"The use of a character’s actions – in opposition to a description of the character’s feelings – should be the primary engine that drives the story. We don’t all agree on what is right and wrong, and what matters to the story is what the character thinks is right and wrong."

This contrasts with a lack of doubt about what is right and what must be done, in modern fiction. Which, oddly enough, seems much different from the real-world polarization and conviction of right and wrong that we see so commonly today.

Heroes act because they see something wrong and feel compelled to make it right. Burnett says:

"Pulp heroes are motivated by love. It may be the sexual love, . . . love of home, of nation, of a way of life, all can compel a character to take up arms against an oppressor."

Like appearance, this changes how we play characters. The lawful alignments of Dungeons & Dragons can feel outdated today, where there is much more of a gray area (and thus, freedom) in a hero’s actions. As an example of how heroes have changed over the years, take the Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings: Books vs. Movies​

The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) books, written between 1937 to 1949, feature an Aragorn who knows what he must do; he's just not sure that he is capable enough to do it given the enormous strength of the enemy. He doesn't have angst about it, he goes on and tries to do it. The book is mostly about Sam (and less, about Frodo), the ordinary person forced by circumstances to become a hero.

Contrast this with the movies (2001-2003). The movies are about Aragorn, not an ordinary person but born to a hereditary nobility. And he is frequently torn by uncertainty about what he should do (and also whether he can accomplish whatever he decides to do).

The Hobbit movies (the Hobbit story was completed 1937) are actually closer to pulp than the LOTR movies, but that may come from the early source material. It’s not just traditional fantasy where heroes have changed.

Space Opera​

In "space opera" I think of a contrast between Jack Campbell's "Lost Fleet" series and spinoffs (which I highly recommend) and Jay Allan's "Blood on the Stars" series. (Both consist of more than a dozen books.)

Campbell's heroes and heroines are like Aragorn in the LOTR books; they know what they have to do, though they're not sure they can do it. What counts is what they do. Allan's heroes and heroines are filled with angst about what they're doing. It's more about feelings than action.

Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek (late 60s) is more or less the equivalent of a D&D paladin, using his charisma to talk down the opposition; more like modern heroes, he prefers talking to fighting.

Luke Skywalker is another Hero in the old mold; though tempted by the Dark Side, he is a quintessential Good Guy. But in Star Wars (1977) we also have a capable heroic heroine in the (still-a-princess) Leia.

Older gamers probably notice this shift simply because they’ve been consuming media for longer. There are upsides and downsides to these changes. On the one hand, our heroes worry far more about motivation and whether an action is right. On the other, women are afforded much more respect for their capabilities now. There’s no right or wrong way to approach these characters, but our modern sensibilities have definitely changed what’s acceptable to be a “hero” in movies, TV, books, and role-playing games.

Your turn: How have heroes in your games changed over the years?

 

[Terry Herc]

Awesome subject for an article, especially in our hobby. I would really enjoy seeing this expanded to a larger piece or collection of pieces - there is a lot to unpack in how our view of heros have changed in parallel with the development of new RPG systems and rules.

 

[Jeff Carpenter]

I read an article sometime back that compared the musculization of male action movie stars and it is increasing. It had side by side photos of huge jackman from the first wolverine movie wnd the last one and it was crazy how much more ripped he was in the last one.

The articles point was the audiance expects more muscles now than it did before. Action stars cant just ne in shape they need to be ultra shredded.

 

[Arilyn]

In the pulp era, and many adventure stories preceding this era, events were more important than the characters. Little attention was paid to character personality, which is how we end up with a masterful writer like Tolkien creating rather bland characters, from our point of view.

Kirk is a great example. There is very little angst and personality development in the original series, but we see a much more human Kirk in the movies.

In TTRPGs, there is now more attention paid to motivation, flaws and character growth. These ideas are often integrated into the themes or even rulesets of games. Even some video games do this, like Dragon Age.

Of course there's still room for beer and pretzels, kill the monsters and get rich style games.

Good article!

 

[Arilyn]

I read an article sometime back that compared the musculization of male action movie stars and it is increasing. It had side by side photos of huge jackman from the first wolverine movie wnd the last one and it was crazy how much more ripped he was in the last one.

The articles point was the audiance expects more muscles now than it did before. Action stars cant just ne in shape they need to be ultra shredded.

Yeah, this is a result of the current obsession with super hero movies. Male leads are super muscle bound, have small waists, and no body hair!

I think it's mostly in the super hero genre though.

 

[Davies]

Kirk is a great example. There is very little angst and personality development in the original series, but we see a much more human Kirk in the movies.

Ehhhh .... I think that's overstating it a bit. There's bits of the character's tension shown in some of the episodes, like in The Naked Now, where, under the emotion plague, he talks about how the demands of his captaincy are painful for him, and the question of whether he can or should make the call that drives the action of The City on the Edge of Forever. But on the whole, I think you're right.

 

[Arilyn]

Ehhhh .... I think that's overstating it a bit. There's bits of the character's tension shown in some of the episodes, like in The Naked Now, where, under the emotion plague, he talks about how the demands of his captaincy are painful for him, and the question of whether he can or should make the call that drives the action of The City on the Edge of Forever. But on the whole, I think you're right.

Oh yes, there's some. And I think Roddenberry wanted more, but tv at the time... The original series is still my favourite, and I think they did a good job of taking the characters in the series, and making them more fleshed out in the movies. They still feel like the characters, so there was definitely an original base to work from.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Before getting into the subject at hand, I have to say that the uncertainty added by Peter Jackson generally does a disservice to the source material. Theoden flees in fear rather than marching to defend his people, Faramir's whole character crumbles, and while Aragorn becomes a more complicated character, he loses that nobility and strength of purpose. But I digress...

The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) books, written between 1937 to 1949, feature an Aragorn who knows what he must do; he's just not sure that he is capable enough to do it given the enormous strength of the enemy. He doesn't have angst about it, he goes on and tries to do it. The book is mostly about Sam (and less, about Frodo), the ordinary person forced by circumstances to become a hero.

Contrast this with the movies (2001-2003). The movies are about Aragorn, not an ordinary person but born to a hereditary nobility. And he is frequently torn by uncertainty about what he should do (and also whether he can accomplish whatever he decides to do).

I think it's awesome that we're seeing greater diversity in our heroes. The more people can see themselves in our stories, the better. And it is also important for people that have traditionally only seen themselves in popular heroes (white, male, cishet) to see heroes that don't look like them.

Heck, one thing I've noticed with fan art (and some official D&D art) is that we're now seeing characters depicted wearing glasses. As a kid, I had, what Egon? Now I'm seeing people draw their wizards, artificers, and more with spectacles.

 

[Tonguez]

The Conan of the REH Books is NOT a big burly muscle bound monster and given the influence of Tolkien, Leiber and similar I’d question if the OP assessment is accurate -outside of those early 80s movies anyway.

like many I started with the Basic Red Box and Neither of the iconic characters therein Adventurer or Aleena (or Bargle) match your descriptions.
It seems there’s always been a much broader range of depictions than the Frazetta Stereotypes

 

[billd91]

I think there's a lot less contrast between the book and movie versions of Lord of the Rings. Aragorn definitely ruminates about the best course of action in the book - at least in the Two Towers, which is more substantially focused on Aragorn and his conflicts than the others. He worries that all his choices go ill. The screenwriters caught on to that and expounded on it a bit in translating it to the screen. But there's plenty for them to work with.