Playing Heroes

[drydem]

I've recently discovered that my PS3, despite not running PS2 software, does run PS1 software and so I've been replaying FF7 and Chrono Trigger. This has driven home something about RPGs that I've missed. I've missed playing heroes. I've missed running games for heroes, for people who are inclined to do the right thing. I understand that there's plenty of self-interest in the world, but I kind of want to run a game where I don't have to appeal to that to motivate characters to do right by people.
There's plenty of space for the self-serving, but it seems that every game I run seems to be for characters who are hard bitten and in it for themselves. I want a game where the characters have the occasional moral pang or instinct to do the right thing. I think the next game I'm gonna run I'm gonna specify heroes.

EDIT: I want to clarify. This is about tabletop, not LARP. LARPs thrive on self-interest, die without it. What I want is to run a tabletop game where I'm not herding people constantly towards plot. I feel like Roy in the second arc of Order of the Stick, trying to get people motivated by lying about treasure and random giants.

Comments

[gollumgollum.livejournal.com]

Is there going to be room for heroes in your Changeling game? (;

[drydem.livejournal.com]

There's a snarky part of me that wants to say no, that this isn't a story about heroes, that autumn isn't a season for heroics.
Then there's a serious part of me that wants to say no, Chicago isn't a town characterized by heroics but by people with bad motives and bad methods accidentally building a jewel of a city on a swamp.
But ultimately, yes. There are going to be heroes.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Autumn is absolutely a season for heroics. They'll be of a different kind; to use music as my metaphor, spring is the season for trumpets doing bright heroic salvation-is-here fanfares, but autumn is the season for horns, ringing out fanfares of defiance. Even if winter must come before spring, the characters can still be doing the right thing, ensuring the eventual rebirth of light.

[drydem.livejournal.com]

You can scream and charge at the coming winter all you want, but eventually you need to build a house and start a fire if you want to win.

[moonandserpent.livejournal.com]

The Shadow Court approves of this message.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

But also defend that fire from the things that would put it out.

Much depends, I suppose, on one's definition of heroism. Even in its defiant form, I don't necessarily map it to screaming and charging at things.

[drydem.livejournal.com]

For me, heroism depends on altruism. Heroism isn't simply acts of bravery, but acts to extend one's monkeysphere. Defending one's home may be brave, but it isn't heroic by my standards.
That said, I ultimately did say that there will be room for heroism in this. And that autumn can have heroics.

[gollumgollum.livejournal.com]

So, say, characters who are looking for a bit of redemption (whether they realize it or not) would be a good fit?

[drydem.livejournal.com]

most definitely. Chicago is a town full of people needing second chances.

[fallen-scholar.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I thi-

Hmmm.

Okay.

[moonandserpent.livejournal.com]

S'why I'm enjoying D&D so much.

[drydem.livejournal.com]

I wish I could get that part of D&D without the paperwork.

[moonandserpent.livejournal.com]

I also find I love the paperwork and the math and tactics of it.

[drydem.livejournal.com]

I like it too. But as a player.

[fallen-scholar.livejournal.com]

I've always been curious about this. What do you consider the paperwork of D&D?

It may be that, being a GDW Referee who remembers how T2K's forms were actually indistinguishable from something published by the IRS, I'm more than usually overdone on the topic.

[drydem.livejournal.com]

I find that so often, to make it so that you aren't throwing generic antagonists that you have to add templates and character levels and put together a lot of numbers for what will ultimately be a short combat. I think I would be happy with a monster generator, but I haven't really found one.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I think this is why I've gotten tired of the World of Darkness. There's virtue in telling stories about morally flawed people doing their best in a grey and muddy world, but I can only take so much of that before I want to spend refresh my faith in humanity with stories about the people who stand up and do the right thing.

[kuribeh.livejournal.com]

Any puppies that need to be saved? Babies kissed? Old Ladies helped across the street? I'm there!