Why people don't want to play heroic characters?

[Icyshadow]

Tell that to the 10-year old kids in South America who put a kitten in a barrel, poured gasoline on it and THEN LIT IT ON FIRE.

Doesn't sound like a mental condition to me. THAT sounds like pure Evil in modern society, and that's pretty much all I will say on what I saw.

[TOZ]

shallowsoul wrote:

Be careful when using real world logic because in today's society there is no such thing as evil.

*falls over laughing*

[thejeff]

shallowsoul wrote:

Be careful when using real world logic because in today's society there is no such thing as evil. If you do something really bad then you automatically have a mental condition. Rarely will someone be labeled as just a really evil f%@)^r.

And then we'll lock you up for life or execute you for it anyway. In conditions pretty much designed to drive you crazy, if you weren't already.

[Comrade Anklebiter]

GeraintElberion wrote:

Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:

GeraintElberion wrote:

Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:

Not murder hobos!

I have heard so much about Lodoss and it is almost untraceable in the UK.

amazon.co.uk has US DVDs for about £250... ridiculoid!

One of your brethren Brits was commenting in another thread that he watched it on youtube.

Cheerio!

So... this is how you make me late for work!

Well-played, sir. Well-played.

Geraint, you're supposed to watch it at work. Don't worry, according to the labor theory of value, it's fine.

[shallowsoul]

TOZ wrote:

shallowsoul wrote:

Be careful when using real world logic because in today's society there is no such thing as evil.

*falls over laughing*

I'm sorry but it's true to an extent. You hear about mother's drowning their children and the first thing that pops up is what kind of mental condition does she have not she's just some evil mother who decided to kill her children.

[bigkilla]

shallowsoul wrote:

TOZ wrote:

shallowsoul wrote:

Be careful when using real world logic because in today's society there is no such thing as evil.

*falls over laughing*

I'm sorry but it's true to an extent. You hear about mother's drowning their children and the first thing that pops up is what kind of mental condition does she have not she's just some evil mother who decided to kill her children.

The Republican Party is PURE EVIL!!!

[shallowsoul]

bigkilla wrote:

shallowsoul wrote:

TOZ wrote:

shallowsoul wrote:

Be careful when using real world logic because in today's society there is no such thing as evil.

*falls over laughing*

I'm sorry but it's true to an extent. You hear about mother's drowning their children and the first thing that pops up is what kind of mental condition does she have not she's just some evil mother who decided to kill her children.

The Republican Party is PURE EVIL!!!

The American government is pure evil.

[Jmacq1]

shallowsoul wrote:

TOZ wrote:

shallowsoul wrote:

Be careful when using real world logic because in today's society there is no such thing as evil.

*falls over laughing*

I'm sorry but it's true to an extent. You hear about mother's drowning their children and the first thing that pops up is what kind of mental condition does she have not she's just some evil mother who decided to kill her children.

Because she's probably NOT "just some evil mother who decided to kill her children." Most individuals that evidence genuine, direct, willful evil do in fact have psychological conditions that make those actions possible and palatable to them (psycho- or sociopathy for example). Evil could even be considered a form of insanity in and of itself, or it becomes more a chicken-and-egg argument. The kind of evil you use in your example is not normal human behavior, ergo they do not have a normal human mind.

You're evidencing a ridiculously black and white (or perhaps just uninformed) view of the world. Certainly, evil exists, but that doesn't mean that it often isn't built on a foundation of psychological flaws and aberrations, and in many cases where underlying psychological reasons are found, the perpetrators are still punished regardless. The "insanity defense" is actually far less commonly used let alone as successful as fiction often portrays.

Basically, insanity/psychological instability is more often used to describe the reason for the crime, not to provide an excuse for it. Insanity pleas only work if you can prove the suspect could not distinguish between right and wrong, and even if successful will likely mean years of confinement in a treatment facility, making it effectively a prison sentence anyway.

Now when it comes to more indirect/less extreme forms of evil, it usually boils down purely to greed and self-interest coupled with the natural human tendency to not really give much of a damn about any human beings you don't know (and like) personally. Some people have a greater capacity for empathy with the faceless masses than others, but by and large even the deaths of large numbers of people elicit more of a detached "Oh that's too bad/such a tragedy" than massive levels of righteous indignation and fury in those not directly affected by such losses.

[Kthulhu]

Also, there's a difference between good and evil and hero and villain, in my opinion. Just like most good people aren't going to be heroes, most evil people aren't necessarily going to be villains. Bob the Butcher may be a NE selfish man who keeps his thumb on the scale, cheats at cards, etc. If he's 5th level or higher, he would even make a paladin's Detect Evil ping. Does that mean he should be indescriminately slaughtered?

[Misery]

I had this same problem when I was younger, both from my players and to be fair, from myself. The older I've got though (29) I can say my tastes have changed and so have MOST of our players.

I much prefer the heroic type of characters and honestly can't play anything further down than Neutral ... and even that's a hard thing at times. There's so much suck in the real world AND fantasy worlds, I can't see playing a character that doesn't want to make it a better place ... and in real life too. I deal with hateful, annoying people often enough but I still know there's enough good out there to want to save if you could. So I still try to be kind, nice, and polite whenever I can since thats all I feel like I can do for right now.

Give me Spider-man over Venom.

Wolverine over Sabertooth.

Jedi over Sith.

I want to be the good guy ... the hero ... hope ...

EDIT: (Says the guy called Misery, yeah I know I know ... another example of my holdover from the past heh)

[Katz]

It really all comes down to personal preference--some players like being the big good hero, other players prefer more neutral characters. I personally like both, though I prefer to be somewhere more neutral; I just like playing conflicted characters.

That said, the OP's story wasn't about people being non-heroic--it was about characters being a!%!!$&s. Players being a@@**&#s, too, if they'd agreed to be heroes. As was stated earlier, one cause of that COULD be they felt overshadowed by the Middle Earth setting, but still, sounds like they were trying to derail the campaign, not be merely not-heroes.

[Kthulhu]

Misery wrote:

Give me Spider-man over Venom.

Both heroes these days. Flash Thompson is Venom.

Wolverine over Sabertooth.

Ironic in that so much of Wolverine's popularity came from him being the anti-hero. Of course, these days, he's the boy scout, and Scott Summers has shot right past anti-hero and landed squarely in villain territory.

Jedi over Sith.

The real villain of the prequels: Yoda. His obsessive need to bring balance to the force, couple with his completel lack of comprehension of what that meant led to the legions of Jedi being reduced to a handful (balanced against the handful of Sith), and allowed the Empire to overthrow the Republic.

I want to be the good guy ... the hero ... hope ...

[Misery]

Kthulhu wrote:

Misery wrote:

Give me Spider-man over Venom.

Both heroes these days. Flash Thompson is Venom.

Wolverine over Sabertooth.

Ironic in that so much of Wolverine's popularity came from him being the anti-hero. Of course, these days, he's the boy scout, and Scott Summers has shot right past anti-hero and landed squarely in villain territory.

Jedi over Sith.

The real villain of the prequels: Yoda. His obsessive need to bring balance to the force, couple with his completel lack of comprehension of what that meant led to the legions of Jedi being reduced to a handful (balanced against the handful of Sith), and allowed the Empire to overthrow the Republic.

I want to be the good guy ... the hero ... hope ...

I don't keep up with Spider-man anymore sadly so ... yeah. I'm assuming the idea behind what I was trying to say was clear enough I hope T_T.

Wolverine's popularity might be SOMEWHAT of an anti-hero, but he's always been a good guy at the core ... a core surrounded by bad A. I'm just fine with that type of hero too. Wolvering 71 was the first comic of him I bought and though I might not have much knowledge before hand, I'm fine with him being the hero type that is also a bit of a rebel too. It works for him and others. (I always hated Scott though so hurray there)

Jedi Vs Sith ... no. Yoda wasn't the real villain in my eyes. Naive? Maybe. But that's hardly the true villain. The true villain was some old senator (heh ...) zapping lightning out of his hands for the prequels/original trilogy. You can argue this point of course and feel free but it's not really the topic for that so I've said my peace and letting it be.

[EntrerisShadow]

Katz wrote:

It really all comes down to personal preference--some players like being the big good hero, other players prefer more neutral characters. I personally like both, though I prefer to be somewhere more neutral; I just like playing conflicted characters.

Ditto that. One of my favorite characters remains my first---a Tiefling Monk who was evil by nature trying to be good by nurture, which worked out to a twisted Lawful Neutral bent. He dealt nonlethal damage and would only knock out or subdue those he fought, but he didn't understand the horrified expressions of his party members when he removed the fingers and tongue of the unconscious sorcerer whom they had just defeated. It seemed a far more merciful fate than death, after all.

Of course, if I do play good, I like Good with a capital "G". I don't think Wolverine would even pass my litmus test for a GOOD character. Empathy is the basis of all good, and in most incarnations, Wolverine was straddling the sociopath line. I'd put him at Chaotic Neutral at best. (Chaotic Evil any time Marvel decided to go darker and edgier.)

[Alitan]

ES...

Just because somebody is cursed with berserker rages doesn't make them chaotic. I'll grant you that Logan is rather iconoclastic, and VERY touchy about taking orders. But I can't see dubbing him chaotic. He's not nearly random or whimsical enough for that. Imo.

[Irontruth]

He hates rules and constantly defies legitimate authority. If those aren't key components of being Chaotic than nothing is.

[3.5 Loyalist]

Yep, he is the bad boy, that doesn't like orders or trust authority. The cigar smoking tough-talking individualist lone wolf. He is chaotic.

[Jmacq1]

EntrerisShadow wrote:

Of course, if I do play good, I like Good with a capital "G". I don't think Wolverine would even pass my litmus test for a GOOD character. Empathy is the basis of all good, and in most incarnations, Wolverine was straddling the sociopath line. I'd put him at Chaotic Neutral at best. (Chaotic Evil any time Marvel decided to go darker and edgier.)

I'd have to disagree there. I've never bought the notion that "Good" characters in most fantasy RPGs can't or won't kill a whole lotta bad things in the course of their adventures and likely not shed many tears over it. Others are free to interpret otherwise, but I and my gamers tend to prefer things be a little more simple than trying to figure out what to do with all those unconscious opponents the Good character(s) always leaves around and get into debates about whether it's OK to kill intelligent opponents in the heat of combat. If that's the kind of roleplay you and your players enjoy, then that's great, but if you want to remove all the hack and slash from the game, I personally would tend to think there are other RPGs better suited to that.

But in the case of Wolverine you're faced with the fact that any character with as long a history and multitude of writers and interpretations will not easily fit into the alignment conventions of the game, because most heavily-developed characters don't. People don't fit into neat little personality boxes, there are massive shades of grey and "tendencies" involved.

Wolverine might chafe at authority but he also follows it when he knows it's the right thing to do and he respects the leader giving him the orders. He's dedicated to the X-Men's cause(s), and a highly disciplined warrior when he's not in "berserker" mode. He's extremely loyal to his friends (not something that can be said of most Chaotic Neutral characters), and most certainly does not regularly put his own needs above all else.

As I said, he doesn't always easily fit into a specific alignment, but I would agree with others that overall "Chaotic Good" fits him far better than Chaotic Neutral.

[Kthulhu]

There's also the fact that he hasn't really had a serserker rage in couple of decades or so.

[Misery]

Irontruth wrote:

He hates rules and constantly defies legitimate authority. If those aren't key components of being Chaotic than nothing is.

He hates BAD authority. As long as he's lived, he's seen good and bad leaders and I think he's a bit cynical with leadership until proved. In the early days he was pretty solid with Charles Xavier even if he hated Cyclops. He followed (follows) Captain America into battle still too.

Hell, the guy was/is a samurai which helped teach him to control his rages as best he could. I'd put Logan as N/G with both Lawful AND Chaotic tendencies (aka, alignment systems are wonky and shouldn't be used period IMO)

[EntrerisShadow]

Alitan wrote:

ES...

Just because somebody is cursed with berserker rages doesn't make them chaotic. I'll grant you that Logan is rather iconoclastic, and VERY touchy about taking orders. But I can't see dubbing him chaotic. He's not nearly random or whimsical enough for that. Imo.

To be clear it is not the rage part that makes me think Wolverine is chaotic (although the restrictions on Barbarian alignment seems to indicate that Paizo and WotC think so). I think Wolverine is chaotic because his spot on the team is always as the The Lancer, a person whose role is to challenge the established leader.

To clarify, I also don't think that's bad. This is necessary, and any GOOD leader will have one and afford him great respect. Leadership needs to be challenged. But to constantly challenge authority and do your own thing is the very essence of a chaotic character.

Furthermore, in those instances where he's not on a team, he's usually a disaffected loner with few close relationships who never stays in one place, and makes a point of remaining unpredictable. Everything about the character screams "Chaotic!"

Jmacq1 wrote:

I'd have to disagree there. I've never bought the notion that "Good" characters in most fantasy RPGs can't or won't kill a whole lotta bad things in the course of their adventures and likely not shed many tears over it.

For the record, it's not just that Wolverine has killed. He's killed SEVERAL people who, while perhaps not innocent, did not pose an immediate threat. The justifications ranged from reasonable to flimsy, but it was usually vengeance of some sort. Since morality it not a Zero Sum game, and motivations matter, I would place this at squarely neutral in most stories, good in others, and occasionally downright evil (vengeance extending out to those who were only tangentially related to his previous victimization.)

For the record, both of my nonlethal characters were actually non-good. The monk was trying to intellectualize what he couldn't understand intrinsically, and the other was chaotic evil character who simply saw death as they end of his fun. My good guys will kill if it comes down to it. But I do think violence, to a good character, should be the last resort and never something he seeks out. I don't think a Paladin killing a bad guy in self-defense is an evil act. I do think a Paladin trying to find a bad guy who was currently minding his own business so he could pick a fight and smite him to death would be.

[RipfangOmen]

Wait, isn't Venom Mac Gargan now? Last I heard, he was teaned with Osborne. I thoguht Flash was Anti venom.

[3.5 Loyalist]

Ha, thanks Entreris. I think my characters are often Lancers. Want them to have a bit of spine and unpredictability. Not always team players. It sure is fun, and is a variant on the standard heroic.

When parties are too cohesive and a bit un-thinking, don't make individual choice, follow the plot obediently, don't interact with npcs much, that is when the lancer really comes out. G%+!#*n mavericks.

For heroism and being the forward scout possible turncoat!

[Irontruth]

Misery wrote:

Irontruth wrote:

He hates rules and constantly defies legitimate authority. If those aren't key components of being Chaotic than nothing is.

He hates BAD authority. As long as he's lived, he's seen good and bad leaders and I think he's a bit cynical with leadership until proved. In the early days he was pretty solid with Charles Xavier even if he hated Cyclops. He followed (follows) Captain America into battle still too.

Hell, the guy was/is a samurai which helped teach him to control his rages as best he could. I'd put Logan as N/G with both Lawful AND Chaotic tendencies (aka, alignment systems are wonky and shouldn't be used period IMO)

Yeah, most good (as in quality) characters don't fit in neat boxes we think of as alignments, part of why I'm not a fan of alignments. Wolverine is still a very classic mold of Chaotic IMO.

[3.5 Loyalist]

Alignment is just a beginning of a character, you can lean on it a lot or a little, or not at all if it is removed.

[Kthulhu]

I'd peg Wolvie as Neutral Good. Over the years he's gone from having chaotic tendancies in his early years to having lawful tendancies currently.

["Devil's Advocate"]

I agree. He has ben presented as having both ninja and samurai training, many different sorts of eastern spiritual disciplines and meditations, as well as having iconic Chaotic behavior. Both animal-like brutality and also some heavy remorseful beliefs.

I can see NG, N, CN, CG, or even a few others, with strong Chaotic tendencies, but it coud also be something like a he is Cursed to have rage or something like that, a little outside the alignment spectrum.

[shallowsoul]

RipfangOmen wrote:

Wait, isn't Venom Mac Gargan now? Last I heard, he was teaned with Osborne. I thoguht Flash was Anti venom.

Actually Eddie Brock becomes Anti-Venom and Flash Thompson becomes Venom.

[shallowsoul]

Jesus, I'm a bit rusty on my Marvel Universe lore so I went to check on somethings and I was surprised at how much has changed. New Avengers, Dark Avengers, Luke Cage being the head of the Dark Avengers etc...

[Kthulhu]

shallow - Take a look at the X-Men. Specifically Cyclop's activities as of late.