Naesh

How about a "villain" with *real* issues? Like, a villain with split-personality? His "special power" could be his ability to manipulate others through words alone on a level that's not expected. He would be able to see others down to their core due to his mental illness. One part of his personality would be constantly crying out for help, while the other would plunge deeper into the abyss in a spiral of (self-)destruction. We could make him / her so ridiculously overpowered, that his failure is only possible because somewhere he *wants* to be stopped, he wants to die. As the story progresses the main character could explore what made him into something monstrous like this. But this would be his / her personal story. Hmm... maybe not suited for a crpg. But you guys are right, i like stories where there is no real villain, where the story goes more like "everyone against everyone" than "the good guys vs the bad guys".

I have no problem being the one. I have a problem being the one without my own effort, without attributing "being the one" to me, and i have a problem being a machine without any real, human purpose. I know i should roleplay but what real, believable character would go into such great lengths as to sacrifice himself / herself to save the world? To save my cute kitten - maybe. But to save the world? Exactly what am i saving?

And my point is that "our" values are a bit ****ed up. I do not see humility admirable, but just something that's necessary to show in social interactions. (or face the consequences) In fact, humility is utterly despicable in my point of view. I like pride and arrogance much more. These are completely honest attributes. Especially pride. Not empty, baseless "pride", but real pride. It forces you to draw a line for yourself, not to let go of your standards, should anything happen. I really think that "our" values - that is, the values that are forced on us by the media and the people around us since we live in communities - center somewhat in *self-hate* and this is very damaging in the long run. ( I recommend you some of the works of Ayn Rand, if you are interested, i think that she actually might have had some good thoughts. Or go and watch some of her interviews on youtube, a couple of minutes. That is, if you don't fear from getting "snookered" again. ) If you think about it, this provides an explanation as to why the old greek culture is a bit alien, why nobody finds anything wrong in the da2 trailer (and such), which basically tells you in an epic way (so you wont notice) to bend. I think that "evil" and "good" are just words that are used by people to control (to condition!) others. And that the real, undistorted nature of humans (at least those who managed to build up some self-respect) is very colorful, very beautiful. This is why alignment in rpg's is meh. Many times the stories are questionable too. Always just pretending to be free from the dualistic world view. Reality has more colors, like "everyone against everyone", not "the good guys vs the bad guys".

There is one more thing that i noticed, it might be of interest. The values transmitted by modern media rarely celebrate the human nature as it is. Somehow there is always the hidden message, that something is inherently wrong in how humans behave naturally and the player character (the machine) is the one who will correct that. The true beauty of the human nature is viewed through very distorted lenses. I really don't like this message, as it tries to undermine self-respect. What is more striking, that some of the very human qualities are generally frowned upon or ignored. I did not see a positive character act out of envy or sloth, when it's pretty common in the real world. What i really dislike is when a story tells me that this or that character is "evil" or somehow in the wrong, therefore he / she should be killed, when in reality all he / she did was act in a very natural way. These things are generally very hard to notice and i doubt that they were planned. If you look at the old greek literature, the human nature was celebrated at every doorstep. For example, envy was very much understood as a motive, not shunned or ignored.

As an added bonus i want the possibility to betray a companion. In a *significant* manner.

He was part of a mercenary band and his "father" put him to work. Or rather, wanted to get rid of him. But it's still very silly. Ignore it. Personally, i - playing an anti-hero character - would like to go after an adventuring party, where the lead character is in some form a "chosen one" by fate or by some of the "good" gods. Just like the usual chosen heroes. Add in some repulsive hypocrisy and we have an explosive situation. You will be facing the typical character that you were forced to play in other games. Heheheh.

It's dark, precisely to show that no matter what happens, you can pull through, you can still win - if you don't stop fighting. But still... i find the world of DA:O and the setting of Skyrim much more depressing... Have you watched the Destiny trailer of DA2? Did you listen to what Flemeth actually says? Bending your knees to destiny = wisdom, going against it = stupidity? Will there be more of these "shut up and obey" style "heroic" tales i wonder? It's like every human progress would be the work of some greater power and not achieved at the cost of the sweat and blood of key individuals (who actually have names)! If it's like that in each western fantasy (to some extent), if the fans really want to hear that, then sorry, but i will like that "really bad o' comic" better! What i want to say to all these fans is to stop pitying yourself and take a good look at reality already! When this physicist guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leó_Szilárd was diagnosed with cancer and the doctors told him, no way in hell will he survive, he looked up some biology books, then designed a method to cure himself and succeeded! Did he survive, because he was the dragonborn? Hell no! This is really how a genuine human character looks like!

Most of them are absurdly large swords, yes. Back in college we held some special "who can watch more super-japanese-style movies" competitions. It was a lot of fun, in the weirdest way. Perhaps it was a special kind of self-punishment. You *really* have to see one (no, actually, for the sake of your mental health *do not* see one) to properly get the difference in the western-eastern cultures. Please search youtube for "robo-geisha", watch the trailer. :D Please do so! :D :D :D By the way, i still consider Berserk an awesome fantasy story. It's just from an other culture, that's all. And i guess people will always desire what they can't get. So, jRPG-s will always have absurdly large swords, that cannot be wielded by the japanese. And this explains why katanas are favored by the modders (of skyrim, for example).

Okay. We both know you will get "snookered" again, (from vol 17) when you are bored enough.

Dang it. I just re-read vol 17-vol 21 again. You know that what you read was drawn like 25 years ago, right? Whatever, your loss. )

Rather, the only thing that doesn't seems genuine human to me is his immense strength and that huge kick-ass sword. No, i retract that, there is such a sword actually and i can imagine someone who dedicated his life to it, wield this beauty: The early material that you read was more like an experiment of the author than the legend that it has become. There are two turning points in the story, i guess i should tell you to start reading from vol. 5 or better, from vol 17., if you want to see some improvement in the drawing style and then if you are still interested you can read back. The murder of the cobra-armored badguy simply does not covers just how awesome this story will be later on. Because it gets better - but only if you can stomach the over the top ridiculous style... if you cannot or still find it distasteful or retarded then i am not sure if you should bother. And the fact that there are better stories out there - so what? I wanted to prove a point and this was my example. What i really like is that the main character is just a human. Yes, he wields that huge lump of iron, but there is an attempt to explain that in the story. What i really mean by "is just a human" is that he relies only on his bodily strength, finesse and luck to overcome the situations he gets into, to defeat those inhuman monstrosities. He cuts through the hardships of life with that big sword of his. Even though he makes some serious errors, he realizes these later on so there is some character development too! At the beginning of the story the only motive behind his actions was to survive, he only wanted to stay alive. As the story progresses, he gets betrayed and branded with an inescapable doom. He still pulls through every time somehow and keeps fighting. *This* is what the true face of the human nature looks like! Even if you are struck down by powers unimaginable, you *will* manage to stand up and continue fighting! The point is that he will get to a state, where, by all accounts of greater powers he should be dead, but he isn't. This story tells about the triumph of the human will over fate. At every turn, the reader gets reminded of that in a subtle way. If the main character of Berserk would be the main character of Odyssey, he would go after the heads of the gods armed with a sword and somehow succeed in the end. Compare this sort of character, this sort of story-telling with what we got in the modern rpgs. You are the dragonborn, favored by the gods, so you are meant to stop the world eater. You are a grey warden, so only you can kill the archdemon, good luck with that, you are meant to do that by the way, everybody is expecting that from you. These tales tell about the triumph of destiny over everything else, about how worthless the human will is in the face of the greater powers. And the main character (You) gets to succeed only because of that, since you are the one who is favored by fate. What message does this carries to the real world? Do you really want to play a game what tells you that? Well, if you call what i described before an angry hero or an anti hero, then you are right! But i think there is a substantial difference there! I can picture myself being an anti-hero or an angry hero, whereas i can't picture myself as someone, who has no attachments to life at all - and that's exactly why his desire is to save the world instead of saving himself or his loved ones! Is self-sacrifice really a virtue? Shouldn't we be more humane and rational by sending the message to the player that to him his own life is the most important thing in the world, more important than the life of all the others combined? That he should stand up for his own values, protect the people close to him / her exactly because he places such a high value on himself, not because he is so worthless, selfless and "good"? What really-really bothers me are these type of subtle messages - that tell me that i am worthless in some way, or that i should value someone or something else more than myself! While playing these games i am reminded again and again (in some way that's very hard to notice) that in real life i can achieve nothing, i am not a hero by any measure since i was not born as the chosen one. And as i said before this is a false message, because i am a hero in real life too! ;-) So why not make a change in the way ps:t did and go one step further towards a world full of people? Yes, even your companions can be people and the character you play might not be a machine either!

Well, yes, but my point was not the big sword. It's a japanese graphic novel. For the japanese. Have you watched japanese commercials? Did you find them over the top? My point was that it's successful and the lead character is very much like a human, not an instrument of fate. (the first volumes are a bit weak by the way. ) An other, western example would be Brandon Lee's Crow, where the main character wants revenge for his loss - not to stop the evil gang, just because they are evil and are causing harm to the people, but for his own revenge. But i better stop now, i started to feel like i'm trolling you guys.

I really can't imagine how can You show something new and astonishing using the traditional hero story. I hated this in Dragon Age: Origins too. For some reason I wasn't just some guy who just wanted to save himself and the people close around him, or take revenge for something personal that happened to him. No, basically at the very beginning of the story i set up to save the entire world and everybody was expecting me to do so... Yes, ps:t was much better in this perspective. I guess i am in for a surprise then with p.e. ;-) Oh no, wait. There was this one time... this game, Dreamweb. The hero-setting worked there perfectly! The point of the story was that the player played an assassin for some unknown greater force. (The "keepers of dreams" or something... ) The instructions as who to assassinate next came through hallucinations or dreams, so the player was always left wondering, if the player character went simply mad and is just killing some random people, or these greater forces are for real. Yes, that's the usual response from the hardcore rpg fan. You are repulsed by the fact that it's a japanese graphic novel and You find it silly. But it's for a different demographic. That's why You have never heard of it and this is why it's redeeming values might have missed your eye. Among these, the most important (in my opinion, that is) are the subtle messages that the story carries are not shallow and not "in your face". The actions and words of the lead character are actually inspiring. His motives are very understandable, there is no "world saving", "enacting justice" or "impressing others" among them. The story doesn't tells you, the reader, that you cannot be a hero in real life, quite the opposite. If you can, please take a look at Chapter 172, pages 8-10. or, equivalently, vol.21. 71-73. and ignore the facts that the world and style are not to your taste. (This is the part, where an antagonist says "you will sacrifice thousands of people to save that which", the crowd shouts out to burn her, and the lead character shouts back to them, saying "all these people gathered together, just because you guys are in trouble, thats why you all pray, you bunch of... you are nothing, but a sacrifice for someone else" and despite the fact that he will indeed sacrifice thousands of people "just" to save someone close to him, he proceeds... i really can't give it back to you here, you have to read it... ) By "it's successful" i meant that it's successful relative to the target demographic. Still, I see no need for the hero-setting, but i guess that's up to the developers anyway and they know their job. Anyway, i am looking forward to a mixture of planescape torment and the baldurs gate series with some new elements in it. ( btw. if you take a look at the polls here: http://www.obsidian.net/ you will see that people expect exactly a mixture of bg and ps:t, and if you look at it, the nameless one was not trying to save the world - just himself - so why not take this approach one step further and go with completely human-like protagonists with understandable goals and motives? )

And Berserk is very successful! In my opinion this type of storytelling is much more awesome!

Surely the average gamer (who likes Planescape Torment for example) doesn't wish to be treated like a puppet on strings all the time. I see catering to the need of wish fulfillment in the possibility to do things more easily than in real life. I guess that is why the romance thread is so popular. Even so, in real life you do not have to be "chosen" by fate to be loved back. In reality, if you spend some time together with a compatible person, that alone is enough for the feelings to develop. It's more like an invisible natural force is at work. Love is hardly the "reward" of your wordly achievements or fetch quests. (They might be required, but definitely not sufficient. ) In my opinion it would be a bad idea to rub it under the pc's nose that "You are chosen by the gods. That's why you can have anyone in the game as your wife. " If you look at it, this sends the message to the player that in real life he / she is pathethic, incompetent and will never achieve anything. But maybe it's as You say and that's the message the average gamer wants to hear at every turn.

I noticed something. There are lots of stories in which the player character is somehow special, chosen by destiny, aided by the gods. All this mostly because he/she was at the right place at the right time or simply just because it's the player character. How many times did we experience that the main driving force behind the story was that the player character was the "chosen one"? How many times did we stop the evil forces from doing something really bad, just because it's something really bad and we are "meant" to stop it from happening? This type of story carries the message that those people who are not "chosen" by fate cannot achieve anything. I really hate that, because it's a false message. What would you say to the idea to flip over the coin this time? Let's play a character who is shunned by the gods, struck by a cursed fate, branded with an inescapable death at the hands of greater forces. As the story progresses we could see how this character escapes certain death again and again, against all odds, just by the sheer power of his / her will alone. He / she would not do the quests in order to stop some ancient evil, but only for the reason that he / she wants to live. Stopping a calamity could be just something that follows from the actions of the pc and the character may be entirely indifferent about it! I would like to play a story where the main goal would be something humanely impossible, yet, at the end of it the character could achieve it! Like, in order to end a curse that brands you as the target of undead spirits every night, you have to kill a (demi)god! Or take Baldurs Gate 2 for an example. I *really* hated that despite all my efforts i could not save Viconia, no matter what choices i made. What i wanted was the crazy option to go after Lolth, even if slaying her would have turned out impossible at the end! My character would have tried it! This type of story carries the message that no matter what happens, even if the most powerful being in the universe strikes you down it is in the human nature to stand up and fight again! Even if it seems futile at first! You do not have to be favored by fate to do great things! Humans are not the playthings of greater powers! (at least, involuntarily, that is) There is no need for the aid of gods, you can achieve your goals from your own power (with the help of your companions)! Edit: i see that i posted this in the wrong section, i don't know how that happened, sorry about that It would be great to see a game, where the player character is not "forced" or "conditioned" to play the "good" guy by appropriate feedback from the game itself! If my pc doesn't really wants to help that old lady, then that's it, the old lady might be screwed for all i care! And why would my pc help that old lady anyway? Just to stay true to his "lawful good" alignment i have to fight some rather dangerous trolls to get some stupid old book back? Or spend some valuable coin on something utterly meaningless? Bleh! :D I can just kill the old hag, take the coin that was meant for the reward and be done with it! Perhaps i will even go after that old book afterwards! Of course, this would not mean that my actions would have no consequence at all, i just wouldn't see it immediately in a change of alignment for example! My character might even think that he is actually lawful good, when in reality, considering the *long term* consequences of his actions, he tends to be chaotic evil! And what does "good", "evil" mean anyway? All that should matter are the consequences of your actions and whether you are favored by some group or shunned by other! For example, the habit of killing old ladies makes the player character indifferent about killing (seemigly unimportant or weak) npc's and this could lead to very dangerous consequences in *later parts* of the game! (so the player is tempted not to load his / her *much earlier* save when facing the crisis that came from his / her earlier questionable actions)