In the campaigns you GMs run - how often do you let players BE Heroes?
Enjoy the temporary adulation and fame of being Heroes?
Or as Whedon TV shows put it 'Big Damn Heroes' ?

If you more often a player: How often had you had that HERO! moment in a game?  
Where you felt the satisfaction of your character doing the Heroic or Right Thing in a BIG way?




- Ed C.



The song that inspired this thread's title:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdo5f_ozf6E
"Heroes" by David Bowie

Quote from: Koltar;444123In the campaigns you GMs run - how often do you let players BE Heroes?
Enjoy the temporary adulation and fame of being Heroes?
Or as Whedon TV shows put it 'Big Damn Heroes' ?

If you more often a player: How often had you had that HERO! moment in a game?  
Where you felt the satisfaction of your character doing the Heroic or Right Thing in a BIG way?




- Ed C.



The song that inspired this thread's title:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdo5f_ozf6E
"Heroes" by David Bowie

As a GM, I look at it more as letting the action play out as it may and not constraining the PCs - if they choose to act heroically it's of their own doing. I don't like to set up "insert hero here" situations; for me as a player it feels cheap, so I don't want to GM something that I'd regard with distaste as a player. As a player I am interested in adventuring more than heroism really; this doesn't mean I want to play an "antihero" or that my character is necessarily not a good person, just that being the "hero of the story" is not what I'm looking for in an RPG.

I'm like Cole on this. I like to let situations develop wherever they may. If that leads to the PCs having their hero moment, that'll be on their own turf, of their own choosing, and that makes the experience all the more rewarding. It means that as a GM I keep my mind (and thus, the game world) open to such possibilities. No option is verboten. Whatever the players choose to do, wherever the PCs choose to go, there will be a world able to respond in kind.

I had a few moments like this as a player. One of them coming to mind was playing Rolemaster in a tight sandbox very early on, when I was a kid. The basic setup was basically a war between two fiefs, with the PCs thrown into the situation and having to basically find a place there. We ended up organizing a whole revolt of the serfs and went after one of the keeps. Many died during the assault, which was entirely prepared by the players, the GM just reacting to the plan, but in the end, we were victorious. We were the heroes of the place. We had liberated them from their petty lords. It was awesome.

Big Damn Heroes requires a morally simplistic black & white world.   Those settings play best in superhero RPGs or a Good vs. Evil fantasy games or space opera like Star Wars.  

So it depends on the game, the genre and the players.

I would look at it as heroic actions by the PCs are great (and if the PCs act heroically, most NPCs will probably like them for it) whereas "big damn heroes" seems like it's rigged.

I guess there are times and places where I like to see it happen.  I think "heroic" depends on context.  The "end of all things" Twilight:2000 scenario I've been bouncing around, for example, almost forbids it: it's The Road with tanks and guns.

On the other hand, I love seeing adventurers rise to the occasion in my AD&D games and become heroes of legend.

Quote from: Benoist;444127I'm like Cole on this. I like to let situations develop wherever they may. If that leads to the PCs having their hero moment, that'll be on their own turf, of their own choosing, and that makes the experience all the more rewarding. It means that as a GM I keep my mind (and thus, the game world) open to such possibilities. No option is verboten. Whatever the players choose to do, wherever the PCs choose to go, there will be a world able to respond in kind.

You can let them play out, but I think it is important to point out that GMs can easily make being a hero impossible in a sandbox game. It is no problem to set up no win situations for good people. If you want to let heroes be heroes, you need some good guy NPCs around to help out.

For example, in my current game the party is trying to help a girl that was arrested for being a member of an illegal magical order. While the Holy Order of the Sun and the Emperor that rules the order and the nation are all assholes, the magistrate that is actually holding the girl right now is Lawful Good and plans on deputizing the party Paladin, to insulate him from the order.

If I made the magistrate and asshole too, the party could never win. The state would take payment for the girl, kill her anyway, and chase the party into exile for aiding her in the first place. Yeah, it is sand box, but the people I put in the sand box characterize it.

Quote from: Cranewings;444135You can let them play out, but I think it is important to point out that GMs can easily make being a hero impossible in a sandbox game. It is no problem to set up no win situations for good people. If you want to let heroes be heroes, you need some good guy NPCs around to help out.

The solution for me is to not "set up situations" at all. I come up with an environment, with various NPCs, factions, geographical features, landmarks, whatnot. There is a starting point. From there, the players basically do whatever they want. I might throw some situations or opportunities at the PCs once in a while, but I don't "set up" scenarios and don't think of contingencies the players have to go through as in "adventure path" kinda thing. I just react to what they do.

If instead of helping out the girl they decide to let her die, or to assassinate the magistrate, or to make her escape from the jail by seeking out the thieves guild, or whatnot, I'm okay with it. I just role play the environment, extrapolate once in a while with stuff I had not determined before, improvise based on what I got, and try to keep things fair, entertaining, and consistent/believable. That's it.

Quote from: Cranewings;444135If I made the magistrate and asshole too, the party could never win. The state would take payment for the girl, kill her anyway, and chase the party into exile for aiding her in the first place. Yeah, it is sand box, but the people I put in the sand box characterize it.

If the magistrate was as evil as the rest of them, and the PCs, learning of this, decided to take the girl away to safety at the cost of angering the authorities, isn't that heroic? I would think they would meet NPCs who would think so.

Quote from: Benoist;444141The solution for me is to not "set up situations" at all. I come up with an environment, with various NPCs, factions, geographical features, landmarks, whatnot. There is a starting point. From there, the players basically do whatever they want. I might throw some situations or opportunities at the PCs once in a while, but I don't "set up" scenarios and don't think of contingencies the players have to go through as in "adventure path" kinda thing. I just react to what they do.

If instead of helping out the girl they decide to let her die, or to assassinate the magistrate, or to make her escape from the jail by seeking out the thieves guild, or whatnot, I'm okay with it. I just role play the environment, extrapolate once in a while with stuff I had not determined before, improvise based on what I got, and try to keep things fair, entertaining, and consistent/believable. That's it.

My players aren't the kind of people that really respond well to total freedom, so I have to keep my finger in there a little, moving things along. I didn't have the magistrate written up until they told me they were going to go find him. At that point, I could have made him an asshole, doubling the difficulty of the game. Instead I made him a good guy, so they can be good people without being screwed.

I've played in plenty of games where the GMs said they do what you do, but if they fill the world full of assholes, there isn't anyway to be a good guy and come out decently, maybe even alive. Evil always wins because good is dumb and all that.

Sure, if I detailed everyone they ever met before they came up with the idea of talking to them, I could hold true to it the way you are suggesting, but if you come up with the character after the players make the decision to find him, your depiction of the guy will have a big impact on the game.

Quote from: Cole;444143If the magistrate was as evil as the rest of them, and the PCs, learning of this, decided to take the girl away to safety at the cost of angering the authorities, isn't that heroic? I would think they would meet NPCs who would think so.

Sure, it is heroic, but it also doubles the difficulty of the game. It takes away their sandbox freedom pretty much forever and turns it into enemies of the state. Evil always wins because good is dumb.

Quote from: Cranewings;444144I didn't have the magistrate written up until they told me they were going to go find him. At that point, I could have made him an asshole, doubling the difficulty of the game. Instead I made him a good guy, so they can be good people without being screwed.
 [...]
Sure, if I detailed everyone they ever met before they came up with the idea of talking to them, I could hold true to it the way you are suggesting, but if you come up with the character after the players make the decision to find him, your depiction of the guy will have a big impact on the game.

You may think I am crazy but I would probably make a reaction roll to see if the as yet undefiined NPC was sympathetic to their cause (i.e. a positive reaction - he's basically good, negative he's basically evil.)

Keep in mind I'm not saying there's any reason the magistrate SHOULDN'T be a good guy - I'm just saying that PC heroism isn't predicated on having a magnanimous NPC patron enabling it.

Quote from: Cranewings;444145Sure, it is heroic, but it also doubles the difficulty of the game. It takes away their sandbox freedom pretty much forever and turns it into enemies of the state. Evil always wins because good is dumb.

Some people would love this sort of stuff and take opportunities from it, killing the evil magistrate, then escaping from the ensuing chaos, finding refuge in the city's underworld, plotting revenge against the whole corrupt system. Imagine V for Vandetta, but in a city like Ptolus. That could be epic!

Quote from: Cranewings;444144I've played in plenty of games where the GMs said they do what you do, but if they fill the world full of assholes, there isn't anyway to be a good guy and come out decently, maybe even alive. Evil always wins because good is dumb and all that.

That would be a failure of GMing, a failure at understanding the basic needs and wants of the PCs, a basic failing at keeping the game entertaining. I mean, in the end, the answer to that is for the guy to become a better GM.

Yes, but not every NPC encountered needs to be an adversary, asshole, or a jerk. There is the 33% of the universe's NPCs that haven't met the player characters yet or made a decision about them.

 Also, I like to show in my games that just as doing stupid or idiotic actions has consequences so does doing heroic or smart actions.

Sometimes I think GMs forget to account for the good ripple effects of a player character's actions.
(Not every GM, but many or some are like that)


- Ed C.