From my earliest days in the hobby I had a clear idea of what it meant to be a 'hero' and to create heroic tales. What I didn't understand was how everyone else claimed they too were playing heroes.
I started gaming in 1977 with Basic Dungeons and Dragons. It was introduced to me with the following phrase:
"It's like playing out a comic book. You create a character, go on adventures, defeat villains, and save people!"
At the 8 I was certain I knew what that meant and was excited to give the game a try. I loved comic books. I get to play a game where I create my own hero who fights evil-doers and protects the innocent? Where do I sign?
I also loved Star Trek, Star Wars, and other heroes of movies and television. My father was a policeman. The concept of a heroic character was ingrained into my mind, built upon the examples of Captain Kirk, Superman, Luke Skywalker, the Lone Ranger, and my dad.
We Can Be Heroes...Forever and Ever
We Can Be Heroes...Just for One Day
And so it was that I, and those I initially gamed with, had our characters fighting against evil, rescuing weak and helpless, and making our make believe world a better place. Our enemies were cruel, world-conquerring Clerics and their armies of the Undead, Foul Weather that resulted in floods and lost sailing ships, and the occaisional Legendary Monster bent on eating people in the peaceful village nearby.
Then one day I had a strange experience...I played with other people.
That's when I first learned the 'right way' to play D&D. Travel from town to town murdering any citizen who looked at you funny, steal their belongings, and go on to enter the underground homes of intelligent beings and yeah, kill them all too. Don't forget to loot their bodies! Finally, after all that, have the nerve to refer to yourself and your fellow sociopaths as 'heroes'.
Fast forward to the present and I get it now. D&D, especially back then, was more of a game than a role-playing experience. The mechanics as written rewarded slaying monsters and finding gold as vital components of its mechanics. Additionally, the ideas presented were inspired by and extrapolated from the Fantasy literature popular in that era; the works of R.E. Howard, Fritz Lieber, Michael Moorcock, and of course J. R. R. Tolkien (though I'd argue the main protagonists of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are of quite a different make and model than those of the Conan, Lankhmar, or Eternal Champions books).
Since we - my early gaming buddies and I - were not coming from that same literary background, we didn't take for granted a lot of the essential elements of D&D and other similar games of the time. We didn't kill anyone who didn't try to kill us and who could be subdued or, better yet, reasoned with. We didn't loot the bodies unless we knew they had something we needed (the key to freeing the kidnapped villagers, our weapons and communicators they'd taken earlier, etc.). Our D&D character were awarded gold and magic items by those whom we'd helped as a thank you for saving them.
I'm sure it isn't surprising that as time moved on and the hobby expanded my friends and I largely moved away from games where unheroic actions were part and parcel of the setting or theme. The more we played Star Trek, Villains and Vigilantes, Star Wars, Champions, Mekton, Teenagers from Outer Space and others, the less we played and even thought about D&D. The closet we came to games the rewarded immoral behaviour was our occasional jaunts into Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, and a handful of others. Even there though, we often started as scoundrels and eventually turned ourselves around to do the right things for a greater good.
Heroics are still integral to my games and I get a real rush when I see them.
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Barking Alien
BONUS FEATURE: Day 3 of the official RPGaDay 2024 Prompts:
There have been periods of my time in the RPG hobby when I would've said Star Wars D6 or some Superhero game was the one I'd played most often but that isn't true today. It is definitely Star Trek. From FASA's version to playtesting and writing for Last Unicorn Games' edition to my (presently) 8 year long Star Trek Adventures campaign, the final frontier reigns supreme.
Superhero and Medieval Fantasy Character by combining AI with my own art and coloring. Female Starfleet Officer by Japanese artist Shunya Yamashita.
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