R
Roo Stercogburn
Guest
Yep, its time to get the coffee out. Here we go...
I've been thinking about the nature of anti-heroes. What is it that attracts us to these characters. Everyone loves a rollicking good bastard, at least in fiction anyway.
Is it the complete freedom they seem to enjoy to be as horrible they want, which we all wish we could be from time to time. Is it because we want to see the bad guy turn good in a feelgood kind of way, a kind of affirmation of the inner good that we hope is in everyone now matter how degenerate.
For example, in The Gap series of books, Angus Thermopyle is possibly one of the best anti-heroes ever written. He really is quite a horrible person but by the end of the series we are really rooting for him yet he's a rapist, murderer and thoroughly brutal. A milder form of this can be seen in The Stainless Steel Rat, where Jim DiGriz is a thief who ends up working for the cops. He falls into the lovable rogue catagory more, but its the same principle. Both of these characters were forced to do good outside of their will, and whether they'd ever had done any good by themselves is questionable, even by the end of the stories.
Look at your average soap opera, and everyone raves about the current Bitch or Bad Guy whoever it happens to be. Also, The Sopranos is one of the best received TV series in years and yet its full of really nasty people doing really nasty things to each other each episode.
Is it because these types of people actually do something interesting and are unpredictable so you never know what will happen next? I've wondered if its some kind of subconcious release, a way of getting things out of your system that might otherwise bottle up and build within you.
Definately one of the things that attracts people is the intrinsic danger surrounding anti-heroes. Look at Avon in Blake's 7. He was a thorough git. You always knew he would come through for the team, but there was just enough doubt to make it interesting and he was always openly reluctant to do good.
I think its also partly its to do with rebelling against the system. Typically, anti-heroes go head to head with authority and people love to see the system challenged, or even outright overthrown as a vent for their own frustrations.
And of course one of the big things about anti-heroes is they LOVE being bad. Oh yes. You don't just save the good guys. You utterly destroy your enemies and grind them into the ground. Lip curling and sneers that rock stars would die for are absolutely the order of the day. Associates of the Anti-Hero look on in disgust while benefitting from the help they get, which usually gives them a chance to moralise and navel gaze.
A common trick with anti-heroes I've noticed is to make them greatly charismatic: even while they are being horrible to people we are laughing our socks off and are gradually won over.
Where this relates to DAoC is Roo's background story and its partly the final days of Nyd that started me thinking about all this. To have a good char background, we all invent some pretty horrible things to have happened to get your char to the stage he is at where you start adventuring with him/her. Now, for someone who drains the life out of others and raises the dead, we're probably not talking a Brady Bunch upbringing.
Typically roleplayers are fond of the orphaned at birth/doesn't know family background/lost memories/secretly is a king etc. I'm only gently poking fun here, because these mechanisms are a great way to quickly get a char up and running and build it as you go without having to spend ages making a complex backstory. I didn't want this with Roo but I decided I had to make him pretty nasty just to have got through his early years. So, we have a father who was a warrior who was betrayed then killed by a dragon and summoned again as 'Junior', but to do this Roo ends up with a debt to Hel and reluctantly grows to work for Midgard. He can't attend the temples because someone is after him so dump him into the big city to pretty much fend for himself doing errands for a tailor and secretly learning the arts. Throw in a Hibernian mother who has to hide as a witch in Vanern, make him part of a ruthless council protecting Midgard from werewolves who's biggest secret is that they are all werewolves themselves and you've got someone who's pretty messed up i.e. a great place to start.
Now, even in-game, I'm only a part-time roleplayer. I like to chill out, have a couple (or more
) beers, go stomp Ye Hated Enemies and have a thoroughly barking time. I've deliberately hardly ever roleplayed Roo (though have more with alts), because its very difficult to walk the line between roleplaying a git, and just annoying people. Last night in Nyd, I intended to just be simply horrible, but more and more people were joining the guild to say goodbye it just wasn't possible. Not enough were in on it so it would just be offensive. (A few amusing things happening out of game while all that going on too and some of my best sneers got spoiled, but thats another story).
I'm sure roleplayers the world over have had this problem in online games. Its not a problem in the paper 'n' dice versions because everyone is in on it, but in MMORPGs too many people don't know you well enough and would simply stomp off.
I think people have to 'know you don't mean it' and be willing to play along. Anti-heroes in fiction generally have some kind of hold over the people they are with which forces them together. In an online game, no such mechanism exists and people vote with their feet as soon as they think they are being treated badly.
The upshot of all this is I've discovered that its VERY difficult, though fun, to roleplay a complete bastard online.
Everyone likes a git, but only when he or she is being a git elsewhere
I've been thinking about the nature of anti-heroes. What is it that attracts us to these characters. Everyone loves a rollicking good bastard, at least in fiction anyway.
Is it the complete freedom they seem to enjoy to be as horrible they want, which we all wish we could be from time to time. Is it because we want to see the bad guy turn good in a feelgood kind of way, a kind of affirmation of the inner good that we hope is in everyone now matter how degenerate.
For example, in The Gap series of books, Angus Thermopyle is possibly one of the best anti-heroes ever written. He really is quite a horrible person but by the end of the series we are really rooting for him yet he's a rapist, murderer and thoroughly brutal. A milder form of this can be seen in The Stainless Steel Rat, where Jim DiGriz is a thief who ends up working for the cops. He falls into the lovable rogue catagory more, but its the same principle. Both of these characters were forced to do good outside of their will, and whether they'd ever had done any good by themselves is questionable, even by the end of the stories.
Look at your average soap opera, and everyone raves about the current Bitch or Bad Guy whoever it happens to be. Also, The Sopranos is one of the best received TV series in years and yet its full of really nasty people doing really nasty things to each other each episode.
Is it because these types of people actually do something interesting and are unpredictable so you never know what will happen next? I've wondered if its some kind of subconcious release, a way of getting things out of your system that might otherwise bottle up and build within you.
Definately one of the things that attracts people is the intrinsic danger surrounding anti-heroes. Look at Avon in Blake's 7. He was a thorough git. You always knew he would come through for the team, but there was just enough doubt to make it interesting and he was always openly reluctant to do good.
I think its also partly its to do with rebelling against the system. Typically, anti-heroes go head to head with authority and people love to see the system challenged, or even outright overthrown as a vent for their own frustrations.
And of course one of the big things about anti-heroes is they LOVE being bad. Oh yes. You don't just save the good guys. You utterly destroy your enemies and grind them into the ground. Lip curling and sneers that rock stars would die for are absolutely the order of the day. Associates of the Anti-Hero look on in disgust while benefitting from the help they get, which usually gives them a chance to moralise and navel gaze.
A common trick with anti-heroes I've noticed is to make them greatly charismatic: even while they are being horrible to people we are laughing our socks off and are gradually won over.
Where this relates to DAoC is Roo's background story and its partly the final days of Nyd that started me thinking about all this. To have a good char background, we all invent some pretty horrible things to have happened to get your char to the stage he is at where you start adventuring with him/her. Now, for someone who drains the life out of others and raises the dead, we're probably not talking a Brady Bunch upbringing.
Typically roleplayers are fond of the orphaned at birth/doesn't know family background/lost memories/secretly is a king etc. I'm only gently poking fun here, because these mechanisms are a great way to quickly get a char up and running and build it as you go without having to spend ages making a complex backstory. I didn't want this with Roo but I decided I had to make him pretty nasty just to have got through his early years. So, we have a father who was a warrior who was betrayed then killed by a dragon and summoned again as 'Junior', but to do this Roo ends up with a debt to Hel and reluctantly grows to work for Midgard. He can't attend the temples because someone is after him so dump him into the big city to pretty much fend for himself doing errands for a tailor and secretly learning the arts. Throw in a Hibernian mother who has to hide as a witch in Vanern, make him part of a ruthless council protecting Midgard from werewolves who's biggest secret is that they are all werewolves themselves and you've got someone who's pretty messed up i.e. a great place to start.
Now, even in-game, I'm only a part-time roleplayer. I like to chill out, have a couple (or more
) beers, go stomp Ye Hated Enemies and have a thoroughly barking time. I've deliberately hardly ever roleplayed Roo (though have more with alts), because its very difficult to walk the line between roleplaying a git, and just annoying people. Last night in Nyd, I intended to just be simply horrible, but more and more people were joining the guild to say goodbye it just wasn't possible. Not enough were in on it so it would just be offensive. (A few amusing things happening out of game while all that going on too and some of my best sneers got spoiled, but thats another story).I'm sure roleplayers the world over have had this problem in online games. Its not a problem in the paper 'n' dice versions because everyone is in on it, but in MMORPGs too many people don't know you well enough and would simply stomp off.
I think people have to 'know you don't mean it' and be willing to play along. Anti-heroes in fiction generally have some kind of hold over the people they are with which forces them together. In an online game, no such mechanism exists and people vote with their feet as soon as they think they are being treated badly.
The upshot of all this is I've discovered that its VERY difficult, though fun, to roleplay a complete bastard online.
Everyone likes a git, but only when he or she is being a git elsewhere