Heroism

[Jake Norwood]

Okay, so I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but I always hear crap about TROS combat being 'gritty' as opposed to 'heroic.' What I reckon this means is that in TROS death is a constant and brutal possibility, where in a 'heroic' game the characters are godlike in comparison to their enemies, and can get wailed upon with little-to-no risk of actually dying.

Honestly now, what's heroic about doing something with no risk or sacrifice? Is Donald Trump more a hero if he buys ice cream for 10 homeless people than if one of those homeless guys gets a job to help feed his less fortunate buddies?

But what about 'heroic' literature? Beowulf, the Illiad, etc.? These are stories about demi-gods and the children of such, except Beowulf. Beowulf, though, is gritty as hell, and ends with the death of the main character. Admittedly, he does some pretty out-there stuff (like holding his breath for impossible lengths of time). So where are we getting our definition of "Heroic?" Is it from the old tales like Beowulf and the Oddyssey? It certainly isn't from the stories of "real" heroes...

Jake

[Jason]

I think they are referring to most fantasy novels(and movies) when they think of heroic. People who can hack through hundreds of foes with only non specific wounds at the end of it. The epitome of these would be the good drow that everyone wants to be in Dungeons and Dragons: Drizzt Do'Urden. He's even been in a book called "The Thousand Orcs" where they hint that he's attacking them all at the same time.

   From what I've seen, some people like the idea of being in danger without the bad possibilities that it entails.

-Jason

[Holt]

I think maybe there are two topics at hand here....

"Heroic" deeds....things done in times of need or danger that are done despite great risk to self.

and

"Heroic" actions.....things that make ordinary folk stare in awe as they are performed by heroes.

It's the feel of having characters that can perform those awe inspiring actions that I think most people who want "Heroic" are after.

Just a thought...

[November Kilo]

Before I read TROS and ARMA stuff, I thought I knew what swordplay was all about.  Now I know the lack of my own knowledge.  All I saw was movies and, well, D&D.  

I thinks most gamers are like that.  We've learned a warped definition of 'heroic'.  We think we know what it is:  hundreds of hp and the +62 vorpal blade, and no chance of death.  Yup, that's a serious perversion of 'heroic'.  But I think that's where lots of people come from.

Anyone reading Sig's Riddle of Harn?  The thief-kid yelling "GARGUN!" to absolute strangers.  Heroic.  He's got a serious chance of dying.  In D&D, the same character could have yelled, but it wouldn't be so heroic, I think.  PCs tended to have large amounts of hp in the bank.  Not so much on the line.  Gritty is having it all on the line.

[Salamander]

This is a good topic to get into. I think that a perverted idea of what heroic means in regards to roleplaying has definitely spread. I think that the true problem is in the context. With regards to the dictionary's definition of heroism we see that TRoS would more closely fit the bill. However if we look at this concept from the ideals of what a hero should be able to do and say for our friends who are not quite so into risk and threat of death and against all odds risking their lives for what they believe in... They may percieve heroics as result oriented.

[Blankshield]

So where are we getting our definition of "Heroic?"

I think that's one of the underlying points of contention between people who "get" The Riddle and people who don't see that there is a riddle.

TROS is about choice and consequence, at a fairly fundamental level, and it pushes that aesthetic very near the forefront of play.  Being an RPG about sharp pointy things and magic, many (most?) of those choices and consequences involve death, and it has an aesthetic push towards certain kinds and degrees of choices:  What is worth killing for?  What is worth dying for?  These sorts of choices *require* that their crux is not only present in the system and the setting ("Yup, you can die."), but that it be common, and in some ways almost a default action.  When two people try to kill each other with naked blades, at least one of them is certain to succeed.

This runs strongly counter to what a lot of heroic liturature presents as The Hero, and what I'll tentatively call "the hero's place".  Heroic liturature does not focus on what the Hero does, it focuses on the Hero.  Hercules' 12 Feats are not daunting tasks that any sufficiently motivated man (or god) could do, they are impossible tasks that *only* Hercules could do.  Only Gilgamesh can kill the Grendle.  Only Driz'zt can successfully defy Lolth and her empire.  It is this understanding of the Hero's Place that a lot of people are coming to RPG's with.  The Hero can stride from peak to peak in his journey, and only those peaks matter.  If an army is slain singlehandedly in the valley between two peaks, well, it is a Hero, after all.  Many of the heroic tales you cite are indeed about gods or their children, or men who are beyond other men.  I think it is this part of the Hero's Place that many FRPG's try to capture, by making the PC's more powerful than their surroundings.  It is this aspect of 'heroic' that TROS *is not*.  TROS does not place the PC in the Hero's role, it places the PC firmly in the shoes of Everyman.

In terms of archtypical characters, it is Everyman who makes choices that matter - not the Hero.  The Hero shapes his surroundings, not through his actions and choices, but through his existance.  Modern day 'heros' - firefighters, children who lift cars off their parents, and so forth are not Heros in the classical sense - it is not their Heroic nature that creates the story, it is their actions and choices - in particular their choice to do a heroic task even though they are not heros.  

Heroic tales give us ideals - often impossible ones - to live up to.  TROS is not about Heros.  It is about people who are heroic anyway.

James

(wow... I started that post intending to be concise.  Sorry.)
[edited to fix some glaring typos]

[Lance D. Allen]

I do want one little caveat: DnD doesn't preclude heroism.

To toot my own horn, I've lost a character or two being heroic in DnD. My paladin, on the verge of death (3hp) had the option of staying back behind our main tanks and sniping with a bow. But did she? She did, until one of the tanks had overextended a bit farther than he should have, and was dropped in the midst of enemies. Kendhasha (my pally) dashes forward and pulls him back a bit (until she ran out of movement) then made an effort to heave him another square back while she stayed put. She was dropped in the next exchange, and unfortunately, the whole party was pulling back; the person she rescued was dragged back out of the conflict, but she was left behind.

She stabilized, was held prisoner, then eventually was killed and eaten by gnolls. Not the most heroic and glorious of deaths, but her fall was the ultimate sacrifice.

DnD is capable of heroism.. But my character's actions would be seen as stupid by most players of DnD, rather than heroic. In TRoS, my character's actions would have earned me SAs, and would probably have been successful because of those SAs. TRoS mechanics encourage this sort of heroism, and that makes it more viable to those who recognize it as such.

[Ingenious]

I agree, DnD does not preclude heroism.
There was one death of a character that I played(filled in for the player who was DMing this adventure).. anyways the dwarf ahead of him tripped a trap.. if the dwarf raised his foot, he would be dead. So my character(stupid as he was, which was my first true case of roleplaying), disregarded concern for his own safety.. fastened on a ring of speed or other some such magical trinket to make him go fast.. rushed up to the dwarf, starting running back to the party when the floor starting falling out from under him. Realizing that one or both would perish, he threw the dwarf and fell to his own death. The dwarf lived on.

So yes, DnD can have heroism in it.. but it usually is the player who makes the decision on if he wants to be heroic...not the system.
TROS, in its application of reality and one-hit-kills.. forces the issue of heroism upon the characters. 'Should I be heroic and fight this time, or run and live on to fight another day?' Also, since death is more likely.. you'd have many more chances to rush in to save a companion risking your own skin, than say DnD and a character with 160hp.

-Ingenious
'The Curse of the Modem'.... lives. Despite my freshly installed modem....
Grrrrrrrr. Crap-ass $10/mon ISP...

[Callan S.]

Well, lets look at superman. He's a (super) hero. Yet he's pretty freakin' invulnerable. Many other super heroes are pretty damn tough/strong zappers too.

I would confidently assert this has influenced what is generally refered to as heroic, in our hobby.

Heroic = spandex
Heroic <> living hard and still doing the good deed

[Thanaeon]

Personally, I think many people in this thread are spot on. Heroism is, in my opinion, doing the right thing (or at least the selfless thing) even when doing so may cost someone dearly. The journalist that publishes a story of corruption that his company tried to suppress is more heroic than, say, a policeman doing a routine arrest of a drunken brawler. I'm not saying the latter isn't heroic to a degree, far from it, but on the other hand, it's also his job, what's expected of him. The journalist, on the other hand, goes out of his way to do something that wasn't necessary for him, knowing that it might get him fired. (Perhaps the example was bad; it was certainly debatable, but it's also the best example I could come up on such a short notice.)

The manner of heroism that TRoS encourages is perhaps the main reason I found it to be so close in style to the books of David Gemmell. (An earlier thread of mine was about this.) His books, like TRoS, is gritty, and violent, and full of ugly, quick deaths and people cynical out of necessity. Yet some people still dare to do the right thing even though they themselves recognise and admit that it's almost suicide, that they have very slim chances of not only living through it, but even of success! Still, they do it, and indeed, sometimes the very main character dies trying. And this is in my opinion so much more heroic as I think heroism is inversely proportional to the ability of the person to succeed in his/her attempt and escape intact.

[Bastoche]

The people I know who are into DnD figures that a "hero" is someone who is better than the average. He will get through impossible odds even for him. He will get through, barely, but the common man wouldn't have stand any chance.

It's a genre. It's not a misconception of "heroism" IMO.

[Thanaeon]

The people I know who are into DnD figures that a "hero" is someone who is better than the average. He will get through impossible odds even for him.

The "even for him" is the key here. For Superman, catching a few bank robbers isn't particularly heroic, because there's no danger involved. However, even for him, standing against Galactus would be pretty heroic. (I guess; not a comic-guru!)

On the other hand, for a normal person, stopping that bank robbery would certainly be considered heroic. What matters is that he is
a) Doing the right thing
b) Against bad odds, and severe danger

Thus according to what you said, that can certainly be considered heroic, since there are overwhelming odds and significant danger involved.

He will get through, barely, but the common man wouldn't have stand any chance.

It's a genre. It's not a misconception of "heroism" IMO

The level of feats required for heroism are not cut in stone, but they are weighed according to the capabilities of the person.

[Krammer]

Personally, I think that it is very possible to have "heroic" characters in a TROS game. I have seen characters that are definitely heroic, in strength and in the way they are. We have had characters that will die doing something selfless to save another's life, and characters that are just incredibly good at fighting, and don't die.
   There are even characters that I've seen, which don't fit under either of the two categories, yet are still heroic.  I look at the characters in the Dragonlance series (a personal favorite). Take Tanis, for instance. He is a good fighter, sure, but he isn't that great. He wasn't an expert swordsman, and he never did anything extremely selfless. (in fact, he did a lot more things that were selfish) He ended up getting stabbed in the back i the middle of a battle. it came unexpected and unheroic. Yet, he was still a hero. Another character, Flint, had a heart attack, and he was still a hero. Caramon fell down the stairs. none of those deaths were heroic at all, but the people were still heroic.
    I suppose the whole idea of a "hero" is very broad, but I guess you could have gotten that from the rest of the posts on this thread, so I may have just wasted time

[toli]

Okay, so I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but I always hear crap about TROS combat being 'gritty' as opposed to 'heroic.' What I reckon this means is that in TROS death is a constant and brutal possibility, where in a 'heroic' game the characters are godlike in comparison to their enemies, and can get wailed upon with little-to-no risk of actually dying.

I think your interpretation of the terms as applied to describe a game system is more or less correct.  With "gritty" you have a real chance of dying if you aren't careful.  "Heroic" means more "superheroic", cool powers, as opposed to "heroic acts of self sacrifice. "  Dying in a "heroic" game system is difficult unless you're really trying.

I think TROS actually does a really good job of merging the two.  It is gritty in the sense that no matter how experienced you are, you can die, easily.  However, the SA's allow for 'heroic' (that is, better than normally capable, superhuman like) actions if the PC really cares about the situation (as defined by SA's).

[Sneaky Git]

So where are we getting our definition of "Heroic?"

Cool question.

And one that will most likely avoid consensus (as many such questions do...not a bad thing, mind you...)

For me, I prefer the more literary, mythological, and archetypal applications of heroic.  The Hero's Quest is one of the most lasting, widespread archetypes in existence.  Most cultures contain some elements (quite easily recognizable, actually) of this story, as summed up by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

"The standard path of the mythological hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation-initiation-return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth."

"A hero ventures forth from the world of the common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

This is the aspect of heroic that I strive to emulate.  And it works just fine for TRoS...so long as your SAs are in line.  The part I tend to stress is the removal from the ordinary into the realm of the supernatural.  This is what I feel we see in our modern-day heroes:
they achieve something the majority of us cannot...or will not