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Fates Skein · **10-11-2013, 01:02 PM**

(10-10-2013, 05:32 PM)Swift Nightclaw Wrote:
(10-10-2013, 03:57 PM)Fates Skein Wrote: When I think of 'truly good' heroes, I think of Disney characters- the heroes, imo, are far, far less interesting and less relatable than the villains. Â Not because I am a bad person but because the villains' stories, their motivations, are things I feel are universally understood.

Except for my chocobo's name inspiration.

Kuzco was an awesome protagonist.Â
And K'uzco is an awesome chocobo.

Pacha was a good guy too and totally relatable.Â And Lilo & Stitch weren't goody two shoes either.

Okay, I'll stop and be good now.

>_>
<_<
(K'uzco is an awesome chocobo)
/runs away

*laughs* Â Fair point to you! Â Kuzco was awesome. Â He was flawed as heck and I loved him. Â Lilo and her sister too (and Stitch). Â You caught me on that one. Smile

ErikLossart · **10-12-2013, 09:11 AM**

Just chiming in here. Â I play a character who can at worst be considered neutral evil, at best chaotic neutral.

Personally being shiny good or cacklingly evil bores the hell out of me. Â Go too far to one extreme and that literally becomes all your character is, to the point where not always picking the morally sterling option would break your character's head.

Erik for example is not a nice or really good person. Â He openly identifies as a Black Mage, works as a contracted bounty hunter and mercenary and has absolutely no problem with taking bribes or blasting an area into ashes with a spell.

On the flip side, he's incredibly lazy, which inhibits his ability to actually be 'evil'. Â He won't go out and slaughter kids for kicks because he's not being paid and it's more effort than reading through his tomes or sleeping in a field. Â Furthermore, someone who likes luxury and comfort as much as Erik would be loathe to actively destroy the world or Eorzea. Â Why would he? Â All of his stuff is there!

Good or evil aren't boring, but letting it be the one defining thing of your character is.

Sigue · **10-14-2013, 04:36 AM**

I think that the issue with people playing inherently good characters is that they often do not put very much thought into the reasoning why their characters is good, as others have said before me. To be fair, having a character which is inherently evil just for the sake of being evil is just as silly. Without depth, motivation, and reasoning for a character to follow the ideals that they believe, the simple notion of being good or bad just for the sake of being that way falls flat, and it's easier to think up a pile of misfortune to build a strong reinforcement for an evil character or good-character-turned-evil than it is for a good character who remains inherently good throughout.

I love to build complex characters, and even when I created Sigue I had little idea or concern as to what his general alignment would be until I built him up as a character. What I ended up with was, amusingly enough, a lawful good character thoroughly motivated to be the person that he is and with plenty reason to be. He has a reason to be selfless, a reason to aim for a bright future, and a reason to do good by others.

Michikyou · **10-14-2013, 05:06 AM**

People bring up interesting points.

But at what time does a good aligned character cross into the realms of evil? Would them manipulating a city into doing X or Y be considered good if their friends benfited or their clan? or is good based on a social/cultural level of morality not personal?

Sigue · **10-14-2013, 05:59 AM**

(10-14-2013, 05:06 AM)Naih Wrote: People bring up interesting points.

But at what time does a good aligned character cross into the realms of evil? Would them manipulating a city into doing X or Y be considered good if their friends benfited or their clan? or is good based on a social/cultural level of morality not personal?

I assume that it's based off both a social/cultural sense of morality.

Manipulation, especially on a grand scale such as screwing over an entire city to benefit a few--friends or not--isn't really considered a "good" trait. There are a lot of unknowns to the scenario you presented, but I think that much I can say.

Let's say in a more extreme scenario, in which the lawful good need decide between the lives of his friends or the lives of an entire city. It is my understanding that the lawful good would--if faced with only those two decisions--choose to save the many over the few.

But that's the difficulty in playing an inherently "good" character based solely off the notion of being good. It is impossible to be the shining standard of moral greatness at all times.

synaesthetic · **10-14-2013, 05:16 PM**

As a roleplayer "in theory," feel free to take this with a grain of salt (I've yet to actually RP since the game launched, having only done so during beta).

My character, Aeriyn Ashley, is a "good" character. This is a bit of a departure for me since most of the previous characters I've played were morally ambiguous at best or downright bad people at worst. Aeri is a little strange, a little flighty and a little loopy in the head (as a result of corrupted aether exposure during the Calamity), but overall she is a good person.

She is a self-described "independent contractor" (she does not like being called a mercenary) and refuses to take contracts that would cause her to perform evil actions. Aeri wouldn't accept a hit contract, for example, but she would accept a job to rout a group of bandits harassing a village. She wouldn't kill them unless necessary and would instead work to hand them over to the Wood Wailers/Brass Blades/Yellowjackets. She would go out of her way to help people in need, and she would wave off payment if it was offered (unless she was very broke at the time).

Aeri has refused contracts on the basis that they would clash with her morals many times in the past, and this has led her to be placed in danger on several occasions. Due to her past, she is very strongly opposed to assisting or aiding the Garleans in any way, shape or form, and this is also where her greyness comes in. Past trauma means that even the sight of a Garlean military uniform will set her off, resulting in a complete emotional meltdown and/or apocalyptic, unstoppable rage. Aeri doesn't need a good reason to burn up a group of Imperial soldiers, and it's one of her major personal and moral dilemmas, because she knows that most (if not all) of the Garlean presence in Eorzea is composed of conscripts from Eorzea and Ala Mhigo rather than Imperial citizens proper.

Qhora Bajihri · **10-14-2013, 07:06 PM**

From my POV:

Short answer to title question: Yes. For me.

Heroes have a tendency to drive me to boredom tears, to the point that I can't play a good half of the FF games for more than a couple hours because the protagonists drive my face through my coffee table with the force of my headdesking, but I would never extend that tendency of mine to the world at large.

The most "good" I've played have been neutral self-interested with excellent senses of humor. Usually, I dive right off the deep end into lunatic manipulative mustache-twirlers. And I try to get myself ensconced in a group of lunatic manipulative mustache-twirlers.

However, in my experience, no matter what side of the evil/good fence you play on, the other one seems... I don't know if "stronger" is the right word, but something like that.

Even while surrounded by my fellow psychopaths, my characters have seemed to run across a constant stream of arrogant, flag-wielding, idealist knights in shining armor. That's not a bad thing, and is an extremely good thing in appropriate doses, but it's easy to sit here on my side of the fence and say 'Hot damn, is there nothing but goody-goodies out there?' Meanwhile, I find out later that they're on that side of the fence saying 'No one plays anything but murdering jerks anymore.'

And it happens in every game I've played over the past decade. So... that.

Ildur · **10-14-2013, 07:50 PM**

Ussually, the reason good characters come as boring (besides overexposure), is because they have the 'Flawless' trait added to them. At the eyes of the writer/player, a 'good' character cannot commit moral mistakes ever. And that's what makes them boring: they are perfect morally speaking (at least in the head of the author). If they commit a crime, they weren't mistaken, they weren't victim to their own desires or fleshy nature. No, they were tricked. Or it was 'really' for a good cause. Or that crimes comes up later as a good thing, retroactively. Or maybe they suffer from Harry Potter syndrome and you get that the character's perfect morality is applied to the things he does: nothing he does is evil so, whatever he does, it is not evil even if it would be evil if commited by someone else.

Good characters aren't boring. One-sided characters are.

LiadansWhisper · **10-14-2013, 08:00 PM**

(10-14-2013, 07:06 PM)Darien Cadell Wrote: From my POV:

Short answer to title question: Yes. For me.

Heroes have a tendency to drive me to boredom tears, to the point that I can't play a good half of the FF games for more than a couple hours because the protagonists drive my face through my coffee table with the force of my headdesking, but I would never extend that tendency of mine to the world at large.

The most "good" I've played have been neutral self-interested with excellent senses of humor. Usually, I dive right off the deep end into lunatic manipulative mustache-twirlers. And I try to get myself ensconced in a group of lunatic manipulative mustache-twirlers.

However, in my experience, no matter what side of the evil/good fence you play on, the other one seems... I don't know if "stronger" is the right word, but something like that.

Even while surrounded by my fellow psychopaths, my characters have seemed to run across a constant stream of arrogant, flag-wielding, idealist knights in shining armor. That's not a bad thing, and is an extremely good thing in appropriate doses, but it's easy to sit here on my side of the fence and say 'Hot damn, is there nothing but goody-goodies out there?' Meanwhile, I find out later that they're on that side of the fence saying 'No one plays anything but murdering jerks anymore.'

And it happens in every game I've played over the past decade. So... that.

I always feel like there aren't -enough- people playing believable bad guys, actually. lol

ArmachiA · **10-15-2013, 01:47 AM**

Currently, one of my mains is completely good. Just abysmally good. The depths of her good nature knows no bounds. She is sweet and kind and sees the best in people and just wants to do good things to help the world.

And she is FUN to play. Because her being good isn't the only aspect of her character. I mean the people that I RP with know she's good (And I generally RP with more sinister, neutral, or downright evil characters due to our FC focus) but they like her anyway (At least I hope they do Tongue

). I think when your entire character is wrapped up in "Good" or "Evil" they can get boring. Regardless of side, if that's the only thing that defines the character they are going to be boring to play.

Armi is good. But she's also awkward, talkative, bubbly, has major foot in mouth disease, just wants to have friends, bad at social situations, unintentionally funny, and entirely too trusting. She has so many other traits that being "good" seems almost inconsequential. Will this come to bite her in the ass when she realizes the friends she made are less than good? Sure! But that's half the fun.

Armi isn't just "good", she's a full person and therefore extremely fun to play.

Lost River · **10-15-2013, 03:26 AM**

Hopefully, I can end up making Lost River at least a decent anti-hero or believable bad-guy.

Instead of reveling in her actions, she's at least 'manning up' to the misery she has caused. But that hasn't stopped her fully, she is tainted by the past and from something she cannot truly be free from.

A slave to yourself and a master to none. Eating away that inner resolve to something more darker.

I like those type of villains because you don't know if they're really a villain or something else. We all need our stereotypical heroes, villains, and the in-between. But when it becomes an either/or show instead of a nice melting pot. It gets boring... quite fast.

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