Pirates Are Way More Interesting Than Elves

[Something Amyss]

I don't think that's necessarily true. Pirates just haven't been as overused as elves have. Given enough time and too many generic movies and games featuring them and pirates will become just as boring.

Come now. One flat stereotype is clearly superior to another flat stereotype.

>.>

 

[Farther than stars]

Ali wouldn't appear in a first-person shooter? I wouldn't have expected a rapper to appear in one, but hey they did it anyway. That aside, I'm glad to see Pirahna Bytes finally get a little recognition for their storytelling.

Anyone else think moral masturbation sounds pretty hot?

No... I think in this context it works only as a deterrent for giving to charity.

I once played a paper-scissors-stone tournament without using my index finger but people kept getting mad with me every time I played scissors.

Well, you can't really play scissors then, can you? Of course the optimal strategy in that situation would be to play paper every time. Speaking of time, why have I wasted any of mine thinking about this quandary?

 

[Farther than stars]

wouldn't say more interesting, just less used.

sides 'pirates saving the world' sounds off, not saying ever protagonist needs to be a hero, but i donno, not big on 'well crap if i don't want have any one to burn and pillage' storys

I disagree actually. I think pirates have far more of a tendency to be morally ambiguous than elves do; any human society does really. When it comes down to elves and other mythological creatures it's often like they just operate on some hive mind and thus seem to lose any and all personal characteristics.

 

[Lunar Templar]

wouldn't say more interesting, just less used.

sides 'pirates saving the world' sounds off, not saying ever protagonist needs to be a hero, but i donno, not big on 'well crap if i don't want have any one to burn and pillage' storys

I disagree actually. I think pirates have far more of a tendency to be morally ambiguous than elves do; any human society does really. When it comes down to elves and other mythological creatures it's often like they just operate on some hive mind and thus seem to lose any and all personal characteristics.

eh, depends on the race, but far as elves go(and every other 'standard fantasy race' really), yeah but that's the fault of the writes being boring by ripping off Tolkien for millionth time, which i think is the real problem here.

a lack of imagenation

 

[Kahunaburger]

I personally blame D&D rather than Tolkien.

I mean, Tolkien wrote a pretty generic story and gave us a generic terminology for fantasy creatures. D&D however gave a full fledged system for telling any number of generic stories using generic fantasy creatures. The problem is that the mechanics themselves actually favour a particular type of story, namely a generic bildungsroman about characters setting out to be adventurers and growing from poorly armed peasant farmboys to badass heroes of the land.

Something I never actually realized until I read this article though is how much that system also rewards deeply non-human behaviour. Yeah, it's actually kind of dumb for my character to repeatedly risk life and limb or carry out senseless fetch quests, unless we accept that somehow my character knows that every time they do this stuff they become more powerful because arbitrary bullshit says so.

I think that your point that a large segment of the fantasy genre is essentially fighting over Gary Gygax's leftovers is spot-on.

However, I think if anything the modern fantasy genre needs more Gygax, not less Gygax. The whole "4-6 individuals of equal class level on a quest to save the world" thing isn't anything like most of D&D's source material, [http://www.digital-eel.com/blog/ADnD_reading_list.htm] and isn't like the sort of story D&D's mechanics were (initially) designed to tell. The mechanics (for instance, high mortality rate for low-level characters, XP gained from looting, and so on) were designed to create a very different sort of story - characters plundering tombs, stealing from mighty sorcerers, exploring strange places, and generally getting in over their heads.

IMO, we don't need more pirates, we need more fantasy game designers reading stuff by Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber. Or stuff by Tolkien, oddly enough. The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as written by Tolkien are significantly more interesting than The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as aped by other fantasy authors or as directed by Peter Jackson.

 

[lord.jeff]

Still waiting for an RPG where you're either A: the back-up hero and people clearly know this given there's a system for "chosen ones" with you being something like 48th in line and the villain ends up systematically killing everyone in front of you off over the course of the game as they gather all the ancient artifacts while you went off on your own (increasingly interrupted) quest to go fetch something mundane or B: someone who increasingly runs across what a normal hero of an RPG would be while you carry on trying to keep the local inn afloat while dealing with the continual forces of evil trying to burn down the hero's home town (your town).

Those are some pretty solid ideas, I especially like the first one, I hate chosen one stories the idea of destiny just rubs me the wrong way and that sounds like a good way to take stabs at the idea.


I'm gonna give JRPGs credit here there fantasy lore is a bit more diverse from game to game. and more urban fantasy, or any more modern time period, I always wanted to see a fantasy world hit there version of an industrial revolution.

 

[Howling Din]

All of Yahtzee's motivation examples are forms of compulsion.

Ever played Lunar: the Silver Star? The protagonist of this game sets off on his adventure under no compulsion whatsoever. There's no looming threat to the world (to his knowledge), no higher calling or authority telling him to go. He sets off to fulfill his ambitions on an otherwise perfectly normal day.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

I'd offer that people aren't nearly as sick of zombies as they are of the same few generic characters used in zombie settings.

... This. (Please don't report me)

I like my zombie games, I really do, but the characters have a tendency to be... well, shit. Dead Rising (the first one, I haven't played the second) offered somewhat of a change to it by having its special backstories involving psychopaths, escaped convicts, and a photographer with the most annoying in-game voice in the world (I'm talking about "Kent", which is weird because he sounds normal in the cutscenes). Still, though, Dead Rising's main characters are just stereotypical cut-and-paste characters. "Strange Hispanic Man". "Strange Hispanic Woman". "Photojournalist". "Agent".

... But really, that can be forgiven when you compare Dead Rising to, say, Dead Island (what's with all the "Dead"?), you'll find which is truly better. ... And no, graphics don't make anything better. ... Okay, they do, but nowadays they really don't, considering we're still comparing everything to Half-Life.

Dead Rising was never really trying to anything new with zombies though, its about as old school zombie as you can get, and thats what makes it great (to me). That and in Dead Rising 2: Off the Record Frank makes some of the most delicious puns ever

 

[Deviluk]

This is why I was looking forward to this game, but alas diablo 3 is still more fun, and has no elves either. Nor pirates, but I was pleasantly shocked to see how smarmy the wizard is!

 

[GangstaPony]

Even if you do have Elves and Dwarves the leat you could do is put a new spin on their personalities or make it so each elf is different. One could be a petty thug and talk like some modern gangster while another might be this scheming businessman looking to exploit his customers.

As others have said, you could also take something mundane and make it into an RPG.
Like you are just tying to manage an inn or something but the hero/villain fights constantly ruin everything so you decide to turn the tables.

 

[maninahat]

I don't think that's necessarily true. Pirates just haven't been as overused as elves have. Given enough time and too many generic movies and games featuring them and pirates will become just as boring.

You're right - I suspect the pirates in Risen do all the generic piraty stuff we expect pirates to do. That would become boring fairly quickly if we had a pirate sidekick in every game.

Then again, the fact that there aren't very many pirate based rpgs in the first place gives Risen a free pass. Heck, we don't get many games about detectives. When LA Noire basically made a straight up, LA Confidential rip off, people were pleased because though it was playing to every stereotype in the book, at least we were getting something different to play.

 

[EHKOS]

*takes notes*

I'm the main writer for a small RPG project. I agree with this.

Time to go triple check character motivations to make sure all of them are believable.

How about because they want money gold and riches? After all when I'm in a dungeon that is the ONLY thing I'm thinking about, Borderlands was perfect because of that.

Also, "standard fantasy/standard sci-fi". Those phrases should be oxymorons, we explore fantasies because they aren't normal, they should be interesting.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I'd like a pirate game where you could fire your broadsides at close range, swing across to the enemy ship on a rope, kill the captain and take all their booty. Gather enough ships loyal to you and then you go on to sack townships.

The final battle culminates in a deafening barrage of cannon fire and furious melee when the King sends a fleet to take you down.

You're a pirate, motivation isn't much beyond rum, booty and booty (girls, wenches etc).

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I suppose generic fantasy games get dull after a while, and I'm not sure what kind of game I'd like to see... maybe something involving steam punk?

 

[The Crazy Legs]

I'd offer that people aren't nearly as sick of zombies as they are of the same few generic characters used in zombie settings.

... This. (Please don't report me)

I like my zombie games, I really do, but the characters have a tendency to be... well, shit. Dead Rising (the first one, I haven't played the second) offered somewhat of a change to it by having its special backstories involving psychopaths, escaped convicts, and a photographer with the most annoying in-game voice in the world (I'm talking about "Kent", which is weird because he sounds normal in the cutscenes). Still, though, Dead Rising's main characters are just stereotypical cut-and-paste characters. "Strange Hispanic Man". "Strange Hispanic Woman". "Photojournalist". "Agent".

... But really, that can be forgiven when you compare Dead Rising to, say, Dead Island (what's with all the "Dead"?), you'll find which is truly better. ... And no, graphics don't make anything better. ... Okay, they do, but nowadays they really don't, considering we're still comparing everything to Half-Life.

Dead Rising was never really trying to anything new with zombies though, its about as old school zombie as you can get, and thats what makes it great (to me). That and in Dead Rising 2: Off the Record Frank makes some of the most delicious puns ever

Hmm... Every day I seem to be reminded I forgot to talk about the zombies. Good point, the zombies are about as generic as zombies can get, but I have to say, that just adds to their charm. And that charm almost makes me not want to brutally murder everything and everyone in that poor little mall in Colorado.

... Almost (I hate living in this state).

 

[Evil Alpaca]

I think this is why science fiction has a much richer diversity in both games and literature. We have science fiction greats, but no single father of the genre that every subsequent author feels the need to pay homage to.

I'm actually surprised that the pirate genre hasn't caught on more. Historically, it seems it could provide a variety of gameplay styles and settings as well as motivation for the character. Some pirates were in it solely for the money, others were in it for glory and fame.

I would love to see a Mass Effect style of pirate game, where you recruit a crew from various ports and locales, and choose what kind of pirate you are i.e (in for gold, glory, power)

slightly off topic:
Best portrayal of elves in my opinion is by Terry Pratchett in Lords and Ladies. I've never been able to look at elves the same way.