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Rampant Games - Sick of Saving the World?

It must be RPG design day. Jay Barnson has kicked up a piece called RPG Design: Sick of Saving the World?

Quote:

I'm tired of saving the world. Saving the world is for wusses.

Lessons From Pen and Paper
I remember my first attempt to run a pen-and-paper game of Vampire the Masquerade. After some really cool character origin sub-plots, we got to the meat of the campaign. I immediately reached for a generic, epic plot of earth-shattering proportions… and found that it was a total dud. It just didn't work. The players were these supernatural creatures of the night who were at the top of one food chain and the bottom of another. Their mortal lives were long gone… and the big, world-saving plots just didn't ring true.

I was stuck for a while, trying to figure out what to do with the campaign. And then, I recalled running and playing an earlier, post-apocalyptic RPG called "Twilight: 2000." It was a "realistic" game of post-nuclear holocaust. High radiation didn't turn you into a mutant - it made your hair fall out and caused you to puke and excrete blood. Your enemies were disease and power-hungry local warlords who'd gotten their hands on a functional tank or two.

More information.

To tell the truth i am really tired of that, but thats because i am a old player, this not include the new generation of players that for first time they have to save the world :D
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Iphone games

The question to ask, is whether or not the world is worth saving!! :)

Depends on the plot, the characters and so on. I do enjoy stopping megalomaniac villians, if they are well written, but stopping the evil bad guy who's evil because he's evil, is getting very old.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maylander (Post 80287)

the evil bad guy who's evil because he's evil, is getting very old.

Wlll, that's just an example of very poor character writing or characterization.

A good writer should always ask himself or herself : "Why does he/she/it do that ? What are the motives ? Why is this entity there ?"

And, to be strict, this also must be applied to monsters living in a cave waiting to be slaughtered by some hero who wants experience points from them.

The "great" thing with action games actually is that these elements can be happily omitted: Nobody cares as long as the monster or villian drops 1337 stuff.

So, in fact, action games are "growing" a generation of game designers who don't learn to be good writers - because it is never required by their games.

Which - in the end result - will most likely lead into a decline of quality of games - at least story-wise.