Heroes with Fuzzy Morality

I’m currently reading The Belgariad and I keep finding myself comparing the characters to a party of PCs and finding the similarities striking. Most notably, our heroes have a rather blurry moral compass, and that seems to hold true for almost every roleplaying game I’ve ever been a part of.

Killing, lying, stealing, and intentionally intimidating people are only a handful of the tricks players tend to play on NPCs in order to save the world. Perhaps the ends do justify the means, and perhaps roleplaying is just an escapist fantasy, but if I were to meet most player characters in the real world, I’d run in terror.

Not that this is a bad thing. The truth is, it’s fun to play this way. While we may not want to play someone who is downright evil, there is a desire to throw out some of the constraints thrown on us by reality and play sort of a Fuzzy Good. In fact, I’m officially adding that to the Alignment system.

Saving the World, My Way

Fuzzy Good characters actually make sense in the “Save the World” type scenario. The goal is what matters, and a party who can bend the rules is far more likely to succeed. I’ve played games, like Slipstream, where you’re expected to play the strong jawed hero of thirties sci-fi, but to make that work, they keep having to be attacked by things like space pirates, and have the plot come to them. There really isn’t any problem solving in that style of game.

On the other hand, Necessary Evil replaces Fuzzy Good with Fuzzy Evil. There, you play super-villains who have to save the world after all the heroes have been captured and destroyed. The only rule is that your party should probably work together, making Necessary Evil, perhaps, the most sincere RPG ever made.

In parting, I’d like to know. Have you ever played a character that wasn’t Fuzzy Good? If so, how did it turn out?