I should note the exceptions when game specifically allow you to be an anti-hero. for example, whenever I used to play knights of the old republic at my friends house, it wouldn't take me long to push my alignment deep into the dark side.

I don't know if this was common, but my personal experience is that so many games allow the players to be the hero, when they get the chance they love to be the bad guys.

I suspect few people ever play an Average Joe. It's just not an interesting role, it provides no conflict. The Villain and the Hero provide conflict, which is the basis of entertainment, especially in games, especially in games about people.

I'll use an anecdote. My sister hates racing games, yet she still "plays" them. I say "plays" because she plays them subversively, i.e. she only follows the career path insomuch as it is necessary to acquire faster cars with which she will run backwards on the track specifically to smash into the other cars. To her, racing games are only fun because they let you hit other cars. This can be very, very infuriating when playing with her, I can assure you.

Given the racing game context, she is a Villain. She sets out to destroy the aspirations of the other racers on the track, even if they are just dumb, best-line-following AIs.

The Hero in this context would be the star racer, the leader of the pack. The Anti-hero is the dirty racer, someone who bullies the other racers on the track. The Average Joe is the guy in the back of the pack, just following the racing line, doing an average speed. This makes the Average Joe a defective version of the Hero.

I think this evaluation extends to other genres with much more narrative. We assume characters to be good by default, we "give them the benefit of the doubt". Neutrality implies the capacity for good. We generally assume that, once someone goes bad, they always stay bad.

In The Writer's Journey, Christopher Vogler tells us that all Heroes (or at least the interesting ones) are first reluctant Heroes, that the Hero's Journey starts with the Hero being called to action, refusing, and being directly challenged to enter action. The Hero is first an Average Joe that is drawn in to being a Hero. In open-ended, sandbox gameplay, this is no different, we just allow the player to designate the narrative on the fly.

So that's about it. The role of the Average Joe is such a fine balance, and requires such great effort to maintain, that it almost always converges on the Hero or the Villain. Unless someone is specifically resolving to play a "lawful/neutral" character, then casting them in the Average Joe role will not last very long.

The narrative choices I make in a game as a player are the ones that I think line up with my strategy the best. My strategy is usually to take the route that is more challenging immediately and will be easier down the road.

The structure I see in a lot of games is that the "good" path is harder in the short-term, but has a better overall reward in the long-term. A great example of this is BioShock. I decided to save all the Little Sisters because I figured the trade-off would be better in the long-term (and I was right).

I also figure that part of the trade-off equation may involve getting a more satisfactory ending. Maybe the game doesn't actually reward the player for taking the harder route in the game, but the long-term reward is obtaining the best or intended ending to the story. I'm not trying to imply that a "good" ending is better than an "evil" ending, but rather the "evil" ending may be shorter or not really complete the story. I can't guarantee that I'll have enough time or enjoy a game enough to play it again, so I'll spend a little extra time to get that more complete ending.

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Original post by capn_midnight I suspect few people ever play an Average Joe. It's just not an interesting role, it provides no conflict.

Bingo. Would anyone really want to see a movie about what happens the week before the events of Die Hard? Do you really want to see John McClane go grocery shopping*?

*This assumes there is not an attempted robbery, hostage situation, or terrorist attack while he is there.

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Original post by Wavinator Quote: Original post by mystb well, since (almost) every game offers a save game feature, I tend to explore the possibilities. Being a hero, villain or average joe, I like to see what options the designers thought I could take, and what surprises they had put inside for me. Thanks for the input mystb. It sounds like the role a game gives you has little impact on your actions because you as a player have an out-of-game "meta-goal" of experimenting. Would I be right then in saying that typically the fiction of the world doesn't really compel you toward one action or another?

No, I'm compeled to play the role. What I do also tend to do is trying to see what could happen if I choosed another path. But I almost always choose the "role play" path even if exists another one with better results. If not, we would be playing numbers, and I'm too old for that :)
But I think that it all depends on how do you implement your game. If it revolves around stats, numbers, modifiers, players will want to get the max out of each situation. If you have a strong story, that has a bigger value.

Hope my english was good enough to expose my thoughs !

i like games where your an average joe.Lot easier to get into than I'm some epic
hero guy.And I would check it out ether way.unless i was going back to turn in
quest X and didn't feel like stopping.A game where it's been made clear that
you don't have super strength our can take out 7 badies by yourself.I might look to call the cops our something.