Action Heroes

We just finished watching the 80's classic Robocop last night, bookeneded with the new Captain America movie the day before. Both movies are actually similar in many ways. It is interesting to examine the movies and the eras, and the popular types of action heroes through the last few decades. These impact players of roleplaying games, players like to emulate what they see on the big screen, and the big screen defines popular culture for the current generation. Let's look at the last three decades of action movies (loosely), and relate these to roleplaying games. Note that I am pulling from a wide swath of movies, and there will always be exceptions during a particular period. These heroes may have existed before their time, but they were at their heights of popularity during the times mentioned.

The 80s - Idealists: Action movie heroes during this decade generally fought for ideals. Despite everything that happened to Robocop, he still adhered to the concept of service and justice beyond the treachery, dystrophy, and future shock around him. Ideals, and sacrificing for the big picture were considered heroic ideals, possibly spurred on by the ideological conflict of the Cold War. Heroes lived for the big picture, and sacrificing for the big picture defined heroism.

The 90s - Lone Wolves: The movie Die Hard changed everything with action movies, and the lone wolf was born. While still motivated by the larger ideals, the lone wolf fought for more personal reasons. The system was corrupt, and a personal victory defined heroism. There was a subtle shift from self-sacrifice to self-righteousness here, the larger than life hero was right because he or she was powerful, smart, and wronged by the system. An ideal can't solve the problem, only the hero can.

The 00s - The Monsters We Became: If a villain and hero stand around saying "you made me" and increasingly justify their actions because of each other, you are firmly in the 00s or action movie hero. You see this a lot in the new Batman movies (the '88 Batman was ahead of its time here too), the TV series 24, the Punisher, or any number of other movies and books. The action hero is now the monster, who's actions are justified by the horror unleashed by the bad guys. This type of hero is popular partly because of current events, such as barbaric acts of terror in real life, wars, or other real-world events that cause the culture to seek vengeance. It is always hardest to pin down the era you are closest to, but this is my feeling about current movies and trends, and pretty close to the actual action-hero culture.

These hero-types extend down into the types of heroes players play in roleplaying games, everyone wants to be inspired by the big screen, so players can subconsciously mimic their big-screen heroes. You can see this in the "lawful good - vanquish evil" parties of adventurers in the original D&D, the lone wolf heroes of Vampire: The Masquerade, and the I-am-a-monster character builds of DnD4, you can see some of the influences from pop-culture into the world of roleplaying games.

Granted all of this is a very loose analogy, and it is very difficult to talk about since you are literally covering 30 years of popular culture and gaming, but the influences are there. The influences do extend down into how roleplaying games are written and sold, and which ones become popular. Games speak to their audiences, and audiences pick the games that speak to them. Be mindful of the era a roleplaying game was written in when you tear apart its design, and also the movies, books, and television shows which were popular during the time. Roleplaying is fantasy fulfillment, and the fantasies the game satiates are directly related to the time the game was written in.