Protagonists vs Antagonists

[demonspade64]

Being a Antagonists entitles you the right to me the biggest asshole know to man. It also give you the freedom to do what you want during a roleplay(Save for the OOC rules). Kill people randomly, torture the Protagonists and their love ones, Spread seman over the customers sandwich at Mcdonalds and telling them it's mayonnaise. So what if you character gets kill off during the rp,at least he died doing what he love;being a massive prick.

[Brovo]

I play protagonists more, because I have some trouble being evil... I either do too little or go over the top. But honestly, my favorite type of story (though it is a LOT more difficult to write) is where everyone involved has some moral ambiguity and it's a lot harder (or impossible) to decide who is the hero and who is the villain.

Being a Antagonists entitles you the right to me the biggest asshole know to man. It also give you the freedom to do what you want during a roleplay(Save for the OOC rules). Kill people randomly, torture the Protagonists and their love ones, Spread seman over the customers sandwich at Mcdonalds and telling them it's mayonnaise. So what if you character gets kill off during the rp,at least he died doing what he love;being a massive prick.

Antagonist =/= Villain.

But I digress, I've already stated that before in this thread...

[Magic223]

Both but i do enjoy playing evil characters

[Crazy Scion]

For crying out loud this isn't good verses evil. It's either for or against progress. If you do everything in your power to stop progress, then your an antagonist. Being evil doesn't make you an antagonist, and can even give you more purpose then some would-be heroes.

[Brovo]

For crying out loud this isn't good verses evil. It's either for or against progress. If you do everything in your power to stop progress, then your an antagonist. Being evil doesn't make you an antagonist, and can even give you more purpose then some would-be heroes.

Well. You almost got it.

Protagonist: The character followed by the narrative. (IE: A player's character is followed by their own narrative, thus, they are always the protagonist.)
Antagonist: A character, creature, or embodiment of X that challenges the protagonist on some level. (IE: Mindless Monsters, Man versus Self, Man versus Nature, etc.)

That's all. You are correct about it not being about good versus evil, but I've already said everything on previous pages. I don't think repeating myself until the record skips will solve that issue.

[Flames]

save a guard from getting an arrow to the knee from a nearby bandit

Actually, that is a Nordic expression for getting married.

[Holeypaladin]

In Mass Effect: You can go renegade and murder anyone who gets in your way, or be a paragon, a heroic person who stops at nothing to play fair and save as many innocent lives as they can, as well as spare most villains. Despite the polar shift in heroism versus villainy, the story is still centered around Commander Shepard (IE: You), because the narrative is built around Commander Shepard and his actions. This is also an example of a main protagonist as all the other protagonists such as Tali and Legion are more or less connected to the story based on how much you, as the main protagonist, interact with them.

I'm going to have to disagree with that renegade comment. At least as far as the first two games are concerned as I haven't played the third, the Paragon/Renegade thing was more a factor of whether or not you played by the rules or violated them... more of a law vs chaos thing than a good vs evil. You could in fact raise your meter in both paragon and renegade and benefit from both.

Paragon was mostly along the lines of "We all need to work together as part of a galactic society, towards peace" while Renegade was more like "We need to look out for humanity, because we're human. Screw the aliens!"

If that changed in ME3 it would be due to an oversimplification which EA tends to do in all its sequels.

Anyway... most people think of "The Hero" when they think Protaganist. That's because most RPs revolve around the actions of heroes. I prefer to play as the hero in an RP where the hero is the protaganist, but I'm also known to play the villain as an antagonist... but I figure the villain is meant to lose in the end, otherwise it'd be a pretty terrible ending.

[Brovo]

I'm going to have to disagree with that renegade comment. At least as far as the first two games are concerned as I haven't played the third, the Paragon/Renegade thing was more a factor of whether or not you played by the rules or violated them... more of a law vs chaos thing than a good vs evil. You could in fact raise your meter in both paragon and renegade and benefit from both.

Paragon was mostly along the lines of "We all need to work together as part of a galactic society, towards peace" while Renegade was more like "We need to look out for humanity, because we're human. Screw the aliens!"

If that changed in ME3 it would be due to an oversimplification which EA tends to do in all its sequels.

Anyway... most people think of "The Hero" when they think Protaganist. That's because most RPs revolve around the actions of heroes. I prefer to play as the hero in an RP where the hero is the protaganist, but I'm also known to play the villain as an antagonist... but I figure the villain is meant to lose in the end, otherwise it'd be a pretty terrible ending.

Bioware is infamously bad at discerning the difference. In Mass Effect II, you push someone off a balcony to their death after they beg for mercy and give you the information you want. You send a Volus high on illegal drugs to his inevitable death as well. You kill Samara. Etc. In ME III, well... You murder your friends in cold blood.

Are all the renegade decisions murder ones? No. But there's at least a few in ME II, and in ME III you can replace the renegade button with "murder anything that gets in your way and drink goblets of the blood of orphans."

ME I I'll give you. I can't really remember any renegade options that resulted in definitively evil results.

Then again, ME I was better written than the other two. By far.

So, eh'.

My point I was getting across was more that people should not define protagonist as hero. The two things are very different. Same for antagonist as villain. Very different. When one learns this difference, it opens up a massive world of possibilities. Otherwise? You're stuck in cliché-land. A land of clichés.