RPGs where you are not the saviour of the world/kingdom/town

[curry]

any Mount and Blade game?

Wrong, MB2 Bannerlord has the main quest where you save the Empire

 

[Farewell into the night]

Bannerlord was released? I'm super late to the party

 

[Joseph Stalin]

Moon.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I want an RPG that treats me like I'm just another run of the mill loser. I want to be an ordinary man and play an ordinary story.

So NOT Age of Decadence because in that game you can become a god. I want the story to not progress to epic proportions, just keep things low key and chill, where maybe the most exciting thing you do is witness a shooting or help assault a bandit hideout.

Sci-fi RPGs are probably more likely to be this way than fantasy RPGs due to the roots of their respective genres.

• Star Traders: Frontiers. Exactly what the name says on the tin.
• Planescape: Torment meets your criteria to some extent. You're not ordinary, but nobody in Planescape really is, so that kinda makes you ordinary I guess?
  
• Vigilantes, a game about ridding the streets of crime. You're not exactly ordinary, but you're still just a regular human.
• Halfway. You're stuck on a spaceship. The "main" character is a security guard. He isn't exactly a loser, but he's not really anyone special either.
  
• Mars: War Logs. You're a prisoner.
  
• Fallout: New Vegas. You're just a courier who had a bad day.
  
• Stardew Valley. What's more ordinary than growing vegetables and milking a cow?
  
• VTMB. You're never anything more than a pawn on a chessboard. You're a run of the mill loser when compared to people that are actually like you.

 

[Tavernking]

I want an RPG that treats me like I'm just another run of the mill loser. I want to be an ordinary man and play an ordinary story.

So NOT Age of Decadence because in that game you can become a god. I want the story to not progress to epic proportions, just keep things low key and chill, where maybe the most exciting thing you do is witness a shooting or help assault a bandit hideout.

Just go outside or take a look at the mirror.

You funny guy, I kill you last

 

[Ol' Willy]

Mars: War Logs. You're a prisoner.

A prisoner, who is also a former Techomancer and thus has superpowers

Fallout: New Vegas. You're just a courier who had a bad day.

Not JUST a courier. It's implied that Courier has a rich past.

VTMB. You're never anything more than a pawn on a chessboard. You're a run of the mill loser when compared to people that are actually like you.

Player character in Bloodlines is 8th generation vampire. Not too bad, actually.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Spoiler

A prisoner, who is also a former Techomancer and thus has superpowers

Spoiler

You don't find out until you're like 2/3rds of the way done. Put it in a spoiler.

It's implied that Courier has a rich past.

lonesome road isn't canon
don't even bother replying to this, I don't care what the argument is. It was a shit DLC. Basically everything else beforehand was optional as to whether it happened or not, until lonesome road demanded you have a specific background that definitely happened.

Player character in Bloodlines is 8th generation vampire. Not too bad, actually.

Yes, but he's still a fledgling. His generation isn't low enough for it to overcome his inherently young age. The entire game is about you being used as a pawn, even in the endings where you think you weren't being used as a pawn.

 

[good fucking shit happen]

Of Orcs and Men & Game of Thrones RPGs (made by the same people iirc); they're more personal stories set in the RPG genre. The first game follows an orc and goblin; the second game is like a pair of side stories within the Game of Thrones universe. The company who makes these does have talented writers, IMO.

Of Orcs and Men has a big scope and you do affect the game world to a big degree even if you are just a pawn for a higher int human for the most of the game. GoT comparatively is laser focused on personal meaning due to being set in a book series still being written. The two endings with Mors are the most low-key ones I've seen in an RPG. You don't change the fate of the kingdoms, as Alister you can only just lord over your small inheritance. Most RPGs just let you go through the motions, you are the chosen goat herder and at the end you must decide the fate of the world and get a powerpoint presentation on the choices you made. The GoT RPG ending is the most tasteful ending and ironically enough despite being grimdark and juvenile it is also one of the most mature ones. Because it doesn't put the characters at the center of the world. You didn't collect five rat tails, ten gnoll asses and then twenty dragon teeth before crushing the big bad with a magical ancient artifact and special powers only you have after deciding the fate of every place and person you encountered. In GoT RPG the world goes on without you and that must be in part because of the license.

When you pick Mors at the end it comes down to a character choice, if he has any life left in him after all he has gone through, or if the only thing that remains for him is duty and awaiting death at the wall. It's a simple binary choice but it is great writing.





Of Orcs and Men on the other hand does lean more into what I described above, since this was the writers' playground they could make bigger changes to the setting and major characters. In some ways it's an anti-power fantasy funnily enough since despite playing as a big orc powerhouse and a goblin sneak king you have little power over the game world. As far as scope goes however you do potentially kill the human king and throw off the regent of the human lands off a tower and start an orc rebellion and a big war between orcs and elves, dwarves and humans. Despite that it doesn't leave as much of an impact as the GoT RPG endings since there was less character involved. Instead it feels more like Max Payne in that this was always the inevitable conclusion to the story, both the orc meathead and Styx were more or less static through the game.

Licensed games tend to be better at letting the player be a part of a setting without being in the center of it, since it wasn't built to tell a story and not for your power fantasy and your character to become a demi-god in. The Witcher games for example can be very low-key when they want to. Or if they have an historical backdrop they must also ease up on the player awesome juice a little, such as in Kingdom Come or in Pirates! Speaking of pirates...

I want the story to not progress to epic proportions, just keep things low key and chill, where maybe the most exciting thing you do is witness a shooting or help assault a bandit hideout.

Raven's Cry is like this, it's a simple revenge story about pirates. The craziest thing you do is to get high and start hallucinating at one point.

 

[Rafidur]

lonesome road isn't canon

I'd like to think so - the writing in it is unbearable bull.

 

[Ocelot]

Legends of Grimrock

The courier in NV is definitely not a "chosen one" trope. Just a gifted guy who gets caught up in the struggle of various factions and tries to make the best out of it. And the ending is not about "saving the world" as much as it is about choosing which faction deserves to win a power struggle, if any.

 

[potatojohn]

Cyberpunk 2077

 

[bandersnatch]

Just about every RPG that is embarrassed to be an RPG. They don't understand what made the genre great in the first place. Same goes for movies these days.

 

[Dickie]

Does NEO Scavenger fit? You're just some dude with a hospital gown and maybe a sharpened stick. Take a nap and get kicked to death for maximum chosen one feelings. I guess maybe it doesn't fit because you can get some badass stuff later, like a shotgun and a shopping cart.

 

[Alrik]

Legends of Grimrock

The courier in NV is definitely not a "chosen one" trope. Just a gifted guy who gets caught up in the struggle of various factions and tries to make the best out of it. And the ending is not about "saving the world" as much as it is about choosing which faction deserves to win a power struggle, if any.

You're still the chosen one in NV since you are the agent of change in that world. An RPG where you aren't one would play out more akin to Admiral Yang's arc in the first part of LOGH (haven't finished it yet for some reason) where you win every battle, but in the end it's meaningless due to more powerful forces in your universe.

 

[†††]

have you tried "real life"?

Problem is that you can't reroll your character. Well, some have tried, but 41% of them give up their playthroughs early.

 

[Hag]

My Summer Car.
You can't be the savior of the world, you are too busy driving to town in your broken car to buy some yeast, so you can brew your moonshine.

 

[The Jester]

What are RPGs where you play as a piece of shit and everyone treats you like a piece of shit?
Inb4 real life.

 

[hivemind]

Battle Brothers. More tactical RPG than straight RPG. You play a mercenary captain in a quasi-medieval age. Being killers for hire, most of the world hates you. The game makes occasional nods to greater lore and happenings, but they are kept out of scope and out of the characters' understanding.

weren't you the guy who wrote the quests where the mercenary captain saves the world 3 times in a row, kills a pagan god and recovers ancient relics guarded by forgotten horrors of the world??

 

[Rafidur]

What are RPGs where you play as a piece of shit and everyone treats you like a piece of shit?

Disco Elysium is an obvious one?

 

[Catacombs]

What are RPGs where you play as a piece of shit and everyone treats you like a piece of shit?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

 

[Hag]

What are RPGs where you play as a piece of shit and everyone treats you like a piece of shit?
Inb4 real life.

Kenshi

 

[somewhatgiggly]

lonesome road isn't canon

I'd like to think so - the writing in it is unbearable bull.

Mars: War Logs. You're a prisoner.

A prisoner, who is also a former Techomancer and thus has superpowers

Fallout: New Vegas. You're just a courier who had a bad day.

Not JUST a courier. It's implied that Courier has a rich past.

VTMB. You're never anything more than a pawn on a chessboard. You're a run of the mill loser when compared to people that are actually like you.

Player character in Bloodlines is 8th generation vampire. Not too bad, actually.

The only fucker who says anything about the courier is that dipshit Ulysses (Chris Avellone with locks). I take NOTHING he says for salt.

There's not even any damn evidence of a town in the Divide. It's all destroyed military bases and highways and a old pre-war city. My take? The guy has gone sun-crazy, got a bit too invested into the war, and when his own damn side blew up the road (which, why wouldn't they), he decides to tackle it all on the Courier when he hears about them waking up 'nearby' in Goodsprings and then became local news.

 

[sser]

Battle Brothers. More tactical RPG than straight RPG. You play a mercenary captain in a quasi-medieval age. Being killers for hire, most of the world hates you. The game makes occasional nods to greater lore and happenings, but they are kept out of scope and out of the characters' understanding.

weren't you the guy who wrote the quests where the mercenary captain saves the world 3 times in a row, kills a pagan god and recovers ancient relics guarded by forgotten horrors of the world??

Objection!

Well, slight objection. Things get a little grandiose now and again in BB, but generally speaking the writing for the greater events imply that you're only a small part of what is happening. It's even one of the primary tropes that you might accomplish something great, but upon returning to civilization everyone acts like it was someone else or that you barely ran into trouble at all. The Viziers for example, who by the way almost never get near the mercenary but instead talk to him from great distances, always like to steal credit. Everyone tends to piss on you for being a mercenary, though if you save a small town it is more likely the local leadership will be honest about things (you can assume many reasons why that would be more likely with them). You only brush up against 'greater' elements now and again, namely the captain having ancient blood in his veins (pissing off the Undead) and things like the black book which your men can hardly make sense of.

I think the most grandiose of all isn't necessarily an event, but the Davkul origin, wherein you take direct control of the cult of Davkul.

As for that pagan god,

Spoiler

You don't even kill it the first time, much less the second

 

[cvv]

Does it have to be an RPG? Because the best losers have been in adventure games - Guybrush Threepwood in Monkey Islands or Roger Wilco from Space Quests.

 

[corvax]

Arcanum. And my bad for spoiling the ending.