I just read over my post above. Wow! I was writing that quick and made a ton of mistakes with word choices. Anyway, you all should read it again. I expanded a bit and made it make a bit more sense.
Regarding heroic qualities, let me share a story or two from our family table-top game. For those who don't know me well, I've got 7 kids at home, ranging between 2 - 13 years old. (good times!) Anyway, I just picked up Woodland Warriors for the kids. They love reading stories where animals are the main protagonists, and I've run a down and dirty dungeon crawl once before for my eldest 4 and they loved it. Roleplaying in my home is lovingly refered too as "the Sewer Rat game" because of their first adventure. (haha)
For this game, we've created characters for EVERYONE. Even my 2 year old is team playing (with me or my wife) a dexterous mouse warrior named Ribbon. (she may show up in our game as an NPC, I like her that much)
Anyway, (wow, that was a long intro to get to my real stories), my eldest daughter (9) plays a hedgehog friar named Alice. Alice and her party stopped to ask a mole for some directions. As the mole is a long-time miner, I gave him the trait of a hacking and wheezing cough as he gave the directions.
Alice thanked the mole for his help and then asked him about his cough. The mole dismissed it as merely the hazards of many shifts in the mines. Alice asked the mole if he would like to be healed.
(I am sad to say that, as a DM, I thought that using her healing on the miner rather than saving it for when they were in combat was a foolish waste of her ability.)
I had the mole give a queer look and then shrug and say, "Guess it couldn't hurt none." Alice laid on hands, but I told her there was little change. She proceeded to give the mole ALL her healing berries. I told her there was still no change.
She sighed and said, "I'm sorry I couldn't do more." She paused for a moment and then piped in, "When I return, I shall try again."
Heroic qualities: Selfless, persistant, perseverance, hopefulness.
Later, the party was listening to a sad tale from an NPC who had experienced some significant loss, but seemed to be skirting around his pain. The badger warrior, Little Ben (played by my 7 year old son) offers to give his bottle of juice (non-fermented... the players are all under age) with the sad creature.
Now, I need to back this story up a little. When my son was creating Little Ben, he specifically stated that he wanted a bottle of pineapple juice. I told him that pineapple juice was very rare and expensive in these parts and would cost 3x as much as regular apple juice. He said he would take a bottle of apple juice, but wanted the pineapple juice as well and was willing to pay the cost. I let him buy it.
So, fast forward to him offering the NPC his pineapple juice. I asked my son if he was sure he wanted Little Ben to give away his very special and expensive juice.
"Yep," he says."Here you go. I know it's not the same as what you lost. But it's special to me and I want you to have it."
Heroic qualities: Empathy, compassion, sharing, sacrifice.
I could go on and tell you of how my wife's character, a hedgehog wizard named Sansa, offered to sacrificed herself in order to allow her sister (Alice) and the rest of the party to escape an ambush which, in turn, led the two twin Squirrel Scouts (played by my eldest boys) to stand their ground with the wizard and attempt to protect her until she was able to cast her spell.
Or how, when they somehow managed to survive the ambush and even take some of their foes as prisoners, Little Ben offered their captives his apple juice and Anya (a mouse friar played by my 5 year old daughter) shared her trail rations and tended to their wounds.
This is what I mean by "heroic" fantasy. The characters aren't perfect (less you start to think too highly of my family). Most of them will "loot" the bodies of their foes. They are not afraid to intimidate their captives to gain information. The badger sometimes asked his questions in rude ways. The one squirrel scout is regularly trying to persuade some other character to carry his gear. Both of the twin scouts have, at times, shown themselves to be a little craven (that's why, when their stand against overwhelming odds to so heroic). They can all be a bit competitive and gloating at times. And, often, they argue about which course of action they should take. But even then, someone will submit to the wishes of the others and they work it out and move on. And, in a sense, that's heroic too.
The stuff legends are made of!
Anyway, just a few stories so you get a feel of what I mean when I'm thinking of the PCs as heroes.
Can't wait to make some stories with you all!
Ayrn
What game do you own the 
Return to Charadun - Q&A
The Morphing Game
Return to Charadun - Recr
