new chosen one stories and anything about restoring a monarchy should be banned for 30 years

I don't mind being exceptional in RPG's, but I HATE being "the only one who can save the world".

So true. I don't want to be the hero. I want to be the lowly maid that gets constantly scolded by the noblewomen she is serving. And getting slapped, and verbally abused, and stepped on, and...

Of course just until I've levelled up enough and start a revolution against them, which will definitely succeed and not end up with me in a dungeon with all those torture instruments, and shackles, and... That's what he meant with adult games, right?

Alternatively, the Gothic and Risen games were nice to play. You really start from the absolute bottom and have to work your way up, while everyone treats you accordingly. Peak Euro jank

It would be funny if a game subverted this by telling you you're the chosen one destined to win the war and gave you a special little hero sash or whatever, only for the tutorial to end and the player to be transported to a no-man's-land littered with sash-wearing corpses who were also told they were special.

When he's right, he's right. It's boring, backwards, childish nonsense that exists just as a conveyor belt of escalating power fantasy gratification that has cannibalized several different mediums but video games most of all.

"My miserable power fantasy of choice has a right to exist"

I don't care one way or the other. What sucks is that "fantasy" as a genre has decayed so completely into "bottom of the barrel power fantasy" that it's taking up a ridiculous volume of air. It's so fucking sad watching writing be like isekai where there's no real conflict, it's just a machine to have a puppet show of a world where everything exists to jack the player/viewer/reader off with the main character being the most specialist boy ever and you never need to face an uncomfortable emotion or doubt for even a second. Every problem can be over powered by you, every woman wants to fuck you and typically only you, everyone loves you or soon will or else is a Bad Person to overpower, etc. etc. etc. It's just depressing lotus-eating escapist bullshit that seems to radiate contempt from the devs/authors.

Chosen one narratives make us upset because they are true to life. Look at almost every rich and powerful person alive today. They are rich and or powerful because of family connections and the birth lottery. So in this way those narratives are part of thr liberal project of validating the power structure. So it sucks for that reason as well

I cant think of an RPG that I've played aside from Skyrim where you/the player character is The Chosen One.

It could be cool to be supplemental to the success of the chosen one. Introducing the supply line rpg. The chosen one only succeeds if you are successful in maintaining the supply lines for the army. Though if the supply lines are dependable on you I suppose that would make you the chosen one for the supply lines, hero will fail without supplies.

So are we looking for like an indirect chosen one? A smaller scale chosen one? Or just a person who does not carry the fate of the world?

I like that you are a nobody that got transformed into Vampire for funsies in the Dawnwalker.

This is why I loved Morrowind. You "become the chosen one" by fulfilling peoples' expectations of what the chosen one is supposed to do; doing becomes being. But ultimately, you are an ex-convict press-ganged into an imperial spy network taking advantage of the fact that you fit the only criterion no one could change: date of birth and starsign in accordance with an ancient prophesy believed by the autochthonous peoples of the land where the Big Bad is amassing his power (posing a threat to imperialization).

The actions you take to convince people of your chosen one status include: bribing politicians, killing politicians for other politicians over petty grievances, contracting an incurable disease and then being a guinea pig for a dangerous alternative medicine, sex trafficking (with a non-sex-trafficking option made available by the modding community), grave robbing, and aiding a religious schism.

But this is just the quests you complete and the conversations you have that point you in the direction of the end goal. You don't have to actually fulfil any prophetic criteria or convince anyone to anoint you savior to kill the Big Bad. You just need to find the two magical artefacts to counteract his doomsday machine--and you can stumble upon the in-game texts that describe their locations and significance.

It’s one of the reasons I’m kind of excited about WoW Forever. Rather than being a hero of legend or a god incarnate or fighting god for the fifth time this week, you’re just a random shmuck running around doing chores for people and the power level reflects that. I know things get questionable with Ahn’Qiraj and Molten Core, but I think that’s appropriate for that Warcraft era’s advanced shmuck. I don’t even know if we’re going to see that content.