Or you can just kill them and the one person who poses a threat is gone. I guess it just depends on Lady Ash but I doudt the MC could do anything to impress her enough to want her to join them right off the back.
Edit: Also the first game starts with us getting our butts kicked by members of the dozen two years in the future. I don’t think we can beat them.
We don’t necessarily have to win to impress someone we just need to do something impressive. Anyways, maybe I’m just a bit obsessed to play the villain since I find it being the target of the most powerful people in the planet the highest form of acknowledgement.
Also, LOL memebers! 
I dunno, I’d suggest that bravery/heroism and stupidity are not mutually exclusive things.
I think the qualities that make a hero are completely subjective, would you call a fire fighter who risks his life almost every day to save others a hero? Or a doctor who spends all of his time trying to treat sick kids? Or a cop who does his job to the best of his abilities and has always tried to protect and serve? I personally would call them all hero’s but the only thing they really have in common is devoting there lives to helping other people. They could be trying to save the world or mabey just one person but if helping others in there own way is really what takes up most of there time then they should at the very least be one persons hero
Just swingin’ in for a sec! Working on my CoG Contest entry before switching over to CCH in a bit. Soooo anyways, which is the most heroic?
Serving the citizen of Speck? (altruism)
Getting the bad guys? (retribution)
Keeping your friends safe? (loyalty)
Always improving yourself to reach your top potential? (self)
From browsing the comments, it seems like there are folks in each of the four camps
And DG says to her detractors, 
you and the 
you rode in on!
I generally go with loyalty. Altruism would be a close second if I was going to mix it up an a second or third playthru. Retribution can be fun but I wouldn’t choose it myself in this setting. As for self improvement meh I’ll do well in class but it won’t be my focus.
I gotta go with this as priority one. No is safe as long as a villain is on the loose.
Altruism close second and third would definitely be loyalty
Retribution, obviously.
I want to punch people in the face.
Punch all the people!
Well do you mean “most heroic” for people in general or what my MC is doing?
I feel like the general consensus seems to be altruism? Or at least, something that has an altruistic ending–doing good things and having good effects, partaking in actions that benefit everyone. Motivations can vary, but it seems like as long as the results of the actions are good for the whole, what the person is doing can be seen as heroic. It seems like it’s MORE heroic for the motivations themselves to be altruistic, but really even things like “retributionally getting rid of the bad guys so they can’t be bad anymore” still has somewhat altruistic roots.
So, for which of those four is the most heroic–that’s what I’d go with
But, my character is mostly driven by loyalty, and following that retribution, with altruism and self both being pretty low (or, having the goal of both being pretty low). She’s mostly here to take care of the people she cares for, and making people who do bad things to her and her friends not do bad things any more. Not exactly anti-altruism, but feels like humanity isn’t uniform enough for anything to be honestly completely good for everybody, so prioritizes her friends and family accordingly
I feel like the most heroic among the choices would be altruism followed closely by loyalty. Helping as much people as possible is what I think a hero would do. I feel like prioritizing the bad guy without putting the safety of any innocent bystander falls into the vigilante category and anyone and can improve themselves if given the proper motivation.
Besides, I think the bad guy just experience some horrible things in his/her life that made him into what he is now and I believe that a true hero would save anyone, even the bad guy.
Somethin’ I notice is that people usually say that altruism is the most heroic, but will prioritize one of the others if they have to make the choice themselves. They stress the importance of helping others when they’re one of the others, y’dig?
Anyway, altruism. If I could stop a train from hitting five strangers by jumping in frontof it myself, then I’d do it.
I don’t think I need to say it seeing my previous messages.
Altruism obviously. Close second would be retribution (not in the petty revenge sense, but as I said if a villain is too dangerous they need to be stopped).
Loyalty and Self are too egoistic in my opinion.
A person neither can save everyone, nor should we want some people to give up themself for the safety of others (because what believe system would we follow then? Every life is worth to be saved, but not the one of our heroes?).
So I choose self, assuming that becoming the best version of oneself will help to be the version that can help others the best way even if that means accepting that the own abilities to do so are anyway always limited.
Basically: While Altruism sounds nice and dandy, I don’t think on itself its a viable choice, considering that the MC also is just a human being with faults and more importantly needs, and having in mind that most people seem to expect from altruist people to never say no when others are in need, nor to prioritize their own needs, even when they should do so (and I think it’s clear that this definition of altruism is meant, considering the wording “to serve the citizins of Speck”), I don’t think anybody could or should make altruism their only motivation.
It also can lack self-awareness and can cause one feeling guilty for not always being at disposal to have altruism as main motivation…Yeah, I gladly reject altruism as (self)-identifier for heroism.
That’s the nice variant. The honest one is that I think the question and possible answers are stupid in their simplicity.
Someone finally put it into words!!!
How can you be sure you have a self if you’re not a little selfish?
I agree with that. If you spend all your time battling villain, you gain experience but you don’t improve your powers/physical abilities.
However, if I remember well, the self option mention darwinism and basically say “I’m looking for myself”.
Which brings another question for @Eric_Moser: you said altruism would be opposed to retribution and self to loyalty so that people could max out 2 of them. But that would mean you could go from “I need to look out for myself” (Self) to “I need to protect everyone” (altruism).
I think it would be better to oppose altruism/self and retribution/loyalty. I explain why: loyalty is basically “keeping my friends safe”. However you could be both selfish and loyal (“I’m looking out for the team”). On the other hand you can have both altruism and retribution (“I hunt these guys so they won’t hunt others”).
In short:
-Altruism/Loyalty: “perfect” hero that is looking after everyone. Flaw: might have to choose between the two.
-Self/Retribution: I’m seeing this one as very dark hero, one who is in for fame and revenge. Flaw: extremely gray.
-Retribution/Altruism: an anti hero who is merciless (to various degrees) with criminals so they can protect innocents.
-Loyalty/Self: a softer version of Self/retribution who’s concerned about themselves but also their friends/families.
Now why oppose Loyalty and Retribution? Well from what I’ve seen so far a Retribution MC is willing to make sacrifices to beat their enemies and that would include teammates.
I’d say loyalty and altruism. Loyalty because without those closest to us who support us, we’re all nothing; altruism because with great power comes great responsibility!
The more we discuss this the less I like the idea of having the character traits on opposing stats. If the personality stats matter at all past just something being kept track of, then making it impossible for certain pairs to be matched just unnecessarily limits the types of characters that can exist in the game. As well, with the definitions that @Eric_Moser is using then anybody could make a pretty decent argument both for any two stats to be opposing or for them to not be.
Like, altruism and self could super easily work together–be the best self you can be in order to better serve people. Or they could be opposites–I’m number one and I’m more important than anybody else. But then why would retribution and loyalty be opposing? Especially since the game is so team oriented, everybody you’re getting retribution on has hurt someone you like–hurting the guy who attacked you and Crook, defeating the bad guys who killed your father and your classmate, they go together hand in hand.
You can be any of the stats in tandem, really. I think of the ways to oppose them I like altruism vs retribution and self vs loyalty best, but I still feel like it’d make a lot of sense for someone to be altruisticly retributional (if I kill all the evildoers then everybody will be safe!) or selfishly loyal (if my team is at their best I can also be at my best!)
The motivations weren’t originally thought as opposing, so we might have to wait to see how Eric changes the mechanics in the game, to see how it works.
But my doubts are still the same. How are the motivations going to affect the game? For the moment they don’t seem to have a particular purpose. Any theory?
