Gaming Rant: I'm Not In This For Your Revolution

As stated in my Mass Effect 2 rant (and sparked by a conversation with my good friend David), there are many things about role-playing games that annoy me. I’m sick of the petty victories of “dinging” a level, of gaining a skill point, of getting a weapon with a purple name. I’m sick of statistical optimization. I’m sick of saving the world. And most of all, I’m sick of not caring about the characters, especially the non-character they give you as your central protagonist. Normally I would attribute this last part to never-ending disappointment with humanity, but when all I have to work with are the same archetypes over and over again, I’m inclined to think I’m not the only part of the problem.