I do not know if either of these characters technically count, as both were featured in books long before they were game characters:

Driz'zt Do'Urden, the dark elf
(from the Forgotten Realms mythos)
Gorath, the main moredhel character
(from Krondor: The Betrayal)

both of them are noble in the fact they want to make their respective worlds better places. I tend to favour Gorath though as a character not for his actions, but the purity of his reasoning. Driz'zt, however, is technically the more moral of the two characters, and therefore the more noble. Because let's face it: nobility usually means being a sap and taking it in the chest for someone that doesn't deserve it in order to push towards a better day. And when it comes down to it, Driz'zt - fan favourite as he is - is a big old fashioned sucker for punishment.

*grins*
I'd take Gorath over Driz'zt as a running mate any day. With Gorath, you know exactly what you are getting, as he'll tell you with a dagger in his hand and a hand on his longsword. Driz'zt is prone to doing stupid things because that is what "true heroes" do - stupid things which are supposed to benefit the many.

(you can tell what kinds of characters I play, can't you.)

Hahahaha. Nothing quite like playing a make-believe fantasy computer game to REALLY demonstrate the potency of one's manhood eh? ;) </font>[/QUOTE]That's what my therapist says :D . Anyway, I nominate Bao Dur from KOTOR 2.

Heiro, can you go about your dialectic process of self-actualization elsewhere? [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img] Actually, I just picked up Beyond Good and Evil again this weekend. ;)

Back to the topic at hand -- I'd say that "Timber Loftis" is of course the gold standard for "the good" behavior (oooh -- won't that term irk a Nietszchian :D ), but Mazzy Fentan will also do in a pinch. Then there's Minsc -- whose low intellect never stopped him from seeing when it was time to go buttkicking for goodness.

If we can consider Spider Man 2 a RPG, I'll give Mary Jane the award.

Bao Dur might be a good choice -- if they had finished scripting him. :mad:

Gorath is a stud. I would take him over Drizzt any day. I only really like Drizzt in the Icewind Dale Trilogy, since then he has become rather...meh (for lack of a better word).

One thing that I do like about Drizzt over Gorath though is that Drizzt actually liked being a burly fighting bad-ass, whereas Gorath was a burly fighting bad-ass only because he had to be (at least that is what it seem like to me).

Gorath was a product of his environment, same as Drizzt was. Main difference is that (for fighting style) if you gave Drizzt a stick in both hands, you would be done for. Not so with Gorath - oh no. He would give you the sticks - all the better to wrap your body around when he broke you. Now, to be fair, their fighting styles had nothing to do with their "nobility." Given the amount of video games I have played over the years, you would think I would have more potential examples for the masses as to "nobility..."

Anyway, Gorath and Drizzt both saw where their societies were flawed. The straying point is where Drizzt left to find a new place for himself as he decided his society was irrevocably chained to its ways (which is as it should be for the Illythyri), our man Gorath KNEW his society was being manipulated from the outside by "darker forces" and left in order to change it back to what it was before. (Not that they were a bunch of flower-sniffing tree-huggers, please note.)

Another noble character to put into the mix here would be Elminster - NOT! Now if ANYONE exemplifies "how to be a crooked bastard in order to save the masses" HE would be it. This guy will use whatever tactic required (to a degree) in order to "win." (Which is why I wanted to do a story involving him and my "assassin" character.)