The Chosen One

"And the babe, all in slumber dreams
Of a place filled with quiet streams
And the lake where her cradle was pulled from the water. 
And we'll all come praise the infanta..."

The Decemberists - The Infanta


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Possible minor spoilers follow for various cRPGs, regarding whether the player is intrinsically "special" or not.
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Among the (by now) tired old tropes which computer role-playing games need to ditch, we can include casting the player as a prophesied hero. The Elder Scrolls series has been terrible about it. At least Morrowind allotted you a decent-length introduction as a penniless exile before unveiling you as the next avatar of Vishnu, but Oblivion's very tutorial had the Emperor himself declare your manifest destiny and Skyrim's had you eating dragons for breakfast. The Black Isle / Obsidian / Bioware genealogy has been slightly more dignified, but whether you're a demigod in Baldur's Gate or born with a mystical artifact in your chest in Neverwinter Nights 2, they still managed to slather on plenty of cheese. Even the Grey Warden in the Dragon Age: Origins campaign, though not strictly speaking a fated savior, was simply handed too much inherent, unearned political clout.

Pillars of Eternity's nosedive in quality of writing between its two installments renders it an interesting object lesson. The dumbed-down sequel elevated you to a goddess' champion from the start, whereas being a "watcher" in the first game was merely a confluence of historical threads which could likely have spun around any of countless souls impacted by Thaos' actions over the centuries. You incidentally served as the gods' tool in their faction war while really addressing your own past deeds. The same was true in Planescape: Torment, which certainly gave you a very special background but mostly resolved to you fighting yourself or the consequences of your past actions while the planes kept spinning indifferently around your little drama. This was unfortunately reversed in Torment: Tides of Numenera, which cast you as a pure soul, the last and greatest prophet capable of overthrowing the works of a god. A better example would be Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines, which as "an adventure in mookdom" as I've previously called it here, hinted at you being abnormally gifted to explain your abnormally fast rise in power among your be-fanged brethren but left it at that. Contrast to the more cheesily operatic vendetta plot of V:tM- Redemption with its star-crossed lovers.

Tyranny deserves special mention as within its more thoughtful interpretation of RPG moralizing it also addressed the autopoietic nature of mythopoiesis. When the infamous Voices of Nerat condemns you with his dying breath as "you Archon of misguided decisions" he is warning you of the danger of building yourself up into a figure larger than your own life, of losing yourself in the patchwork destiny you're threading together by each of your actions. And that's really the issue at stake here: your actions.

We're accustomed enough to stories about "The One" from movies and other passive forms of entertainment which strive to make the audience want to identify with the hero on screen/stage. In a computer game, however, the audience already IS the hero on screen, actively advancing through layers of incremental badassery. There should be no need to explain why I'm important. Instead allow me to prove my importance by the actions I as a player undertake, to write the verses to my own legend, to scribe my own Archon's Sigil as I go, not to dance to the tune of some prophecy, unless it's one I myself have been reciting.

An RPG protagonist should be a nobody who becomes somebody, rags to riches, the tale of the act of becoming, character advancement. Even in a completely scripted, linear plot, the role-player should be defined by actively playing a role, not by pre-masticated backstory. If Muad'dib can trap himself in his own web of self-fulfilling prophecy, that still makes a better plot than popping into existence as an insta-bake Kwisatz Haderach at a time and place appointed by others. Let me railroad myself. Don't tell me I'm special. Show me acting special. Let me gradually become a creature of flames, voices and secrets via conquest by agonizing conquest, click by click of the mouse.