Guile Hero / Video Games

Guile Heroes in Video Games.

---

• This is the predominant hero in Sierra's games from the '80s, including Space Quest, King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and numerous one shots. Very few of them had fighting options, requiring the protagonist — and player — to use his head.
• Many point-n-click adventure game protagonists seem to run on this trope. A point-n-click interface doesn't lend itself very well to fighting so the player must use their wits alone to progress by choosing the right dialogue options, solving puzzles, and combining the right items to macgyver their way through the game.
• The game Alpha Protocol encourages you to play the main character Michael Thorton along the lines of this trope. He's even stated in the beginning to be noted as a Manipulative Bastard, which is what gets him recruited. The game encourages you to get an understanding of what makes certain characters tick and use it to your advantage and by the end, you'll be able to play Smug Snake Henry Leland like a fiddle. In fact, deliberately choosing between portraying a smooth-talking, smug jerk or a calm, collected, professional is crucial to whether or not you can effectively play The Dragon Conrad Marburg into either backing you up or hating you so much he'll stick around to try and kill you.
• Styled after the previous games, Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura also fits: with a high enough intelligence and charisma, the player character can effectively avoid almost every fight in the game, and look good while doing it.
  • A purely diplomatic character, missing out on the experience from combat, will finish the game at a lower level, but have a much more powerful overall party. The maximum number of NPC followers can wield every endgame weapon, all at higher levels due to earning the combat experience themselves. Even if your character doesn't talk their way out of the Final Battle, they can still breeze through it.
• Rachel Alucard in BlazBlue leans even further towards this in Continuum Shift than in Calamity Trigger. Her goal? To find the Master Unit Amaterasu and kill Terumi. Of course, the Imperator destroys Amaterasu before she can find it, but naturally, Rachel doesn't lose her cool even when she learns her efforts to find it were for naught.
• Dragon Age:
  • The Warden of Dragon Age: Origins is a hybrid of this and Action Hero if played as a good-aligned character. If played as a Villain Protagonist, the Warden becomes a Magnificent Bastard instead.
  • Dragon Age II has Hawke, who can be played this way if you often choose the humorous or charming options in dialogue. He/she can manipulate and schmooze with people to his/her advantage and is presented as being a lot more intelligent than he/she initially seems.
    • Your companion Varric is just as skilled, if not better. The entire game's framing device, in fact, is Varric being this: he's telling the story of Hawke's exploits to Chantry Internal Affairs, he opens with a flat-out lie about not knowing Hawke's whereabouts, and while he regularly gets called on exaggerations, he manages to get Cassandra so hooked on the story that she never questions that first lie, and he does all this while in a darkened room with an armed and armoured woman in black demanding the truth — at swordpoint, occasionally — without losing his cool.
• In any Dynasty Warriors Shu mode, especially in 5 and 6, Zhuge Liang will willingly become this in order to keep any Shu citizen's ire off Liu Bei or any other officer with a reputation as a good man. At some points it skirts towards Magnificent Bastard for the same reasons, namely, ensuring Shu's success while making himself out to be a cold-hearted bastard so Liu Bei seems all the more virtuous for it.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Throughout the series, heroes of the Breton race, both real and in stories, tend to rely on their wits and resourcefulness to succeed. Even when they fail, such as in How Orsinium Passed to the Orcs, these skills allow them to fail gracefully.
  • Morrowind:
    • In the Backstory, the legendary Chimeri/Dunmeri hero Nerevar was one of these. He managed to get the hated rival Dwemer to form an Enemy Mine with the Chimer in order to drive out the invading Nords thanks to his skills as a leader and his supernatural powers of persuasion. In order to complete much of the game, The Nerevarine will need to be one as well.
    • Crassius Curio, a councilor of Great House Hlaalu, is one. Despite his...uncouth proclivities...he is actively working to rid Hlaalu of corruption and is one of only two councilors who aren't in the pocket of the Camonna Tong. He's not above letting everyone else believe that he is an easily-manipulated fool while he's at it...
    • Skink-in-Tree's-Shade, Master Wizard of the Wolverine Hall (Sadrith Mora) Mages Guild Hall, isn't known for his magical strength as much as other mages. (That's not to say he's a slouch in the matter, however.) Skink is known more for his ability to handle situations diplomatically, which helps him act as the Guild Master in a region controlled by rivals to the Mages Guild in Great House Telvanni. He's the Master Trainer in Speechcraft, and that 100 skill level in Speechcraft isn't just for show.
  • In the series' spin-off Action-Adventure game, Redguard, the hero, Cyrus, proves to be one. Cyrus is a pirate and a skilled swordsman, but relies on his wits and being clever in order to defeat superior foes. These include a dragon, a Sload necromancer, and even matching wits with a Daedric Prince.
  • In the series' backstory, Tiber Septim, the founder of the Third Tamriellic Empire who ascended after his death as Talos, the Ninth Divine, is considered one (at least in the more orthodox tales). Whenever overwhelming force wasn't enough to accomplish his goals, he'd find creative alternatives. The more heretical tales of his life instead paint him as a Manipulative Bastard, who wasn't above betrayal and using assassination to get what he desired.

    "If you are of no use to Tiber Septim, he will see to it that you are of no use to his enemies either..."

  • Also from the backstory, the ancient Yokudan (Precursors of the Redguards) hero Frandar Hunding was on as the leader of the Ansei during the War of the Singers. Vastly outnumbered (Hira's forces outnumbered the Ansei thirty to one) and, despite their skills, woefully unprepared to form into an organized army, Frandar devised the "Hammer and Anvil" strategy to get around the weaknesses of his army. He devised a plan of seven battles, each leading Hira's forces deeper and deeper into the Yokudan wilderness. The first six battles had no clear winner, as was Frandar's intention, but drew Hira's force further and further out. In the seventh battle, at the foot of Mount Hattu (where Frandar lived as a hermit for 30 years while writing the Book of Circles), the "hammer" struck. Frandar's Ansei killed over three hundred thousand of Hira's men, winning the war.
• This is also true in the Fallout games, where you gain extra XP and other rewards for succeeding at speech challenges. There are also perks that open extra dialog options with various characters.
  • Fallout: New Vegas — though obviously only if you choose to play your character that way, but there are a number of situations that, with a sufficiently high Speech skill, you can talk your way out of without firing a shot.
  • If you ask Chief Hanlon what his proudest achievement is during his long career as a Ranger, he doesn't talk about Hoover Dam or any other military campaign, but rather tells a story about a group of NCR settlers who had gone missing and whom Hanlon was dispatched to find. Upon finding them, he finds that they have taken over the only water supply in the entire area, and had "self-defensed" over twenty of the indigenous people to death when they tried to reclaim their water. Hanlon tricked the settlers into believing the tribals had succeeded in wiping out Hanlon's entire Ranger squad (when in fact Hanlon had been sent alone), scaring them into abandoning the settlement and returning to California with Hanlon and thus ending the situation without further bloodshed. This provides an insight into how Hanlon views himself, and somewhat explains his decision to fake demoralizing battle reports to drop NCR morale, in order to force an end to the Mojave Campaign and have the troops return home to California.
• In Final Fantasy VI, King Edgar Roni Figaro plays lip service to the Empire to keep his people safe, but secretly supports The Returners. Some of his guile hero moments are tricking Kefka into believing they will hand over Terra, just to flee with Locke and Terra and have the castle dive in the sand to safety, outwitting Kefka. Later, he uses some of the escaped thieves he imprisoned to find his castle after the collapse.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Princess Caeda from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light and Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem. While her boyfriend and local Magnetic Hero Marth is able to recruit some allies to the crew, it is Caeda who can influence the most amount of characters to join in, simply by going up to them in battle and talking to them.
  • Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade:
    • Elphin, who is the brains of the West Isles resistence while Lalam is the heart and Echidna is the brawns and leader. He is also Prince Mildain of Etruria, thought to have died in an accident, but no one is supposed to know that. At least not until the war is over and he can return home safely.
    • Roy, the hero of the game, is this and an Action Hero. He finds out about Elphin's identity almost on his own, after all.
  • Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones has two of these: Prince Ephraim of Renais does this by being The Strategist and making guerrilla tactics a complement of his spear-using skills, whereas his Friendly Rival (and possible brother-in-law) Prince Innes of Frelia is the lead of the Frelian spy network. Ephraim's twin sister (and Innes' potential girlfriend and partner) Princess Eirika aims to become a guile heroine, but she is more of an all loving heroine — using her kindness and charisma rather than deceit and tactics, alongside her swordmanship.
  • The player will become this in Fire Emblem: Awakening. Or better said, the Player Character aka the Avatar — a mysterious young man or woman who belongs to the Tactician Class (able to use both magic tomes and swords). S/he becomes the advisor and best friend (and prospect love interest in the case of a girl!Avatar) of Prince Chrom of Ylisse, serving as his Number Two in his Badass Crew, the Shepherds. And then it turns out that s/he is also the Big Bad Friend, as the potential host for a Dark God. And his/her biggest goal is to go "Screw Destiny" so this won't happen.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses brings in Claude. The guy always prefers deceit and strategy to fair fights, constantly looks up intel on everybody around him with or without their knowledge, likes to have tricks up his sleeves to the point he considers poison-brewing a hobby, and always hides his sharp mind and keen political skills behind a laid-back attitude and endless wisecracks. It's not all positives, though: he's so well known for being underhanded that despite being unarguably the most good-natured of the three Lords who only wants peace for everyone^note Edelgard is a Well-Intentioned Extremist while Dimitri struggles with the darker aspects of his fragile psyche, most people just don't trust him.
• Every protagonist in Five Nights at Freddy's is one. There's no fighting option (that would contradict the point of the genre) so you have to outsmart the bad guys to survive.
• The Geneforge series of games allows the player with high Leadership to pass through diplomatically and avoid picking a side amongst the factions, at least up until the endgame. A powerful shaper/lifecrafter can summon Mons and arrange them tactically enough to avoid all personal contact with battle.
• Lillet Blan in GrimGrimoire outfoxes the devil in a display of cunning that even impresses her demon teacher.
• The King of Fighters: Ash Crimson turns out to be this, thus him being the literal embodiment of the Joker card.
  • Kyo Kusanagi's mother Shizuka is a soft-spoken but incredibly sly and plucky Yamato Nadeshiko, and the KOF: KYO manga makes her this through and through. Specially by subduing Eiji Kisaragi with words alone (and pointing her naginata at him) and via hilariously showing her own husband Saisyu why he should NEVER go out behind her back.
  • On top of being a Colonel Badass and Action Hero, Heidern can play the role of Guile Hero pretty well when it's needed. He gets his first try in KOF 99 and 2000 when he and the Ikari Warriors are tasked with investigating NESTS through the KOF tournament, and he does this again in XIII via organizing and leading an Investigation Team (with Seth, Blue Mary, Ramon, and Vanessa as its members), to check on the mysterious circumstances surrounding Those Of The Past — and this is alongside always sending out the Ikari Warriors into the battlefield itself as well. Too bad Ash is just as guileful and manages to perform his plan even with Heidern and Co. around.
• Mass Effect:
  • Commander Shepard will be a Guile Hero if played strongly Paragon and a Magnificent Bastard if played strongly Renegade.
  • Liara T'Soni evolves into one of these by Mass Effect 2.
• Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat has become this after Character Development. He's not military, a warrior monk, an Edenian with a thousand-year lifespan's worth of training, or a god. He's an actor who signed on initially to shut up some tabloids and quickly (but far too late) figured out he was way in over his head. But his Motor Mouth taunting of his opponents, Obfuscating Stupidity, and quick thinking (in the Movie, he had no chance of defeating Goro in a straight fight, so he tricked Goro into making a fatal mistake instead) means that while he's chronically underestimated by ally and enemy alike, there's a reason he has the position of Earthrealm (and Raiden's) champion after Liu Kang's death and corruption.
  • In the "Aftermath" expansion story of Mortal Kombat 11, Liu Kang (after his ascension to Fire God) becomes this, pulling off a massive Batman Gambit by allowing Shang Tsung to take Kronika's crown and betray absolutely everyone until all other possible threats to the realms are eliminated, allowing him to deal with Shang Tsung without anyone or anything else to interfere.
• Nippon Ichi loves this trope:
  • Seraph Lamington from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness basically manipulated the entire plot of the first game.
  • Virtuous from Soul Nomad designed a plan to solve the real problem with the world.
  • Mr. Champloo was part of a Batman Gambit orchestrated by his boss to counter the scheme of the Big Bad of Disgaea 3.
• The player character from The Outer Worlds can be played as this. With charm, perception, and cleverness on the player's part, the Unplanned Variable can unite the various squabbling factions into a peaceful system, manipulate them for personal profit, or some combination thereof. The best endings, including the Unplanned Variable installing themself as dictator of Halcyon, are most easily achieved with this kind of playthrough.
• In Planescape: Torment, monsters and goons will often force physical confrontations, but it is very, very rare to have an actual story objective that can only be achieved with violence. Usually, smooth talking, quick thinking, or outright deceit can carry the day every bit as easily as barreling in and breaking things.
  • In fact, there are only two instances in the game where violence is required. Even the Final Boss can be talked to death.
• Professor Layton. Helps that the games he's in revolve entirely around solving puzzles. Mind you, he actually engages in a sword fight in Diabolical Box, but only to defend himself from a deluded villain.
• The Unnamed Hero from the Quest for Glory games (another Sierra series) invariably comes up against evil sorcerers/Eldritch Abominations that are far too powerful for him to deal with via any means but outwitting them.
  • Though by the final game the Hero is potentially powerful enough to just straight-up kill the Dragon of Doom instead of sealing it away like he'd usually do.
• When Scheming Through The Zombie Apocalypse Hank prefers to use his skills as a salesman to convince others to help him and Larry out instead of risking his own and his pal's life.
• Shin Megami Tensei:
  • Most of the games require the player to develop some skills with this with the demon talk mechanic, as you really have zero hope of advancing if you do not learn to interact with demons, learning to flatter, bribe, and deceive them into serving you, helping you, or just leaving you alone.
  • Persona:
    • Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4, especially seen when she intentionally gets herself kidnapped in hopes of figuring out who the kidnapper was while at the same time completely expecting the "Investigation Team" to come rescue her. That being said, Kanji does chew her out for putting herself in danger.
    • The protagonists from Persona 3 and 4, who save almost everyone around them with words and simple emotional guidance.
    • The protagonist from Persona 5 takes it even further; besides his talents as a pseudo-therapist, he's constantly noted to be a trickster at heart, can negotiate with enemy Shadows, and he's even able to play his team's traitor like a fiddle.
• Elaine Marley-Threepwood in Tales of Monkey Island. She laid down an intricate master plan, used her charm back in Chapter 2 to make sure Guybrush would play his part in said plan, and repeatedly engaged in swordplay and (in one case) naval warfare to help move things along.
  • Guybrush (the player character) is no slouch, either. Although he is often portrayed as bumbling and foolish (and perhaps a bit cowardly) many of his actions throughout the Monkey Island series involve him tricking or manipulating someone into getting what he wants. Indeed, his lack of physical strength or prowess is the main reason he must resort to such tactics.
• Kratos Aurion in Tales of Symphonia. His plan to let a human wield the Eternal Sword relies on him repeatedly betraying the party and playing both sides so that he can finally die. He constantly switches sides because he's torn between preventing a Full-Circle Revolution (side with Mythos) and stopping an Instrumentality Plot (side with Lloyd) until the end, and although it is his sword skills that are commented on the most, his plotting does a lot more to drive the story forward.
  • Fittingly, as he's supposed to be Kratos' replacement and foil, Zelos Wilder should qualify. He, too, plays multiple sides of the conflict, intending to stick with the side that has the greatest chance of success. This term works best if you take the route that keeps him alive: he betrays his original allies, Cruxius, at the last minute, just so he can obtain the Eternal Ring. In the other ending, he's just a lying liar who lies… and then dies. Not to mention he's probably had to deal with a lot of political shenanigans on the side, growing up as The Chosen in Meltokio and all.
• If the Villain Protagonist of Tyranny wants to join the rebels (and isn't just using them for their own ambitions), they'll have to be this. Though they start out serving Evil Overlord Kyros, the Fatebinder can keep rebels alive — and even in their court as trusted servants — under technicalities. All the while claiming they are following the orders of Kyros to the letter, and using creative interpretations of Kyros' magical edicts to break them. The Rebel path also involves a lot of getting the squabbling peoples of the Tiers to cooperate in spite of ancient grudges, and a good bit of guile is needed to achieve this relatively bloodlessly.
• Undertale will make you one if you want to beat the game without hurting anyone. Most of your enemies are very persistent in their desire to kill you, and the pacifist player has to get creative in order to calm down the Legion of monsters.
• In Untitled Goose Game, you play as a goose, so you frequently need to use guile and subterfuge to manipulate the villagers into accomplishing your goals.
• The Walking Dead:
  • Lee is a strong guy and a good fighter, and zombies are a threat that can't be talked away, but what keeps Lee alive is primarily his intellect. He even makes a point of explaining it to Clementine - the dead are slow, the living are fast. The dead are stupid, the living are smart. He is also adept at manipulating the emotions of others to achieve his objectives.
  • Clementine, as part of being a girl Kid Hero, just doesn't have the raw strength to tackle many challenges head-on. That said, she's very spry, clever, and quick to learn how to survive in this post-apocalyptic world, working well with other members of her groups (most of the time). She's also a crack shot with a handgun.

---