A few snippets that highlight Truth & Justice's application to Superguy

[demiurgent]

Here's a few bits of stuff for the potential T&J: Superguy supplement idea I mentioned before.

First off, T&J's capacity for "combat resolutions" that don't depend on beating people up is tailor made for Superguy. Consider this: Ignorantman's powers -- particularly their combat application -- is modeled in the system out of the box. Each round he asks another question, inflicting more of the hitherto unknown power of Naiveté against his enemy. His enemy's confusion and mental whirling increases, reflected by his ever lowering traits and powers, until finally he's left with all his abilities at Poor [-2] except for the one downshifted to the loss, standing, helpless, worthless, and almost certainly with a ho ho in his mouth.

The game doesn't need to be tweaked to do this. It's right there in the rules.

A few points for potential Superguyish contributors to consider:

First off, I'm creating two special Qualities for the project: Quantum Absurdity and Weirdness Magnet. Quantum Absurdity is an innate or explicit understanding of the unmitigated strangeness that exists at the quantum level in Superguy. This gives the person certain special abilities (like being able to understand the Dash), as well as the capacity to, with a Hero point cost, do a scene-resetting Stunt. (When the scene is reset, everyone gets all some or all of their failure ranks and damage levels back.) Weirdness Magnet is the capacity to draw strangeness into one's life, plus once again being able to do an appropriate scene-resetting Stunt. Think of the fight between Team Cynical/Radian and the Awe-Inspiring Force from "Blow the House Down." In the middle of a fight to the death between Team Cynical and the AIF, High Jinx (who has a Weirdness Magnet in the person of Incongruous Crayon living in his head, remember) calls a time out so that both teams can pool their resources and move a really nice leaded glass coffee table out of the way. All involved characters immediately set aside their differences, organize the project, move the heavy table, and banter for a few moments. This is a part of the essence of Superguy, and also works perfectly for T&J since that can be used to regain everyone's ranks and hero points.

Secondly, Mary Sue/Marty Stu/"Authorial characters" are going to be actually encouraged by the mechanics. This reflects A) the pernicious number of author-based characters in Superguy, and the fact that no matter how lame those characters were in design, in almost every case they turned into the most important character in the series (cf. Ramrod, Superuser, Scholarman, et al.) (The exception was Gary's own "The Programmer," but Gary is a Superior life form.)

Thirdly, this might be the first RPG supplement in existence with a section at the end saying "so, did you come up with something absurdly hilarious? Great! Write it up and post it at [address], and add it to Superguy continuity!" Imagine playing DC Heroes and then getting to publish your comic in DC continuity. For free.

The rules we generate for a Superguy supplement will scale nicely for all kinds of absurdist superhero roleplaying. I can't for the life of me see the down side to all this.

Well, except that we have to file the serial numbers off of She-Devil. And any other characters we can't get the rights to. God help us if Bill Dickson says no. ;)

Comments

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, if I don't get around to picking this game up, I grant permission to adapt my characters for the book. :)

[drderanged.livejournal.com]

Well, you've convinced me that it's a good idea. (You pretty much did that last post...)

So, what do I have to do for my part?

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

You've done it for the moment. When we organize, then we'll work on the sourcebook section. I'm figuring each series that directly participates will do a few paragraphs on what their series was, their hooks, and do up stats for their significant characters. It shouldn't be a big deal.

[drderanged.livejournal.com]

Ah, waiting... now that I can do with no problems. ;)

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

Wait, are you implying you want stuff from even the horrbily bad writers (like myself). 'Cause thats what it sounds like. I mean what kind of bastard are you that would inflict SMURF! on other people. Do you hate everyone else that much?

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Well... heh... um....

It's not... not that there wouldn't be a place for SMURF! or Tales to Smurfify or....

It's....

LICENSING! There's LICENSING issues! We wouldn't want to get sued! That's it!

More seriously -- you're a part of the Superguy tapestry. If you have something you'd want to contribute, that'd be a cool thing. ;)

It's the Fargate! Goes far, get it?

[aquamarcia.livejournal.com]

If you're concerned about licensing just take a cue from Oglethorpe of TV's Aqua Teen Hunger Force. His Fargate in no way resembles the device from a certain movie, or the syndicated TV series based on the movie. I'm sure you can come up with a suitable Smurf alternative, like maybe they'd have green skin and wear caps resembling pink mohawks.

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

Good save...8)

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Besides -- there's always F.I.S.H. League, right?

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

Oh gawds. Don't remind me. Though the few salvagable character concepts did make it into my 2nd attempt at writing for SG...

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Second attempt? My brain's soft and spread on toast -- what am I forgetting?

[aquamarcia.livejournal.com]

If a Ho Ho appeared in my mouth purely by virtue of someone talking to me, I'd hire that person and have him speak to me every evening after dinner.

[glitchphil.livejournal.com]

Heh. Good one.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

A brief Ignorantman scene, from my own "Scholarman" miniseries:

Roger was cool as he pulled the pistol. The Convenience Store Clerk blanched as he say the gun aimed for his forehead. "Stay calm, and we'll have no trouble," Roger said. "I don't intend to go to prison for murder, so just open the register and start taking the money out, one stack at a time, *very* slowly. Put it on the counter one stack at a time. Okay?"

The bell dinged as someone entered the store. Roger turned and pointed his gun at him -- he was some weird guy in his pajamas. "Turn back around and go back outside," he said. "We don't want trouble."

The man looked at the gun -- he seemed curious. "Why carry a weapon if you don't want trouble," he asked, looking up into Roger's eyes.

"Hey--" Roger said, a bit shaken. This had never happened before."Come on, I just want to get the money and go--"

"Why do criminals always steal money? Why don't they steal goods for barter or their use, like beer? Why are convenience stores always out of the things that you find convenient?"

Roger caught himself thinking about the questions, even as the man walked around him with a nauseating sort of bouncy walk-step. Why didn't criminals hold up stores for beer? There was more beer than money in the store, and Roger would be spending some of his ill-gotten gains on beer anyhow--"

"Why is the worst beer that comes out of Milwaukee called Milwaukee's Best? Why is beer bottled last month called Old Milwaukee? If Meister Brau and Budwiser are the same beer, why do they cost two different prices?"

"I don't...I don't--"

"How can Hostess call these Twinkies Light, when they are obviously not light at all? How come health food always makes you sick? If Indians really do cashier at most Convenience Stores, why do they sell microwave hamburgers?"

"Stop....stop it man!" Roger was shaking -- he tried to shoot, but his mind burned with the questions he couldn't answer -- he had always just sort of assumed someone knew the answer to them, but now he couldn't even tell if there was an answer! He looked into the eyes of the man, looking for some spark that said he was lying -- that really he knew, but he was just trying to confuse Roger.

The eyes were blank. As blank as the mind behind them.... Roger felt himself slip, even as the man unwrapped a package of Ho-Hos and prepared to deliver the knockout punch.

"Why do we call them expressways when it takes longer to get home on them due to traffic?" The man looked as if he hoped Roger had the answer.

Dazed, Roger sank to the floor. The man picked up Roger's gun and put
a Ho-ho in Roger's mouth. "I hope I did not hurt you," the man said, taking the bullets out of the gun, "but I had to protect this store owner. Why must these conflicts always end in violence? I must ruminate on this." Handing the unloaded gun to the clerk, and paying for the Ho-Hos and a Diet Cherry Coke, the man left even as the sirens approached.

Roger didn't move. He was perplexed, dazed, confused, and he had a Ho-Ho in his mouth.

[aquamarcia.livejournal.com]

That's beautiful.

[chadu.livejournal.com]

You want to license, or you want to do a free netbook?

:)

CU

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

I don't yet know. ;)

Give me a few days to mull it over. I honestly think this could be a good, solid supplement on absurdist superhero roleplaying.

I also think there's no chance in Hell we can pay anyone for contributions. ;)

What would licensing look like? If, that is, you know.

[chadu.livejournal.com]

I'll email you.

CU