Fishmalks, Kender, and douchebags: where does the blame lie?

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:37 am

These characters are generally based around being "Funny" "Silly" or "The comic relief". Whether they are conceived as incorrigible Kender, zany fishmalks, or gay aquatic tinkerer steampunk gnomes, the concept in general is at fault because one person at the table isn't in line with the feel of the rest of the fantasy for everyone else.

Jar-Jar in the new stars wars movies actually does make them worse by making the films not able to identify a tone. If every scene in that film was stone-faced counsellors and jedi talking brusquely about political issues then that movie would have been BORING AS SHIT but it would be understandable. Instead every -other- scene is a wacky slapstick ensemble and then the entire film has no tone.

Scrappy doo can't show up in "The Shining", Fozzy Bear can't show up in Die Hard. These characters act out of line with every other character in the fantasy so disrupt things by the very nature of their inclusion. The same is true with any character that wants to be something disruptive of the party fantasy.

tl;dr Shitty characters fuck up the story because it is a co-operative story and theirs is irreconcilable with everyone else's.

Also they tend to be selfish, cause it's a selfish thing to do in the first place

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:39 am

really? Fozzy bear can't show up in Die Hard? I think most people would pretty much go with it, they're not exactly gritty drama, are they?

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:51 am

Of course he can't. And if he did, in a skit or something, you would have to choose one of their film's tones to go with for the other character to adapt to for comic value.

If John McClane is the slightly confused straight man in a muppet-rules world that's humorous and watchable due to the juxtaposition, and the same is true if Fozzy Bear is murdering people in the Die Hard world as a humorous juxtaposition to his normal character. Either one of those would be perfectly plausible SNL skits but what WOULDN'T be watchable is the film switching between vaudevillian, toon-like, slapstick and gritty action every other shot. It would be a mess, and it wouldn't be entertaining. Just like the players we're talking about.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 12:46 pm

If a player makes such a character in the first place it means that the default story was not interesting enough to keep their attention. You actually need to sell the player on the idea that they will have more fun if they participate in the theme of the game instead of blaming it on "selfishness".

Everybody is fucking selfish.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 6:20 pm

deanruel87 wrote:Of course he can't. And if he did, in a skit or something, you would have to choose one of their film's tones to go with for the other character to adapt to for comic value.

If John McClane is the slightly confused straight man in a muppet-rules world that's humorous and watchable due to the juxtaposition, and the same is true if Fozzy Bear is murdering people in the Die Hard world as a humorous juxtaposition to his normal character. Either one of those would be perfectly plausible SNL skits but what WOULDN'T be watchable is the film switching between vaudevillian, toon-like, slapstick and gritty action every other shot. It would be a mess, and it wouldn't be entertaining. Just like the players we're talking about.

you don't know much about post modernism as a style or genre, do you?

(or maybe I'm just being weird again.)

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 6:35 pm

deanruel87 wrote:These characters are generally based around being "Funny" "Silly" or "The comic relief". Whether they are conceived as incorrigible Kender, zany fishmalks, or gay aquatic tinkerer steampunk gnomes, the concept in general is at fault because one person at the table isn't in line with the feel of the rest of the fantasy for everyone else.

Jar-Jar in the new stars wars movies actually does make them worse by making the films not able to identify a tone.

I gotta disagree. Jar-Jar makes the films suck because Jar-Jar sucks and the films didn't have a tone even without him. Really, "hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo" was somehow supposed to be romantic and not a punchline.

Threepio in the original trilogy, Short Round in Temple of Doom, Chekov in Star Trek and Beast Boy in the animated Teen Titans are all comic relief characters who work - and it's worth looking at why they work when Fishmalks and Kender don't.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 7:10 pm

@Josh Kablack

The easy answer: all of your examples had something else BESIDES being the comic relief.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 7:39 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:
deanruel87 wrote:These characters are generally based around being "Funny" "Silly" or "The comic relief". Whether they are conceived as incorrigible Kender, zany fishmalks, or gay aquatic tinkerer steampunk gnomes, the concept in general is at fault because one person at the table isn't in line with the feel of the rest of the fantasy for everyone else.

Jar-Jar in the new stars wars movies actually does make them worse by making the films not able to identify a tone.
I gotta disagree. Jar-Jar makes the films suck because Jar-Jar sucks and the films didn't have a tone even without him. Really, "hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo" was somehow supposed to be romantic and not a punchline.

Jar-Jar didn't ruin episode 1. That horrible kid that they cast as Anakin ruined Episode 1.

Seriously, if you end up watching the movie 3 or 4 times the Anakin kid torpedoes every f*cking scene he's in. He has no charisma, no real acting ability, and he to this day makes me cringe whenever I see him on screen. Jar-Jar is just stupid. You can almost tune him out completely because nothing he does is actually relevant with one or two exceptions.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:03 pm

TheFlatline wrote:Seriously, if you end up watching the movie 3 or 4 times...

...you might be a masochist
...it's time to buy a 2nd DVD
...you should look into getting Netflix
...you've probably never heard the saying "fool me once"
...then I would recommend you check out Moontrap, Population 436, Alone in the Dark, Ishtar and Tideland as your type of film.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:29 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:
TheFlatline wrote:Seriously, if you end up watching the movie 3 or 4 times...

...you might be a masochist

...it's time to buy a 2nd DVD

...you should look into getting Netflix

...you've probably never heard the saying "fool me once"

...then I would recommend you check out Moontrap, Population 436, Alone in the Dark, Ishtar and Tideland as your type of film.

Date a woman with a young child and you'll watch it repeatedly. For an entire generation "the star wars trilogy" means episodes 1-3.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:39 pm

"Date a woman with a young child...."

Well, there's your mistake.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:39 pm

My sister got around that with her child, only showing her the original trilogy, not even telling her about the prequels.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 5:53 am

Something I've wondered about the Kender is if their lack of understanding ownership and property is a cultural thing or a genetic thing.

Would a Kender raised among Dwarves still have an insatiable desire to "borrow" things?

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 6:02 am

Libertad wrote:Something I've wondered about the Kender is if their lack of understanding ownership and property is a cultural thing or a genetic thing.

Would a Kender raised among Dwarves still have an insatiable desire to "borrow" things?

If you read the previous page's link to Kender descriptions, it certainly reads that way. The implication is that a Kender can adventure, aka stabbing people in the face to take their stuff, and still be considered "innocents". That kender are, as a whole, innocent, and really have difficulty becoming evil aligned, means their nature is innate instead of societal.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 6:26 am

conceivably, an interesting back story could be written for the Kender, in which a corrupt celestial created them in that way, but... it would take more understanding of the whole thing than I have, and more rest or caffeine than I've had today...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 6:38 am

Prak_Anima wrote:conceivably, an interesting back story could be written for the Kender, in which a corrupt celestial created them in that way, but... it would take more understanding of the whole thing than I have, and more rest or caffeine than I've had today...

That's actually how it happened.

Supposedly, the races went like this:

Elves (Created by Paladine, the top Good God. All perfect and awesome and sparkly and humans suck compared to them, hurr hurr hur)

Humans (Neutral. Gilean's handiwork)

Irda (Takhisis' work. even more awesome and shiny than the elves, got too uppity, cursed into ogres).

Then Reorx, the Smith-god took up an acquaintance with some humans, taught them craftwork. Eventually, they forgot him and mocked him, and he cursed that group of humans into gnomes.

Much later, there was this really powerful agent-of-chaos gemstone-plot-device which was going around the world fucking with shit and two groups of gnomes were after it. One wanted the stone out of greed, one wanted to split it open and see what was inside. They both reached it at the same time, and it pimp-slapped them. The greedy ones became dwarves, the curious ones became kender.

Goblins were supposed to be ogre/elf hybrids or something. I don't know about hobgoblin origins.

Gully dwarves were...gnome and dwarf hybrids, I believe.

Oh, and the gem contained a corrupt celestial which was really just fucking with the world for the lulz. Basically an equivalent to Morgoth from Lord of the Rings.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 6:58 am

I was thinking more along the lines of a crazy, corrupt celestial who decided to create a race of worshippers and servitors with only the barest of sapience, basically creating a race of perpetually-child like thought slaves.

like I said, I'm tired, so I can't really even fucking remember what I was thinking a few minutes ago...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 7:03 am

Prak_Anima wrote:I was thinking more along the lines of a crazy, corrupt celestial who decided to create a race of worshippers and servitors with only the barest of sapience, basically creating a race of perpetually-child like thought slaves.

like I said, I'm tired, so I can't really even fucking remember what I was thinking a few minutes ago...

"Sleep is god, go worship."

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 7:14 am

Maxus wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:I was thinking more along the lines of a crazy, corrupt celestial who decided to create a race of worshippers and servitors with only the barest of sapience, basically creating a race of perpetually-child like thought slaves.

like I said, I'm tired, so I can't really even fucking remember what I was thinking a few minutes ago...
"Sleep is god, go worship."

"But it's onl-fuck it's 11 o clock. ಠ_ಠ"

James Gillen · Post by **James Gillen** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:20 am

Libertad wrote: I can see how something like an uncompromising Paladin or a "free spirit" character can bring out the worst in some gamers. The existence of a rule or concept in a book legitimizes it due to its "official status," and thus one can come to the conclusion that the rules and structure of the game has built-in plans to support said concept. The implications of a "free spirit" come off as a "do whatever you want" excuse that won't have an effect on your alignment. The problem is that this is not clearly spelled out in such a way to discourage behavior that is just plain morally black.

Thoughts?

I think your sig is deeply appropriate here.

JG

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:43 am

But hey, Kender were the only ones to kill a dragonlord, if I recall correctly.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 4:25 pm

Doom wrote:But hey, Kender were the only ones to kill a dragonlord, if I recall correctly.

Don't forget that it was Tasslehoff who wounded an Eldritch Abomination by stabbing it in the toe.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 7:29 pm

Libertad wrote:
Doom wrote:But hey, Kender were the only ones to kill a dragonlord, if I recall correctly.
Don't forget that it was Tasslehoff who wounded an Eldritch Abomination by stabbing it in the toe.

And then the warrior woman finishes off the weakened abomination?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 12:40 am

No, a stranger in a strange land seals a drop of its blood inside of a MacGuffin and the gods are able to use that as a bartering chit to get it to leave. Or something along those lines. Granted, I was, like, fourteen when I read those books, but I actually liked Tasslehoff. He was the only one for whom constantly going on new adventures actually made sense, and at least he had the decency to bounce around time while he was doing it instead of being part of the huge pileup of world-changing events that all occur within the same twenty years or so, starting from the first Dragonlance books and going on until the writers ran out of ideas and finally started mining out the rest of the mythos.

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 12:44 am

TheFlatline wrote: For an entire generation "the star wars trilogy" means episodes 1-3.

If that is true (and I hope to god it isn't), it is the fault of the older generation, who let their children watch crap and didn't show them GOOD movies, some of which have the title "Star Wars".

I have 4 kids (2-10), and none of them have seen any of the prequel movies. Because I don't let them. They watch the original trilogy, and they love it.

The Gaming Den

Fishmalks, Kender, and douchebags: where does the blame lie?

Re: Fishmalks, Kender, and douchebags: where does the blame lie?