Constructing a D&D cartoon.

[Midnight_v]

I think it's very preferable for the 'transhuman is good' angle to be a result of something applicable and replicable to the audience at large. Having someone become an awesome vampire after being a muck-covered peasant isn't really generalizable to the viewers at home, but Fantasy Scientists and their patients getting killed en masse for trying to cure a widespread genetic disease (and throwing in some extras) to a suffering and early-death populace is.

Hmmm... for once. . . I have to agree with Lago, as well as a few others. Lets keep the vampire/werewolf bit out of the main chars for a number of reasons, the above being but one.

Character is infected by a Slaad, and some smart character (possibly a Gnome) arrests the process, giving the innocent character a bunch of Giant Frog powers.
Decent Also it give attention to D&D races other than the basics. That needed we should start moving beyond the same old bullshit races in one way or another.

Wizard makes potion of immortality and villains kill him for it. Innocent character ends up drinking it on accident and is now Lady Deathstrike.
Decent
Virtually un-identifiable from the captain america meme, I guess all icarid stories are going to read that way somewhat

Character turned into vampire/lycanthrope but gets given the serum from Blade so that they don't turn evil.
Poor For quite a few reasons outlined on the last two pages. Sides with so many available options lets skip it.

Character gets permanent effect result on the potion miscibility table with a potion of super heroism and something else, is now Captain America.
Less than Decent But Somewhat less interesting than the Lady Deathstrike otpion. Having immortality, being made into an Elan etc has an interesting bent to it that just being super lacks honestly. So just combine the two memes I guess or go with the above. They're functionally the same in a couple ways.

Character horribly wounded, but saved by kindly wizard implanting golem-bits (wizard is then killed), turning the character into FMA.
Fuck no pleaseThere's actually a book series that contains that exact story: Year of Rogue Dragons or some such. So if nothing else that to obviate the connection.

Character is a Gith.
Brilliant This gets my vote, headnod or whatever. We never really know EXACTLY how Gith does the shit he does to get his people out of the yoke etc. Auto-includes illithids in the story and can satisfy Lagos mad scientist bit by telling that exact story however the hell he wants.

Attempt to transform into giant dragon and conquer world goes wrong, both main villain and innocent character turn into half-dragons.
Sad Its a little too obvious to sit down to watch D&D and see half dragons. Draconids, whatever. . . for once lets skip this as a main theme, please.

Edit: Gith also do the "Insanity of Racism" bit pretty damn well since
-yanki and -Rezai are the same goddamn thing to other races.

[Starmaker]

I think it's very preferable for the 'transhuman is good' angle to be a result of something applicable and replicable to the audience at large. Having someone become an awesome vampire after being a muck-covered peasant isn't really generalizable to the viewers at home, but Fantasy Scientists and their patients getting killed en masse for trying to cure a widespread genetic disease (and throwing in some extras) to a suffering and early-death populace is.

/slowpoke
This.
For the "transhumanism is good" meme to work properly, you have to make the transformation tech a result of deliberate research by good people for a good purpose that doesn't have any sour grape debilitating drawbacks except the "eww! abomination of nature!" reaction from fuckheads.

What it shouldn't be:
* an accident - done and redone; non-reproducible effects lead to talk of fate ("chosenness" and resulting Objectivism) and chance/risk ("if the villain got to it first, we'd be all dead; we got lucky this time but no more awesomifying!") while we want to push the idea that awesomeness for everyone is achievable by application of human effort
* monster gone good via outside agency (magic, serum, whatever) - this strays too close to "even vampires can be saved by Jesus"
(a better setup is as follows: peasant girl turned vampire, the villagers tried to kill her and it's this sudden hostility that could have turned her to evil, but then the party came along and she went adventuring; but see below)
* done with evil/selfishness in mind - "only evil godless heathens research and practice transhumanism, but we the faithful can still enjoy the results".

Having the hero be a clone in addition to that is over the top: "I'm not a princess, I'm not even human, except I am, except wait I'm not, except I still am". Keep the character a royalty instead, but make him/her decidedly anti-monarchist.

Example
The royal couple decided to have their future kid (our hero) be one of the first transhumans (to encourage the populace). The royal-born parent of the hero has a sibling, in line for the throne, who has a natural-born kid (who's somewhat older and the tech hadn't been developed when he/she was conceived). The cousins were friends when they were little, but that friendship turned sour when the natural-born kid grew somewhat envious of the hero and complained to his/her parents ("bawww, I was born a loser"), and the parents replied with "You're human, he/she is a monster".

When the royal couple died (or got killed), the hero's uncle and aunt took rein of the country, destroyed the research data and imprisoned most of the transhuman children (the hero evaded capture or escaped). Now the hero's cousin rules the kingdom, utterly convinced that transhumans are monsters and that the hero is planning to "usurp" the throne and force all the people to give birth to "monsters". Also, one of his/her parents is dead from the disease and the other is alive but suffering from Alzheimer's or whatever.

Meanwhile, the hero travels round the world, has adventures and searches for the way to reverse-engineer the technology. He or she doesn't give a flying fuck who sits on the throne as long as it's someone good and competent. The hero also serves as a vocal opponent of hereditary nobility and royalty: the Arcadia meme needs to be shot down too, and who better to do that but a deposed royalty who doesn't want their throne back? (If the critic isn't a noble, that could be interpreted as basic envy).

[RadiantPhoenix]

If you want to say that transhumanism is good, you have a character who starts as a muck covered peasant and becomes something awesome with the application of magitech.

-Username17

For the "transhumanism is good" meme to work properly, you have to make the transformation tech a result of deliberate research by good people for a good purpose that doesn't have any sour grape debilitating drawbacks except the "eww! abomination of nature!" reaction from fuckheads.

Combine both. The main character is a SuperPrototype who used to be a muck covered peasant; the process is repeatable, but the character remains special because they keep upgrading to the latest experimental version, but, as time goes on, we see the 'stable release' being used by a growing number of minor characters.

[Chamomile]

I like the above, because it means you can have the character's new additions go berserk a lot without demonizing the process as a whole, since the people using the stable release never have any problems.

[Prak]

I like the above, because it means you can have the character's new additions go berserk a lot without demonizing the process as a whole, since the people using the stable release never have any problems.

Not if you want to show people that transhumanism is good. People will remember Steve the Party Member with unreliable powers, not Joe the Crap Covered Farmer with stable ones.

[Chamomile]

Not if you want to show people that transhumanism is good. People will remember Steve the Party Member with unreliable powers, not Joe the Crap Covered Farmer with stable ones.

They will if you make it an actual plot point that they need to stabilize Steve's powers so that they can mass-produce them, particularly if his powers become stabilized as time goes on and only the new ones go awry (or potentially new ones cause old ones to go berserk). You'd have to make transhumanism an actual plot point, but wasn't that the plan already?

[Lago PARANOIA]

You want to avoid it entirely because otherwise people will focus on the bad aspects. To Kill A Mockingbird is one of the greatest anti-racism books ever, but it would've been completely derailed if Atticus Finch had gone off on some rant against Catholics--even though such a vice arguably more realistic and dramatic than portraying him as a squeaky clean paragon of virtue.

[Chamomile]

Unless you're planning on this being outright transhumanism propaganda, wherein the entire point of the work is to make transhumanism look good and everything else comes second, then it doesn't really matter if people determined to hate transhumanism convince themselves that the glitches in the prototype supports their argument even when it is explicitly stated that they don't.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Have the glitch only affect some small subset of the upgrades, preferably the latest ones, perhaps?

[Stubbazubba]

Making the transhuman implants a perfect upgrade is going to be far less dramatic than having them give some benefits but not be without a kink or two. The thing is that the transhuman character, and several other important POV characters, need to feel that dysfunctional prototype parts are no more a flaw than some other character's short temper or someone else's lack of discipline, etc., etc. There needs to be other characters, however, who hold the opposite opinion, that the transhuman tech's flaws or kinks are going to matter too much. Present both sides of the argument, but not a definitive conclusion. Make each POV character come to their own conclusion.

For example, the anti-transhumanism character can point to a time when a kink in a new prototype cost lives or an important mission, and it should, in fact, be the case. But, then, have that character or another character cost the mission or risk the mission based on some part of their character, i.e. short temper or whatever. Have third POV character (possibly Paladin lead) make the observation that everyone has flaws that may or may not endanger the rest of the team in any given scenario, but the important thing is that you work to improve them, be that by fixing the tech, or controlling your temper, etc.

This avoids preaching transhumanism, and says that while transhumanism is not without flaws, it is not a flaw in and of itself; it's a viable choice.

Once you've made that point, further complicate things by having another character experience it somehow; I don't know how to make that happen in world, but have it go terrible, and have the original transhuman character rescue him/her or prevent him/her from killing themselves with the transhuman tech. The transhuman gives the experimenter a good scolding about being transhuman, how it takes forethought and planning, and lots of practice to not endanger yourself and others around you (or whatever), and the character (probably the Assassin or the Druid, as they're less likely to be comfortable with that kind of life) decides it's not for him/her and drops it somehow. That may not make sense in world, but it would explore the idea of transhumanism rather than preach it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Any of you played and finished Jade Empire?

The 'Good' ending troubled me greatly for reasons that I won't spoil too much, but the basic gist of it was that the bad guys were 'wrong' to do because they defied heavenly will--ending a 10-year long drought that killed hundreds of thousands because something better was supposed to rise in its place. The game goes out of its way to try to paint this as something wrong by making the bad guys insane dicks and invoking destiny and whatnot, but the underlying fact that this was a Book of Job celestial cop-out.

It pissed me the fuck off enough to ask: do you think that it'd be possible to satire or outright subvert such a troubling moral without people getting offended once they realized it applies just as much to the Abrahamic god?

[Chamomile]

There's a sect of stupidly rabid atheists who completely shun everything to do with Narnia because Aslan is supposed to be Jesus (literally, according to the last book). But they didn't really hurt the sales of the movies, because even among atheists the number of people that rabidly opposed to anything to do with religion is pretty small. The number of Christians that rabid is larger by virtue of fact that the number of Christians period is larger, but is that true of the target demographic for a D&D cartoon? So long as you aren't preaching to monotheists in general about how stupid you think they are, I don't think any of the religious people watching the show will care so much if some of the arguments against Crystal Dragon Mirror Jesus can also apply to the actual Bible.

EDIT: Also, I'm still not really clear on the end goal of this thread. Are we just talking about how cool it would be to have a D&D cartoon and what it should be like in theory? That's the impression I get, but I'm not sure.

[FatR]

Any of you played and finished Jade Empire?

The 'Good' ending troubled me greatly for reasons that I won't spoil too much, but the basic gist of it was that the bad guys were 'wrong' to do because they defied heavenly will--ending a 10-year long drought that killed hundreds of thousands because something better was supposed to rise in its place. The game goes out of its way to try to paint this as something wrong by making the bad guys insane dicks and invoking destiny and whatnot, but the underlying fact that this was a Book of Job celestial cop-out.

I don't like Jade Empire's morality mostly for pretending it is not strict Good vs. Evil, while it is, and wanking on the despicable idea of Balance Between Good and Evil for the sake of such pretension, but the bad guys were bad because they decided to completely fuck up the world in the long term, in exchange for a solution to the drought, by hijacking far-from-unlimited heavenly power source, and committing a whole lot of atrocities to do so.

[Prak]

Regarding the Bard.
Ok, so, to keep my mind busy as I was closing tonight, I was thinking on the idea of writing a better D&D movie while they finish up D&D movie 3, and thought of this thread.

Now... maybe it's the fact that I'm currently playing a bard. Maybe it's the influence of the things that made me want to play said bard (Soul Music, Blues Brothers, and a healthy respect for the Power of Rock trope). But bottom line, I want to put a bard character into the cast.

Clearly, what you don't want to do for a D&D movie is force medieval troubadour/minstrel type into it. The movie going public won't buy it. They'll get bored, they'll laugh, etc. What you want to do is get an actual current musician, preferably one that has more musical talent than just singing. Preferably, preferably you want someone charismatic who can play the guitar. And you want to buy rights to a good number of modern rock songs to make up the soundtrack.

What you also want to do is diversify the bard's powers. The bard can play enough of a song to matter when the party is evenly matched or struggling. When the party is fighting something that is below their power, then the bard can attack. He can swing a sword, fire a bow, or, with the right spells, attack with the actual Power of Rock. Does this make things campy? The bard playing power chords and laying waste to goblin mooks? God yes. But the beautiful thing is that, while we're invoking tropes, we can invoke Refuge in Audacity, and make it so over the top that it curls back around into badass-ness.

Or so I see it. Anyone agree? Anyone able to explain why I'm wrong?

[Lago PARANOIA]

No. A musical protagonist in a show or movie that does not revolve around music sucks. You can read the previous pages to find out why. You can have that character be a once-a-season/movie treat when the plot is specifically set up to highlight the character, but they have to be an NPC or a villain.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

A cartoon of this sort is already usually watched through wincing eyes. Adding song magic based on pop favorites of the day makes it change categories from 'guilty pleasure' to 'stridently deny its existence'.

[Username17]

Musical protagonists are going to - at best - be Jem. More likely it would end up like or [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ejttKArNOI]Jabberjaw.

But the real issue is that when you put in "topical" music to your children's entertainment, it ends up like the Jitterbug Scene from Wizard of Oz. That movie is basically an enduring classic because they cut that shit right out. The Jitterbug scene is totally dated. As would be any current pop music you felt like putting in to a children's cartoon in about five minutes.

Every so often you have a musical where the music is timeless and awesome. Stuff like the Wizard of Oz or Blues Brothers. But that shit is super rare, and has to be the focus of the whole piece or it doesn't work out. The idea of having one rocker in a four or five person ensemble cast is just a non-starter from the beginning.

-Username17

[Krusk]

You could do it if he were basically a rogue, but you show him playing a guitar whenever he gets down time, or is hanging in a tavern. When it comes time for battle, you can just play the songs in the background.

What you can't do, is have him play a musical instrument in battle. People barely buy that in their DND games.

[Prak]

So, you're saying this but with a guitar and power chords, with some Theme Music Power Up actually getting played onscreen, wouldn't work?

[Lago PARANOIA]

I have no idea what I was supposed to take away from that link.

[Username17]

So, you're saying this but with a guitar and power chords, with some Theme Music Power Up actually getting played onscreen, wouldn't work?

I am in fact saying that would not work. Seriously, they totally did that. it sucked.

-Username17

[Prak]

I have no idea what I was supposed to take away from that link.

You were supposed to take away "character that uses damaging sonic waves as a weapon"

@Frank: Damn.

[Lago PARANOIA]

And how is that supposed to translate into a catchy metafictional song? I mean, I have seen characters who use music as a weapon outside of videogames like in Trigun and Scrapped Princess, but they never even leaned in the direction of getting a coherent song out of their superpowers.

Also, those characters tend to be non-protagonists, because hearing one distinct instrument on its lonesome repeatedly gets old very quickly -- even badass ones like saxophones and electric guitars.

If you're still not convinced, look up Sonic Underground videos on YouTube. They actually had characters that conformed to your premise; people who achieve supernatural effects with their instruments using the Power of Rock. And it ended up really, really sucking.

[Prak]

And how is that supposed to translate into a catchy metafictional song? I mean, I have seen characters who use music as a weapon outside of videogames like in Trigun and Scrapped Princess, but they never even leaned in the direction of getting a coherent song out of their superpowers.

this but with a guitar and power chords

Just to be clear, I'm talking about the Bard taking an ass kicking pose, and basically playing the intro chords here, and causing visible destruction. Not standing there singing Brave Sir Robin for the entire fight and enemies occasionally just dropping for no visible reason.

Also, those characters tend to be non-protagonists, because hearing one distinct instrument on its lonesome repeatedly gets old very quickly -- even badass ones like saxophones and electric guitars.

If you're still not convinced, look up Sonic Underground videos on YouTube. They actually had characters that conformed to your premise; people who achieve supernatural effects with their instruments using the Power of Rock. And it ended up really, really sucking.

And that isn't perhaps because it was a sonic property made after 1997?

edit: alright, I am, regretably forced to admit that while a magic combat guitar could, potentially, work, actual inspire courage and competence would be far too silly, Ans require mounds of expospeak.

[ishy]

Something like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... W14#t=345s