What people want and what makes them happy rarely coincide.

[Maj]

When people say stupid shit like 'The Punisher's wicked-sweet guns and his skull shirt are just as important to his idiom as his amorality, total lack of mercy, and his bloodthirstiness' it is to me a clear confusion of the imagery for the actual effect. And that shit leads to shallow stories. And since humans have a very hard time seeing past symbols, let alone exploring and/or subverting them, minimizing their relevance encourages creativity and depth.

With this, you have lost.

There are people here who have been arguing that their characters are more than the katana/scythe/rapier that they wield. They have listed character histories and motivations only to have them reduced back into shallow fetishists by you and Frank.

By attempting to play this card, you are only saying the same thing you have been arguing against: a character totally can have an iconic t-shirt/weapon/whatever and still have depth and personality.

You've turned the concept of an iconic whatever into a symbol of bad character creation while failing to acknowledge the actual problem: some people suck at making characters with character. Taking away their favorite toy doesn't give them greater creative ability; it punishes them for being less creative than you think they have to be.

And that makes you a jerk, not a paragon of inspiration.

[Gx1080]

People get punished by their lack of creativity and lack of understanding of the system ALL. THE. TIME. on games. And it works, and people play those games anyways.

Fuck, many of the sessions described here (speccially from K) sound like mutual masturbation.

[Lago PARANOIA]

No, it doesn't. I see where you're coming from, but the treatment is all wrong, and will not work the way you imagine it will. That's why I am for weapon fetishism; even though I don't really get attached to weapons myself, I'm not gonna try and institutionalize my standards of role-playing on others by forcing them to abandon what they consider to be fun.

Well, for one, there are always going to be players whom when you say that there can't be Rat Flails because rats don't exist in your setting they'll just make Cat Flails. You as the game designer can't really do anything about that. Similarly, you as the game designer can't really do anything about players who refuse to learn basic tactics or who refuse to participate in any non-combat minigame more than the minimum amount. But just because you can't do something about the lumpenproletariat players don't mean you can't help most everyone else.

Now, secondly, the idea that you can't institutionalize roleplay is downright false. It's impossible not to institutionalize it. When you're running 2E or 4E D&D you are saying that roleplaying frost giants and gelatinous cubes are not allowed. When you're running Shadowrun you're saying that playing an immortal elf or a CEO is not allowed. And sure, an individual group can override these concerns and them put them in anyway, but let's be serious. For the vast majority of games playing gelatinous cubes or immortal elves are just not supported even though there is some roleplaying potential you can squeeze out of them and it will define the feel of your game. And even though a DM can say 'you can play a frost giant in my 4E D&D game' just because that's the experience of your particular campaign does not make that the experience of 4E D&D.

By inclusion or omission, the very first thing that happens when you write the first sentence of your game rules is institutionalize roleplay. The idea that you can't is laughable. So the question should not be 'should I force my standards of roleplay on others?' but 'what standards do I want this particular game to have?'

Isn't all of roleplaying the substitution of symbolic gestures, symbolic words and symbolic random numbers in place of actual actions undertaken in reality? Isn't a large part of the point that it allows players to symbolicly explore actions and situations which they cannot or will not undertake in real life?

I strongly believe that roleplaying is more than just shuffling around symbols with memetic power. To me, roleplaying also encompasses the ability to change a story via cause and effect. The fact that Conan the barbarian looks like someone who can kick ass with a sword isn't as important as the fact that he uses his slave upbringing and the years wasted on the Wheel of Pain to outmuscle 99% of his foes. The fact that Batman's outfit is dark and frightening doesn't mean as much to me as the years spent in the laboratory and library researching psychology and sociology and painstakingly experimenting with chemicals because knocking out someone a third of a second faster with gas makes all of the difference in his world. When the latter traits are established and explored you can have a real effect on the game world and that's the meat and potatoes of roleplaying.

In this light, the aesthetic of the character is like the edible candles on a wedding cake. It'd be nice to match, but seriously, spending more than thirty seconds picking them out is a waste of yours and everyone else's time. And a wedding cake decorated with tasteful candles is really not any better in the taste department than a wedding cake decorated with birthday candles.

By attempting to play this card, you are only saying the same thing you have been arguing against: a character totally can have an iconic t-shirt/weapon/whatever and still have depth and personality.

By the same token, it definitely is possible to be a heavy smoker and win a marathon or even an Olympic gold medal. It is definitely possible to smoke a pack and a half a day and live to be one-hundred twenty years old.

That does not make smoking harmless or something we can encourage, especially if you want to promote health. The analogy to weapon fetishism should be obvious. You and I both know that there are gamers like Bob, Dave, Brian, and Trevor whom when asked to describe their character the first thing that comes out of their mouth is 'a half-orc wielding a huge axe' or 'my dwarven thief uses a crossbow!' When it's time to step out of the narrow confines of their idiom they either stumble and try to pass or they just suddenly play the character as a cypher for themself. Not because they're a munchkin or anything but because their concept of their character has been stunted.

Samus Aran and Iron Man have pretty similar powers and problem-solving abilities but Tony Stark, even if we confine him to just the movie, is a less shallow character than Samus Aran. We can actually have a conversation about what he would do if he was stripped of his armor and locked in his cell awaiting death in the gladiator arena with his fellow inmates. We can't do the same for Samus. Similarly, we have a pretty concrete idea of what Conan or Scrooge McDuck would do if they were trying to break the hold on the shadowy secret police on a city they happened to be in or at least we can have a discussion about it. Tordek, who knows? Lidda looks like she might be able to do something because she's an iconic rogue, but she stops becoming a character and becomes a launch platform for her l33t powers. We know that she could contact the rebel underground or forge propaganda to discredit the ruling class and you'd get a response of something like that, but like Tordek she can only exist in the confines of her idiom. If you take her out of that she ceases to become a character.

[Prak]

I'd like to point something out, especially since we're implicitly talking about D&D here.

D&D 3.x runs on weapon fetishism. If you don't like that, then you need to house rule the system. If you don't want to institute yet another house rule, you need to make peace with weapon fetishism.

[Maj]

That does not make smoking harmless or something we can encourage, especially if you want to promote health.

You have yet to even come close to demonstrating that the reason Bob, Dave, Brian, and Trevor can't make characters is their weapon fetishism. Maybe they're just stupid.

[A Man In Black]

When people say stupid shit like 'The Punisher's wicked-sweet guns and his skull shirt are just as important to his idiom as his amorality, total lack of mercy, and his bloodthirstiness' it is to me a clear confusion of the imagery for the actual effect. And that shit leads to shallow stories. And since humans have a very hard time seeing past symbols, let alone exploring and/or subverting them, minimizing their relevance encourages creativity and depth.

Wow, that's a bunch of condescending bullshit, thanks a fucking lot, Lago. His guns are part of his fucking idiom. He's the archetypical modern gun superhero. They're symbolic of his amorality, etc., but gun antiheroes are different from other antiheroes mostly in that they're more like the Punisher than they're like Wolverine.

The Punisher is willing to kill his enemies, so he can't have many recurring villains. Instead, he fights against a broad cause or concept rather than specific villains. Also, he typically finds himself opposed by traditional heroes (paradoxically, even anti-heroes with no qualms about killing), often even appearing as an antagonist in their stories.

The main difference between a character like the Punisher or Grifter or Hope is that their enemy or goals are broadly defined and generally somewhat nebulous, and they're willing to kill people between here and whatever that goal is. The Punisher intends to kill every criminal he can get his hands on. Grifter is fighting against the Daemonites, invisible aliens who can possess people. Hope is trying to prevent the horrible future where she was raised, rather than stop any particular person who is going to cause that horrible future.

I could probably ramble on for a lot longer here, particularly about how being a gun hero separates them from the superheroes even if they have inherent powers and and military/police stuff, and a whole bunch of other shit, but I'll stop.

It's pretty fucking glib to say that you could discard the symbol without losing a lot of the richness attached to the symbol.

We can actually have a conversation about what he would do if he was stripped of his armor and locked in his cell awaiting death in the gladiator arena with his fellow inmates. We can't do the same for Samus.

What the fuck? There's even a full section of Metroid: Zero Mission where she has to sneak around because she doesn't have her power suit.

So Tony Stark builds some sort of power suit in a cave from a box of scraps and Samus punches a guard, grabs his blaster, shoots him in the face, and makes a break for it.

So no. They do not have similar powers and problem solving abilities. Iron Man flies and is a charismatic genius inventor with unlimited resources and a fucking lot of superpowered friends. Samus Aran is a stealthy, agile bounty hunter with mysterious connections to an extinct advanced civilization. What they have in common is powered armor that can blow shit up and not a fucking lot else.

Lago, it doesn't seem like you have a problem with people saying "I am Sword Guy!" It seems like you have a problem with people saying, "I am Sword Guy and I stab people!"

[Lago PARANOIA]

ou have yet to even come close to demonstrating that the reason Bob, Dave, Brian, and Trevor can't make characters is their weapon fetishism. Maybe they're just stupid.

I can't definitively state whether or not those characters are shallow because of weapon fetishism or not. Why is Albert unable to do a pushup or run for more than 10 meters without being out of breath? Is it his asthma? Is it his obesity? Is it the pollution where he lives? Is it because he kicked his pack-a-day smoking habit only a year ago?

It's a factor and in my opinion a pretty large one. Why do I think it's a factor for shallow roleplaying? Several reasons.

[*] I talked about the symbolism of weapon choice on the previous page. While people talk about the history and strength of the symbolism as if that should justify it, to me that's a problem in of itself. It's a symbol and a pretty strong one in the context of TTRPGs. Holding a giant battleaxe stereotypes your character in the eyes of the owner and observers in a way that a dragon tattoo on your face or chainmail bikini or smoking a stogie does not; hence why I'm pretty neutral on people declaring an immutable wardrobe aesthetic as long as that wardrobe does not include the weapon. As mentioned before a lot of people, especially beginners, confuse the symbolism of their character with the structure of their character. I'm pretty horrified to hear serious suggestions that The Punisher would cease to be The Punisher if he traded in his skull shirt and trenchcoat for a pair of camouflage or tactical armor; this implies that the plot and characterization of his stories would be markedly different if someone had decided in the 80s to swap around his looks. But that's not what makes The Punisher and obsessing over that crap leads to bullshit stories, which hurts roleplaying.

[*] A weapon aesthetic is an immutable character trait. Someone who believes that their kung fu is the best and is happy to show you is not immutable; they can be humbled and learn their lesson, they can go up the spiral staircase of hubris (which may or may not result in comeuppance, see Toph Bei Fong), they can suffer a humiliating defeat in which they incorporate never-before used styles into their routine, etc.. A weapon aesthetic by contrast is something that does not change. You either use katanas and katanas alone or you don't. Immutable character traits are bad for roleplaying because it keeps creating the same stories when it comes up and never gives people a chance to think outside the box.

[*] A weapon aesthetic is a passive character trait. Not 100% passive but more like 98-99% passive. You might be able to tell a story about how you used katanas and katanas alone, but the trait in of itself does not generate plots, include other people, or share in the storytelling burden. Jango Fett's armor looks cool and helped him barely win a fight against Obi Wan, but when the combat music isn't playing what does it do for him? Han Solo's boldness, even when not in an action scene, is a character trait that drives him to do things like take several thousand-to-one odds and try to cheat crime lords. Passive character traits are bad for roleplaying because they encourage the writer or owner not to advance or affect the plot when they're pontificated upon.

[*] A weapon aesthetic is a selfish character trait. Dungeons and Dragons is a cooperative roleplaying game, meaning several people at the table. While not everyone will enjoy the same things - making it important to give people discrete chunks of screentime - it's on the whole better for people to do things that everyone will enjoy or at least will include everyone so they get a chance to. Probably the biggest reason why we hate self-insertion Mary Sues is because they steal too much of the spotlight when we wanted to hear about what the other characters were doing. So when a character is indulging in their trait of virulent racism it at least has the chance to involve another character. When a character is a CMOT Dibbler type and is constantly trying to pull low-level scams on their party members and/or include them in shady business ventures. If a character is a horny bastard they can at least flirt with the other party members and get a response. Someone whose major character trait is a weapon aesthetic does not involve other characters! There's the chance that two weapon fetishists can do something like compare weapons but chances are most players don't care about it. When Tordek goes 'I'm gonna go to the red light district and get me some booze and whores, who's in?' that can get other people involved. When Krusk goes 'I'm going to go to the local adventure's guild and show off my axe after getting it sharpened at the blacksmith', who does that involve besides people who were already going to do those things?

The flip-side of selfish character traits is that because it doesn't involve other people it reduces the precious opportunities they can get to practice their craft. When the Scarlet Pimpernel (a roleplaying noob) gets in over his head trying to flirt with Catwoman (whose player is experienced at roleplaying and is a thespian) he can at least pick up some tips on how to improve or at least come away with a good story that he was in but wasn't able to generate on his own. When the Scarlet Pimpernel declares that he was in the middle of the cutscene that involved him shopping for epees and then spent 16 straight hours shadow-fencing... so what?

[Lago PARANOIA]

I could probably ramble on for a lot longer here, particularly about how being a gun hero separates them from the superheroes even if they have inherent powers and and military/police stuff, and a whole bunch of other shit, but I'll stop.

You should stop, because as much as you complained about my statement that people confuse symbolism for structure was condescending you did exactly that anyway.

There is nothing special about the fact that Frank Castle uses a gun. Frank Castle (Frankencastle abortion aside) does not have superpowers nor does he interact with the more superpowered world. He doesn't have any features like Green Arrow or Batman that allows him to have 'superpowers but let's not call them that' crap other than the standard Vanilla Action Hero tricks. Most of his adventures are True Crime or Soldier of Fortune-style wankery, so his opponents are pretty much the same. He's firmly rooted in the mundane world, as least as far as comic book characters go, and in this world the gun is king.

In this light it's pretty easy to see that his guns are just a tool. It's a pretty immutable tool not because guns are inherently important to his characterization but because it's MORE important to his idiom that Frank Castle fights in the 'real' world against 'real' opponents and since maximum lethal efficiency is also a character trait he goes for a gun. If Frank Castle was transplanted to medieval times he'd use swords and a crossbow and the content and themes of the stories wouldn't be changed as much. Moreover, when he's forced to abandon the use of guns or directly lethal weaponry, which is very often the case, the themes and feel of his stories chug along pretty nicely. I mean, seriously, The Phantom operates at about the same power level, packs heat, regularly goes on an orgy of violence and goes after much the same targets (though The Phantom targets political figures more than petty criminal figures like Frank) and the feel of their stories is totally different.

Again, what separates The Punisher from traditional superheroes is the fact that he's amoral, much older than average (which is frequently a plot point nowadays) because of his need to have participated in the Vietnam War, willing and eager to kill, does not interact with the more superpowered elements of the setting, and targets mostly staid and banal villains. The Phantom is very similar in symbolism but he's much closer to the Batman or Captain America tradition despite packing heat.

Samus punches a guard, grabs his blaster, shoots him in the face, and makes a break for it.

... which is exactly what Solid Snake, Darkwing Duck, Princess Leia, Captain Kirk, Bucky O' Hare, The Punisher, etc. etc. can and would do, too. She 'solves' this problem in much the same way that any old douchebag can save the world by pushing a button that's marked Safely Disintegrate The Oncoming Meteorite.

Iron Man flies and is a charismatic genius inventor with unlimited resources and a fucking lot of superpowered friends. Samus Aran is a stealthy, agile bounty hunter with mysterious connections to an extinct advanced civilization.

I haven't played the more recent Metroid games so Samus might have undergone substantial character development that I'm not aware of. From your examples though I'm not impressed. Unless Samus has an amount of stealth and agility that would make you go 'fucking wow' (like Batman, for instance) that's not enough to have any more than a generic impact on stories. Secondly, 'mysterious connections to an extinct advanced civilization'? What the fuck does that mean? If it means 'gives her a perspective on life and the universe that most don't' then that is something worth mentioning that can create stories and advance plots. If it means 'Samus has knowledge about to recreate parts of their technology, the likes of which can accomplish feats no one else can do' that is also something worth mentioning that can create stories and advance plots.

But I have the feeling that 'mysterious connections to an extinct advanced civilization' is more 'a plot hook that we can use to justify pulling Deus Ex Machinas out of our asses' than a meaningful character trait. ProTip: Anyone can be fellated by author fiat, saying that you have a reason for being fellated does not in of itself make your character less shallow.

[A Man In Black]

[*] A weapon aesthetic is a passive character trait. Not 100% passive but more like 98-99% passive. You might be able to tell a story about how you used katanas and katanas alone, but the trait in of itself does not generate plots, include other people, or share in the storytelling burden. Jango Fett's armor looks cool and helped him barely win a fight against Obi Wan, but when the combat music isn't playing what does it do for him?

It makes him stand out in a crowd. It makes him always intimidating unless he actively chooses not to be. It's a utility belt and ersatz space suit.

It contributes more to the plot than Batman's utility belt. What the fuck is the problem here?

[Lago PARANOIA]

It contributes more to the plot than Batman's utility belt. What the fuck is the problem here?

I'm glad you brought up Batman's utility belt. Imagine if Mr. Freeze built some new suit that made him impervious to bullets and batarangs and whatever. Before Robin was flash-frozen however he identified a weird flume that was coming from Mr. Freeze's jetpack exhaust. So Mr. Freeze escapes because Robin is in trouble and Batman can't really do anything to hurt him right now. But at their rematch, Batman produces a chemical capsule from his utility belt which he throws at Mr. Freeze. Mr. Freeze mocks him at first for missing but the chemical reacts with his exhaust violently and fucks up his power suit. Batman beats him up and all is well.

So is Batman's utility belt what allowed him to advance the plot? Was Batman's super chemical compound what allowed him to advance the plot? Fuck no!

Batman's utility belt is not what crippled Mr. Freeze; it was the brand-new chemical he jury rigged last night that he just happened to store in his belt. If Batman had put the capsules in a European carry-all or in his underwear the story still would have gone the same.

Even if there was something special about Batman's utility belt that produced anti-Mr. Freeze chemicals, it's still a passive character trait because it requires him to do nothing in order to advance the plot. Batman doesn't have to drive back to the Batcave and frantically pour through books and test tubes to research a compound that will stop Mr. Freeze's latest power-up; he doesn't have to swing by WayneCorp's secret labs and charm his way past top security to get the required tools; he just reaches down into his belt and POOF out comes the miracle chemical. Batman could've been reading a newspaper or choking his chicken until the fated confrontation, things would've gone the exact way.

That's the same problem with Jango Fett. The player doesn't need to declare that he's doing something badass and creepy to stand out in a crowd or be intimidating; he just puts on the suit and the plot happens around him with no further input.

If you don't know why that's bad for roleplaying I don't know what to tell you.

[A Man In Black]

You should stop, because as much as you complained about my statement that people confuse symbolism for structure was condescending you did exactly that anyway.

There is nothing special about the fact that Frank Castle uses a gun. Frank Castle (Frankencastle abortion aside) does not have superpowers nor does he interact with the more superpowered world. He doesn't have any features like Green Arrow or Batman that allows him to have 'superpowers but let's not call them that' crap other than the standard Vanilla Action Hero tricks. Most of his adventures are True Crime or Soldier of Fortune-style wankery, so his opponents are pretty much the same. He's firmly rooted in the mundane world, as least as far as comic book characters go, and in this world the gun is king.

other stupid things

Good to see you bagging on comics you didn't actually fucking read, but hey, it fits with the whole condescending asshole pattern.

But no, most of his stories are not Almost True Crime Story wank. You're describing the Marvel Knights (and later, MAX Comics) Ennis/Dillon Punisher (probably because it's so much better than most of the other runs in recent memory). Garth Ennis doesn't much like traditional superheroes, so traditional superheroes played little to no role in his run on Punisher. As soon as Ennis was off of Punisher, the Punisher was back to rubbing elbows with traditional superheroes.

What separates the Punisher from traditional superheroes is that he's amoral and willing to kill and this killing forces him into a different idiom from other superheroes. This is the difference between "gun heroes" and other antiheroes who hew more closely to traditional lines. Wolverine will kill a room full of Hand ninjas, but at the end of the day, any proper antagonist that he confronts is either immune to being chopped to bits or will survive whatever harm is done to him.

So, you're trivially correct that it would be perfectly possible to have a gun hero who didn't actually shoot people or have a hero who used a gun who wasn't a murderous antihero obsessed with an abstract goal, just like it's possible to have a samurai who fights with a tommygun or or a police officer who fights with a tire iron. You're just actively fucking with useful symbolism, instead of trying to harness it to make your game more effective.

That means you're just going to have to go to some effort to keep your game from feeling like Axe Cop.

... which is exactly what Solid Snake, Darkwing Duck, Princess Leia, Captain Kirk, Bucky O' Hare, The Punisher, etc. etc. can and would do, too. She 'solves' this problem in much the same way that any old douchebag can save the world by pushing a button that's marked Safely Disintegrate The Oncoming Meteorite.

Unless Samus has an amount of stealth and agility that would make you go 'fucking wow' (like Batman, for instance) that's not enough to have any more than a generic impact on stories.

The point (which I didn't make very well) is that she runs away and hides, which only about half of those characters can and would be inclined to do. One of the main things you do in all of her games is look for vents and ducts and other weird passages to go running around in. (And agile is "contortionist", but whatever.)

But I have the feeling that 'mysterious connections to an extinct advanced civilization' is more 'a plot hook that we can use to justify pulling Deus Ex Machinas out of our asses' than a meaningful character trait. ProTip: Anyone can be fellated by author fiat, saying that you have a reason for being fellated does not in of itself make your character less shallow.

She can reactivate the bits of ancient technology that they left laying around, despite not entirely understanding how it works. It's why she has a power suit and all the various doodads when nobody else does. In the context of a team game, the simplest way it generates plots is by giving the group places to go.

But yeah. She was an orphan raised by a now-extinct alien race, and both her power suit and all of the crazy crap you find laying around in the various games is (generally) relics of their civilization. If you can't find plot hooks in that you're probably not trying.

[hyzmarca]

But I have the feeling that 'mysterious connections to an extinct advanced civilization' is more 'a plot hook that we can use to justify pulling Deus Ex Machinas out of our asses' than a meaningful character trait. ProTip: Anyone can be fellated by author fiat, saying that you have a reason for being fellated does not in of itself make your character less shallow.

Her connection to them isn't even mysterious. The modifications that the Chozo made to her are explicitly laid out in the comics. She has superhuman strength, can comfortably breath an atmosphere that's sufficiently acidic to melt human lungs in a matter of seconds, and can absorb power-bomb energy. That's pretty much it. And the last one was just a retcon justification for a secret power that was only used in Super Metroid.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Good to see you bagging on comics you didn't actually fucking read, but hey, it fits with the whole condescending asshole pattern.

That's nice. Were you going to refute my statement, or were you just trying to hope that if you defeated my sperg-fu with your sperg-fu I'd overlook the fact that you didn't have a point and were going to focus on trivial shit that doesn't disprove the overall point?

So, you're trivially correct that it would be perfectly possible to have a gun hero who didn't actually shoot people or have a hero who used a gun who wasn't a murderous antihero obsessed with an abstract goal, just like it's possible to have a samurai who fights with a tommygun or or a police officer who fights with a tire iron.

Are you fucking kidding me? Not only are these heroes possible but they're also common. Hell, even Justice League Unlimited had one.

The reason why The Punisher's gun seems so important to his character is because of myopia or trying to push a square peg into a round hole. There are tons of characters who superficially resemble the Punisher (wears dark clothes you'd find in the real world, unshaven, uses real world guns, etc..) who are still way different. The fact that they exist at all should be ample evidence that when you get into the meat and potatoes about why The Punisher or The Phantom exist and how their characterization affects the stories they're in the fact that they use a gun is a secondary concern at BEST.

The point (which I didn't make very well) is that she runs away and hides, which only about half of those characters can and would be inclined to do.

One of the main things you do in all of her games is look for vents and ducts and other weird passages to go running around in. (And agile is "contortionist", but whatever.)

Are you seriously listing that as a schtick? Jesus Christ, that's so common and generic a thing that any asshole, even if they're not badass enough to even be a mere VAH, can do. Every action hero hides. Every action hero can do the vent escape bullshit.

Among Samus's other abilities: walking, picking her nose, and reading a newspaper.

If you can't find plot hooks in that you're probably not trying.

The DM doesn't need special excuses to insert weird and forgotten precursor technology, it's a fucking science fiction/fantasy game. This thing happens all of the time if you let it! Hell, D&D has just such a mechanic. You might have heard of it, it's only what were were talking about for the last three pages. Even if you had a character class that could cause more more and even class-exclusive magical item drops that is still not a character trait worth noting. After all, the DM could've done that anyway; what's the difference between a story where Samus and friends stumbles across a Chozo artifact and when a Samus-less party instead stumbles across a Forerunner artifact?

Now, if Samus could force Chozo technology to pop out of the sky that'd be something, but just stumble across it when the DM decides that the plot is moving too slowly? Give me a break.

[Josh_Kablack]

What the fuck is the problem here?

Katanas are badwrongfun! vs Are Not!

[A Man In Black]

Even if there was something special about Batman's utility belt that produced anti-Mr. Freeze chemicals[...]

No, I mean that it does about as much as Batman's normal utility belt. Like, a grappling hook and a lockpick and some other crap.

That's the same problem with Jango Fett. The player doesn't need to declare that he's doing something badass and creepy to stand out in a crowd or be intimidating; he just puts on the suit and the plot happens around him with no further input.

If you don't know why that's bad for roleplaying I don't know what to tell you.

No, he has to declare that he's doing something when he's trying to not be conspicuous and obvious as fuck, which is good for roleplaying, just in a different way.

Let's stop for a second. Boba Fett's armor is not intimidating. The fact that Boba Fett looks like a badass is intimidating. He could be a robot with that as his carapace, just as intimidating. You're complaining that the costume designer for Empire Strikes Back (John Mollo, apparently) did their job too well. He's just a really good-looking character, and everyone wants their character to look that good. It's not about the armor, it's about the look.

If someone wants that in your game, just make them earn it. Distinctive armor is free and has no game effect other than that you have a memorable appearance, just like any distinctive appearance. If you want an intimidating reputation, go out and do memorable and intimidating things.

[DSMatticus]

We're falling into a really shitty argument by analogy where we spend a bunch of time talking about comic books [and other shit] that are in fact not TTRPG's.

Comic books [and other shit] demonstrate that symbolism and enduring aesthetic and equipment loadouts exist. Jedi means lightsaber, and yes Frank is about to say "look at all these examples of Jedis picking up shit!" and he'll be right and yet the next time we see that Jedi he has a lightsaber and there has been no permanent change. Wonder Woman means skimpy outfit and lasso and bracelets, and yes here's a lovely picture of her in skimpy full plate instead but that didn't stick, did it? And blah blah blah.

Here is the comic book/long-running T.V. series conversation summed up nicely in a nut shell:
1) Characters have enduring idioms, frequently with enduring equipment loadouts. They mutate slowly over time. Superman has picked up new tricks and lost old ones because Superman is an older series than I am and the coefficient of cool for various things has changed substantially.
2) Characters get temporary shit, and then fucking lose it. The next time Batman fights Mr. Freeze, Batman is not going to just fuck him up with the pill from his utility belt. The punisher gets an armor suit, and even though it makes him super bad ass it's gone as soon as the story ends. It doesn't persist through the character's career.

Ramifications for a table top game:
1) The change rate of an enduring idiom is far too slow to affect a table-top game. You don't play the same character for 30 years. If you did, yeah, you'd probably find different things cool at the start than you did at the end. But we're talking about characters with lifespans measured in months, so the drift will be small.
2) Characters getting temporary situational boosts is cool, and I doubt anybody cares if their scythe dude picks up a fire sword to kill the ice demons and then goes back at the end of the encounter.

[Lago PARANOIA]

No, I mean that it does about as much as Batman's normal utility belt. Like, a grappling hook and a lockpick and some other crap.

Which is still passive crap, only moreso. I used the Batman example to show that even if the utility belt was the impetus for some utility-belt exclusive ability it still doesn't make it not-passive.

No, he has to declare that he's doing something when he's trying to not be conspicuous and obvious as fuck, which is good for roleplaying, just in a different way.

Oh, you mean like how Snake has to announce that he's putting a silencer on his gun? Or how Chewbacca has to put on cuffs and announce he's posing as a prisoner?

While it's important for a character to have things that they can't do, trying to define a character by what they can't do is a pointless exercise. Fire Mages and Lightning Mages have some overlap in what they can do, but the overlap in what they can't do is much, much larger. If you're trying to say that Fire Mage should be a protected schtick because they can't do a 12-hit punching combo and need to wrack their brains on how they're going to win a fist-fight--hence enhancing roleplaying potential--you're going to end up extending this line of reasoning to almost everyone but martial artists. Which is an absurd proposition.

Let's stop for a second. Boba Fett's armor is not intimidating. The fact that Boba Fett looks like a badass is intimidating. He could be a robot with that as his carapace, just as intimidating. You're complaining that the costume designer for Empire Strikes Back (John Mollo, apparently) did their job too well. He's just a really good-looking character, and everyone wants their character to look that good. It's not about the armor, it's about the look.

And that's my problem with the whole weapon fetishism concept. People are saying that they need Boba Fett armor in order to be an intimidating badass. They need to use a gun to be a murderous street level vigilante. They need to have an axe in order to roleplay a rampaging barbarian properly.

Those things are just symbolic flotsam. They have memetic power, sure, but when they start interfering with how a character and player accomplishes what they want (which is done via roleplaying in a TTRPG) that's when the problems start.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Here is the comic book/long-running T.V. series conversation summed up nicely in a nut shell:

I said on the previous page that the reason why comic book characters are more immutable in visual aesthetics is one that's specific to the medium. I also said it'd be something that I would be happy to discuss, so, well, I'll take it as a sign of interest.

This applies to a lot of characters but most notably to comic book characters because it's really conspicuous when it happens, but... the reason why comic characters have near-immutable or slowly-evolving visual schticks is because of MARKETING, not because of storytelling.

It's an enormous boon to Marvel comics that someone can see a picture of some college asshole in a blue and red suit swinging by on a white line and go 'hey, that's Spider-Man!' because that kind of thing directly sells more stories than if Spider-Man was actually a dark-skinned blonde in a white costume swinging on black webbing. It's a trademark of the character, much in the same way that McDonalds' Big Macs are built the same way and if you forgo eating at one of those restaurants for 15 years you can still have an idea what's going on.

Batman can't change his costume very much because fewer people are going to buy a Desert Camo Batman for their backpacks. There's a real chance that if Superman switched to a dark green and black costume Grandma would not recognize it as (superficially) the same Superman she grew up with and would pass it by the check-out line. This is even true for the comics themselves; casual fans who had not followed Wonder Woman's stories weirded out and frightened by a blonde woman in white body armor calling herself Wonder Woman even if nothing else was suggested that the character was different - hence reducing pick up sales.

That said, my question for you is: why and how does this concern translate to individual TTRPG games?

[Username17]

Frank Castle is not a weapon fetishist character. For fuck's sake, he uses other weapons. Like, all the fucking time.

Even within the context of "guns", Punisher doesn't use the same gun all the time. He uses a vast arsenal of various different guns in various different situations. And considering that he's a modern world non-super character, that's a pretty big weapon range. Bloody fucking hell, this is a character who is depicted on the cover of his own books wielding six different modern weapons at once. He does not in any way come even vaguely close to the weapon specialist concept. He's beyond even Conan or Robin Hood as a character who switches weapons around. Hell, I can only recall Robin Hood going into combat with a bow, a sword, a dagger, a quarterstaff, a mace, and his bare hands. Frank Castle adds shit like grenades, rocket launchers, holdout pistols, 9mm sidearms, shotguns, sniper rifles, and so on.

Let's take a walk down his fucking wikipedia page:

A war veteran, Castle is a master of martial arts, stealth tactics, guerrilla warfare, and a wide variety of weapons.
...
The Punisher has been using technology derived from super-villains and other costumed characters, such as the Green Goblin's pumpkin bombs,[34] a modified Goblin Glider,[35] and a Doctor Octopus tentacle that he can shrink down for easy storage via Pym Particles.

Like every single other character that the weapon fetishist supporters have brought up, he is in fact a huge counter example. Shut the fuck up, the "weapon specialist" character does not exist. A character who uses one weapon "the most" is not a weapon fetishist character. A weapon fetishist character is a character who uses one weapon exclusively. And outside saturday morning cartoons, that simply doesn't exist. It's actually pretty rare even in cartoons.

-Username17

[A Man In Black]

That's nice. Were you going to refute my statement, or were you just trying to hope that if you defeated my sperg-fu with your sperg-fu I'd overlook the fact that you didn't have a point and were going to focus on trivial shit that doesn't disprove the overall point?

Are you fucking kidding me? Not only are these heroes possible but they're also common. Hell, even Justice League Unlimited had one.

Are you going to accuse someone of "sperging out" every time they know more about a subject than you do and call you on your uninformed bullshit? For fuck's sake.

Your point that Frankencastle was terrible despite you not actually saying anything about it other than lolbad? No, you're a condescending douche who didn't read anything about it other than what other condescending douches wrote about it based on previews.

Your point about the Punisher and gun heroes? What point are you making? There are a handful of heroes who used guns who aren't gun heroes, but almost all of them are legacy characters or explicit throwbacks to pulp or Golden Age characters. You bring up the Phantom, which is forty fucking years older than the Punisher. (Also, largely printed in one parallel market, then another, which is fascinating but mostly irrelevant.) Yes, you could trivially remove guns from the Phantom without doing any damage to the character. The Phantom is not what I'm talking about. Likewise Vigilante, a callback to cowboy comics of the 40s. (Well, technically a reference to Seven Soldiers, which is a callback to Seven Soldiers of Victory, a crossover from the 40s, but what the fuck ever.)

The reason why The Punisher's gun seems so important to his character is because of myopia or trying to push a square peg into a round hole. There are tons of characters who superficially resemble the Punisher (wears dark clothes you'd find in the real world, unshaven, uses real world guns, etc..) who are still way different. The fact that they exist at all should be ample evidence that when you get into the meat and potatoes about why The Punisher or The Phantom exist and how their characterization affects the stories they're in the fact that they use a gun is a secondary concern at BEST.

It's not even real world guns or dark clothes or being unshaven. It's guns (fantastic or real), a willingness to kill carelessly, and an abstract goal rather than a rogues gallery of villains. That is a gun hero. They go together all the fucking time, at all sorts of power levels. Punisher, Cable, Grifter, (certain versions of) Deathlok, Super Patriot, et fucking cetera.

It does more damage to take guns out of that character than it does to take katanas out of samurai. Luckily, "guns" is pretty broad, and gun heroes work just as well with mundane pistols as outrageous sci-fi shit.

Now, you can argue that the characters could exist without guns. I suppose you'd probably be right. Nonetheless, for whatever reason, guns go with the other two qualities of gun heroes almost inescapably, even when you ditch the dark clothes, street-level power levels, gritty tone, "realistic" tone, present-day setting, etc.

The comments about the skull shirt are kind of dumb. He'd need some identifier because he's a superhero character (even if he's not really superpowered or even plot armored beyond being a protagonist), and it makes a lot of sense for it to be something that is black and white and goes well with plain clothes and has something to do with death. But the Punisher would still be the Punisher if it was something other than what it is now.

Are you seriously listing that as a schtick? Jesus Christ, that's so common and generic a thing that any asshole, even if they're not badass enough to even be a mere VAH, can do. Every action hero hides. Every action hero can do the vent escape bullshit.

Among Samus's other abilities: walking, picking her nose, and reading a newspaper.

Every character can do the vent escape bullshit, but Samus will do it every time if it will solve the problem. Every character can woo the alien babe, but Kirk will do it every episode. Every character can wheedle a better deal if it's somehow important to do so, but Scrooge McDuck will do it every episode. Likewise, if only a specialist can solve the problem (really small and twisty vent, alien babe gives the cold shoulder, trader dude strikes a hard bargain), only the specialist will.

Samus is a spelunking bounty hunter who was raised by now-extinct aliens who did weird shit to her. There are your plot hooks.

Now, if Samus could force Chozo technology to pop out of the sky that'd be something, but just stumble across it when the DM decides that the plot is moving too slowly? Give me a break.

Well, every game has Samus conveniently stumbling across Chozo technology whenever shit gets ugly in order to have convenient power-ups, but that means we're headed down the "players get deus ex machina powers" path again.

Oh, you mean like how Snake has to announce that he's putting a silencer on his gun? Or how Chewbacca has to put on cuffs and announce he's posing as a prisoner?

Kind of tangental: I would think that Snake would have a silencer on his gun all the time as part of his schtick. He's shooting silenced shots all the time until he pulls out the assault rifle. Do you think some other arrangement is preferable?

And that's my problem with the whole weapon fetishism concept. People are saying that they need Boba Fett armor in order to be an intimidating badass. They need to use a gun to be a murderous street level vigilante. They need to have an axe in order to roleplay a rampaging barbarian properly.

No, the problem is that Boba Fett's player expects the armor to do the work for him. These players are confusing the symbol for the structure, you're right. They think that just by having Boba Fett's armor, that they are an intimidating badass. Or that by having a gun, they're a grim antihero. Or that by having an axe, they're an unhinged barbarian. To get that player to participate in the game, you need to get the player to think about the other parts of being intimidating/grim/unhinged other than the prop.

They don't need the prop to do the things that they want the character to do, but taking the prop away from them won't encourage them to do those things and it'll still keeps them from having the character they actually wish they had. The symbols aren't obstructive, but taking them away can be, because both people who can and can't roleplay are going to say, "I'd like to play a [archetype] in this game, but there's no way I can reasonably have a [signature weapon of that archetype], so fuck this shit."

You're right. Boba Fett's player isn't going to be happy even if you give him the armor, because his character isn't going to be properly intimidating because the player isn't putting any effort into playing the character as being intimidating. Taking the armor away doesn't fix that, and institutionalizing a "No Mandalorian armor!" rule just annoys the shit out of the Jango Fett player who actually totally can pull off an intimidating badass who can hang out with Jedi despite just having guns and gadgets and a jetpack.

-edit-

Even within the context of "guns", Punisher doesn't use the same gun all the time. He uses a vast arsenal of various different guns in various different situations. And considering that he's a modern world non-super character, that's a pretty big weapon range.

I was pretty sure I was defending the idea of "gun guy" like the Punisher. Shotgun guy would be pretty stupid unless you're playing a game where the entire party is a fireteam or something, and even then you're going to need more to differentiate people. That said.

The Punisher has been using technology derived from super-villains and other costumed characters, such as the Green Goblin's pumpkin bombs,[34] a modified Goblin Glider,[35] and a Doctor Octopus tentacle that he can shrink down for easy storage via Pym Particles.

Take Wikipedia with a titanic grain of salt (especially with anything that tends to be edited by fanboys), and always check the references. Reference #34 is a comedy comic, reference 35 is (IIRC) from a story about everyone getting random Spider-Man-themed superpowers.

[DSMatticus]

He's beyond even Conan or Robin Hood as a character who switches weapons around.

Yes. Robin Hood is also a terrible example of a character with an iconic weapon. Google images, Robin Hood, images with a bow: 50 out of the first 84 I looked at. Same image selection, any other weapon: 4/84. Robin Hood has such a weapon versatile image that an entire 7% of images of him using weapons aren't bows.

Now Frank Castle actually is a shitty example of a weapon specialist in that he uses pretty much any modern weapon that he can get his hands on. He is an example of a strong theme. Somehow I suspect when people started talking about theme he came up and things got confused and nobody's even sure why we're using Frank Castle as an example of anything anymore.

But Robin Hood? That's a perfect example of a character with an iconic weapon whose iconic weapon is pretty much integral to his theme and the stories they tell about him. The archery contest story depends on him being an actual archer. And the bow? It ties into his mythos in multiple ways; the middle class soldier overcoming the knighted nobility (the evolution of the bow as a weapon), poaching and the king's deer and being an outlaw (the bow is a hunting tool). Robin Hood is a fundamentally different character with a different story when you take away the bow.

P.S.

A weapon fetishist character is a character who uses one weapon exclusively.

No. Fuck your strawman and the straw horse it rode in on. If you want to pretend Wolverine doesn't mean "claws shoot out of his knuckles and he fucks people up with them" because he's touched a variety of other weaponry throughout his lifetime as a comic book character, you are not being reasonable. At all.

[Omegonthesane]

Like every single other character that the weapon fetishist supporters have brought up, he is in fact a huge counter example. Shut the fuck up, the "weapon specialist" character does not exist. A character who uses one weapon "the most" is not a weapon fetishist character. A weapon fetishist character is a character who uses one weapon exclusively. And outside saturday morning cartoons, that simply doesn't exist. It's actually pretty rare even in cartoons.

-Username17

This is true. It's also not how you have previously defined weapon fetishists - you and Lago have been saying that people should be dropping their primary weapon forever because something with a bigger plus randomly dropped, not that they should have a golf bag of other weapons. You've been saying outright that people should abandon forever the use of their ancestral +1 sword because a +2 dire flail dropped, or else be labelled as weapon fetishists.

Typically the weapon you use "the most" is going to be the defining one for your aesthetic... symbolism... something, even if you switch around. What was the quote...

Yeah, and having niche weapons for niche uses is totally fine, so long as the weapon of choice is usable in most cases. If I'm playing someone who generally has a sword-based aesthetic but we're facing one, specific villain who, for whatever reason, can only be killed by the Frost Axe of Being Very Cold, then I don't have any problems with dropping the sword in favor of an axe for one fight. It's being asked to permanently leave behind my character's aesthetic because the dice say wielding the lightning dagger is now the only way to remain competitive that irks me.

Ninja'd on every point but hey.

[A Man In Black]

No. Fuck your strawman and the straw horse it rode in on. If you want to pretend Wolverine doesn't mean "claws shoot out of his knuckles and he fucks people up with them" because he's touched a variety of other weaponry throughout his lifetime as a comic book character, you are not being reasonable. At all.

So uh.

How would you describe the reasonable expectation(s) if your character has "I use a hockey stick as my signature weapon?"

Because I don't think Lago and Frank have a very good point here, but I have no fucking clue what they're arguing against, either.

[Prak]

Ok, honestly? Weapon fetishism to the extreme that's being advocated is actually relatively rare, so far as I can tell, in most media. The only characters I can think of who use the same type of weapon 99.9999....% of the time are people who don't actually use weapons, but rather their fists. So, Spiderman isn't a weapon fetishist, he's a monk. Sure he has his webshooters, but those aren't really weapons. Batman has batarangs, but he more often uses his fists, or something custom made to the situation. Conan is likely mostly known for using a sword, but he also seems the type to use whatever fits the situation, axe, bow, whatever he disarms from an opponent... Hellboy is known for his gigantic right hand, but he frequently uses guns (specifically the Samaritan, but also others), swords, debris, and so on.

I really think complete devotion to a signature weapon is an artifact of D&D and the few comic characters whose main power is a specific weapon that can't be easily changed, like Wolverine.

Edit, brought to mind by looking at Weapon of Choice: The other characters, such as Cap'n America, Thor, and Robin/Nightwing, are cases of "They actually never find something better than their weapon." Seriously, who the hell is Thor going to fight that has a better weapon than Mjolner? Cap'n A has his shield, and it's actually a very symbolic thing, but for actual fighting, he uses guns or his fists more often than his shield. Robin/Nightwing has the weapon master shtick that Batman does, but the notable thing is that staves/sticks are (typically) non-lethal, a big thing with the Bat-family.

Other times, characters feature in just a story or two, and it literally doesn't matter whether they pick something up or not at the end of the adventure, there isn't really another one.

Swashbucklers mostly exist in a cultural milieu where rapiers, and occasionally sabers are the things they're going to find and experience, and they're unlikely to run across something better. Sure, a longsword may do an extra 1 damage on average or something, but typically a swashbuckler learned fencing, which is different from longsword-use, so it's reasonable for them to hold on to the weapon they're familiar with.

[DSMatticus]

How would you describe the reasonable expectation(s) if your character has "I use a hockey stick as my signature weapon?"

I'm not really sure what you're asking. Do you mean reasonable expectations as in what kind of advancement can you expect involving your signature weapon? Well, the people arguing with Frank and Lago aren't very uniform on how that should be handled.

Fuchs and some others seem to be okay with the ye olde magic item shoppe/transferable enchantment models where some mechanism exists to turn the stuff you pick up into the stuff you want.

I hate that idea slightly less than I hate Frank and Lago's. I'd rather just set up a system where players aren't forced to pick up brand new weapons in order to stay on the RNG. Nobody cares about the sword of swording. The fact that your sword makes you better at swording is not fun or interesting. The fact that your sword might give you the power to shoot fire at someone is interesting, but it's also not essential to your core shtick and you can just pass it up if you'd rather be a warhammer enthusiast, and if you are currently fighting demon-possessed snowmen you will opportunistically pick up the sword of fire for an adventure or two and then go back to your warhammer when the deed is done. And if you genuinely want the sword of fire to be a permanent part of your character, you can just keep it, too.

So I would say your reasonable expectation, as a smasher of faces with a hockey stick, is that you will be as good at hockey stick smace fashing as the sword guy is at sword face stabbing. And the sword guy may also have a sword which dropped a few abilities in his lap, while you probably still have an ordinary hockey stick, but when he took sword from the loot pile you got next dibs and took the magical winter boots, which let you turn everything around you into a hockey rink and skate on it or whatever the fark.

I'm not even sure what the proposed problem we're trying to solve is anymore. I think Lago wants to make people better roleplayers, and mechanically blocking certain character ideas people want does that for some reason. I think Frank wants to make magic items more interesting and make players care about them more, and making them random (or world-tailored, not PC-tailored) is part of how he does that, which I buy as part of the solution and it's something I would do myself. I'd also make magic items more uniform (all minor magic items are the same, all medium are the same, all major are the same; there's no +1 to +10 counting enhancements, just minor, medium, and major), and I'd do what I described above: a minor magic sword does not make you better at swording, it just gives you new things to do with a sword.