Quote from: Doc Sammy;937648And Tristram, if you lived in the Gothic-Punk hillbilly shithole that is Roanoke, Virginia, then New Jersey would look awesome to you too.

That is certainly the impression I'm getting. How long until you're old enough to move away?

Quote from: Doc Sammy;937648Well, allow me to clarify.

I'm sure there are good superhero comics out there somewhere, I've just not seen one myself personally. That is all. The fact that contemporary geek culture is so dominated by Marvel and DC doesn't help my perception of matters though.

All thats telling me though is that you dislike them simply because they are popular. You should understand that in the presence of a bunch of old grognards, that sort of thing is a pretension of youth most of us grew out of decades ago.

QuoteSouthwestern Virginia is a hellhole. And you know how I feel about hellholes. The average resident of the Roanoke Valley Metropolitan Area is like a bizarre hybrid of Early Culyer and the Goth Kids from South Park.

Trying to picture a mix of British Economics professor and Hot Topic crowd hurts my brain. I get it, you hate the place and people where you live. The grass is greener on the other side. I spent part of my adolescence in Houston, Texas, and I hated it too, and still have a special level of distaste for country music and cowboys.

But at the same time, no one really cares man. In Internet Geekdom, you are defined by what you like, limited by what you dislike, and judged by what you know.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;937629I also want to stress that IN MY OPINION, Claremont was both the best and worst thing that ever happened to the X-Men.  He made a lot of the female characters more interesting, whether it was with raw power boosts, or personality, but at the same time, he focused entirely on them, leaving the male characters to languish in obscurity and badly written land.  But I will, despite my dislike of the inequality of his characterization skills, he DID do good work when he had Byrne to keep him on a leash.

All of the male characters languished, except Wolverine.

Quote from: James Gillen;937631See, this is why you need a point-buy system like Hero to design comic book characters, whether they're superheroes or not.  If you made PREACHER as a d20 game you wouldn't be able to design a template for the Irish Vampire, Chinless Fuck or Arseface prestige classes.

JG

Of course, but then point-buy systems are better for pretty much everything, so that's no surprise;).

Quote from: AsenRG;937664Of course, but then point-buy systems are better for pretty much everything, so that's no surprise;).

A valid and interesting position, leading to a very large discussion I am sure, but do we really want to plant it in the middle of this one? I ask because I am certain it will completely derail the rest of the thread.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;937607Not exactly. I'm just sick of Marvel and DC dominating American pop culture. You can hate anime and shit-talk it all you want, but don't call me a retard just because I'm sick of superheroes dominating the geek scene.

FWIW let me clarify

I implied not that you are a retard (I don't know if you are.) but your statement:

Quote from: Doc SammyI've never seen a good superhero comic on the other hand.

has implications of its own that someone that is retarded or very ignorant would say. Because qualitatively - there are in fact *good* superhero comics (along with monstrously bad ones). The real issue is your apparent self-induced cognitive dissonance to the fact that just because you've never went out and read one - when there are *tons* of examples that are literally less than an afterthought to dig up - you've castigated the entire genre into a shitpit based on your subjective emotions fueled by your own willful ignorance.

Heh to the degree you *care* about a "pop-scene" and what dominates it speaks wonders to this topic.

Quote from: AsenRG;937664Of course, but then point-buy systems are better for pretty much everything, so that's no surprise;).

If by everything, you mean nothing that is.
BTW, I'm not talking about classed vs. classless but more 100% player determined vs. having randomization in chargen.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;937668I am certain it will completely derail the rest of the thread.

I hear ya Duckman, but to be honest, this thread needed a derailment.

But back on topic in the broadest sense of the term...are superhero movies and television sucking all the oxygen out of US entertainment?  Alan Moore seems to think so, and he's far from alone.  People are getting tired of Studio-approved Superhero fare.  Think of the work Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Robert Downey Jr. could have done in a world without the MCU.  

Picture a world where every X-man or Wolverine movie is replaced with one where Hugh Jackman gives performances like The Prestige, The Fountain or Prisoners.  Robert Downey Jr. gives performances like Chaplin, Zodiac, The Judge. Stewart is doing movies like The Lion in Winter or Christ anything from any of his stage performances. That world, objectively, is a better place.

Crying that popculture geeks are fapping to Black Widow instead of Kagome though...that's just being a 6th grader.

Yes, we're busting Jersey's furry balls, but it's tough love, we're trying to get them to drop.

Not to stroke my beard and laugh too hard at this Doc, but I'm telling you: you're going to be laughing your ass off at some of the shit you "felt" so strongly about now, in a decade or so.

I can kind of sympathize with Doc Sammy with regards to comics. As was stated before, 90% of everything sucks so finding suckage in comics, movies, TV shows, manga, anime, and even books is bound to happen. One advantage that long running manga has over comics is continuity. I can read through Ah! My Goddess and get 26 years of continuous story. No reboots, no continuity changes, no seven billion alternate universes and timelines. One story. In many cases, these stories are done by one person who both writes and does the artwork. Sure there are assistants but many works are the work of a single individual. You don't have creative teams change, who may make senseless changes. Of course senseless changes can happen, and sometimes long running manga can suffer from creative fatigue. This is because the stories are often first serialized in magazines and if the story is successful, the author can be pressured into a run which may be much longer than intended. Think of something like Babylon 5, where the story was wrapped up and then renewed for another season so content was just tacked on.

Sweeping generalizations don't help anyone and are mostly just a way to self identify as a dick. Dicks are a dime a dozen, so I don't see the appeal of wanting to be like everyone else. Judge a work on it's own merits. All comic books/manga/anime sucks is a lazy cop out. I have never watched Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, One Piece and many of the other series that are aimed at young boys. My first exposure to anime was the Sandy Frank adaptation of Gatchaman, called Battle of the Planets which I probably started watching in 1978. Sure, it got the Scrappy Doo treatment here because of the era it was in when Cartoons had to have a cute element and it had to be dumbed down for kids because at the time that's what Americans thought they had to do. The source material, which came out in '72 was ground breaking. The animation was probably better than some of the other titles at the time, and didn't pull any punches.

I think the thing that repels people from anime/manga is that they are picking the wrong genres and stories and it leaves a bad impression. Last year I got my 54 year old friend who I have played D&D with since '86 to watch the entirety of Noein: Mou Hitori no Kimi e (To another you), which dealt with alternate realities and timelines. The protagonists were kids, sort of... After the first few episodes, my friend was like, "I thought this was going to be a kid's show" but his experience was different because Noein is good. I brought the DVD boxed set and every week I visited we watched one of the DVDs. He doesn't care for anime but he couldn't stop watching. Next thing you know, he's talking me into watching Witchblade.

I think another turnoff for anime is voice acting. I mostly watch subs but there are a lot of people who either will not nor cannot watch them. It requires an attention span, and you can't really multitask or else you miss stuff, unless you happen to know Japanese. Early dubs are bad. Some are really bad. Even copious amounts of alcohol will not help, which I know from firsthand experience. They have got a lot better.

If you want a westerner to watch something that will impact them positively, stuff by Miyazaki is probably the best way to go. Howl's Moving Castle, Nausicaa, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke have a similar appeal to watching a Disney animation which is quite deliberate. For older people, I have used stuff like Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed as gateways.

Back to the Superhero genre, you don't see a lot of it in manga or anime. Apparently One Punch Man is quite good, though I have not watched it. That is mostly due to health reasons affecting my concentration. My TV is a glorified paperweight and I rarely even watch Netflix these days. I only pay for cable and Netflix because my mom likes it. Anyhow, there are anime/manga that has a similar feel to the superhero genre. The biggest difference is that most shows set in a modern setting don't have fully grown men running around in spandex... mostly. Heroes often wear clothing people would normally wear. There are exceptions. Tiger and Bunny is pretty much straight up superheroes and quite a nice take on it. Toaru Kagaku no Railgun has the opposite approach, costumes are rare unless you are on the magic side of things and are some sort of Sorceror or Priest. Durarara has a somewhat superherolike feel at times, but still no costumes. Though it does have a cute Dullahan on a motorcycle who has a helmet with cat ears.

People are drawn to manga because of format, size and accessibility as well as cost. I can spend $20-$50 on manga and get a LOT of content. $20 worth of comics won't last me an hour. A single volume of manga can entertain for hours and easily fits in a backpack, whereas comics you are carrying things that are not designed for travel. So in the end it boils down to marketing. Manga publishers main source of income is from magazine and manga sales. Marvel and DC's main source of income is from movies and toys. Actual comic books are a dying genre and have been for quite a while with a niche audience. Not as niche as the OSR but still. If you are a teenager with a limited income, would you spend your money on some small piece of a story which looks flashy and satisfies for a few minutes, or do you go for a more complete and self contained story that can entertain you for hours? Manga continually draws in new readers. Can you say the same for comic books?

I've already stated that for a superhero RPG, the game itself does not matter so much as finding a system with mechanics you like that scales to the kind of adventures you want. You could take something like Big Eyes, Small Mouth to run a superhero game which may or may not give you a similar experience to Mutants and Masterminds 3e. I use that as an example, particularly as the Tri-Stat and d20 systems by Guardians of Order also had Silver Age Sentinels, which was a mediocre but serviceable game that could be used with other d20 products. Probably the main issue with Superhero RPGs is that someone else wrote it, so of course it's not going to be the game you want because it's the game someone else wanted. You can either have a game that does what you want, or one that is ready to play. Pick one. The former is going to take work to make it do what you like.

I like FASERIP because it's the one I played in junior high in the 80s. I like Mutants and Masterminds because it has a similar feel. 3e is probably the best iteration, but it does not handle level disparity well. Marvel Heroic handles level disparity well but had weird metagame mechanics and strong roots in Fate. I love it for Play by Post because it's FAST, and unlike Fate I can actually make it feel crunchy. But would I run it for a group of grogs? Probably not. Your audience/players is important here and as I mentioned before, the most important thing is to find something that is fun to play, even if it doesn't emulate the genre the way you like it to.

Quote from: AsenRG;937664Of course, but then point-buy systems are better for pretty much everything, so that's no surprise;).

Commence primary ignition.

Quote from: AsenRG;937664Of course, but then point-buy systems are better for pretty much everything, so that's no surprise;).

"You have made one of the classic blunders!"

I prefer point-buy myself, but I somehow think that's a minority opinion around here.

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;937708"You have made one of the classic blunders!"

He got involved in a land war in Asia?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;937710He got involved in a land war in Asia?

Worse--a system war on the Internet.

At least he's not going in against a grognard when beer is on the line...

Quote from: Willie the Duck;937668A valid and interesting position, leading to a very large discussion I am sure, but do we really want to plant it in the middle of this one? I ask because I am certain it will completely derail the rest of the thread.

It wasn't me that brought up the matter of point-buy, though:).

Also, I don't think you could derail something that's left the rails, survived long enough to grow its own gills, and is now going for underwater exploration:p!

Quote from: CRKrueger;937698If by everything, you mean nothing that is.
BTW, I'm not talking about classed vs. classless but more 100% player determined vs. having randomization in chargen.

No, by everything, I mean everything. And I know I'm right, because I said so:D!

BTW, I'm talking about classed vs. classless, as evidenced by the context of the post I was replying to;).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;937703Commence primary ignition.

Indeed:D!

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;937708"You have made one of the classic blunders!"

I prefer point-buy myself, but I somehow think that's a minority opinion around here.

Minority have rights to express their opinions, too! Free speech, muthafuckas:D!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;937710He got involved in a land war in Asia?

Hell no, Glorious General, sir! I might fan the flames of nerd wars at times for fun and profit, but I'm neither stupid enough, nor ignorant enough of history, to make the mistake you mention:D!

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;937715Worse--a system war on the Internet.

Windows sucks. Linux offers much better customization with overall less hassle.