So I was thinking about Torchwood, which I didn't get around to watching, but which everyone seems to agree in mildly panning.  That made me a little sad, and a little surprised, because the idea of the Torchwood Institute seemed so cool in the Dr. Who series.

And yet, I've seen this sort of thing, both in media and in gaming, before ... something or someone that is immensely cool in a supporting role, but which can't maintain that when the spotlight is on them.  I think John Constantine was cooler in Swamp Thing than he ever was in his own series, for instance.  The "all Borg, all the time" narrative of late Voyager episodes made for a less interesting and impressive Borg than when they were first introduced.  And so on, and so on.

Is this just because the gaps that we fill in with our imagination are reliably more fun than the gaps that get filled in for us?  Or is there something more going on here?  Why do some characters and concepts blossom with more spotlight, while others do better when they are shadowy and unseen?

Well, I think the syndrome you're describing is real, and can be a problem. A character that makes a very cool NPC, to bring it back to roleplaying for example, might be a piss-poor PC because he's just too unidimensional.

However, in your specific example of Torchwood, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that in Dr.Who we were promised a huge powerful shadow-government org with military forces, something along the lines of the old UNIT, with lots of scope and influence, fighting alien menaces to the British Empire.

What we got was four losers in a sewer. Collecting alien trinkets, in Wales.
Each more melodramatic and incompetent than the last.

So Torchwood's case is a wholly different problem; its the problem of being promised one thing at first, and then the result being something totally different.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditWhat we got was four losers in a sewer. Collecting alien trinkets, in Wales.
Each more melodramatic and incompetent than the last.

So Torchwood's case is a wholly different problem; its the problem of being promised one thing at first, and then the result being something totally different.

Ouch!  Well, anyway, let's talk about that first thing.

Even if Torchwood had been a spectacular and efficient government conspiracy ... you expect protagonists to make sense in a way that you don't for the shadowy organizations.

Like, in Dr. Who it's perfectly fine that the Torchwood "Blast the hell out of alien ships" cannon takes forever and a day to warm up.  That lets the Doctor do his thing, and we're not following the story of Torchwood.

But if a big alien ship popped up over London in (the hypothetical and accurate) Torchwood, and they said "Well, we'll have to sit around and let the aliens dick with much of the earth's population until the end of the show, then we'll shoot 'em with the cannon," I (as audience) would find that unsatisfying.  I'd say "Why the hell isn't that thing on 24-hour standby?  What good is a deterrent to invasion that takes longer to warm up than an actual invasion?"

So, the same actions make Torchwood seem ultra-cool as a supporting group, but would make them seem limp and unmanageable as protagonists.

I don't think it's a question about being too cool to a protagonist. I think it's a question of execution from being a cool character/concept to being the main event.

IMO what was done with John Constantine was pretty good. I thought Angel was a cool character from Buffy who nicely turned into a good main star in his own series. Same with Frasier.

Sometimes what is needed I think is depth which comes with change. One can't rely solely on what made this charcaters/concepts cool if one wants to turn them into a protagonist.

There's that extremely difficult balance of keeping what made them cool and adding new dimensions. If you can do that, than you're good to go.

Regards,
David R

Tangenting on the OP, but does anyone else think that Capt'n Jack is Russel T. Davis's Mary Sue?

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonTangenting on the OP, but does anyone else think that Capt'n Jack is Russel T. Davis's Mary Sue?

I just got back from Wikipedia but I'm still not sure I get what Mary Sue is supposed to mean these days. Now if Jack was still on Doctor Who and portrayed as some kind of über-companion who's superior to the Doctor in every way, well then I could see calling him a Mary Sue.

Come to think of it I'm surprised nobody's accused Romana of being one too.

Yep, wanted a new UNIT or UNIT meets X-Files show. The "kids" shows are coming off more polished and adult than the "adult" show. A good example than fewer restrictions doesn't automatically make for a better show and good writing and vision count for a lot. Maybe it got better dunno.

Romana? Not quite a Mary Sue just that having *two* adult Time Lords on board added up to it being very difficult for them to face a believable obstacle (along with the sonic screwdriver & K-9) & keeping two main characters seperated for most of a story got old fast. I don't think they quite thought out what having another Time Lord on board would lead to and originally just wanted  something different for a Companion.

Mary Sue would the writer's (creator's etc.) uber alter-ego. In gaming terms, the GM PC. Jack does come very close from what I've seen of Torchwood, esp. with the can't be killed & always there to save the day bits.

Keep them in the background, use them when needed/called upon by the PCs, but don't let them take center stage for long at all. The game shouldn't be about your NPCs, but the PCs. Memorable NPCs sure, but more than that and I feel like I should be writing a novel not running a game. :pundit:

Quote from: William G. GruffNow if Jack was still on Doctor Who and portrayed as some kind of über-companion who's superior to the Doctor in every way, well then I could see calling him a Mary Sue.

Well a "Mary Sue" is also a projection of the writer's wish-fulfillment

Look at Russell T. Davis.  Gay, atheist, growing up in a highly conservative environment where he had to suppress both of these traits and, let's face it, not the most physically attractive or physically adept of individuals

Now look at Captain Jack Harkness.  Gay, atheist, apparently utterly immortal, even more so than the Doctor (what does that say about Mr. Davis's fear of death?).  Completely uncloseted (even when outing himself is both unnecessary and endangers both himself and those around him), physically beautiful, ridiculously competent at anything he turns his hand to...

You know, before I saw Torchwood, I thought the whole concept of a "Gay Agenda" was only worthy of pointing and laughing at.  Face it, if I (as a Christian who's only had one sexual partner) wrote a piece where I was constantly pushing these ideas in the way that RTD is pushing homosexuality and existentialism ... well I wouldn't, because the story would suffer for it and it wouldn't be fair on the audience.  There's a couple of bits of Haven's that I went back and rewrote because Becka was coming across as too vanilla and too Christian

Quote from: William G. GruffCome to think of it I'm surprised nobody's accused Romana of being one too.

Romana was not strictly a Mary Sue in the sense that she did commit errors due to relative inexperience compared to the Doctor, and her arrogance was portrayed as a flaw (for Romana 1 mainly).  

Of course, the real question is whether the Doc and Romana broke the rule about "no hanky-panky in the TARDIS". We know the actors did...

RPGPundit

Curiously I don't find the homosexuality/bisexuality of RTD work to be preachy in any way, not even Queer as Folk, which I watched and found quite a good program.

What I do find is that there, as well as in Capt. Jack's portrayal in Dr.Who, as well as in Torchwood, the sexuality of the characters is always so utterly unbelievably shallow. It makes me think that this is the product of someone with some serious issues about sex.

RPGPundit

Gotta agree with that (except the Queer as Folk part, which I never saw). It seems like everybody wants everybody else, even (and especially) the ugly dude whose both an asshole and a major fuckup.

I typed the following sentence somewhere else recently, if it was here then sorry:

I also much prefer the Captain Jack of the Doctor Who show. He's much better as a happy go lucky adventurer, but instead they make him some sort of "woe is me, why must I be immortal, who am I, what am I" BS.

I still watch the show though, because it's fun.

Does anyone remember the old X-Files spin-off, the smoking gun?

It was about Mulders nerdy conspiracy web-page buddies. It was wayyy too fan service. It had the characters doing Mission Impossible stunts with gadgets(with "hilarious" results).

I think I'm going to have to say that it is because of their inherent 1-dimensional-ness. They were origanally there for comic relief as nerdy charicatures, but when given their own show it just wasn't X-Filesy to be a slapstick comedy all the time.

However, Frasier was an awesome show...

Quote from: KrakaJakDoes anyone remember the old X-Files spin-off, the smoking gun?

It was about Mulders nerdy conspiracy web-page buddies. It was wayyy too fan service. It had the characters doing Mission Impossible stunts with gadgets(with "hilarious" results).

I think I'm going to have to say that it is because of their inherent 1-dimensional-ness. They were origanally there for comic relief as nerdy charicatures, but when given their own show it just wasn't X-Filesy to be a slapstick comedy all the time.

However, Frasier was an awesome show...

That was The Lone Gunmen, not the Smoking Gun. Good show. I really enjoyed it, and how they expanded upon the characters. It was a strange, quirky, niche-y show, though, so I understand why it didn't have wide appeal.

Quote from: TonyLBIs this just because the gaps that we fill in with our imagination are reliably more fun than the gaps that get filled in for us?  Or is there something more going on here?  Why do some characters and concepts blossom with more spotlight, while others do better when they are shadowy and unseen?

I think the issue is one of execution -- living up to the hype is *always* difficult (and this goes for anything).

Familiarity breeds... well, if not contempt, then at least a dulling of the awe associated with the less-well-know.

So yeah -- taking an ultra-cool supporting character into the spotlight is going to *change* the way players (readers, viewers, etc.) relate to the character...

But it *can* be done -- and done well. It's just tough.

I had a similiar, but slightly different problem in a game I was running several years ago: a senior special-forces military NPC who was the mentor-teacher-trainer of bunch of new supers heros in a fairly realistic world.

No one in my group was a Special Forces operator or anything, but the group knew enough about military operations to have expectations. Also: this guy was supposed to be *good* -- he had to be insightful, and a solid leader without being supernaturally intelligent (if he'd just come off as "knows everything because the GM is running him" that would have *killed* the game).

Every scene he was in was a bit of a high-wire act for me -- if I had him break character or make recommendations or commands that didn't make sense, it could really damage the character and the game.

I think this points to the *difficulty* of transitioning the character/organization/etc. from the margins to the spotlight: that transition is the mostly-likely place where things will go wrong and presents the greatest probability of shark-jumping.

There's some craft-elements to doing this well, I think (one key one would be planning -- taking some time to think about the transition and how it might go wrong, and making sure that you're going to get the effect you're going for)... but that might be for another thread...

Cheers,
-E.