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EmperorNorton said:
I'm curious why you get the idea that Moore ever saw anything positive in Rorschach. From all interviews I've ever read, he really does not think Rorschach is positive in any way, just a broken man doing broken things.
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Well, that was from an interview I saw with him a few years ago on Y.T.

Although, I think you've misinterpreted what I actually said. Note, I never used the word "positive", I actually used the term "needed." As in, a necessary evil. A bit like nuclear weapons (on a much smaller scale of course!).
 
AsenRG said:
And that makes him different from all the other non-two-dimensional characters ever...how, exactly? Oh, yeah, the name!
Well, yeah, it's a funny coincidence, but I suspect even Alan Moore wasn't planning for that effect when naming him:thumbsup:!
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“I suppose that's true of all things, though, it's just more on the nose with him because of his gimmick.”

I mean, you even left it in when you quoted me.
 
I think there's some things about Rorschach fandom people are missing.
1. Many are going off the movie version, not the comic version.
2. Many have read the comic version once 34 years ago and so are going off...the movie version.
3. Many who did read the comic didn't read every single extra, sidebar and added story like some of us did.
4. Many who did read every single extra, sidebar and added story may have done it 34 years ago.
5. As a result of all of the above, many of the "Rorschach" fans probably aren't even aware of the subtle and not so subtle elements of Rorschach that Moore was using.

He's an antihero, who isn't a good man, in fact he's a bad man but like Rust Cohle, keeps the other bad men from the door. He may be a horrible person, but he is taking out the trash.

Rorschach is a loner, disillusioned with the lies and the injustice of societies ills and corruption and he does what needs to be done. He does what is Right. Now, of course, he doesn't actually do what is Right, he does what a broken, twisted man thinks is right. But in a world of all-grey, where Justice and Truth are a negotiation or a payoff, the code of Never Compromise has power. I believe that's what appeals to Rorschach fans, not any of his various "isms".
 
OHT said:
I've always seen The Hound from GoT as a cipher of the Comedian. Very similar types. In a so-called honourable profession and seen and done worse things than the supposed enemies have done. Its turned into a sort of twisted delight in bringing the hypocrisy of it all into the light and daring anyone to challenge it.
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Yeah, that's a pretty good observation.
 
Baulderstone said:
I'm always surprised more people don't see it that way. The book repeatedly hits you over the head with the idea that Rorschach is in favor of killing everyone in New York City. He's introduced with a journal entry where he gleefully ruminates on everyone in the city being killed, and how he will look on with satisfaction and do nothing. When I went back and read Watchmen as an adult, the part where Rorschach talks about Truman dropping the bomb felt hamfisted in its obvious relation to the end of the book. Moore keeps banging that drum over and over through the whole book.
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Going to have to do a reread now. Thanks for giving me an excuse. :shade: :thumbsup:
 
Ladybird said:
I read it as Rorschach talking a bigger game than he can play. When he's actually in that situation and having to make that choice, like when Kovacs was dealing with the kidnapping, he couldn't cope and had another psychotic break; I think it's Kovacs that yells "DO IT!", not Rorschach.

(I know disassociative identity disorder doesn't quite work like that, but it's close enough to fit with 80's understanding of it in a relatively well-grounded comic book.)
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I actually agree with that. My point really is that a lot of hardcore Rorschach fans talk about how they admire his complete unwillingness to bend, sticking to his "hard man" ideals to the end. Instead, when confronted with a situation that embodies them, that cartoon persona completely cracks, and he is no longer the person that he was for most of the book.
CRKrueger said:
I think there's some things about Rorschach fandom people are missing.
1. Many are going off the movie version, not the comic version.
2. Many have read the comic version once 34 years ago and so are going off...the movie version.
3. Many who did read the comic didn't read every single extra, sidebar and added story like some of us did.
4. Many who did read every single extra, sidebar and added story may have done it 34 years ago.
5. As a result of all of the above, many of the "Rorschach" fans probably aren't even aware of the subtle and not so subtle elements of Rorschach that Moore was using.

He's an antihero, who isn't a good man, in fact he's a bad man but like Rust Cohle, keeps the other bad men from the door. He may be a horrible person, but he is taking out the trash.

Rorschach is a loner, disillusioned with the lies and the injustice of societies ills and corruption and he does what needs to be done. He does what is Right. Now, of course, he doesn't actually do what is Right, he does what a broken, twisted man thinks is right. But in a world of all-grey, where Justice and Truth are a negotiation or a payoff, the code of Never Compromise has power. I believe that's what appeals to Rorschach fans, not any of his various "isms".
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I definitely give a pass to people that just saw the movie. It's something different entirely.
 
CRKrueger said:
Argh. I know Monolith is a French company, but aren't there a bunch of kickass French RPGs they could have used? AsenRG AsenRG you know of any popular French D20 clones?
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See the link in this post. It's about the actual variant that Batman RPG is planning to use.
AsenRG said:
I actually bothered to find something about the system.
System
The part I don't like? There are classes:shade:.
The part I like? Magic spells working the same way as attack rolls:devil:!

Also, it seems there's a SRD. I might try to find out more. But I've got a couple of my own threads to update, too!
Decisions, decisions.
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And let's make it official - I'm referring to the movie version of Rorschah:grin:!
 
Ladybird said:
I read it as Rorschach talking a bigger game than he can play. When he's actually in that situation and having to make that choice, like when Kovacs was dealing with the kidnapping, he couldn't cope and had another psychotic break; I think it's Kovacs that yells "DO IT!", not Rorschach.
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I think the same thing's kind of true for the Comedian.

He wants to be an utterly ruthless nihilist, the guy who can shoot a pregnant woman or a kid without a second thought and who treats the entire world as a sick joke... but stumbling across Veidt's plan leaves him in tears and begging for forgiveness.
 
AsenRG said:
See the link in this post. It's about the actual variant that Batman RPG is planning to use.
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I've done my best to research what I can. It seems there are a lot if genre variants of the system. There is a modern variant, and a Lovecraft variant...but Batman might be the first non-french version of the system.
 
KrakaJak said:
I've done my best to research what I can. It seems there are a lot if genre variants of the system. There is a modern variant, and a Lovecraft variant...but Batman might be the first non-french version of the system.
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Yes, that's my understanding as well. I can read it in French, too, but I haven't got the books.
(Here's the SRD but frankly, I'm more and more inclined to debate whether SRDs count).
Either way, if there are differences between the genre variants, I'd guess the Batman RPG would, probably, be closer to the edition contemporain, since well, Gotham only exists in modern times:tongue:!


Basically, it seems to be...well, d20. I appreciate the more "freeform" skill system, and the fact that you get "ways", and that there's a feat that allows you to block an attack... (obviously something only a master can attempt:thumbsup:?)

But you've still got HPs, levels, classes and feats. Maybe they'd change that for this game?
I guess we're going to see:shade:!
 
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I don’t want any more DC and d20. They already did that with Mutants & Masterminds 3e.
 
Gringnr said:
I've read that they were based on the Charlton characters, though some grew in different ways. DC had just bought the Charlton characters, and they realized that some of them would be unusable after the events of Watchmen. So, the change was made to "original" characters.

Rorshach=The Question
Comedian = Peacemaker
Nite Owl=Blue Beetle
Dr. Manhattan=Captain Atom
Ozymandias=Thunderbolt

...or something like that. Not sure about the other characters. There used to be a 60-odd page set of annotations floating around the 'net, written by some rando. Whoever wrote it was VERY thorough. Well worth seeking out if you like the book.

You might also be thinking of the aborted "Twilight of the Superheroes" project, Moore's treatment of which is also out there, and easy to find.

Man, I wish Moore would've finished 1963...
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From memory, DC picked up the Charlton characters due to some nudging from Dick Giordano, whose early work included a stint at Charlton. DC had little idea what to do with them and asked Alan Moore to submit a proposal, which was the early version of what became Watchmen. The treatment was not at all what Giordano was looking for, so to appease both parties they went with Moore's idea (with new characters) and rebooted Blue Beetle et al. as post-Crisis DC characters (introduced during Crisis on Infinite Earths to give them some traction hitting the stands).
 
I was told (and so I have no idea of the validity of this) that the original idea was to use an alternate universe JLA, but DC looked horrified, so Mr. Moore made the Watchmen their own thing.
 
TristramEvans said:
Batman is the GM, you all play supervillains trying to not get beat up by him.
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I have a lot of notes for a project to use Blades in the Dark to run groups of minor villains in Gotham with pretty much this exact idea. Too much heat gets you noticed by supers, and eventually Batman, which would mostly be game over.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I have a lot of notes for a project to use Blades in the Dark to run groups of minor villains in Gotham with pretty much this exact idea. Too much heat gets you noticed by supers, and eventually Batman, which would mostly be game over.
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I'm not familiar with Blades in the Dark, what sort of game is it?
 
TristramEvans said:
I'm not familiar with Blades in the Dark, what sort of game is it?
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It a derivative of the PbtA rules that uses die pools. Really great mechanics for a recursive play style that cycles between running scores and downtime. Very much worth checking out. There's also a great Star Wars version called Scum and Villainy.
 
TristramEvans said:
I'm not familiar with Blades in the Dark, what sort of game is it?
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Same base system as Scum and Villainy. It's got a strong influence from PBTA in that character classes are based around PBTA-style playbooks, and is often described as a PBTA variant. Unlike PBTA's strict 2D6 for everything, it uses a dice pool mechanic where you roll some number of D6's and count the highest. 1-3 is failure, 4-5 is yes-but, 6 is success. The system has some other metacurrency features:

Stress can be paid to add another die to the roll, and there is a mechanic called a devil's bargain where you can take a consequence to add another die. Devil's bargains can make enemies, force you to lose valuable, hard-to-replace equipment at the scene, bring down heat on the party or have other consequences.

You can also flash back to retcon preparation for a scene. It doesn't let you change the scene, but it can add prep, such as bribing a guard. There are a few other mechanics that let you retcon preparation. The system also uses a clock mechanic to allow for building tension. In order to burn off stress (which has consequences if you let it build up too much) you have to indulge your vice in recreation during downtime.

The setting is a dystopian steampunk city called Duskvol. You play members of a small criminal gang on the make. The setting has magic, weird science and other steampunk trappings. There is also a meta game about expanding your criminal empire. If you play the rules as written there is quite a specific structure to an engagement.

There's a bit more to it, but that's the essentials of the game. There are some cheat sheets for Scum and Villainy (which is essentially the same system) linked from the OOC thread here.

www.rpgpub.com

S&V - The Outfit (OOC thread)

Out of character thread This thread has background materials, character sheets and links. This post will be the major link farm to basic materials. Links to character sheets, cheat sheets and resources Playbooks: Fixer, Muscle, Hacker, Sneak. Personal equipment Character background (start...
www.rpgpub.com www.rpgpub.com

I like the flashback and clock mechanics enough that I would consider retrofitting them to other systems.
 
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Z-Man said:
From memory, DC picked up the Charlton characters due to some nudging from Dick Giordano, whose early work included a stint at Charlton. DC had little idea what to do with them and asked Alan Moore to submit a proposal, which was the early version of what became Watchmen. The treatment was not at all what Giordano was looking for, so to appease both parties they went with Moore's idea (with new characters) and rebooted Blue Beetle et al. as post-Crisis DC characters (introduced during Crisis on Infinite Earths to give them some traction hitting the stands).
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Pretty much my recollection as well. The editorial response to the pitch was along the lines of “this is great, but we’ll never be able to use these characters again” - so they were changed (although you can still see the roots).
 
Wasn't there an early pitch/draft for Watchmen that involved the Red Circle characters?
 
Tulpa Girl said:
Wasn't there an early pitch/draft for Watchmen that involved the Red Circle characters?
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I don’t recall hearing about one, and it seems unlikely if only because DC owned the Charlton characters at that time, but had not (yet) licensed the Red Circle ones.
 
Johndesmarais said:
I don’t recall hearing about one, and it seems unlikely if only because DC owned the Charlton characters at that time, but had not (yet) licensed the Red Circle ones.
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From an interview with Alan Moore:

CBA: I always had a suspicion there was an element of the MLJ characters—The Hangman, The Shield, etc. —within Watchmen, and upon recently reading your intro to the Graffitti Watchmen special edition, I read that my inkling was indeed true. You were exposed to the MLJ characters, such as The Mighty Crusaders, and so on?

Alan: Right. That was the initial idea of Watchmen—and this is nothing like what Watchmen turned out to be—was it was very simple: Wouldn't it be nice if I had an entire line, a universe, a continuity, a world full of super-heroes—preferably from some line that has been discontinued and no longer publishing—whom I could then just treat in a different way. You have to remember this was very soon after I'd done some similar stuff, if you like, with Marvelman, where I'd used a pre-existing character, and applied a grimmer, perhaps more realistic kind of world view to that character and the milieu he existed in. So I'd just started thinking about using the MLJ characters—the Archie super-heroes—just because they weren't being published at that time, and for all I knew, they might've been up for grabs. The initial concept would've had the 1960s-'70s rather lame version of the Shield being found dead in the harbor, and then you'd probably have various other characters, including Jack Kirby's Private Strong, being drafted back in, and a murder mystery unfolding. I suppose I was just thinking, "That'd be a good way to start a comic book: have a famous super-hero found dead." As the mystery unraveled, we would be lead deeper and deeper into the real heart of this super-hero's world, and show a reality that was very different to the general public image of the super-hero. So, that was the idea.

 
That's interesting, as the MLJ characters had been in print just a few years prior in the Rich Buckler-edited line. It's possible that they were never distributed to the UK, though, and he missed them entirely.
 
I know the conversation drifted a little bit, but i LOVE the designs (even if it's a good old pen and paper roleplaying game also playable with the minis from their boardgame.)

the-overlord.com

Croquis pour Batman RPG

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