New Batman RPG Coming

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
I recognize 5 of them...6 if someone can tell me why there are 2 Robins simultaneously...7 if that's Alfred in the back row. He should really wear a mask if he doesn't want everyone to put 2 + 2 together and realize he's Bruce Wayne's butler and also Batman's butler.

This artist should really study human anatomy and how clothing looks on bodies. Studying composition would be a plus as this is incredibly contrived and makes me wonder who's standing on what so they can all be seen like that. Why is Crimson Batgirl's cape fluttering in the breeze but no one else's is?

Left side: Batwoman, Alfred, Red Hood (Jason Todd), Batgirl, Nightwing (Dick Grayson).

Right side: Robin (Damian Wayne), Duke, Huntress, Spoiler, Catwoman, Red Robin (Tim Drake), Orphan.

(I put in all the names for the 4 that were well known robins. Spoiler (Stephanie Brown) has also been a Robin at one point, but the editorial team at DC seem to like to forget that and pretend she doesn't exist.)

Honestly, out of all of them, only one is really all that new (Duke, introduced in 2014), with Damian Wayne who was introduced in the mid 2000s as I'm pretty sure the next newest.
 
if that's Alfred in the back row. He should really wear a mask if he doesn't want everyone to put 2 + 2 together and realize he's Bruce Wayne's butler and also Batman's butler.

I have this theory that everyone in Gotham knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman, he's just this insanely rich crazy guy playing out a childish fantasy of dress-up, but everyone just goes along with it because Wayne enterprises essentially owns the city and if it went under it would cripple Gotham's economy.

That's why villains keep "escaping" from Arkham Asylum - the authorities just let them out occasionally to keep Bruce busy.

Ultimately, Alfred organizes the entire thing, and was secretly behind the creation of "supervillains" for Bruce to fight in the first place.
 
I think you're right about the Batman RPG when you put it like that. Nothing wrong wi
I'll letcha in onna little secret, most of the people who read Watchmen is a Rorschach guy. Much to Alan Moore's dismay.


As for the book, I actually approve of the idea. DC's biggest problem is that unlike Marvel, it was never built as a singular universe. Metropolis and Gotham are both reflections of New York, except that now, there is an actual New York in DC. It's the reason that DC has had so many universal reboots, because they would have these universe shaking moments to try and consolidate certain aspects, but often forgets that there certain things or characters that are important.

Actually, when you put it like that, about the Batman RPG it makes sense. So, you could easily have a street level game without some of the over the top shenanigans. I'll keep an eye on it and see what happens.

Re. Rorschach... It's weird the way he's become so villainous. I always saw him, as a necessary evil if you will. An deeply unhinged individual, granted. But who had the neck to do what others couldn't, such as Batman. By letting the Joker and other psychos live, cost way more lives in the long run.

But alas, he seems to have been co opted as a symbol of pure evil. Which I don't really agree with. Especially, when he wanted to get the truth out, to the people (he gave his life for truth in the end). You could say he was a character of his time.

I remember seeing an interview with Moore. He said, that Rorschach was essentially an anarchist. A tool to be used but only when needed. And when the work is done, they needed to be put back in the box so to speak.
 
Dude, Rorschach was a sexist, racist, hardline asshole.

I can get why people like him as a character, he is interesting, but I've never understood how anyone actually thought he was RIGHT.
 
Dude, Rorschach was a sexist, racist, hardline asshole.

I can get why people like him as a character, he is interesting, but I've never understood how anyone actually thought he was RIGHT.

The fact that his diary entries purposefully echoes Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver tells you all you need to know on that score.

That of course is the irony of the ending in that his Manichean view of society makes him make the 'right' decision (as in one that I think Moore agrees with morally) and it leads to his death.

But I think lots misinterpret Moore's ambiguity and irony throughout Watchmen. The flood of imitators who came after clearly showed that.
 
I'll letcha in onna little secret, most of the people who read Watchmen is a Rorschach guy. Much to Alan Moore's dismay.


I think Moore overall seriously overestimated his readership.

Moore, like many of the great creators in comicbooks, view the superhero genre as a morality tale.

A large portion of the readership (and unfortunately the creators) at the time, and following in Moore's Wake, view comics as a power fantasy.

Both are forms of escapism, and unlike others I don't use that term with any negative connotations, but one is less concerned with the notion of "good" and "right" so much as "cool" and "powerful".

We were discussing in another thread this week the social pariah that being a geek, including a comicbook reader, was in 80's youth culture. I think this inadvertantly set the stage for an udience of disenfranchised youth, where the lure of power is appealing, and identification with the social outsider taken to the extreme that a sociopath like Rorshach (or...insert any number of 90s anti-heroes, Frank iller's version of Batman, etc) represents.
 
As to a Batman-only RPG, DCH put out an excellent self-contained Batman game so there is some precedent. Makes sense to lead with DC's biggest property by a wide margin.
 
I can get why people like him as a character, he is interesting, but I've never understood how anyone actually thought he was RIGHT.

Well, no one in Watchmen was "Right" per se ... Nightowl came closest, in that he was just too pathetic to be "wrong" in the way that the assertive characters were.

Rorshach is (quite literally and intentionally) appealing in the same way that Atlas Shrugged is to a certain demographic.
 
Yeah I'm not buying a rapist and murderer of a pregnant woman as 'the sympathetic one' to anyone besides nutters. Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are the obvious protagonists just flawed and human.



You got a quote for that?
My suspicion would be that he may have been intended to be sympathetic before writing but that the character went in a different direction during the actual writing process.
 
If the core or a sourcebook has a detailed look at Gotham I'd probably snap it up. It'd be cool to have a map, little bit of info on different areas, random encounter tables or similar. Maybe a mini-campaign dealing with Rupert Thorne or Falcone. The whole exaggerated New York setting is quite interesting.
 
My suspicion would be that he may have been intended to be sympathetic before writing but that the character went in a different direction during the actual writing process.

He was intended as a critique of Steve Ditko, particularly his "Mister A" character, the embodiment of Objectivism.

I think Rorshach is an incredibly sympathetic character, but also a deeply disturbed and flawed human being.
 
If the core or a sourcebook has a detailed look at Gotham I'd probably snap it up. It'd be cool to have a map, little bit of info on different areas, random encounter tables or similar. Maybe a mini-campaign dealing with Rupert Thorne or Falcone. The whole exaggerated New York setting is quite interesting.

Night in Gotham did this rather well...

gotham.jpg

CreatingAdv5.jpg
 
He was intended as a critique of Steve Ditko, particularly his "Mister A" character, the embodiment of Objectivism.

I think Rorshach is an incredibly sympathetic character, but also a deeply disturbed and flawed human being.
No I meant the comedian. It's possible when Moore planned out his arc in advance he intended the Comedian to be sympathetic and Rorshach to not be. But that's not what he wrote. And I can't believe he was way under any illusions that the Comedian would be seen as sympathetic at the point at which he made him a rapist.
 
Last edited:
He was intended as a critique of Steve Ditko, particularly his "Mister A" character, the embodiment of Objectivism.
Which only served to illustrate Alan Moore's complete and utter misunderstanding of Objectivism.
 
No I meant the comedian. It's possibly when Moore planned out his arc in advance he intended the Comedian to be sympathetic and Rorshach to not be. But that's not what he wrote. And I can't believe he was way under any illusions that the Comedian would be seen as sympathetic at the point at which he made him a rapist.


Ah, yea, the Comedian is a tough one. I think he's a "fully realized" character - meaning he's not a 2-dimensional villain, but it would be hard to sympathize with him.

I always saw his role in the story was to be a physical mirror held up to the other heroes to strip away their pretensions and sef-delusions. There was this idea they had of themselves as superheroes, and he showed them the reality
 
Which only served to illustrate Alan Moore's complete and utter misunderstanding of Objectivism.

Or Ditko's. Have you read Mister A? He really is just about as sociopathic as Rorshach, in most stories he just stands there and lets people die while he moralizes at them. If anything, Moore humanized the character.
 
Which only served to illustrate Alan Moore's complete and utter misunderstanding of Objectivism.

As usual I think people have exaggerated how much he is based on Ditko's character, although there are similarities, particularly in the visual design, he is more a critique of the idea of the superhero as vigilante.
 
According to Moore he was supposed to be. Which only proves to me that his 'deconstruction of the genre' as he was trying to do, was clearly even beyond HIS abilities. But because it was popular, everyone and their donkey has been trying to copy it in some fashion in the decades since.

But that's just my opinion.


Fun fact: one of Moore's early concepts for Watchmen was to use the characters from Archie Comics' The Mighty Crusaders, and have it start with the body of The Shield being pulled from a river.
 
I might be totally wrong, but in addition to the critique of superheroes I always thought Rorshach took a bit from Nietzsche. In that he has a "looking into the Abyss" moment. The irony/tragedy being that where as he thinks he looked straight in and came out galvanised, as the reader you can tell he cracked (speaks in sentence fragments etc) and the kind man you glimpse in flashbacks was destroyed, i.e. he thinks he is the Übermensch of the tale but is just a hurt man in the end.
 
As usual I think people have exaggerated how much he is based on Ditko's character, although there are similarities, particularly in the visual design, he is more a critique of the idea of the superhero as vigilante.

I think that he is both, simultaneously.

Alan Moore has clearly never hidden that he was based on Mister A...


But also compares him often to Batman...

TUBHlOEC6tucNB67UmU9zitbU1mEyHHMUGIErsUtkFY.jpg
 
Last edited:
He was intended as a critique of Steve Ditko, particularly his "Mister A" character, the embodiment of Objectivism.

I think Rorshach is an incredibly sympathetic character, but also a deeply disturbed and flawed human being.
Yeah. There's that one panel in the book where you get to see Kovacs-as-Rorschach speak, and it's always fascinated me just how different and useful he sounds. Even after he snaps, he's still cunning, perceptive, and motivated to try to be a good guy and do the right thing. He's unquestionably wrong and should be institutionalised for his own protection, but I can at least respect that he kept going; if he'd got a slight lucky break and managed to become a policeman or the like and have access to that structure and that support network, I think he could have had a reasonably good career.
 
Yeah. There's that one panel in the book where you get to see Kovacs-as-Rorschach speak, and it's always fascinated me just how different and useful he sounds. Even after he snaps, he's still cunning, perceptive, and motivated to try to be a good guy and do the right thing. He's unquestionably wrong and should be institutionalised for his own protection, but I can at least respect that he kept going; if he'd got a slight lucky break and managed to become a policeman or the like and have access to that structure and that support network, I think he could have had a reasonably good career.


I think there is a universal appeal of a character that has a very strict, understandable, unwavering moral code, that exists even if the character is ultimately completely wrong. It's the combination of straightforwardness, absolutes, and individual will set against a world of ambiguity, uncertainty, and moral grey areas. It's comforting in it's simplisticness.

Capture.JPG
 
I should note here that I am actually a huge fan of Ditko, as a creator and artist, (even if I simultaneously believe his adopted philosophies to be a flawed, laughable, and naive. He ws a fascinating person, and like many creators I love (including, ironically, Alan Moore, and also Bill Waterson), he was at least willing to give up conventional success to not compromise his beliefs. I respect this, regardless if I agree with him, and I think this is exceedingly rare in modern society, and as such, these sorts of people should be held up as moral examples for that alone.

Speaking of Waterson, I can't help but think of his only released comic after Calvin & Hobbes ended:

vOYKHPw.jpg
 
Last edited:
Dude, Rorschach was a sexist, racist, hardline asshole.

I can get why people like him as a character, he is interesting, but I've never understood how anyone actually thought he was RIGHT.

But that's not the point of Rorschach, to be right per se... He was a messed up character, in a messed up world trying to sort the problems as best her could. Given his background. Basically, a more realistic depiction of a superhero, according to Moore.

Moore was pointing, out that people who dress up, and go out and fight crime would not be right in the head by any means. Even down to the fact that Ror had chronic B.O. Not to mention goes off the wall when they pull of 'his face'. He's clearly very mentally ill.

Hard line... That's true. But this is the world of comics, back in the 80/90s. So was Judge Dredd, Marshall Law and a whole slew of them. As I pointed out, Ror is a character of his time. I mean, if a few pedophiles get wasted I wont be too upset, to be honest.

Racist? I never got that impression, are you saying from the original graphic novel?

Well, not until, the recent Watchman series. Where he was demonized. The writer(s), too the decision for him to be co-opted by the far right. Bear in mind that Alan Moore does not consider it cannon or relevant to the character in anyway.

As I said earlier... To understand Rorschach. One has got to look into why Moore brought him into exsistence in the first place.
 
PS - As Tristram was saying I think Rorschach is a very sympathetic character. Given is background, etc.
 
Fun fact: one of Moore's early concepts for Watchmen was to use the characters from Archie Comics' The Mighty Crusaders, and have it start with the body of The Shield being pulled from a river.


And Grant Morrison later actually used those characters for his take on Watchmen.
 
I always thought the most powerful aspect of Rorshach as presented in the comic as the origin of his mask, and thought it was a great shame that was left out of the film. It tied the character to a very specific real-world event that changed the world's view of New York in a way that mirrors how it changed Rorshach's view of criminals. Who couldn't read the story of Kitty Genovese and wish, in that moment, that a person like Rorshach had existed, had been there?
 
actually these days he isn't so much a loner as the leader of a paramilitary group of adolescents

pjimage-35.jpg

I hate just about everything about this picture. This style of art always makes me put a comic straight down, I don't even know exactly why, everyone just looks 'wrong' to me, in some way.

However, that has to be Huntress' least terrible outfit. She doesn't look like a stripper who escaped from Rob Liefeld's Youngblood anymore, so that's a small positive.
 
I hate just about everything about this picture. This style of art always makes me put a comic straight down, I don't even know exactly why, everyone just looks 'wrong' to me, in some way.

However, that has to be Huntress' least terrible outfit. She doesn't look like a stripper who escaped from Rob Liefeld's Youngblood anymore, so that's a small positive.

I completely agree. It's not my style of art, there's characters there whose very existence I consider an insult to fans, and I think this approach to Batman overall is incredibly boring.
 
I might be totally wrong, but in addition to the critique of superheroes I always thought Rorshach took a bit from Nietzsche. In that he has a "looking into the Abyss" moment. The irony/tragedy being that where as he thinks he looked straight in and came out galvanised, as the reader you can tell he cracked (speaks in sentence fragments etc) and the kind man you glimpse in flashbacks was destroyed, i.e. he thinks he is the Übermensch of the tale but is just a hurt man in the end.


I think the shadow of Nietsche hangs over the entire story, to be honest. Manhattan is the ultimate realization of the Übermensch concept, but I think Moore picked up on something subtle in Nietsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra that a lot of other people miss - the "Superman" was meant to be an ultimate goal of humanity, but "ultimate" means the end. It's the journey towards that goal that is important. Manhattan himself, having inadvertantly achieved/embodied that goal, was no longer human, and was outside of their perspective of time because he was no longer with them on that journey forward.
 

I think the biggest disconnect when I watched the Watchmen movie was how big a hard on Zach Snyder clearly had for Rorschach. I read the book every few years and just feel sorry for him and Comedian both.

Comedian became bitter and cynical to not let the world have the last laugh at his expense, Rorschach-the-Human was chipped away over decades, leaving the freak whose only self-validation is his (acknowledged) pointless solo crusade.

For all the image of Batman as a dark loner, he's got a huge supporting cast that prevent him becoming a violent little thug like Rorschach.
 
I think the biggest disconnect when I watched the Watchmen movie was how big a hard on Zach Snyder clearly had for Rorschach.

Not surprising as Snyder is a self-avowed objectivist...

But I do think Snyder did tend to make all the characters "big and superhero-ey" in a way contradictory to the comic's intention for them to look "ugly and silly"

The film is, I believe, a flawed masterpiece. I love it, but there are parts that are totally off the mark as an adaption.

Honestly, if I could only change one thing though, it would be the casting of Adrian Veidt/Ozymandius.

I think William Hurt would have been way better in that role.
 
Comedian became bitter and cynical to not let the world have the last laugh at his expense,

I never had any sympathy for the Comedian I always saw him as a pure psychopath. Sure, he was cynical, but he killed women and kids and was a rapist. He enjoyed it too.

At least Rorschach, tried to do the right thing... Despite his actions, being filtered through a violent and disturbed mind. He never reveled in it, unlike the Comedian. That's how I saw it anyway. :smile:
 
The fact that his diary entries purposefully echoes Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver tells you all you need to know on that score.

That of course is the irony of the ending in that his Manichean view of society makes him make the 'right' decision (as in one that I think Moore agrees with morally) and it leads to his death.
Rorschach's big decision is actually at odds with his stated ideology. Rorschach makes a big deal about how much he admires Truman for being willing to sacrifice whole cities on the grounds that it might save an even greater number of people. It's a mirror of the situation he later encounters with Ozymandias. Of course, Rorschach has ideological differences with Ozymandias, so when Ozymandias does the kind of thing Rorschach claims to admire, it's bad. And there is the fact that Truman was sacrificing the lives of foreigners, while Ozymandias sacrificed Rorschach's home city (and would could have likely killed Rorschach in the process). On top of that, Rorschach spent his spare time writing revenge porn about how the city deserved destruction.

Rorschach has no real ideological spine at all. His viewpoints twist to suit the moment.
 
Rorschach's big decision is actually at odds with his stated ideology. Rorschach makes a big deal about how much he admires Truman for being willing to sacrifice whole cities on the grounds that it might save an even greater number of people. It's a mirror of the situation he later encounters with Ozymandias. Of course, Rorschach has ideological differences with Ozymandias, so when Ozymandias does the kind of thing Rorschach claims to admire, it's bad. And there is the fact that Truman was sacrificing the lives of foreigners, while Ozymandias sacrificed Rorschach's home city (and would could have likely killed Rorschach in the process). On top of that, Rorschach spent his spare time writing revenge porn about how the city deserved destruction.

Rorschach has no real ideological spine at all. His viewpoints twist to suit the moment.

I'm not sure I totally agree. I think that for Rorschach, it's not the acts that are good or evil, only the people commiting the acts. This goes back again to Mister A - murder, theft, lying, are all okay, if the person doing it is "good", and the person it's being done to is "bad". Ozymandius is the villain, it's not the morality of the plan that matters to Rorschach. I think it's consistent, it's just also morally bankrupt.
 
Just read that the new Batman game is going to be based on Chroniques Oubliées. I'm not familiar with it, but I understand it's an OGL D20 game that's popular in France.
 
Rorschach's big decision is actually at odds with his stated ideology. Rorschach makes a big deal about how much he admires Truman for being willing to sacrifice whole cities on the grounds that it might save an even greater number of people. It's a mirror of the situation he later encounters with Ozymandias. Of course, Rorschach has ideological differences with Ozymandias, so when Ozymandias does the kind of thing Rorschach claims to admire, it's bad. And there is the fact that Truman was sacrificing the lives of foreigners, while Ozymandias sacrificed Rorschach's home city (and would could have likely killed Rorschach in the process). On top of that, Rorschach spent his spare time writing revenge porn about how the city deserved destruction.

Rorschach has no real ideological spine at all. His viewpoints twist to suit the moment.

Quite so. I find it easy to feel sorry for Walter. He's a sick man, a product of an abusive upbringing and undiagnosed mental health issues who tried to go out and be a hero, only to have his world view shattered completely, giving him no hope. His existence is pathetic and empty beyond the distant friendship of Dan and the notoriety he still has amongst the crooks he brutalizes.

But I'm going to stop talking about Watchmen now, this thread is about the Batman game.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top