Jab’s Builds! (Shingen! Leather & Lace! The Lunatic Legion!)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
MissRo
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Constrictor! Taskmaster! GoodFellas! Captain Scarlet!)

Post by MissRo »

Goddamn, those marionettes are grade A nightmare fuel.

Great Rick, Jab. He's a step behind Sam Spade as my favourite Bogie character, but it doesn't get much more iconic.
Jabroniville
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Ilsa

Post by Jabroniville »

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"Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'"

---

Captain Renault: No matter how clever he is, he still needs an exit visa... or I should say two?
Rick: Why two?
Captain Renault: He is traveling with a lady.
Rick: He'll take one.
Captain Renault: I think not. I have seen the lady.


ILSA LUND
Played By:
Ingrid Bergman
Role: The Woman, Point of the Love Triangle
Group Affiliations: The Resistance
PL 3 (40)
STRENGTH
0 STAMINA 0 AGILITY 1
FIGHTING 1 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Deception 3 (+5)
Expertise (Current Events) 4 (+5)
Expertise (History) 2 (+3)
Expertise (Freedom Fighter) 2 (+3)
Persuasion 4 (+6, +8 Attractive)
Insight 3 (+4)
Stealth 5 (+6)
Vehicles 2 (+3)

Advantages:
Attractive, Equipment 2 (Pistol +4), Languages (Various European- English, French, Czech), Ranged Attack 2

Offense:
Unarmed +1 (+0 Damage, DC 15)
Pistol +2 (+4 Ranged Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +1

Defenses:
Dodge +4 (DC 14), Parry +2 (DC 12), Toughness +0, Fortitude +2, Will +3

Complications:
Responsibility (Loves Rick Blaine)- Rick was her lover when she thought Victor dead, and she loved him more.
Responsibility (Loves Victor Laszlo)- Victor is Ilsa's oldest love, as well as her mentor. Her duty is to him.
Responsibility (The Resistance)
Enemy (The Nazis)

Total: Abilities: 14 / Skills: 24--12 / Advantages: 6 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 8 (40)

-Ilsa kind of gets a lame job in this film, as she's torn between two men, but the decision between them gets made FOR her, and she gets probably the least amount of awesome lines as any character in the thing. Even so, she's portrayed as like the most beautiful woman EVER by every male in the movie, and she does a workmanlike job of holding the plot together.

-Ilsa falls short of many of the military-trained men in the movie, but she's fairly athletic, and quite skilled at the Resistance herself, being a capable ally. Plus, she's got a gun.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Sun Sep 04, 2022 4:50 am, edited 2 times in total.
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Constrictor! Taskmaster! GoodFellas! Captain Scarlet!)

Post by Jabroniville »

MissRo wrote: Tue Sep 05, 2017 7:16 am Goddamn, those marionettes are grade A nightmare fuel.

Great Rick, Jab. He's a step behind Sam Spade as my favourite Bogie character, but it doesn't get much more iconic.
Thanks!

What I find funny about this movie is... the core plot makes absolutely no sense. Like... there's no reason in the world why a letter of transit would allow a political refugee to escape Nazi-controlled Morocco. The Nazis have guards everywhere, and would simply prevent Laszlo from leaving. But as Roger Ebert points out in one of his reviews of the film, it doesn't matter HOW the stupid things work- what matters is that it's what everyone wants, and what Victor needs.

It's an important lesson, and one that fits a lot of people who nitpick various movies and try to find the plot holes in them- things sometimes just need to work in order to have the plot work. While it's not an excuse for shoddy plotsmanship, it's something to think about.

(may or may not be related to arguments my toddler-having friend and I frequently have over Frozen having plot holes)
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Victor Laszlo

Post by Jabroniville »

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Victor Laszlo: I know a good deal more about you than you suspect. I know, for instance, that you're in love with a woman. It is perhaps a strange circumstance that we both should be in love with the same woman. The first evening I came to this café, I knew there was something between you and Ilsa. Since no one is to blame, I - I demand no explanation. I ask only one thing. You won't give me the letters of transit: all right, but I want my wife to be safe. I ask you as a favor, to use the letters to take her away from Casablanca.
Rick: You love her that much?
Victor Laszlo: Apparently you think of me only as the leader of a cause. Well, I'm also a human being. Yes, I love her that much.


---

Rick: Don't you sometimes wonder if it's worth all this? I mean what you're fighting for.
Victor Laszlo: You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we'll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.
Rick: Well, what of it? It'll be out of its misery.
Victor Laszlo: You know how you sound, Mr. Blaine? Like a man who's trying to convince himself of something he doesn't believe in his heart.


VICTOR LASZLO
Played By:
Paul Henreid
Role: The Resistance Leader
Group Affiliations: The Resistance
PL 4 (78)
STRENGTH
1 STAMINA 2 AGILITY 1
FIGHTING 4 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 3 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Deception 4 (+5)
Expertise (Resistance Fighter) 6 (+9)
Expertise (History) 6 (+9)
Insight 2 (+5)
Investigation 5 (+8)
Perception 5 (+8)
Persuasion 4 (+5)
Sleight of Hand 5 (+7)
Vehicles 3 (+5)

Advantages:
Benefit (Reputation, Famed Leader of the Resistance), Contacts, Connected, Diehard, Equipment 2 (Pistol +4), Fearless, Improved Defense, Inspire, Languages (Many European- English, French, Czech), Leadership, Rallying Cry, Ranged Attack 2

Offense:
Unarmed +4 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Pistol +4 (+4 Ranged Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +1

Defenses:
Dodge +5 (DC 15), Parry +4 (DC 14), Toughness +2, Fortitude +5, Will +6

Complications:
Responsibility (The Resistance)- Laszlo is the fabled leader of a major Resistance movement in Occupied Europe.
Responsibility (Loves Ilsa Lund)
Enemy (The Nazis)

Total: Abilities: 34 / Skills: 40--20 / Advantages: 14 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 10 (78)

Abilities: 22 / Skills: 72--18 / Feats: 11 / Powers: 0 / Saves: 7 / Combat: 18 (76)

-Victor Laszlo is the famed leader of the Resistance movement in Occupied Europe against the Nazis- so famous that Casablanca buzzes with his arrival, and some very important Germans show up immediately for the purpose of extraditing him. He's escaped from Concentration Camp after Concentration Camp, and been rumored dead many times (one of which, his wife Ilsa believed, thus her hook-up with Rick), but here he is, with wife in tow, searching for the magic "Letters of Transit" that will take him to unoccupied areas (of course this makes no sense in reality, but it's the Macguffin the whole movie resides around).

-The writers had a hard thing to do with Laszlo. They had to make RICK the "good guy" in the Romantic Triangle- the one we all cheered for. But Laszlo's a HERO, and supposedly the wiser, smarter choice. So instead of Bogie's cynical, weary drunkard, we get a stiff, stand-offish type fellow who comes across very dry and unfunny. Thus, the charismatic Rick comes across as 'cooler', so you want him to win Ilsa's love. But the movie still doesn't make Victor the enemy- he nearly sacrifices himself for his wife, and then there's that brilliant scene where the Germans sit in Rick's Cafe, singing patrotic songs to all the refugees present. Laszlo runs up to the band, and- this is brilliant- commands them to play "La Marseilles", the French national anthem. The entire Cafe gets swept up in anti-German, patriotic fervor, being moved to TEARS as they howl out the anthem, drowning out the hapless Krauts, and setting off another major plot element in the film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt1vQ81j ... re=related). Laszlo was lesser than Rick, but hell, he was still awesome.

-Victor Laszlo is a skilled tactician, brave, and utterly loyal. He lacks Rick's charisma, but he has enough Advantages based around building the resolve of others that he makes up for it. He's in a bit better shape (he's survived torture and illness many times), and he's good at escaping, making him a little more expensive than the similarly-worldly Rick.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Sun Sep 04, 2022 4:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Ken
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Constrictor! Taskmaster! GoodFellas! Captain Scarlet!)

Post by Ken »

It doesn't take much to see that the Complications of three little characters don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy thread.
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Re: S.I.G.

Post by Jabroniville »

HalloweenJack wrote: Mon Sep 04, 2017 7:45 pm
Used to watch that on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the day. Much preferred it over Stingray.
It's weird, because I don't recall ANY stations carrying the other Anderson shows. I know Thunderbirds was on once or twice in my life, but nothing was as prominently-placed as Captain Scarlet was. Given how obscure it is, that's a bit odd.

Many Anderson shows were quite popular in Japan, it seems- given their own cultural thing with puppets (bunraku and the like), I guess it makes some sense. I was quite surprised when I visited that country to see a HUGE wall of their Toys R Us packed to the brim with modern-day Thunderbirds stuff. Given its much smaller portion of the North American TRU chain's walls, it's quite different. And this was two years ago!
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Constrictor! Taskmaster! GoodFellas! Captain Scarlet!)

Post by Jabroniville »

KorokoMystia wrote: Mon Sep 04, 2017 10:52 pm There was also a Captain Indigo, who was so minor that in the original series that he only appeared in one episode, got killed and replaced, and never appeared wearing the Spectrum uniform.
WEIRD. He doesn't appear on the main bios, but I see a note of him (his puppet shares a face with a few other characters). Naturally, there's a FanFic all about him :).
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Arkrite
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Constrictor! Taskmaster! GoodFellas! Captain Scarlet!)

Post by Arkrite »

Casablanca is a great movie.
The pacing at first can be a little slow for modern day audiences, but the banter... oh my, the banter!
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Goldar
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Constrictor! Taskmaster! GoodFellas! Captain Scarlet!)

Post by Goldar »

Arkrite wrote: Tue Sep 05, 2017 1:30 pm Casablanca is a great movie.
The pacing at first can be a little slow for modern day audiences, but the banter... oh my, the banter!
Yes, this!

Those old classics are the best!
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Constrictor! Taskmaster! GoodFellas! Captain Scarlet!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Oh yeah- the BANTER:

Ugarte: You despise me, don't you?
Rick: If I gave you any thought I probably would.
Ugarte: But why? Oh, you object to the kind of business I do, huh? But think of all those poor refugees who must rot in this place if I didn't help them. Well that's not so bad, through ways of my own, I provide them with exit visas.
Rick: For a price, Ugarte, for a price.
Ugarte: But think of all the poor devils who can't meet Renault's price. I get it for them for half. Is that so parasitic?
Rick: I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one.
...
Ugarte: You know, Rick, I have many a friend in Casablanca, but somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust.


---

Ilsa: Rick, I have to talk to you.
Rick: [Rick is drunk] Uh-huh. I saved my first drink to have with you. Here.
[passes her a drink]
Ilsa: No. No, Rick, not tonight.
Rick: *Especially* tonight.
Ilsa: Please...
[he pours a drink]
Rick: Why did you have to come to Casablanca? There are other places.
Ilsa: I wouldn't have come if I'd known that you were here. Believe me Rick, it's true I didn't know...
Rick: It's funny about your voice, how it hasn't changed. I can still hear it. "Richard, dear, I'll go with you anyplace. We'll get on a train together and never stop - "
Ilsa: Don't, Rick! I can understand how you feel.
Rick: [scoffs] You understand how I feel. How long was it we had, honey?
Ilsa: [on the verge of tears] I didn't count the days.
Rick: Well, I did. Every one of 'em. Mostly I remember the last one. The wow finish. A guy standing on a station platform in the rain with a comical look in his face because his insides have been kicked out.
Ilsa: Can I tell you a story, Rick?
Rick: Has it got a wow finish?
Ilsa: I don't know the finish yet.
Rick: Well, go on. Tell it - maybe one will come to you as you go along.
Ilsa: It's about a girl who had just come to Paris from her home in Oslo. At the house of some friends, she met a man about whom she'd heard her whole life. A very great and courageous man. He opened up for her a whole beautiful world full of knowledge and thoughts and ideals. Everything she knew or ever became was because of him. And she looked up to him and worshiped him... with a feeling she supposed was love.
Rick: [bitterly] Yes, it's very pretty. I heard a story once - as a matter of fact, I've heard a lot of stories in my time. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. "Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid," it always began.
[laughs]
Rick: Well, I guess neither one of our stories is very funny. Tell me, who was it you left me for? Was it Lazlo, or were there others in between or... aren't you the kind that tells?
[Ilsa tearfully and silently leaves. Rick's face falls in his hands sadly, knowing that he's said all the wrong things]
Last edited by Jabroniville on Tue Sep 05, 2017 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jabroniville
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Sam

Post by Jabroniville »

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"You must remember this / A kiss is still a kiss / A sigh is just a sigh / The fundamental things apply / As time goes by. / And when two lovers woo, / They still say, "I love you" / On that you can rely / No matter what the future brings-... "

SAM
Played By:
Dooley Wilson
Role: The Black Best Friend
Group Affiliations: Rick's Cafe Americain
PL 2 (48)
STRENGTH
1 STAMINA 1 AGILITY 1
FIGHTING 2 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Deception 2 (+4)
Persuasion 2 (+4)
Expertise (Singing & Piano) 6 (+8)

Advantages:
Ultimate Skill (Perform- Piano)

Offense:
Unarmed +2 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Initiative +1

Defenses:
Dodge +2 (DC 12), Parry +2 (DC 12), Toughness +1, Fortitude +2, Will +4

Complications:
Responsibility (Rick's Best Buddy)

Total: Abilities: 16 / Skills: 10--5 / Advantages: 1 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 5 (48)

-Sam's pretty cool, and one of the very first non-offensive black characters in Hollywood, being Rick's best friend, a performer in his Cafe, nothing more. He didn't do much in the main plot, but it's known he's loyal to Rick (he's horrified to see Ilsa for the first time in years, knowing what she did to poor Rick, waiting on that train station...), and is such a good performer that Signor Ferrari makes no mistake when Rick tries to high-ball Sam's salary upon Ferrari's taking over the Cafe "I happen to know he makes ten, but he's worth fifteen!" Sam is, unfortunately (and without a goodbye?), left alone at the end of the film, just being a performer still, as Rick & Renault fly off to fight in the Resistance.
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Renault

Post by Jabroniville »

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(to Rick) "I've often speculated why you don't return to America. Did you abscond with the church funds? Run off with a senator's wife? I like to think you killed a man. It's the Romantic in me."

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
[aloud]
Captain Renault: Everybody out at once!


CAPTAIN LOUIS RENAULT
Played By:
Claude Rains
Role: The Corrupt Cop
Group Affiliations: Vichy France, Casablanca Police
PL 3 (68)
STRENGTH
1 STAMINA 0 AGILITY 0
FIGHTING 0 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Deception 4 (+5)
Expertise (Streetwise) 4 (+4)
Expertise (Police Officer) 4 (+4)
Insight 2 (+3)
Investigation 4 (+5)
Perception 2 (+3)
Persuasion 4 (+5)
Vehicles 2 (+2)

Advantages:
Benefit 2 (Police Captain), Equipment 2 (Pistol +4), Minions 8 (City Police), Ranged Attack 2

Offense:
Unarmed +0 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Pistol +2 (+4 Ranged Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +1

Defenses:
Dodge +2 (DC 12), Parry +2 (DC 12), Toughness +0, Fortitude +2, Will +1

Complications:
Reputation (Corrupt Ass-Kisser)- Renault is openly and gleefully corrupt, allowing all sorts of crime to go about, so long as his coffers are filled and he's allowed to win at Backgammon. He goes with the winds.

Total: Abilities: 6 / Skills: 26--13 / Advantages: 12 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 6 (68)

-Captain Renault is probably the most quotable character in the entire movie, which makes sense- he's part comic relief, part funny villain. An absolutely amoral man at first, he openly jokes about how corrupt he is ("I have no convictions... I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy") and how he treats those he arrests ("I'm trying to decide if he committed suicide, or was killed trying to escape"), and he openly trades sex for favours amongst the female refugees, but he likes Rick, because Rick violates none of Renault's particular rules (ie. he doesn't piss off his Nazi bosses), and also because Rick lets him win at Roulette.

-But by the end of the movie, Renault tires of being a butt-monkey for the Nazis, and takes a huge risk. With Rick standing, guilty as sin, over the dead body of Major Strasser, Renault tells the Nazis "Major Strasser has been shot- Round up the usual suspects", saving his friend and deciding to join the full Resistance, giving up his cushy, corrupt job.

-Renault is less skillful than most of the other characters. He's more of a pencil-pusher and busybody than a real effective police officer, and gets by more on his goons and German allies than his own wits and skills. Still, he will work in a pinch.
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L-Space
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Constrictor! Taskmaster! GoodFellas! Captain Scarlet!)

Post by L-Space »

Going a couple days back here, but I really enjoyed Constrictor and Bengal in The Initiative run. I like redemption stories for comic villains and I feel like theirs was handled really well and I would have read an entire book dedicated to those two making amends.
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Constrictor! Taskmaster! GoodFellas! Captain Scarlet!)

Post by Horsenhero »

I like Casablanca (almost as much as Maltese Falcon) and I used to play this game with a buddy of mine where we imagined the final fates of characters in films. We both figure Sam would have been the only major character to live through the war. Ilsa and Victor are doomed. The Nazis need them dead and won't stop trying until it happens. Rick is just tired of it all and will take on riskier and riskier missions with the resistance until his combined good fortune and skill will fail him, which is exactly what he's looking for. Louie will act as a spy and a competent one, but one day his web of lies will catch up with him and he'll be shot (either for spying or turning double agent). Signor Ferrari (Sidney Greenstreet's wonderfully portrayed loathsome sleazy businessman) will just run afoul of the authorities once too often and not even his ill-gotten wealth will buy his life.

I know it seems kind of a downer, but the movie is about the types of people who don't get happy endings, so why pretend they would? I think it's much more respectful to them all to imagine them going out in ways befitting the characters.
Last edited by Horsenhero on Tue Sep 05, 2017 10:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Ken
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Constrictor! Taskmaster! GoodFellas! Captain Scarlet!)

Post by Ken »

The bookstore scene in Maltese Falcon is one of the sexiest scenes committed to celluloid.
My Amazing Woman: a super-hero romantic comedy podcast.

When the most powerful super hero on Earth marries an ordinary man, hilarity ensues.
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