At the very least, I'm glad you're having a good time reading through. I didn't say it before, but welcome to the active side of Echoes.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 am Having read thru NPC Investigations now --
Not a sleight against the Exiles, but NPC Investigations are certainly more my speed! I always love a good detective / mystery, including/especially in a superheroic setting. And they, like the Exiles, clearly have an opening PCs to join, and a very natural campaign structure.
I think the question with Penny is "what is she going to do with this power?" Because she's not a saint. NPC as a whole may sit on the heroic side of the fence, but Penny is easily the darkest of them. She has explicitly killed people during her tenure. In my view, she's the one people should be scared of, and now she's got her own personal army. Plus a mission of vengenance (for Immortia) to pursue.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amI appreciate her arc there - "You broke it, you buy it (or lead it, as the case may be)" is a good plot development. Its fascinating to see what heroes do once handed control of groups that oppose them - like when Green Arrow or Batman become head of the League of Assassins, or someone other than Nick Fury takes the wheel of SHIELD. Can you change the institution? Or is the momentum too strong?
Dark, but also a refreshing take that these aren't necessarily Highly Visible Ninja, and remember that stealth is important.
It's always surprising to me which characters of mine people latch onto. I like Carla, mind, but she's not my favorite of the core trio, let alone the whole of NPC. Penny, Harmony, and Sofia, for the record. As for the Question...yes, I'm always forgetting someone, dang it.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amShe's my favorite of the whole crew, senior and junior. It seems like she's had such a great arc, plus a real detective background, and the contrast between her powers and her archetype, it's all good stuff.
I can really see the comic panels, or Netflix episode, as the plot lands here. There's also something to seeing what happens to the would-be "one-off victim of a mad scientist" who actually has the means and willpower to keep coming after them.
I also approve of the counter-intuitive style. Sometimes people who get powers in media are shown to adapt or lose old, reflexive, behaviors really quickly, so its interesting imagining someone (with actual firefight training) having to unlearn some behaviors.
The Question, maybe? But agreed. I enjoyed the recent Batman film for remembering to make him a detective, but I doubt we'll see The Elongated Man or The Detective Chimp anytime soon to follow up on that!
It was very important to me to handle that as delicately as possible. Because he couldn't just get away with it, even if he didn't know what he was doing. But it also couldn't be too horrible, or no one would buy him as a hero. They'd want him buried under the jail, so to speak. It couldn't be too light of a thing, either, or his angst would come off as silly and something he should just get over eventually. I'm glad I managed to walk the line successfully, at least in your view.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amIt's a grim background he's had to deal with, but I think you executed it well, and the idea of a psychic addiction is solid. I appreciate that he doesn't get off lightly, but your narrative still treats him with compassion as well.EternalPhoenix wrote: ↑Fri Apr 01, 2022 12:09 am But if it was just that he’d be kind of an insufferable Marty Stu, so I gave him a giant flaw in classic Marvel style. He can’t touch people anymore, not without triggering it. And so the one who’s supposed to be the face man is actually the most socially isolated. At the time of his original creation, I had not read the Dresden Files. But during the update, I noticed he was basically a riff on Thomas Raith. So I decided to lean in when writing his entry.
Yanno, I haven't quite decided whether they're Fae or not. They are not, however, meant to be under the rule of either Queen. The Elemental Lords are supposed to be independent allies of the Faerie Courts who show the Queens their due respect. However, the Summer Queen has been going on a power trip and decided to take that "due respect" portion as they should bend the knee and obey. She is wrong, but the list of beings with the magical power to oppose her is uh, short. So she's getting away with it. Until 2019 rolls through, anyway.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amLike you say, important to have a functional and warm receptionist!
A question - the Elemental Lords - these are Fae, in the Phoenixverse? And they are all subject to the Summer Queen? Or is it Earth and Fire under Summer, Water and Air under Winter?
You are reading that right, yes. Though putting it that way makes me realize exactly what I did to poor Sofia. Sorry, love.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amLike I said, I haven't watched Buffy, but I have friends who filled me in on this plot and I've always wanted to incorporate it into a game, somehow, but its hard to do to players without feeling like you're being nasty to them. Doing it to NPCs, however? Perfectly acceptable! And its a fun notion because any friction between the two is written off as simple "sibling rivalry" by observers. I also like that (if I understand correctly), where Sonya lived as a human and had to adapt to learning her origin, Sofia got "dropped in" to a human life but with a Fae's memories.
You do have a handle on it, yes. He changed his face, name, and personality. He started his agency, stuff happened. The cast as we know them started showing up. He found a permanent source of magical power, blew up everything and left to do his own thing with Eve. It's tough for me to describe, because Hayden Street wasn't a lie or a deception. He was that guy. His feelings and actions were real and true. But at the same time, the moment he got the opportunity to be the badass wizard Roger Simon again, he took it. Because he was always Roger underneath.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amSo - maybe it's later in the thread, in which case I apologize for asking now, but what exactly was the relation between Hayden Street (I appreciate the naming!) and Roger Simon - it seems like Hayden was a false personality that wizard Roger took on, for a time, and then... escaped? It sounds like a great plot arc, provided I have a handle on it.
Great wisdom, there! And presumably foreshadowing another "Year of the _____" on some updated timeline?
Anyway, yes. Another Year of the ____ down the road somewhere. I'm working mostly on the present year of 2019, though I do have a few ideas about an Exiles update. Everything else for that is a giant shrug until I'm done with 2019...which will probably run into 2024 at this rate.
Yanno, I should look into that...Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amSo, who's leaking classified reports to Hollywood?EternalPhoenix wrote: ↑Fri Jan 28, 2022 11:48 pm His list of accomplishments literally fills books. There’s a movie series that doesn’t get many of the details wrong (all the names are changed, of course) but has been seriously ratcheting up the destruction lately.
Understudies was the best word I could think of for it. Though I don't think of it as reexamining them, but instead as approaching who they are from another angle.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amEternalPhoenix wrote: ↑Tue Apr 05, 2022 11:24 pm Individual Build Commentary: Junior Associates
The original idea for the big update was the core trio (Nihara, Perkins, and Christian) getting a pair of understudies each.
A cool way to reexamine the core trio, and then examine what defines them, both by imitation and contrast. I'll have to keep the idea of "understudies" in mind - I've created enemies and sidekicks to contrast my heroes in the past, but "understudies" is a new angle (I think of those 90s replacements like Jean-Paul Valley for Batman or Artemis for Wonder Woman - not full-time successors, like Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern or Wally West as the Flash, but temporary contrasts).
Haha, maybe a little. In my head he's a naturally chill dude, though.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amPoor guy must have the highest blood pressure pressure at NYPD or NPC. But a good evolution of the "Friend on the Force"
I will absolutely recommend The Proud Breed to anyone who likes historical fiction and can at least tolerate romance. Though when I say doorstopper I mean it. The tall hardcover I have is 571 pages long. A normal size paperback would likely jump that up a bunch. As for NY-PSI...I'll think about it.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amWell, I'll have to read that someday. And stealing characters from favorite media, especially non-obvious, non-comics sources, makes for some of the most interesting characters.EternalPhoenix wrote: ↑Tue Apr 05, 2022 11:24 pm You have a favorite book? I do. Well, I have a few that vie for the title. But the one I’m referring to is The Proud Breed, by Celeste DeBlasis. It is a pretty meticulously researched piece of historical fiction. It’s also a somewhat trashy romance novel of doorstopper length running across 50+ years of California’s history. I’m not normally a fan of romance novels, but this one, man. S’good.
Hey, if NPC Investigations was a show, that's a whole spinoff pitch on its own right there! "NY-PSI" perhaps?EternalPhoenix wrote: ↑Fri Jan 28, 2022 11:55 pm Also she’s apparently a member of a secret society of telepaths devoted to stopping telepathic crimes?
Oh yes, the Agency is Evil with a capital E. The worst excesses of capitalism and socio/psychopathyCommander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amSpeaking of TV pitches! I appreciate that what starts as a Logan or The Mandalorian style setup has been allowed to evolve here - the Old Warrior can't protect the Wonder Child forever - eventually the latter has to grow up, as you say. And what a way to make a seemingly harmless, helpful power, utterly terrifying - both for the possessor and anyone "benefitting" from it nearby. These Agency tests remind me of some of the most excessive SCP Foundation logs.
Truly they are a fantastic source of guilt-free foes to tear through. I recall certain memories of blowing away all those Cerberus troopers in Mass Effect...
The gap is like 250 years long, man. C'mon.Commander Titan wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 amIt shows how poor my grasp of Japanese history that my first thought was "Oh, did she overlap with Tenshi of the Exiles at all then?" before I did some quick research and realized the Meiji Restoration is closer in time to the present day than to the Warring States Period.EternalPhoenix wrote: ↑Sat Jan 29, 2022 12:01 am She was born (under a different name and without a surname as was common in the period) near the start of the “Warring States” (or Sengoku) Period in medieval Japan.
My mind also goes to the whole Betsy Braddock/Kwannon / Psylocke mess that recently got resolved. In the Phoenixverse it seems to have avoided a lot of the problematic aspects of the Psylocke scenario, though.EternalPhoenix wrote: ↑Tue Apr 05, 2022 11:24 pm I ponder. Oh hey, why the heck was the very white Eve looking like a Japanese girl anyway? Because she stole her appearance.
But yes, I wanted a resolution that made sense, wasn't weird and possibly racist nonsense, and also didn't make Roger or Eve look better than they were. Because they're villains, and thus should be dickheads. There's a point to be argued that how Eve became Eiko is awfully similar to how Roger became Hayden, and it's something for me to think about now.