Re: [BNW] Freedom Force characters

[The White Crow <whytcrow@io.com>]

I would like to second exactly what Cameron said, and add just a couple 
additional thoughts.

>Magician, the best thing to do on this list, or at least the one that will 
>get you the most responses, is to get all your thoughts in order and then 
>present them to everyone here.

Especially given the fact that your English is not that good, Magician, you 
need to give us more to work with.  We're willing to work around your 
limitations (uses paragraphs is a good thing!), but you need to give us 
more to comment on.


>Now, the fact that they are not original characters doesn't mean anything,

I think it does mean a lot.  If you are going to riff off what has already 
been done, you need to make it your own.  Everything is an idea used before 
-- superheros have perhaps the most over-used tropes in any one 
medium.  But that means that you can't just file down the serial numbers a 
bit -- you need to stamp them with your own unique flavor.  THis is what 
makes them interesting, makes us want to see more.

You may be keeping that information back for your planned published version 
and that's fine, but you can't expect us to comment on what we don't 
know.  You keep asking for feedback without giving us anything to feed 
on.  When you are admitting to taking the ideas straight from a game (so 
closely you were worried about infringement), and are doing nothing to 
expand upon the themes they are using, one wonders why we can't just read 
the game site and make our own versions.  What makes these guys "real?"

>I mean, BNW has pretty much a clear cut line: us or them. If you want to 
>work in areas of grey in your game, the setting works as well. But to 
>throw a third idealogy into the mess UNLESS it makes sense to the setting 
>as a whole really throws the whole thing out.

Again I say "ditto!"  Adding in a third party is fine.  But other than not 
agreeing with the fact that Truth isn't always truthful, we aren't given a 
*why* they are a third party.  And a handful of individuals versus two very 
large groups, if both are working against them, and you run into the 
question of why they are still loose.  I've asked several times the 
following questions, which have not been answered in any sense.

1.  What are these guys doing that the Defiance or DP aren't that makes 
them the people's heros?

2.  Why doesn't DP just label them Defiance and treat them as such?

3.  Why would the Defiance be against them if they are doing good works?

4.  What is their agenda? What do they get out of this?

These are the types of things that move them beyond tropes and into being 
characters.

>As I said earlier, live that dream baby, work towards getting your stuff 
>out there. Listen to my opinion, throw it in the trash if you want. Just 
>have a think even for a minute or two on what I said.

Same for me.

I still say that you should write this stuff up and submit it to Pyramid or 
somewhere if you want it published.  I believe they've had articles on BNW 
stuff before.

Jennifer