Tropes

Just calling out a note by Doyce doing the “Twelve Days of Gaming

(2) Which genre tropes that come up in an RPG genre of your choice do you love, and never get tired of? Why do you love them?

I’m just going to list some - the reason for the love should be obvious.

1. “Alternate Universe you is a _________!”
2. Bus full of Innocents.
3. Foe Romance Subtext.
4. The Masquerade will kill your Social Life.
5. With Great Power Comes Great Opposition

Finally, (6.) “Selective Amnesia about your own life/I’m a mystery even to myself” which I think is going on to varying degrees with 4 of 5 PCs in my current game.

(numbers added for reference)

1. I don’t think we’ve hit this … yet. I’m very much expecting it to jump out of the Sepiaverse and start jumping up and down on our necks.
2. We’ve had a studio audience full of innocents. That’s close. I’m sure there will be more.
3. Check!
4. This hasn’t hit us too much as of yet.
5. O, HAI, HHL!
6. Check! Check check check!

author: *** Dave H.
url: Community Forums: Tropes | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop

#4 Is more just Adam at this point.

#2 was more like carloads full of innocents with the Sablestar fight.

author: Doyce T.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5899656

“I do not have time to built a TVtropes-style page for the game. I do not have time to build a…”

author: Doyce T.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5899657

Ah. Forgot the Sablestar fight (or that aspect of it).

4 is Adam, sure – he’s a Janus, after all, but I haven’t yet see it have that much of an impact, yet. (He’s had separate problems, to be sure.) Though, heck, it’s arguably an issue for Jason, too (not the masquerade, but the publicity, and his own dealing with his famous life; Leo might fit into that, too).

author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5899709

*** Dave H. said:

Just calling out a note by Doyce doing the “Twelve Days of Gaming

1. I don’t think we’ve hit this … yet. I’m very much expecting it to jump out of the Sepiaverse and start jumping up and down on our necks.

SNOWMAN hasn’t made an appearance yet but is waiting in the wings.

author: Bill G.
url: Community Forums: Tropes | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop

Bill G. said:

*** Dave H. said:

Just calling out a note by Doyce doing the “Twelve Days of Gaming

1. I don’t think we’ve hit this … yet. I’m very much expecting it to jump out of the Sepiaverse and start jumping up and down on our necks.

SNOWMAN hasn’t made an appearance yet but is waiting in the wings.

That’s the second TPB collection…

author: Doyce T.
url: Community Forums: Tropes | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop

*** Dave H. said:

4 is Adam, sure – he’s a Janus, after all, but I haven’t yet see it have that much of an impact, yet. (He’s had separate problems, to be sure.) Though, heck, it’s arguably an issue for Jason, too (not the masquerade, but the publicity, and his own dealing with his famous life; Leo might fit into that, too).

Adam is the inverse of the usual character with a secret identity. Those closest to him do know his secret, so the “will they find out” tension isn’t there. It feels like Adam’s tension is more like “will they let me keep doing it”, which has definitely been front and center.

Leo’s personality kills his social life, rather than his masquerade :slight_smile: If Rossum was definitely captured or otherwise dealt with, the only thing keeping Leo from unmasking and getting it over with is the fact that he hangs out with Adam at school, Adam does have a secret ID, and Leo is reasonably sure people would put 2+2 together. But he’s otherwise not really conflicted about it.

author: Bill G.
url: Community Forums: Tropes | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop

I think the thing with Adam probably stems from the fact that he didn’t originally start out as a Janus. I’ve thought about it a bit, since as you pointed out the Janus bit is flipped a it for him.

author: Doyce T.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5900295

I mean, option 1 doesn’t have to be “evil doppelganger” either. There’s a lot of ways to have fun with it. Here’s a common one.

Leah Snow rubs the bridge of her nose, and stares down at the blueprints in front of her. The machinery will work. The calculations are correct. The senior Dr. Quill and her bodyguard might be reachable, even Dr. Chin. But there’s just no way to stabilize a portal! Charles Palmer can get there, but that’s fraught with peril.

A happy accident trying to reach the Clarenverse revealed the existence of another parallel dimension, on the “other side” of the continuum. Maybe the team has parallel selves living there. Leah wonders what she’d be like in another universe, under another set of circumstances.

She looks behind her, toward the shared sleeping area, at the sleeping form of Flamma. She bites her lip briefly. God, he’s so hot. The two have had a rocky relationship - sometimes friends, sometimes more - ever since his creation. The android was made to be a workmate and friend, but Leah let enough of her secret desires and frustrated dreams into the mental matrix that he emerged as someone quite different from what she expected. Still, how things are now isn’t so bad. He’s still with her, eager to assist her research, able to calm her down after a frustrating day in the laboratory, always there with a kind word or understanding touch. She’s not sure she likes how Medea Quill sometimes looks at him, but such things can be forgiven among teammates. As long as nothing happens.

Is there another Flamma in that universe? She’s not sure how she’d handle two good-looking android boys.

Enough of that, girl. People are counting on you. You’re a genius. Get back to acting like one. To balance the dimensional aperture, something else is needed. A third connection? To that far-off dimension, past the Clarenverse? If there is another Leah, could she reach her and convince her to work together? The Clarenverse isn’t stable, but Leah’s home dimension is, and maybe that one is too. Two stable universes, with a bridge through to the Clarenverse between them… And maybe those people are trying to retrieve someone too, depending on how similar their world is!

Alistair Chin left behind quite a bit of dimensional data, quite by accident - maybe, the team is still soberly debating that - when he attacked Medea Quill through her nano-bits. Leah’s preferred field is robotics, but she can quickly get up to speed on any science she can study. Would the people in the other universe have had similar experiences? Maybe. Hopefully. But just in case, she starts writing up a primer for her other self, for a girl who might not have studied dimensional engineering.

I wonder if she’s had as much trouble with her mother as I have.

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5900521

And just because I’m awake at 5:30 am, here’s my world-building assumptions that fed into that.

  • Supers and their relevant supporting cast are gender-swapped, but most people are the same. Maybe whatever effect gives people powers also affects the XX/XY selection in humans, as a physical law in this universe, and people like Concord might have some latent power potential that the shard locked onto, explaining why he’s also swapped, ditto Ghost Girl. Or maybe that’s just how the dice were weighted to roll here.
  • Gender identity and gender roles in society color the characters, but don’t change their heroic destiny. Leah Snow is still a hot-blooded inventor who built powered armor, but she was influenced by the no-nonsense ladies of Bubblegum Crisis, not the masculine braves of the Sunrise robot series. She and her android ex fight in twin AI-equipped transforming motorcycles as a result. Medea Quill isn’t upset that she was voiced by a girl in the cartoon, but she dislikes the stupid romance subplot the producers added because reasons.

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5900763

That… Is not the Sepiaverse. But hot damn is this one out there somewhere.

author: Doyce T.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5900785

Their Clarenverse (from Instagram’s Clarendon filter) could be the Sepiaverse, a “second Sepiaverse” on its own, or something else entirely. Either way, it seemed a logical reason for them to contact us, if that was ever a thing. I didn’t feel comfortable speculating on what Sepia clones we might have, and this was more fun anyway. :slight_smile:

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5900794

If you need a name for this one, I’ll suggest (without explanation, due to possible spoilers) the Pidgeverse.

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5900825

author: James H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5901246

Oh, there are all sorts of parallel zaniness that could go on. Maybe the universe where our counterparts are all well-adjusted and selfless, and who see *us* as the Evil Twins… ("Oh my God, their Dr Quill has a beard!").

author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5901321

*** Dave H. said:

Oh, there are all sorts of parallel zaniness that could go on. Maybe the universe where our counterparts are all well-adjusted and selfless, and who see *us* as the Evil Twins… ("Oh my God, their Dr Quill has a beard!").

I say, with a mixture of sadness, amusement, and hope, that the world where our counterparts are well-adjusted also doesn’t have them team up with each other.

author: Bill G.
url: Community Forums: Tropes | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop

In the stepford-verse, you all very cordially despise each other.

author: Doyce T.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5901485

“Stuck-up picks,” as Dad used to say about the HHL. Even in the Menagerieverse.

(Just wait until the HHL hears us refer to it as the Menagerieverse.)

author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5901500

Bill G. said:

*** Dave H. said:

4 is Adam, sure – he’s a Janus, after all, but I haven’t yet see it have that much of an impact, yet. (He’s had separate problems, to be sure.) Though, heck, it’s arguably an issue for Jason, too (not the masquerade, but the publicity, and his own dealing with his famous life; Leo might fit into that, too).

Adam is the inverse of the usual character with a secret identity. Those closest to him do know his secret, so the “will they find out” tension isn’t there. It feels like Adam’s tension is more like “will they let me keep doing it”, which has definitely been front and center.

Even if I did the Janus route first… I still probably had Adam’s immediate family know. The drama and mistrust of the family not knowing isn’t drama I wanted, the familial responsibility and pressure was the drama I wanted. I took a lot of my cues on this from the 2006-2009 Jamie Reyes Blue Beetle comics (which I fully endorse because they are amazing) and in those, Jamie has a really supportive family and friends who help him cope with all the craziness of being a hero.

author: Mike
url: Community Forums: Tropes | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop

Yes, there is definitely a big Reyes Blue Beetle vibe with Adam (in such a good way).

author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5901584