Heroes, Now really.
Oct. 16th, 2006 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebitterguyDuring yesterday's mini CoC chargen, I brought out Heroes Now to use for a larf.
Before we begin, it seems appropriate to look into the controversial history of the supplement. No, I'm not kidding. And, yes, that's a six year old thread. Find me a newer one on Usenet that's that enthusiastic.
Anyway, the Central Casting books had rough Alignment systems built into them. Characters were either Lightside (with attitudes of Ethical, Conscientious, or Chivalrous), Neutral (attitudes Self-Centered, Apathetic, Anarchic, Materialistic, Egalitarian or Conformist) or Darkside ( with the creatively titled attitudes of Depraved, Deviant, or Diabolical). For games with Alignments you would likely map them onto whatever the game's system allowed.
The definitions are a bit odd, of course, because some people would see self-centered as more Darkside (depending on how it expressed itself, of course), while Egalitarian is more Lightside. But then, that goes into a combination of gamer pedantry and philosophy, and any room that contains THAT debate needs to be set on fire.
As you generated the character, they'd gain Lightside and Darkside points from their personality traits, etc, etc. Lightside traits included such things as Optimism, Altruism, Patience, and Thrift(?). Neutral traits included Intro/Extroversion, Logic, Passivity and Aggression. He DID put Liberalism and Conservatism into the Neutral trait category, so you could at least say he's no Anne Coulter. At least, for the next few minutes.
Darkside traits included being Hateful, Violent, Dull and a Spendthrift. Okay, those last two make NO sense. Being boring or bad with money aren't awesome personality traits, but they're hardly 'benchmarks of evil'.
Then, you got the Exotic Personality Traits. They could be a Mental Affliction, a Phobia (aren't those Mental Afflictions?), an Allergy (buh?), Behaviour Tag, or Sexual Perversion.
Now, I'm gonna do some quoting.
From the opening of the book, the Political Correctness warning:
"It was decided well in advance that this book would definitely not be "politically correct". In fact, its contents tend toward the socially, politically, morally, ethically, and religiously conservative side. To tell the truth, the authors and editors think our heritage of western culture, heterosexuality, traditional families, Judeo-Christian values, Jesus Christ and God are all pretty neat. While we won't force them on you, we do recommend them to everybody -- your life can only be better for it. As such, this book contains expressions of the authors' personal value structures that could be quite unpopular with those who assign equal value to all cultures, religions, lifestyles, sexual, or moral choices.
As to those who feel that adventure gaming is an incorrect forum in which to express editorial views on these matters, just look at the burgeoning presence of opposing views and decomposing values aired in television, movies, books, "art", public schools, the news and indeed, adventure gaming itself.It's difficult to buck the trends, but someone has to balance the scales. COnsider this book to be one of the "Op-Ed" pages in gaming
So if your sensibilities will be offended by exposure to values other than those of the "pop" philosophies of the moment, you had best return this book to the shelf right now. We'd sure like you to buy it, but not at the cost of compromising our own beliefs.
Paul Jaquays, May 26 1991"
The essay displays that combination of reasonableness and being a bit of a condescending dick that's come to be loved by so many.
The section on sexual perversions continues the opinioneering. After a short Position Statement, he says that
A. Any sexual relationship other than that between a husband and wife is wrong.
B. Perverse sexual desires are a form of learned and ingrained behaviour and as such can be controlled, overcome and eventually replaced by healthy desires and behaviour.
C. Using Roleplay to vicariously experience wrong behavior (sic) is a bad idea.
That was in Heroes NOW, which was the modern day version of the Central Casting books. The Heroes of Legend and Heroes of Tomorrow just had a list of sexual perversions, without the lecturing. Whether that's better or worse, I leave for the audience at home.
Anyway. Now you know why the Central Casting books are somewhat controversial. Another reason? They're pretty bad.
Yesterday, while they were putting their PCs together, I had![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nottheterritory and madmanofprague roll some dice. Some results (nottheterritory being a wealthy Lebanese scholar of James Joyce and madmanofprague being a poor artist from the US) fit fairly well. Others did not.
For example.nottheterritory's character, if we had taken the rolls as valid, would have been part of octuplets whose birth would have resulted in the inadvertent death of a criminal, a vigilante group, and another third party who had not yet been rolled for.
The book got put down there. Sure, it was a horror game, but that was just silly. It's a CoC character. In all odds, he'll be dead by the time next Monday rolls around.
Before we begin, it seems appropriate to look into the controversial history of the supplement. No, I'm not kidding. And, yes, that's a six year old thread. Find me a newer one on Usenet that's that enthusiastic.
Anyway, the Central Casting books had rough Alignment systems built into them. Characters were either Lightside (with attitudes of Ethical, Conscientious, or Chivalrous), Neutral (attitudes Self-Centered, Apathetic, Anarchic, Materialistic, Egalitarian or Conformist) or Darkside ( with the creatively titled attitudes of Depraved, Deviant, or Diabolical). For games with Alignments you would likely map them onto whatever the game's system allowed.
The definitions are a bit odd, of course, because some people would see self-centered as more Darkside (depending on how it expressed itself, of course), while Egalitarian is more Lightside. But then, that goes into a combination of gamer pedantry and philosophy, and any room that contains THAT debate needs to be set on fire.
As you generated the character, they'd gain Lightside and Darkside points from their personality traits, etc, etc. Lightside traits included such things as Optimism, Altruism, Patience, and Thrift(?). Neutral traits included Intro/Extroversion, Logic, Passivity and Aggression. He DID put Liberalism and Conservatism into the Neutral trait category, so you could at least say he's no Anne Coulter. At least, for the next few minutes.
Darkside traits included being Hateful, Violent, Dull and a Spendthrift. Okay, those last two make NO sense. Being boring or bad with money aren't awesome personality traits, but they're hardly 'benchmarks of evil'.
Then, you got the Exotic Personality Traits. They could be a Mental Affliction, a Phobia (aren't those Mental Afflictions?), an Allergy (buh?), Behaviour Tag, or Sexual Perversion.
Now, I'm gonna do some quoting.
From the opening of the book, the Political Correctness warning:
"It was decided well in advance that this book would definitely not be "politically correct". In fact, its contents tend toward the socially, politically, morally, ethically, and religiously conservative side. To tell the truth, the authors and editors think our heritage of western culture, heterosexuality, traditional families, Judeo-Christian values, Jesus Christ and God are all pretty neat. While we won't force them on you, we do recommend them to everybody -- your life can only be better for it. As such, this book contains expressions of the authors' personal value structures that could be quite unpopular with those who assign equal value to all cultures, religions, lifestyles, sexual, or moral choices.
As to those who feel that adventure gaming is an incorrect forum in which to express editorial views on these matters, just look at the burgeoning presence of opposing views and decomposing values aired in television, movies, books, "art", public schools, the news and indeed, adventure gaming itself.It's difficult to buck the trends, but someone has to balance the scales. COnsider this book to be one of the "Op-Ed" pages in gaming
So if your sensibilities will be offended by exposure to values other than those of the "pop" philosophies of the moment, you had best return this book to the shelf right now. We'd sure like you to buy it, but not at the cost of compromising our own beliefs.
Paul Jaquays, May 26 1991"
The essay displays that combination of reasonableness and being a bit of a condescending dick that's come to be loved by so many.
The section on sexual perversions continues the opinioneering. After a short Position Statement, he says that
A. Any sexual relationship other than that between a husband and wife is wrong.
B. Perverse sexual desires are a form of learned and ingrained behaviour and as such can be controlled, overcome and eventually replaced by healthy desires and behaviour.
C. Using Roleplay to vicariously experience wrong behavior (sic) is a bad idea.
That was in Heroes NOW, which was the modern day version of the Central Casting books. The Heroes of Legend and Heroes of Tomorrow just had a list of sexual perversions, without the lecturing. Whether that's better or worse, I leave for the audience at home.
Anyway. Now you know why the Central Casting books are somewhat controversial. Another reason? They're pretty bad.
Yesterday, while they were putting their PCs together, I had
nottheterritory and madmanofprague roll some dice. Some results (nottheterritory being a wealthy Lebanese scholar of James Joyce and madmanofprague being a poor artist from the US) fit fairly well. Others did not.For example.
nottheterritory's character, if we had taken the rolls as valid, would have been part of octuplets whose birth would have resulted in the inadvertent death of a criminal, a vigilante group, and another third party who had not yet been rolled for. The book got put down there. Sure, it was a horror game, but that was just silly. It's a CoC character. In all odds, he'll be dead by the time next Monday rolls around.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 07:54 pm (UTC)I once rolled up a halfling whose father was, according to the dice roll, a horse thief. I'm guessing he was the only halfling horse thief in the history of the world ...
no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 09:10 pm (UTC)*cough*
And not... not really halflings.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 10:08 pm (UTC)Funny, that's what my half-dragon character always said about his father.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 10:30 pm (UTC)I really can't see much point with CoC though. It's not like a CoC story really revolves around the background of the PCs...
no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 10:31 pm (UTC)