The Gaming Den

Posted: **Sat Jan 23, 2016 2:45 am**

hyzmarca wrote:Strong Female Protagonist
http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com

About a superhero who figures out that beating up criminals doesn't sold any of the underlying structural problems that cause crime.

Also, Erfworld seems to be updating on a regular schedule again, has a buffer and an art team.

I just finished binge-reading the entirety of Strong Female Protagonist. Damn that's a good comic! Thanks for recommending it.

And yes, Erfworld getting it's schedule in gear and updating regularly and once again having good art is a wonderful thing.

Posted: **Sun Jan 24, 2016 1:45 am**

hyzmarca wrote:Strong Female Protagonist
http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com

About a superhero who figures out that beating up criminals doesn't sold any of the underlying structural problems that cause crime. .

I need to check my nostalgia goggles, but my knee jerk reaction is that the series is a serious reconstruction of the absurdist deconstruction of superheroes that The Tick gave us.

The Tick is superstrong, nigh-invulnerable, and possibly the most powerful superhero in his mileau. So is Allison Green. The Tick causes property damage via his superleaping. So does Allison Green. The Tick has an occasional teammate of questionable worth in a fight who has a bat head. So does Allison Green. The Tick convinces himself that the good guys have saved the day even when they took so long that the laser carved parts of the moon; Allison convinces herself that there are no more supervillans when Menace surrenders.

The Tick has no recollection of his past and wants nothing more than to be a superhero. Allison wants nothing more than to move beyond her past and stop being a
superhero. The Tick is blithely oblivious and sees everything through the lens of superheroics. Allison is so hyper aware of ethical dillemas that she refuses to see even supervillans as anything but real people with all the complexity that entails.

Basically, the two characters are either completely identical, or diametrically opposed on most possible points of comparison. I can't wait for the crossover

Posted: **Sun Jan 24, 2016 2:01 am**

Check adult fanfic sites, Josh, I'm sure you'll find it.

Posted: **Sun Jan 24, 2016 2:23 am**

Josh_Kablack wrote:The Tick causes property damage via his superleaping. So does Allison Green.

The Tick convinces himself that the good guys have saved the day even when they took so long that the laser carved parts of the moon; Allison convinces herself that there are no more supervillans when Menace surrenders.

She does? I never noticed.

The whole world is convinced there are no more Tier One supervillains.

I don't really see any connection with the Tick beyond both of them being deconstructions, and the consequences of that. Super strength and invulnerability are the most vanilla powers to have and Superman has them, the obvious choice for the second guy is a Batman riff and so on.

Besides, twisting the Tick into something like that is a little too deep for a comic where ultimately the main character rejects punching supervillains, vigilantism, taking over the world for its own good, and becoming a martyr to save countless lives via organ donorship as the right ways to save the world and instead becomes a college student SJW and comes up with feminist Facebook.

The above paragraph is uncharitable, this really is a good comic about wrestling with superpowers not actually being able to save the world, but the above does happen in it.

Posted: **Sun Jan 24, 2016 7:05 am**

schpeelah wrote:Besides, twisting the Tick into something like that is a little too deep for a comic where ultimately the main character rejects punching supervillains, vigilantism, taking over the world for its own good, and becoming a martyr to save countless lives via organ donorship as the right ways to save the world and instead becomes a college student SJW and comes up with feminist Facebook.

Am I the only one who thought the end of issue #5 was incredibly underwhelming? Thus far, the comic has been (mostly) about struggling with the fact that small doses of good deeds won't actually change the world. Allison Green's personal resolution to this is more small doses of good deeds. That's not a bad answer - after all, the real answer is that there is no real answer, changing the world is fucking hard and you really can just save someone's life by giving them a place to hide from their abusive ex for a few days - but the story paints this up like it's supposed to be her personal response to the choices of Feral, Moonshadow, and Malice. How would this have persuaded any of them from their course of action? How is it even better than what they're doing?

It was a really good read, but I'm openly skeptical going forward. I think the comic is at its finest when it's exploring how fucking complicated this shit is, and pointing out that what's comfortable may not be what's right and what's right may not be what's comfortable, and the sudden shift almost invalidates that entire aspect. It's just way too feel-good about something that ultimately didn't resolve the dilemma it set up (because the dilemma is unsolvable, and there are no feel-good epiphanies to be had). They really should have just stayed the course - using Allison Green and her desire to make the world a better place (and her frustration with not having any idea how to do that) as a vehicle to explore other characters trying to do the same thing in their own (sometimes questionable) ways. I don't think Allison Green finding her own answer helps the story. And I definitely don't think her being so confident about it fits the tone of the story at all.

Posted: **Sun Jan 24, 2016 9:12 am**

I suspect that Allison's "answer" will be shown to be less than satisfactory, soon enough. This reads to me more like setup for the next act than a final response to the dilemma.

Then again my track record of SFP prediction is pretty bad -I expected

Furnace to survive and Moonshadow to be arrested.

Posted: **Sun Jan 24, 2016 2:10 pm**

DSMatticus wrote:
schpeelah wrote:Besides, twisting the Tick into something like that is a little too deep for a comic where ultimately the main character rejects punching supervillains, vigilantism, taking over the world for its own good, and becoming a martyr to save countless lives via organ donorship as the right ways to save the world and instead becomes a college student SJW and comes up with feminist Facebook.
Am I the only one who thought the end of issue #5 was incredibly underwhelming? Thus far, the comic has been (mostly) about struggling with the fact that small doses of good deeds won't actually change the world. Allison Green's personal resolution to this is more small doses of good deeds. That's not a bad answer - after all, the real answer is that there is no real answer, changing the world is fucking hard and you really can just save someone's life by giving them a place to hide from their abusive ex for a few days - but the story paints this up like it's supposed to be her personal response to the choices of Feral, Moonshadow, and Malice. How would this have persuaded any of them from their course of action? How is it even better than what they're doing?

It was a really good read, but I'm openly skeptical going forward. I think the comic is at its finest when it's exploring how fucking complicated this shit is, and pointing out that what's comfortable may not be what's right and what's right may not be what's comfortable, and the sudden shift almost invalidates that entire aspect. It's just way too feel-good about something that ultimately didn't resolve the dilemma it set up (because the dilemma is unsolvable, and there are no feel-good epiphanies to be had). They really should have just stayed the course - using Allison Green and her desire to make the world a better place (and her frustration with not having any idea how to do that) as a vehicle to explore other characters trying to do the same thing in their own (sometimes questionable) ways. I don't think Allison Green finding her own answer helps the story. And I definitely don't think her being so confident about it fits the tone of the story at all.

That's an insightful way of viewing things. Like Schleiermacher, I think this new endeavor is the setup for future failure and re-evaluation.

Posted: **Sun Jan 24, 2016 4:07 pm**

It doesn't do anything to address the mystery antagonist, so it definitely isn't a total solution. I think her plan will fall under "nice, but not nearly enough" since there's so much that it doesn't address.

I think a better tack for her may be finding workarounds to replicate the abilities that the big bads didn't want around (weather control, free energy, disease control, etc.). Getting a grand registry of hero powers and volunteers would be step 1.

Posted: **Sun Jan 24, 2016 7:41 pm**

erik wrote:It doesn't do anything to address the mystery antagonist, so it definitely isn't a total solution. I think her plan will fall under "nice, but not nearly enough" since there's so much that it doesn't address.

I think a better tack for her may be finding workarounds to replicate the abilities that the big bads didn't want around (weather control, free energy, disease control, etc.). Getting a grand registry of hero powers and volunteers would be step 1.

The first question to answer would be where do powers come from, because they're obviously not natural and someone knew about them in advance.

Posted: **Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:09 pm**

I thought it was accepted that they came from some cosmic event. Though it may have been predicted or arranged I guess.

Posted: **Sun Jan 24, 2016 10:33 pm**

erik wrote:I thought it was accepted that they came from some cosmic event. Though it may have been predicted or arranged I guess.

Cosmic events don't work that way. I mean, you have to handwave a superhero series because nothing works that way, but the existence of a conspiracy that was aware of powers before anyone else suggests that it was no coincidence.

Posted: **Mon Jan 25, 2016 2:29 am**

They were aware before other people but not necessarily before the event.

Cosmic wasn't the best descriptor. Global storm that bestowed superpowers on fetuses. Maybe it was predicted, maybe it was caused, maybe someone found out the effects a year later but well before everyone else caught on Maybe a newborn with power to give prescience. Anything is possible.

Posted: **Mon Jan 25, 2016 6:18 pm**

At the moment, my theory would be that Menace's time-travel investigation yielded results and the reason he can't find the conspiracy is because and older version of himself knows exactly how to keep it hidden from his younger self. But that seems like it would be too "quick" a resolution for how slowly that subplot is moving in the series - so I expect it to be something else - for which we (the readers) haven't yet received clues.

Anyways, the Guardians were:

Mega-Girl (moderate super-strength, high level nigh-invulnerability, reputation)
Moonshadow (invisibility, martial arts / knife fighting training?,)
Pint Size (shrinking, special vehicles, possibly pharmaceutical gadget pool from the "melatonin wash"?)
Sonar (Heightened Senses, Head Like a bat, maybe a Sonic Blast (from that one flashback panel?)

These are all reasonable starting builds for Champions, but such a team's real strength would be the crazy good scouting offered by having two different forms of super-stealth backed up by a heightened senses character.

As an MC for a game with that team, I'd worry that only one of the PCs was technically bulletproof and that there would be next to nothing they could do against adversaries with super-movement abilities. (Vehicles and limited Superleap being the team's only movement powers)

Which, in conjunction with their reputation as the primo Superteam in the US of A and the lines about how many times they saved the world -- leads me to conclude that the types of super villains they fought tended to be a lot more of the Doomsday Device / Impenetrable Fortress megalomaniac types and pretty much none of the Daring Heists and Fast Getaway types.

Posted: **Mon May 16, 2016 4:47 am**

erik wrote:So in Girl Genius, anyone think that Hoffmann may be Agatha's Cousin via her Uncle?

Since he first was introduced I thought he looks a bit like Barry H, but I figured he was just a minor character and it was only a coincidence... until today's panel with "Hoffmann the Hero" and the characters talking about how his adventures didn't make sense.

I only become more and more convinced of this via continued pages. In today's they outright stated people think he's a Heterodyne. So they're either setting up some misdirection, or today's was some pretty heavy-handed foreshadowing. I predict next page is Agatha looking into whether she has a cousin, maybe seeing if mini-castle can help figure it out.

Man, Girl Genius's pace is slower than I realized. That prediction was back from November. It's a credit to how good it is that I often forget how slow it is.

Posted: **Sun Jul 31, 2016 4:20 pm**

Well, I still think they're heterodynes, but damn if they didn't just drop that line and ignore it like a spark with ADD (which is a bit redundant as they all seem to have it).

I liked Oglaf enough today that I want to make this an awakened owlbear or something in an adventure some day. I just need a way to smoothly handle the exposition.

Posted: **Wed Aug 03, 2016 9:25 pm**

Sadly, Strong Female Protagonist (which I love) has taken a serious turn for the ham-handed lately, with the reveal that Max (who seemed so promising) is a cartoon jackass after all.

I was hoping for a somewhat nuanced portrayal of the blind spots that come with wealth and privilege - instead we get "Isn't it great to take advantage of immigrants?" and "Never tell me what to do!"

Posted: **Wed Aug 03, 2016 9:44 pm**

Schleiermacher wrote:Sadly, Strong Female Protagonist (which I love) has taken a serious turn for the ham-handed lately, with the reveal that Max (who seemed so promising) is a cartoon jackass after all.

I was hoping for a somewhat nuanced portrayal of the blind spots that come with wealth and privilege - instead we get "Isn't it great to take advantage of immigrants?" and "Never tell me what to do!"

Are the immigrants working absurdly long hours, or did they start working late afternoon because it's too absurdly hot to do yard work during the day in the summer?

I do yard work at 10PM for that very reason.

Posted: **Wed Aug 03, 2016 9:52 pm**

i just read through this in basically one sitting:
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/gaia/
i had forgotten that they do a fantasy webcomic as well.

Posted: **Thu Oct 27, 2016 10:01 pm**

http://dandaangvanced.tumblr.com/post/1 ... -adventure

Good campaign comic in the vein of Darths & Droids. Characters are interesting and there's development both in character and out, though the players are pretty cartoony themselves (one of the players is seriously another players die rolling app that became sapient). However, a word of warning, the group gets pretty dysfunctional throughout the first book and especially the second (way way worse than DM of the Rings).

Posted: **Tue Nov 01, 2016 7:57 pm**

Lots of debate on the current storyline in SFP, spoilered below

Allison (Superman analogue) was handed classified information - Max, someone she dumped in a date for being a rich Randroid, has the power to permanently upgrade other metahumans. Another character, Feral, essentially has Wolverine's regenerative powerset without the metal skeleton. She has volunteered to go under continuous organ extraction surgery for donation, of which she is a universal donor (as much chance of rejection as the recipient's own) and & can fully regrow all of her internal organs about 9 times a day. She will be under the knife continuously for the rest of her natural life, and refused to cut back out of concern for not giving the most possible help to others.

Allison found out about this, and that Max can perma-boost powers on an exponential level. So she flew over and asked him to secretly go into the hospital and buff Feral. Max refused for essentially petty reasons, and only dug his heels deeper as Allison begged. Allison then gave up and physically threatened him (several people have compared it to rape), down to painful arm-twisting, to which he promptly acquiesced. He boosted Feral without anyone knowing and was returned home.

Feral's regeneration is now several orders of magnitude faster, such that she can conceivably satisfy the organ donation needs of the entire world, while going under the knife for only 40hrs per week. There's some hand-waving at this point, as the logistics of the situation are not insubstantial. Near as I can theorize, they're going to set up an entire mega-hospital with an automated guillotine on a conveyor belt, where teams of surgeons are going to hook up the decapitated bodies (about one every 6 seconds) to life-support to keep the organs 'warm' for extraction.

There's been quite the response as to how immoral/justified the action was. Some say that Al's actions are inexcusable - seeming to feel that no amount of violating another's personal agency can be justified. Several are fed up with the storyline, feeling that the narrative is being too forgiving of Al's transgression.

Posted: **Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:16 pm**

Where are the people who are mad that Max is a dumb shithead and we should all beat the shit out of him if we get the chance?

Seriously, if someone has a magic STD that cures aids, I'm totally fucking down for telling them they have to have sex with one person right the fuck now, and that's literal rape, I can't imagine that Max using his power is any more intimidate or unwelcome than sex.

To be clear, I have no idea what SFP even is or stands for, so I'm not ... watching? reading? listening to the radio broadcast? of this.

Posted: **Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:23 pm**

Aren't superhero stories great for presenting moral quandaries? I'm digging the heck out of SFP even as I'm staying way out of the way of the fan discussions. Utilitarianism vs. Inalienable Rights! Fight!

Relevant SMBC comic. Spoilered because big image is big.

Posted: **Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:39 pm**

I thought it one of the better ways to show off the moral quandaries with super-heroes. Every other time I've ever seen this question brought up in stories, the victim is more 'likable' and there were negative consequences galore to 'offset' the boon gained.

In response to Kaelik

It's Strong Female Protagonist, a webcomic. Max's power is used as a generic energy projection - creates a ball of energy, puts it into the person, and now their superpower is dramatically improved. Feral went from regrowing her heart 9 times per day to 9 times per minute, for example. Keep in mind that the actual force used was a mild strongarm and some calm threats to dunk into the sea; Batman damages his victims more than this. Hell, I think most of the good versions of Superman where he threatened someone for any reason were more psychologically damaging than what Allison did to this guy; but that hasn't mattered to the detractors, who feel that violating someone's agency is violating someone's agency.

Posted: **Tue Nov 01, 2016 9:14 pm**

It seems more like a moral quandary for the reader than for the character. It is a less harsh version of that SMBC comic Shatner posted but for serious.

Not!Wolverine is a willing and consenting actor to the body bag harvest. She is doing a public good and should be lauded for it; with the process now turned into a 40 hour week instead of a constant lockdown, there's no real sacrifice on her end because [insert office humor here].

Max is an irreconcilable shithead for not only failing to increase Not!Bub's power in the first damn place (get paid for and/or monopolize it if you're going to be a Straw Objectivist), then refusing because he got dumped. That's baby back bitch shit.

Allison is a non factor in this moral argument, except for the fact that she is a woman and is pushing around a man, presumably in a masculine way (with superior force), which is a an issue to the reader and not the characters.

Posted: **Tue Nov 01, 2016 9:17 pm**

The idea that superheroes should be perfect, and only make morally optimal choices, is ridiculous.

The idea that people's perceptions of what's optimal should define morality is even sillier.

The Gaming Den

Webcomics