[UA] Tha Bad Influence Archetype

[Royal Minister of Stuff]

--- Infamous36 <theinfamous36 at ivebeenframed.com>
wrote:
> hey everyone...
> 
> Me and a friend are sitting around its 4 in the
> morning and we thought up
> an Archetype...
> It's the Bad Influence.
> Not sure if this treads on anything else..it is 4 so
> sorry if it does.

I think you're on to something, but I think you might
need to talk a little bit broader look at the
archetype.

Just the idea of Bad Influences can pop up on the very
personal level.  A mother who doesn't want her
daughter hanging out with one of her friends fears The
Bad Influence.  A cop who continually hassles one guy
is trying to keep the Bad Influence in check. 
Technically, Socrates was seen as a Bad Influence in
his time period (or so Plato tells us.)

It certainly seems like the Bad Influence is
invincible, but that doesn't seem quite right.  The
Bad Influence really seems like someone who shakes up
people's perceptions and suggests new (or overlooked)
avenues -usually in the most in-your-face manner
possible.  The Bad Influence scares everyone, true,
but some people are attracted to that -those who do
not want to fear the new or different, but do anyway.

Manson and Eminem certainly seem to expressing the
archetype in a way, but for totally commercial
reasons.  They are, to their credit, attempting to
redefine the arts in which they work and are doing it
in a sensational (i.e. very noticeable) way.

In what you've expressed there, the Bad Influence
could be a version of the Demogogue, only with
protective powers rather than agressive ones.  The Bad
Influence really needs more shocking abilities rather
than safe ones, because one of the best things someone
who is a Bad Influence can acheive is to die horribly
(say driving too fast down a central California
highway while totally smashed.)

The main point of Bad Influences, though, is that they
get other people in trouble and they somehow teach
people to view life a different way when they do.

I think you need to define the Bad Influence's taboo a
little more (it looks like you left something out.) 
It would appear that the Bad Influence must, like the
Flying Woman, never bow to conventional authority. 
You might want to take that a step further and say
that the Bad Influence must never come across as
acceptible to conventional authority.  If you ever
inspire someone to sincerely comment "what a nice boy"
or "she's really a sweet girl, after all," you've
broken taboo.  You WANT people to fear and distrust
you, otherwise you're just not a Bad Influence.

The Bad Influence should also have a lot better chance
to attract young, rebellious people than the more
stolid citizenry.

You could try mixing up the Fool and the Demogogue a
bit.  At lower levels, the Bad Influence can transfer
some consequence of one of her actions to any one of
her followers (someone gets caught instead of her,
someone gets their leg broken instead of her.)  It's
not just damage, it's any negative consequence. 
Therefore, the more followers you manage to attract,
the better.  (Being seen as "Cool" by one person does
not break taboo, being seen as acceptable does.)

The Bad Influence could also gain the power to enrage
authority figures into irrational, even totalitarian
action.  This may seem like a weird power, but it
becomes a lot easier to throw down and old paradigm
when its main supporters are acting like dicks.  Maybe
a Bad Influence worked up Dyer at Amritsar (that
certainly emphasized one of the problems of British
colonial authority in India.)  

The point I'm trying to make is that the Bad Influence
is a lot more fun, a lot more human (a lot more UA) if
the archetype constantly runs the risk of being run
out of town on a rail.  Being immune to that treatment
(or physical harm) kind of cheapens the archetype, but
allowing the archetype to have to attract followers to
screw up sort of spins it back again.

Anyway, that's my two-hundred-bits worth.

=====
-- Rp Bowman, Royal Minister of Stuff
The Electronic Nation of Yokeltania:
http://www.geocities.com/yokeltania/

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