[UA] Lara Croft and Inhumanity

[Royal Minister of Stuff]

--- Jason Schneiderman <jadasc at ma.ultranet.com> wrote:
> >>The character Lara Croft is perfect, in the movie.
> >>She can do no wrong, what-so-ever.
> >
> >Yeah, I hate "heroes" like that myself.  Wesley in
> "The Princess Bride" is
> >an exception, and it's hard to figure out why.
> 
> Couple reasons:
> 1. He has a sense of humor, rather than just a
> collection of wisecracks.
> For a concrete example of the latter, see his Robin
> Hood in MiT.
What you mean is that the actor playing Wesley, Cary
Elwes, has Charisma.  He has a calm, easy style which
seems to go well with "men of action" type characters.
 Rob Reiner also did a good job of making his
wisecracks self-effacing rather than boisterous.  He
never brags that he's going to win, he just says that
he hopes he won't get hurt or that no one dies or that
things work out okay.

> 2. He gets hurt. Often. And he gets outfoxed
> occasionally.
> 3. In following the course of love, he places his
> trust in something other
> than his own abilities.
The "Tomb Raider" movie tries to imply that Lara Croft
is pursuing the plot out of a love for her father. 
She is, however, with even a little bit of thought,
really Threatening the Entire World by trying to
ressurect her dead father. The movie assumes that we
are supposed to feel sympathy for her over this fact.

Hey. You know, that's a pretty cool UA story right
there.  Have the players hook up with some NPC and
start pulling all those old "golden boy" GM tricks
that used to make you so mad. (If you can do it
tongue-in-cheek, your players may not kill you.)

You know, some NPC shows up and is SUPPOSED to be
helping out the heroes, but this NPC can do no wrong. 
You should not-so-subtly hint that this NPC knows the
Right Thing to Do and players should follow her lead. 
You'll have to watch your players closely, because
this kind of thing will not wash with any gamer who's
been exposed to UA or FUDGE or more "permissive"
versions of other games for very long (and cowed
players may have to be given a little speech or
something to tell them that oppression, in any form,
only works as long as they accept it.)  

So, anyway, you've got this divinely-protected GMC who
keeps showing up and solving things for the players or
prodding them along when they're not ready.  Some
players will make plans to kill her and others will be
making plans to meet with another group next week.

Before the end of the session, little miss perfect (or
mr. right or whoever) makes a mistake.  One of the
other players ices her (make no attempt to stop any
player killing, humiliating or otherwise directly
hindering this character -she may not be "shown up"
but she may be betrayed, told off or mowed down by
"friendly fire" at any time.)

When that happens, everyone else finds out that the
player who acted in anger just saved the world and
give the poor schmuck who killed the perfect person a
self check and a few other slaps on the wrist.

If no one gets tired enough of this Golden Boy to get
rid of the GMC, work things up to a points where she's
about to kill St. Germaine or unleash the Cruel Ones
or unravel time to save John Voigt from going up the Chattooga.

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

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