Fanaticism and Sense of Duty

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Fanatics don't do that. They double down because their cause is more important than any other consideration. What you want all the death and destruction to be for nothing? It's the other guy's fault for failing to see how right I am!

I agree that different writers put a different spin on things or that even some writers changed Cap's reactions to fit the story they wanted. That doesn't mean that the character doesn't have fanaticism, it just means that a writer subverted part of a character for a story.

We see the same things in the newest Star Wars movies. Characters behaving in contradiction to their established values to further a writers chosen narrative.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Captain America could be written that way but in the final analysis he isn't. At least not in a sustained way. He has passed through the hands of too many different writers and editors to have the consistency of a Fanatic.

To put it another way: Captain America, when written well, has Sense of Duty, with some limited or quirk-level form of Fanaticism at most (e.g Quirk: American Patriot).

Captain America, when written badly, has some form of full Fanaticism (generally America or Liberty), and might also have a Sense of Duty with some writers.

When different writers with different levels of skill and opinions of him are working on the same storyline, he can be all over the place.

[Micah Davis]

Not sure, "After starting a rebellion against the most powerful government on Earth and fighting their closest friends for months, the character gave into their Sense of Duty (Comrades) disadvantage" is the knockout blow on Cap does not have Fanaticism (Liberty).

In First Avenger, Steve signs up for a dangerous medical experiment and routinely starts fights he knows he'll lose because he hates bullies. In Winter Soldier (the movie), Cap makes the executive decision to destroy SHIELD in defiance of his own commanding officer (even though he has a total of four allies at the time!). In Civil War, he refuses to sign the Sokovia Accords. Man's definitely got Fanaticism (Liberty) in the movies.

[Anders]

And Sense of Duty (Bucky).

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Anyone who was going to take Fantacism (Liberty) would have to explain to me in detail what they thought that meant. I don't have an adequate defintion handy.

Originally Posted by Micah Davis

In First Avenger, Steve signs up for a dangerous medical experiment and routinely starts fights he knows he'll lose because he hates bullies. In Winter Soldier (the movie), Cap makes the executive decision to destroy SHIELD in defiance of his own commanding officer (even though he has a total of four allies at the time!). In Civil War, he refuses to sign the Sokovia Accords. Man's definitely got Fanaticism (Liberty) in the movies.

I agree, "Liberty" in a vacuum is too vague, but I feel the above makes perfect sense and explains my thoughts better.

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It wouldn't explain why he went to The Cube (the secret underwater prison) and only broke out his friends that he knew had done nothing wrong by his standards. A Fanatic (Liberty) would have busted everyone out of the secret black prison. Since Fantics aren't sane they might object to imprisoning anybody anywhere.

The whole Winter Soldier arc is about SOD (Friends) and nothing about Fanticism(nebulous concept).

Anyone who was going to take Fantacism (Liberty) would have to explain to me in detail what they thought that meant. I don't have an adequate defintion handy.

First off GREAT thread in general, love the discussion (all sides of it) and it has helped me with how I will approach SoD and Fanaticism in the future.

Fred RE: your quote above... I dont see this in conflict with the general pattern of what has been established thus far. I dont see that he had an obligation to bust out "actual criminals" along with his friends who were innocent. He was able to follow his "Fanaticism" by getting his friends out, without endangering innocents by releasing people that he didnt know were NOT criminals.

He's fanatically motivated to free people that have been wrongfully detained because they also fight for his version of Liberty.
SoD to his friends means he can identify those friends that meet that criteria and he is further motivated to free THEM (specifically).
SoD to innocents means he has to take care to only release those who he knows will not be a danger to said innocents (or at least have demonstrated a similar SoD to his satisfaction).
CoH (Code of Honor) I would say he tends to follow the Law as long as it does not conflict with his fanaticism giving him further motivation to NOT free people he cant "vouch for".

This was made even less conflicted because all the friends were housed in one area that could be breached without affecting the rest.

In this context (and as often seen in the movies), he's not against EVERYTHING that the US or the Law stands for just because he's against how they are trying to subvert his definition of Liberty at the moment. A criminal can still be a criminal even to someone who fights for Liberty. The two ideas are not in conflict IMO

*** Edited to add... RE: allowing this version of fanaticism in a game.

It doesn't completely apply to what we are doing by reverse engineering a story to break parts of it down in GURPS terms. In trying to apply GURPS terms to a story written as real life, is going to have to have some fuzzy grey areas that probably wouldn't equate directly to game play (try to figure out what point value YOU are as a character, I promise it wont port into game play hehheh). For the Capt America char in the MCU movies I think you can see enough of how devoted Cap was to his disadvantage that what ever you define it as in game terms, it does exist. In order for Disadvantages to be disadvantages they have to matter. Choosing a Fanaticism to a Philosophy of "Liberty" definition, is as good a label as is needed to both separate it from the idea of "Nationalism" and allow us to move on from the label and onto how we can learn from it to use it in a game. **End edit**

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by bocephus

[
Fred RE: your quote above... I dont see this in conflict with the general pattern of what has been established thus far. I dont see that he had an obligation to bust out "actual criminals" along with his friends who were innocent. *

<shrug> Fanaticism (Liberty) puts Liberty ahead of all other things. This includes friemds and public safety and the one thing youc an say about all people in prison is that they've had their liberty taken away. That's why I think it's not a playable Disad.

[Micah Davis]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

<shrug> Fanaticism (Liberty) puts Liberty ahead of all other things. This includes friemds and public safety and the one thing youc an say about all people in prison is that they've had their liberty taken away. That's why I think it's not a playable Disad.

“Sometimes liberty is differentiated from freedom by using the word "freedom" primarily, if not exclusively, to mean the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do; and using the word "liberty" to mean the absence of arbitrary restraints, taking into account the rights of all involved. In this sense, the exercise of liberty is subject to capability and limited by the rights of others.” -Wikipedia

[Kromm]

A few important things to remember about these or any disadvantages:

Not all disadvantages work well or at all for PCs in general. Some are too limiting or too extreme to be a fun aspect of someone's regular alter-ego in a game. What specific disadvantages this means will vary from player to player, from campaign to campaign, and from gaming group to gaming group. A dramatically talented gamer who belongs to a group interested in exploring difficult themes, in a campaign all about those themes, might be able to pull off something that wouldn't fly at all in a group which cares mostly about stats and whose idea of "roleplaying" is limited to simplistic heroic caricatures.

When it comes to behavioral or psychological disadvantages, even those that are good for PCs – whether in general or in specialized circumstances – won't always be roleplayed perfectly. There will be lapses due to players not being professional actors; there will be lapses due to peer pressure from the group; there will be lapses due to somebody having a bad night's sleep, a bad day at work, a cold, an unpleasant encounter on the way to gaming, indigestion, etc. A good GM should actually encourage lapses that bring peace to the gaming table. Unless the failure to roleplay is clearly a deliberate, contrarian choice with no real-world justification, the GM shouldn't go around docking earned points for it; and when it is bona fide bad roleplaying, the price should be limited to a few missed points, not a lecture and demands to change or retire the character. We're talking about a game here, not paid work on a movie set!

Further, it's important to be aware that the leading roles and heroes of fiction media – novels, comics, films, stage plays, musicals, epics graven in cuneiform, whatever – are not always PCs. We like to believe they are, but that isn't the case. Especially in large ensemble casts, there's often a mix of quirky, inconsistent "lovable freaks" and "lovable rogues" who would make great PCs . . . and also characters who are obsessed, brooding, honor-bound, traitorous, or otherwise difficult, who wouldn't suit all gaming tables (perhaps no gaming tables!). Some are so consistent that they're poor choices for ordinary gamers with human foibles; others are so inconsistently written that they'd change their mental disadvantages on a regular basis, perhaps from session to session or even from scene to scene, making them unsuitable as characters with fixed stats in a game. For instance, teams of Marvel supers consist of a mix of great PC candidates and "Oh, Hells, no!" types who should be NPCs at best – despite the fact that they're all getting equal billing as ostensible peers.

Gamers need to know all this and act on it. That means avoiding troublesome disadvantages (at my gaming table, Fanaticism, total Intolerance, Megalomania, On the Edge, Sadism, most -15-point Codes of Honor, Delusions, Phobias, etc., and anything with a self-control number of 6) for all PCs or except in special circumstances. When those traits are permitted, that means being generous about allowing "holes" in how they're played, whether because players aren't perfect, or because playing those problems perfectly would be more disruptive than the broken suspension of disbelief that results from playing them less faithfully. Finally, that means not assuming that just because a character or a trait works in fiction, it'll work in a game . . . and that also means not assuming that, when trying to assign game stats to a fictional character, a disadvantage doesn't fit because the character isn't consistently written that way. You have to keep a "close enough is good enough" attitude when translating in either direction.

[Kromm]

Pursuant to the above, I'd say that Captain America is incredibly inconsistently written; that he comes "close enough" to having Fanaticism in most writings that he ought to have it as an NPC; that he'd make a far, far better NPC than PC, given the often-team-destroying idealism this produces; and that if permitted as a PC despite this, it should be to a player willing to compromise, and that the GM should either not include Fanaticism beyond quirk level or allow Fanaticism and forgive frequent failures to roleplaying it fully. As an NPC, I think he's definitely a character with something approaching Fanaticism, but that he's so inconsistently written that it's practically Fanaticism (X) with X rolled randomly on a table.