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Old 06-13-2019, 10:11 AM   #11
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Mixing Animation with Reality in GURPS

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Originally Posted by Stormcrow View Post
What is a "realistic" animation but a Toon who can act like a human? "Dying" is just part of the act.
A realistic animation is the use of the medium of animated film or video to represent beings and places in the real world, or a simulacrum of the real world. Being "drawn" doesn't make something a distinct ontological category! We consider Krazy Kat or Popeye to be toons, and perhaps Pogo Possum or Hobbes. But La Gioconda, or The Courtier (a painting of Baldassare Castiglione), or Marat in The Death of Marat, is not a toon, even though they're also pigment on a flat surface; they're portraits.
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Old 06-13-2019, 12:09 PM   #12
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Default Re: Mixing Animation with Reality in GURPS

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A realistic animation is the use of the medium of animated film or video to represent beings and places in the real world, or a simulacrum of the real world. Being "drawn" doesn't make something a distinct ontological category! We consider Krazy Kat or Popeye to be toons, and perhaps Pogo Possum or Hobbes. But La Gioconda, or The Courtier (a painting of Baldassare Castiglione), or Marat in The Death of Marat, is not a toon, even though they're also pigment on a flat surface; they're portraits.
I don't think the ontology of toons is really a productive argument; we're all just making up our own definitions.

I meant my comment half in jest, but I do stand by it. The difference between a toon (in the Roger Rabbit sense) and a painting is that a toon is a living being, while a painting is not. Since animated cartoons are, in the fiction we're considering, created by filming toon actors in the real world, there's no way to distinguish between a toon actor and a series of drawings that appear rapidly in sequence to give the illusion of life. In sources like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it's pretty strongly implied that ALL cartoons are made by living toons and toon objects. In such a world, Disney's Cinderella and Snow White must be toons who happen to be serious actors.

And to bring that back to the original poster's question: if this is the case, then you only need one toon racial template for all toons, regardless of what genre of cartoon they appear in. They may require additional templates or lenses — bunny toon, pig toon, train toon, anything — but they'll all have whatever baseline you decide upon.
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Old 06-13-2019, 12:54 PM   #13
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Default Re: Mixing Animation with Reality in GURPS

This seems like the kind of thing that works well in a story written like for a movie or novel, because the author has control over everything and the rules of the setting can adjust to what is needed at the moment. Pretty much just like sci fi or fantasy... the rules can be adjusted to the needs of the story at that moment. But the goal seems to be to make rules that work for a game that has to be fair. That sounds like a big task.

My first thought is to say: use the base rules as is, but make the toon stuff be special effects. So, the mallet in the pocket is just the appearance of an Innate Attack. Cartoons being hard to kill can be many things from lots of extra hit points, to regeneration, to DR, to unkillable. Heck... cheap extra lives might be workable.

Normal people don't have access to the cartoon traits, but they also don't have to spend so many points on the toon stuff, and can end up with other benefits like higher attributes and better skill levels.

Just an off-the-cuff response that basically boils down to: special effects on top of normal rules.
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Old 06-13-2019, 12:57 PM   #14
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Default Re: Mixing Animation with Reality in GURPS

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Originally Posted by Stormcrow View Post
And to bring that back to the original poster's question: if this is the case, then you only need one toon racial template for all toons, regardless of what genre of cartoon they appear in. They may require additional templates or lenses — bunny toon, pig toon, train toon, anything — but they'll all have whatever baseline you decide upon.
It depends on whether Snow White has the indestructibility that we think of as going with toons. Not all cartoon characters have that. In fact, I'm not sure any of the classic Disney toons had it, though the Warner Brothers ones certainly did. But however it's represented, toon indestructibility has to be a bit item on a character sheet or racial template.
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Old 06-13-2019, 02:20 PM   #15
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Default Re: Mixing Animation with Reality in GURPS

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It depends on whether Snow White has the indestructibility that we think of as going with toons. Not all cartoon characters have that.
Or maybe they all have it, but some put on a performance of not having it. That's my point.

Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, for instance, is a "realistic" character who is depicted as dying from a fall. Yet he appears in subsequent cartoons, alive. Maybe he just acted the part of being dead in the movie.

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In fact, I'm not sure any of the classic Disney toons had it, though the Warner Brothers ones certainly did.
Lots of Disney characters appeared in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where they were just as toony as the Warner Brothers' toons. Snow White and the Evil Queen appear in Toon Town.
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Old 06-13-2019, 04:01 PM   #16
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Default Re: Mixing Animation with Reality in GURPS

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Lots of Disney characters appeared in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where they were just as toony as the Warner Brothers' toons. Snow White and the Evil Queen appear in Toon Town.
Stipulated. But Roger Rabbit is not the world of any of the classic Disney characters. It's a different continuity, where they exist not in an entirely animated world, but in a suburb of Los Angeles, which they share with the classic WB characters and even with Betty Boop. I was talking specifically about how the classic Disney characters were portrayed in the cartoons of their era.
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Old 06-13-2019, 04:10 PM   #17
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Mixing Animation with Reality in GURPS

Well, you could have a lot of toon immortality being the result of using toon weaponry and/or toon geography. Toon weapons could have the No Wounding limitation, with any real injury being the result of blunt trauma, knockback, and/or follow-up attacks. Toon geography could function in a way similar to toon weapons, allowing toons to survive mile long falls in toon geography that would turn them into paste in real geography. To balance things out, I would have such attacks deal Side Effect, Stunning, which would balance out the reduction for No Wounding.

In that case, real people would be capable of surviving encounters with toon weaponry and toon geography quite well. They might be stunned or experience knockback or blunt trauma, but they would be unlikely to die. Of course, nothing could prevent a toon from investing in real weaponry against another toon or a real person (or visa versa for a real person wanting a nonlethal version).
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Old 06-13-2019, 05:09 PM   #18
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Default Re: Mixing Animation with Reality in GURPS

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Lots of Disney characters appeared in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where they were just as toony as the Warner Brothers' toons. Snow White and the Evil Queen appear in Toon Town.
Aside from that (which I'm tempted to call a gag, not a piece of worldbuilding) I would hesitate to try to blend the musical/comical shorts - Mickey, Bugs, Tom and Jerry, etc. - with the Disney canon and similar dramatic films.

I'd definitely balk at trying to make every animated anything exist in the same world. I simply don't want Setsuko and Screwy Squirrel to coexist.
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Old 06-13-2019, 06:15 PM   #19
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Default Re: Mixing Animation with Reality in GURPS

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I'd definitely balk at trying to make every animated anything exist in the same world. I simply don't want Setsuko and Screwy Squirrel to coexist.
As I said, not really a productive activity, because everybody has their own incompatible definitions. Unless we agree what counts as a toon, we'll never be able to develop a GURPS template for one.
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Old 06-14-2019, 06:02 AM   #20
Aldric
 
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Default Re: Mixing Animation with Reality in GURPS

So, has the OP said anything about how he wants to model his toons?

Are they 2D or 3D?
Do they eat, breathe, sleep, need to rest at all, are they living or not? Do they age?

Can they be hurt? By normal weapons or other toons, and can they die? And if they can, do they come back.

Actually... I forgot, where do they come from? Can more be created/made/be born?
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