The Chump to God model

[Jack7]

Ug, it's been ages since I ran the thing, but iirc, the main villain has an artifact or spell of some sort that ages people and grants the life energy to her, allowing her to make duplicates of them. The pcs stumble into a trap while investigating a murder, and have their life drained. It turns them into old men and women, and they must struggle through most of the rest of the module aged and decrepit - oh and they must hurry, because they are slowly degrading even further. They get Hackmaster style quirks like forgetfulness, second childhood, etc, along the way. It's a great module if played by the right people. Players who don't want to play along might be pissed at having there powers stripped, but playing Grumpy Old Men can be fun for a while. We had a blast with it.

Thanks. That was helpful.

 

[Umbran]

Well, luckily nobody has tried to make one of them win in this discussion.

I meant win in terms of "which is more common in the literature" not "which one wins the thread/discussion". I was trying to put the whole thing to bed, thanks.

 

[Barastrondo]

The sad thing about most types of manga/anime in this style though, is that the God model tends to wind up as 'chump' model again when the new enemy is introduced.

Yeah, that's what I meant by "multiple stages of god." Congratulations, you're a god! Now meet the new Dark Overgod. The escalation gets pretty out of hand.

It's not shonen (and is Berserk shonen? Is there a separate "more for older males" category?), but Blade of the Immortal is one of my favorite manga ever. Not huge amounts of power creep, and not really any power creep for the main character (who is nowhere near the unbeatable badass most gamers would visualize for an immortal swordsman character archetype), but man do things heat up.

In terms of comics... it really depends on which ones we're talking about. Outside of MJS's addition of powers to Spider Man, the character's 'power gains' have been minimal. Others like Wolverine, despite having a solid foundation, generally have the same powers, it's just their ability has expanded greatly. Still others like Marvel Girl do become near gods, but then you have the opposite effect, the fall back to mortalhood again. Seems to have to a lot of characters where they gain a huge power boost and then lose it all in one big 'radiactive' accident.

Part of that thought is ye old writting. Batman in Justice League of America is still human, but generally goes toe to toe with White Martains. Batman in some of his own comics? Lucky if he doesn't get winged by the common thugs.

A mixture of both, I think. A good example is when a writer decides that there's a new Science!-inspired way to use powers, and that previous limitations on powers were largely just mental blocks or the character hadn't yet used Science!

 

[Garthanos]

I don't think the later authors were much influenced by D&D in how they chose to structure their stories.

I think D&D is too endemic not to have influenced modern fantasy writers... and probably influences some who would deny it

Wheel of Time reeks of it (And Mr Jordan DM'd).

 

[AllisterH]

Term you're looking for Ethan is SEINEN

 

[Barastrondo]

Term you're looking for Ethan is SEINEN

Arigato gozaimasu!

 

[Desdichado]

Arigato gozaimasu!

SHORYUKEN!

Wait, what?

 

[Hairfoot]

You baka gaijins will never understand my moe!

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I've had fun with both methods. Meaning that while DM'ing I've had players turn into gods and then come back around a few sessions later as an NPC for me to mess with that same player who originally played that character turned god, which was very fun and enjoyable for everyone. I've also had a lot of campaigns go up to the mid teens and they are badasses, but definitely not gods. They'd be rulers of small kingdoms or people of great renown and reputation. It's all in what "feels right" in the campaign to me and how well the players are role-playing their characters.