07-29-2013, 05:31 PM
I love film. I absolutely adore it. From the beautiful sets, the wonderful music, and most importantly the unforgettable acting performances, a good film both entertains and inspires me for my own creative work. After all, with thousands of years of human history, the likelihood that an idea has taken the shape in the form of a story is exponentially high, so similarity of concept, whether intentional or not, is going to happen at some point. But there is a fine line between paying homage to a great person or work, and shamelessly ripping them off. This guide is to help those that want to show their respect for a source material through their own storytelling style, particularly as it relates to creating new RP characters.
Step One: The Essence!
The first part of creating a homage character is examining what exactly appeals to you about the source. Growing up, one of my favorite films was Luc Besson's The Professional. (Side note: It's a terrific movie with Jean Reno, Gary Oldman in what I believe to be his best role, and Natalie Portman in her very first film! I highly recommend!) The titular character, Leon, is a hit man for the Italian mob. Throughout the course of the film, however, you get to see how honorable of a man he is, and this idea that someone doing something so immoral as killing people for money could be so, for lack of better word, human, was something that stuck with me, and made me think a lot about the nature of people. So many, many years later, when I started role playing for the first time, my first character (the original Jonoth Shyemlye) was an homage to Leon and this idea of a sympathetic killer, a seemingly contradictory idea.
Step Two: Taking What You Need, Ditching What You Don't
In the aforementioned example, notice how I focused in on a specific trait or idea to build my homage around. A lot of creating a homage is taking a central idea, possibly two, and building around that. If I was making a homage to Rocky Balboa, I could make a character based on the idea of a no-name fighter getting a chance at glory. I could make it about a man who goes from a low-level leg breaker for the mob to a respectable arena fighting legend. I could even make it about the big, macho warrior with a fancy in his heart for the girl next door. However, the more of these ideas you incorporate, the less it becomes homage, and the more it becomes a carbon copy.
So in creating your homage characters, understanding the central thing that appeals to you the most is the most important step. That thing is usually the philosophy of the person or their central goal. So whether it's the Joker's desire for chaos and disorder or Batman's desire to turn fear on those that prey on the fearful, there is always an underlying central value that is what truly makes the person who they are.
Step Three: What's In A Name?
One day a few years back, I was in my local bodega, getting an epic ham, salami, and cheese sammich, when I saw some toys behind the register. It is then that I noticed him: the Amazing Spader-Man. You might be thinking at this junction, "What, pray-tell, is an Amazing Spader-Man?" Apparently, it's Spider-Man, made of cheaper plastic, minus the webs on the costume, with some assorted guns and whatnot. Silly accessories aside, it was the name that has stuck with me most, because no cheap knockoff is complete without a comically similar name.
This is why naming a homage character after the source is a bad thing. It, more than anything, says that the homage is trying to pass as the original, when a homage is supposed to be its own character. Spader-Man up there desperately wants you (or more accurately your kids) to mistake him for the real thing so that he no longer has to live above the cartons of Newport cigarettes. Your homage character should have enough differences (starting with the name) that people will readily identify it as its own person.
Step Four: A Child of the World
Most likely, the world of the person you are paying homage to is vastly different than the world of the role play environment you are in. Even Middle Earth, while sharing some similar races, varies quite a bit from World of Warcraft. So the final challenge of the homage is taking that central philosophy or idea you are emulating and seeing how it applies to the new setting. If finding optimism in the face of danger is what your character is about, it can be defined very differently between the various races, because the things testing that optimism varies. Is it slavery? Addiction? A nagging spouse? People are an adaptive species, and one of the best parts about paying homage is putting the morals of a character you like to the test. "What if Batman's parents were killed by an Orc instead of a common criminal? And what happens when he later sees the Orcs in the camps being the ones preyed upon?"
The possibilities, my friends, are endless.
Step One: The Essence!
The first part of creating a homage character is examining what exactly appeals to you about the source. Growing up, one of my favorite films was Luc Besson's The Professional. (Side note: It's a terrific movie with Jean Reno, Gary Oldman in what I believe to be his best role, and Natalie Portman in her very first film! I highly recommend!) The titular character, Leon, is a hit man for the Italian mob. Throughout the course of the film, however, you get to see how honorable of a man he is, and this idea that someone doing something so immoral as killing people for money could be so, for lack of better word, human, was something that stuck with me, and made me think a lot about the nature of people. So many, many years later, when I started role playing for the first time, my first character (the original Jonoth Shyemlye) was an homage to Leon and this idea of a sympathetic killer, a seemingly contradictory idea.
Step Two: Taking What You Need, Ditching What You Don't
In the aforementioned example, notice how I focused in on a specific trait or idea to build my homage around. A lot of creating a homage is taking a central idea, possibly two, and building around that. If I was making a homage to Rocky Balboa, I could make a character based on the idea of a no-name fighter getting a chance at glory. I could make it about a man who goes from a low-level leg breaker for the mob to a respectable arena fighting legend. I could even make it about the big, macho warrior with a fancy in his heart for the girl next door. However, the more of these ideas you incorporate, the less it becomes homage, and the more it becomes a carbon copy.
So in creating your homage characters, understanding the central thing that appeals to you the most is the most important step. That thing is usually the philosophy of the person or their central goal. So whether it's the Joker's desire for chaos and disorder or Batman's desire to turn fear on those that prey on the fearful, there is always an underlying central value that is what truly makes the person who they are.
Step Three: What's In A Name?
One day a few years back, I was in my local bodega, getting an epic ham, salami, and cheese sammich, when I saw some toys behind the register. It is then that I noticed him: the Amazing Spader-Man. You might be thinking at this junction, "What, pray-tell, is an Amazing Spader-Man?" Apparently, it's Spider-Man, made of cheaper plastic, minus the webs on the costume, with some assorted guns and whatnot. Silly accessories aside, it was the name that has stuck with me most, because no cheap knockoff is complete without a comically similar name.
This is why naming a homage character after the source is a bad thing. It, more than anything, says that the homage is trying to pass as the original, when a homage is supposed to be its own character. Spader-Man up there desperately wants you (or more accurately your kids) to mistake him for the real thing so that he no longer has to live above the cartons of Newport cigarettes. Your homage character should have enough differences (starting with the name) that people will readily identify it as its own person.
Step Four: A Child of the World
Most likely, the world of the person you are paying homage to is vastly different than the world of the role play environment you are in. Even Middle Earth, while sharing some similar races, varies quite a bit from World of Warcraft. So the final challenge of the homage is taking that central philosophy or idea you are emulating and seeing how it applies to the new setting. If finding optimism in the face of danger is what your character is about, it can be defined very differently between the various races, because the things testing that optimism varies. Is it slavery? Addiction? A nagging spouse? People are an adaptive species, and one of the best parts about paying homage is putting the morals of a character you like to the test. "What if Batman's parents were killed by an Orc instead of a common criminal? And what happens when he later sees the Orcs in the camps being the ones preyed upon?"
The possibilities, my friends, are endless.