Skip to main content

Superman and Purpose

Greetings, citizens of Metropolis, (Metropolians? Metro-ites? Metrons? Is there even a specific term?) and happy salutations to all for another annual Superman Day. While it may have originated as yet another spurious corporate holiday, for some it can still be an opportunity to celebrate a long-beloved superhero. Though I may tend to be more of a Marvel fan myself, DC Universe stalwarts like Superman and Batman have always been part of my media consumption. This may be an unavoidable force, as evidenced by both my children becoming fans of DC superheroes before they even consumed any related media. A while back, Bugsy broached the topic of nature of Superman as a character and property for a previous Superman Day. With such a long-running and widespread character, it's worth thinking about what our own personal experiences with Superman have been. How have they shaped our unique view of the character, and how will that change our interactions with future Superman media? For this post, at least, let's narrow things down to focus on a particular aspect of Superman and storytelling, and what we can learn from it: what is the purpose of Superman?

Before we can take anything from this question and apply it to our own storytelling and tabletop games, we need to figure out what we mean by "purpose." Do we mean his own personal purpose from the character's point of view, the thing that motivates him? Do we maybe mean the character's purpose in a particular given story? Or maybe we mean the purpose of Superman in general, as a character ? There's so much purpose to think about! One story, a long-time favorite for both of my boys, sums it up completely in the title: Superman…To the Rescue! Superman goes around using his powers to rescue people from disasters: by putting out a fire with his freeze breath, by lifting a sinking ship with his super strength, and by fixing train tracks with his heat vision. All very Superman things to do! And then he spies an ice cream truck selling frozen treats in the summer heat. Not wanting the ice cream to melt, Superman swoops in once more to the rescue, helping the vendor and enjoy a tasty treat of his own as well. Whether that last one really qualifies as a rescue is up for debate. But as per the title and more clearly heroic deeds, for Superman, he's there to rescue. This is a aspect we see across Superman’s history in various media. In the early comics, he's constantly rescuing Lois or Jimmy. One might even argue that, as Clark Kent, he's rescuing the Daily Planet from poor writing. In darker timelines, Superman can be seen as rescuing citizens from themselves through whatever he feels is justified by his own "evil" (to us) terms. Of course, those kinds of justifications can line a slippery path into supervillainy.  In any case, from a certain point, the purpose of Superman seems to be "To Rescue." It's a reason that applies to Superman, even when he isn’t being Superman.

This is something we need to consider in our own stories and tabletop games by drilling down to what the "purpose" is. What is the purpose of the group(s) of characters in your game or story? What are their purposes as individual characters? If you’ve got a tightly knit cast of characters serving as heroes, their individual purposes and goals while tie probably into (or at least support) the larger "team" or "group" purpose. If a group of characters has the purpose of "solving groovy mysteries," the individual purposes for that might include "to study local history nationwide," or "report on strange phenomena from across the country." Or maybe something as simple as "earn super-scooby-snacks." Regardless of what it ends up being, if you can determine a character’s purpose, especially if it supports a group purpose, or even greater purpose in the story itself, it's something you can work with. It drives the story and aids the engagement between characters. If the purpose is to solving those groovy mysteries, setting up situations where the characters rescue people without solving those mysteries isn’t likely to be very rewarding or interesting for long, and the same would apply the other way around.

It doesn’t matter if you’re Superman, Jimmy Olsen, or a teen riding in a Mystery Machine, purpose is a driving force. Without purpose, stories and characters won't come to life or provide audience fulfillment  in an exciting and entertaining way. We need purpose to bring things to life and to bring people together. So if your story is in a rut, or if things just don’t seem to be going right at the table, take a few moments to think over purpose, at every level. Those purposes may not always align, but that is okay, and, depending on the complexity of you're going for, be preferable. Justifications can always be made - even when they lead to the Dark Side, they'll make your stories richer and more rewarding. If you follow on these purposes, layering them into story and character, and relate them back to each other, you’re sure to be in a better place than if you hadn't considered them. Until next time, folks, I hope your stories and games are full of purpose, and, if you needed it, just maybe this post's purpose was to come to your rescue.

- A

Send comments and questions to neversaydice20@gmail.com or Tweet them @neversaydice2.


 

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Weather Stone

If the rock is wet, it's raining. If the rock is swinging, the wind is blowing. If the rock casts a shadow, the sun is shining. If the rock does not cast a shadow and is not wet, the sky is cloudy. If the rock is difficult to see, it is foggy. If the rock is white, it is snowing. If the rock is coated with ice, there is a frost. If the ice is thick, it's a heavy frost. If the rock is bouncing, there is an earthquake. If the rock is under water, there is a flood. If the rock is warm, it is sunny. If the rock is missing, there was a tornado (or the Rogue stole it). If the rock is wet and swinging violently, there is a hurricane. If the rock can be felt but not seen, it is night time. If the rock has white splats on it, watch out for birds. If there are two rocks, stop drinking, you are drunk. If the rock is glowing, get to a fallout shelter. Weather Stones have been "prognosticating" the current conditions for as long as…well, probably as long as there have been rocks. ...
Read more

Devouring "Roll for Sandwich"

Good timezone to Never Say Dice fans, adventures in Aardia, TikTok and beyond. No, I’m not the Roll for Sandwich guy (neither of us is), but if you haven’t heard of him already (or especially if you have), this week I wanted to talk about the TikTok/YouTube show Roll for Sandwich hosted by Jacob Pauwels. The premise is exactly what it sounds like: every episode, the host rolls dice to determine the various items that comprise a sandwich (except when the episode is about s’mores). He assembles the sandwich, then actually eats and critiques his random creation. If it sounds pretty niche to you... it is. You should  probably be both a bit of a foodie and a TTRPG fan in order to truly appreciate both the strange layered creations and the roleplaying references. My eldest son has been so interested in the web series that he decided he wanted to try doing it for himself. So, for the last week of summer this year, we took stock of our cupboards, made our own charts, and proceeded to con...
Read more

An Introduction to Risus

While roaming the internet in the late nineties/early noughties, I came across a TTRPG that was rules-lite and called itself “the anything RPG.” Want to play a high school cheerleader/samurai-in-training part-time goth enthusiast fast food cashier? The hot pink stick figure art glared back at me. Nah, not interested. But I was wrong. The stick figures were actually purple, and Risus is a surprisingly versatile, handy and down right fun TTRPG. I wouldn’t figure that out though till I discovered it again several years later. Even though it was written as a comedy system (and somewhat lighthearted response to GURPS) you really can use it for just about anything: space opera, high fantasy, pulp, vampires,western, any movie setting you could think of...seriously anything. You can read a far more detailed and interesting history in a number of other places should it strike your fancy. It is time for your Risus indoctrination introduction. Risus really is versatile and fairly easy to learn...
Read more

Peasant Railgun

Peasants are the common commoner amongst the NPCs of many a tabletop role playing game. It doesn’t matter the setting, there's going to be a variety of "common" NPC that's peasant-like in some way. The subject of peasants has come up in my Dungeons and Dragons gaming group once again as the Peasant Railgun meme makes its way through the internet once again. A crazy idea that's been around for many years. Not sure what we’re talking about? The concept goes something like this: we find a big bad target, line up a group of 2,280 peasants all in a row over the distance of two miles, have them all ready their action, and then have them pass an object (usually a spear) down the line over the course of a six-second round, until it reaches the last person in line who throws the ammo at the target - gaining  "velocity damage" based on falling object damage, and dealing somewhere near 400d6 worth of damage. If this idea sounds ridiculous to you, and you’re a reg...
Read more