Straight Face Comics

Here we are at the end of our first 3 part series and the beginning of week 3. This strip brings together three things that I have an abnormal amount of obsession with, Dopplegangers, The Venture Bros, and John Travolta. While we plan on getting back to our regularly scheduled program of having new subject matter in each strip we hope that we can get one of these multi-parters in every couple of weeks or so. I know a lot of other comics will get some niche subject matter or format and run with that, however I’m really trying to keep myself from being pinned down in that way.

Getting into a doppleganger discussion. It’s fun to have one in a DnD campaign every once in awhile, shape shifters in general can really spice up the trust factor. Either as big baddie, assassin, or may the in group double agent. One of my favorite tricks as a Game Master is to tell one of my players before the session starts that they’ll be playing a duplicate of themselves at some point during the night. I’ll use a code word or use a fake roll to queue them. I’ll ask everyone what their spot checks bonuses are and roll some fake rolls behind the DM screen. This let’s the player know that it’s time to get his Player Killing boots on and to carry out the instructions I gave him before the game started. Just to spice things up I typically offer the shape-shifted player a 500 xp bounty per player he kills as the doppleganger–this is usually a strong enough motivator for my group. Keep in mind it’s best to do this with only experienced players so no one feels too screwed by the surprise when it happens.

Once as Game Master I was role playing a shape-shifter in a Camarilla Campaign (the shifter was a Tzmisce with Thamaturgy and some fun merits). I had the shifter teleport into a room full of the PCs, grab one of them and then port out. The players then found a video tape in the room and played it. It was the Tzmisce changing into each of the players while taunting them. The player he had originally abducted was then ported back into the room with the PCs. You can imagine that this caused some trust issues and added an extra layer of intrigue. Again, this all depends on the group, it’s not fun to tear at the trust of a group of players that already have trust issues with one another at the start. But with the right group of experienced players the trust no one scenario can be one of the most fun roleplaying experiences there are, especially once alliances start forming.

You can now buy the Venture Bros Awesome Soundtrack, here’s the news. If you’re like: ‘Hey who are those Venture Bros. assholes?’ I would suggest going to the website of your favorite DvD retailer and buying all 3 seasons. Normally I don’t say something is for everybody, but if you like laughing at things that are funny, then Venture Bros is something you want to be a part of. It’s like 1/5 parts Johnny Quest 4/5 parts awesome. No pressure, but if you don’t like them, either you didn’t watch from the beginning (please see above instructions about buying all 3 seasons) or are a bad person devoid of good things.

As for John Travolta, I lied. I felt the sentence above flowed better with three things in it. I really can’t think of anything good he’s done since Pulp Fiction. Oh I guess, Get Shorty was pretty good, beyond that he’s pretty awful.

-Matt