Incidently...

[Wulf]

...both myself and my opponent agree that the look and 'feel' of Trollbabe remind us of the, by now ancient, comic 'Redfox'.

Have you heard of it, and is there any connection?

Wulf

[Ron Edwards]

Yeah baby! Redfox is definitely one of the influences, although I must say that the quality of the book did waver back and forth a lot - very 80s b&w explosion, if anyone else around here bears the scars of that event. I have both of the paperback collected issues.

Rather than a direct influence, though, I'd say that the author of Redfox ("Fox") and I were of an age and subculture that was influenced by a lot of the same things ... notably underground comix in general, the artwork of Vaughn Bode and its immediate descendants like Elfquest and Wizards, a lot of pop fantasy art (e.g. Boris Vallejo, Roger Dean), the long-running Conan comics from Marvel, and a bank of quality adolescent fiction (e.g. Lloyd Alexander).

Other good 'babe references include Roxana, a French adventure-fantasy comic, and - wait for it - the Tintin books by Herge. No, really - Tintin is a classic 'babe who happens to be male.

Best,
Ron

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Tintin is caught between human culture and...?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Seth,

To answer your direct question, nearly all of Tintin's adventures concern cross-cultural conflict of interest, either highly political or highly socio-cultural. In the case of the political ones, a very powerful and occasionally verbalized portion of the stories emphasizes that the problems out there (oil, gold, opium, weapons) exist and one government's valued resource is another one's crime.

Tintin often acts as the agent of one side (i.e. Good Old Western Europe), but his perspective almost always manages to see the other side as human beings too and occasionally to verbalize their perspective on the matter.

Excellent examples: The Land of Black Gold, The Crab with the Golden Claws, Tintin and the Picaros. [I'm leaving out the occasional pure soap-opera story like The Castafiore Emerald or the plain stock adventure like Red Rackham's Treasure, which are wonderful but definitely exceptions.]

Another related point concerns another important feature of the 'babe: a combination of pluckiness and lateral-thinking, being able to see accurate solutions to a problem as an outsider, and being charming enough to communicate the solutions effectively. (And being tough enough to thump the bastards who oppose it, occasionally, which is where the "troll-" part comes in, in the game).

In case anyone's interested in my whole taxonomy, Tintin's the babe, Captain Haddock is the bad-ass, and Professor Calculus is the brain.

Best,
Ron

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Excellent examples: The Land of Black Gold, The Crab with the Golden Claws, Tintin and the Picaros.

I think I read The Land of Black Gold loooong ago, but it was in translation, and serialized in a children's magazine to which I didn't subscribe, and I think I missed at least one of the installments.... I don't think I've ever read either of the others.

I'm gonna have to go dig those up. (En français, bien sûr, parce que les traductions en anglais m'emmerdent.) Possibly you should list them as suggested reading if you do an updated version of Trollbabe?

[Rod Anderson]

I can't  resist wondering if I was the first one to suggest the Tintin connection or if Ron had it in mind from the beginning. When I first talked to Ron about doing the "Trollbabe" art, I noted that  the Trollbabe seemed like a 'Tintin' type character in that there's no particular need for her to have a lucid backstory (like Tintin - he's a reporter? For what paper? Who's his editor?), she just has to show up in a hairy situation, have an opinion about it and be willing to act on it.

To meander a bit, Trollbabe in general is very geared towards a visually vivid, comic-book style way of imagining events.  Note that the reroll conditions are visualizable events that must be fleshed out by the player, which is quite different  from having an abstract 'resource pool' like Karma or Willpower.

-Rod Anderson

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Rod,

Actually, the babe, brain, and bad-ass were character classes in the fantasy RPG I wrote back in 1998 called Fantasy for Real, and I referenced Tintin in there. That game didn't quite gel for me, but Trollbabe indeed retains a few of its elements; also, a bit of the FfR magic system seems to have found its way into Donjon.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Actually, the babe, brain, and bad-ass were character classes in the fantasy RPG I wrote back in 1998 called Fantasy for Real, and I referenced Tintin in there. That game didn't quite gel for me, but Trollbabe indeed retains a few of its elements; also, a bit of the FfR magic system seems to have found its way into Donjon.

Ron's totally correct in this - I can't believe I forgot to mention it in the influences.

Once a month, Ron, I try to figure out a good combat system for Fantasy for Real. I haven't yet, but when I do, I'm giving it to you, and you're putting that bad boy out.