Quote from: RPGPundit;831981Wasn't the Punisher not meant to be in any way heroic when he first showed up?  Or am I thinking of someone else?

IIRC, Punisher was originally a Spiderman villain (an example of the potential dark side to acting as a vigilante) and has shown up, on and off, as a villain in other comics but writers and some fans found him compelling and expanded on him and he's become more an anti-hero.

This is a solid synopsis of the Punisher's history:  Comic Vine:  The Punisher

I've always found the adulation of that type of 'hero' to be rather stupid.  You can always tell who the stupid people are that read Watchmen when they're cheering for Rorschach.

Quote from: 3rik;831332

Quote from: APKlosky;830388In related news, I actually received an email today from Angus!  CSW is currently on sale at several stores in the UK and Germany, with a US print set to hit distributors soon.

For those interested, I have confirmation through email from both  Leisure Games and Chronicle City that they have the book in stock and it  comes with a free pdf.

As Chronicle City is the slightly cheaper option for me I'm going to  order it from them. Let's see how long it takes for the book to  arrive.

Again, for those interested, the book arrived today, so  Angus and Chronicle City appear to be getting things back on track!

Quote from: RPGPundit;832278I've always found the adulation of that type of 'hero' to be rather stupid.  You can always tell who the stupid people are that read Watchmen when they're cheering for Rorschach.

Or Ozymandias.

Quote from: RPGPundit;832278I've always found the adulation of that type of 'hero' to be rather stupid.  You can always tell who the stupid people are that read Watchmen when they're cheering for Rorschach.

And you the real sad part?  We were supposed to cheer for The Comedian.

But I understand why people cheered for Rorchach.  He didn't waffle, he stood in his convictions, and never backed down.  That resonated with the 80's crowd.

Frankly, what the audience wants and the author wants often conflicts, I've noticed.  But then I'm not a Watchmen fan.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;832332And you the real sad part?  We were supposed to cheer for The Comedian.

But I understand why people cheered for Rorchach.  He didn't waffle, he stood in his convictions, and never backed down.  That resonated with the 80's crowd.

Frankly, what the audience wants and the author wants often conflicts, I've noticed.  But then I'm not a Watchmen fan.

I've long suspected allot of the support Rorschach gets is due to the stance he takes in the end than anything else.

Quote from: Nexus;832339I've long suspected allot of the support Rorschach gets is due to the stance he takes in the end than anything else.

According to the fans I used to talk to, that was the consensus.  And frankly, a lot of Iron Age fans are the same way, they like their characters that have a strong moral stance and will not waver from it.  Batman is popular for that same reason among a subsection of comic fans.

And getting this back to Cold Steel Wardens, I had a small crew of 4 who wanted to play that sort of game.  In fact, they wanted to play, according to their own words, more 'real' characters, not in terms of skills or powers, but rather in that these were people who had a moral stance that they wouldn't bend.

I think you can appreciate a character without thinking of them as a protagonist or even as a good person.  Rorschach is easy to admire for his unwavering moral code, even as that code is reprehensible and narrow-minded.  Ozymandias is easy to admire for his genius and his desire to help mankind, but I don't think anyone thinks for a moment that exterminating most of New York is a viable, realistic choice.

To me, what made Watchmen stand apart--and this is something that's been done countless times since then, and even multiple times prior to its publication, even though Watchmen made it famous--is the idea of transposing comic book characters into a semi-realistic world and seeing what would happen.  It's not a coincidence that so many of the Watchmen masked-heroes are diagnosed with mental illnesses and/or viewed as psycho-sexual deviants.  Rorschach's viewpoint is that of Batman or The Punisher taken to its extreme and dropped into a destitute slum in New York.  

What I appreciate most about Watchmen, in truth, is its construction and story-telling.  There are so many nuances and unique tweaks made to the typical comics-storytelling model that I still find new things each time I crack the book.  There are so few books that do that; to find one in comics is really something else.

Quote from: APKlosky;832358Ozymandias is easy to admire for his genius and his desire to help mankind, but I don't think anyone thinks for a moment that exterminating most of New York is a viable, realistic choice.

You'd be surprised.