Let's Fight About Source Material

Because it's started already...

1. I love the Twilight movies. I've never read the books and don't plan to, but the movies are painfully cheesy and just dripping with melodrama. There are so many slow motion close-ups of people making these anguished, pained expressions. There are crazy guitar riffs in the background to denote emotional tension. There are ten minute segments where nothing happens, except a retread of the previous ten minutes. So bad. So, so good.

2. I am incredibly serious about wanting to make a Twilight game, and be thematically faithful to the source material.

3. I want to draw from: Twilight, Buffy, Ginger Snaps, Christopher Pike novels, and that movie that takes place in a school and ends with a cheerleader being the alien queen.

4. John Harper says that Twilight and Buffy are opposites. He should explain how.

Also consider Near Dark and The Lost Boys.

Note: I accidentally edited Bret's comment instead of adding my own. Thus, half of Bret's post was lost. I've removed my reply. -JM

John Harper says that Twilight and Buffy are opposites. He should explain how.

Yep. I'll let John go first.

Buffy and Twilight are opposites (on the same genre spectrum) for patently obvious reasons.

Do I really have to spell them out? Take every single element of each and contrast them. Buffy/Bella. Angel/Edward. One of the best pieces of media ever/Twilight.

See? There ya go. To quote Willow: "Bored now."

What isn't boring is when Joe talks about Monsterhearts. Because it is a thing with coolness. Teenagers, monsters, sex, yes. Source material wank? Feh.

Jeez I am cranky.

The Lost Boys is in, 100%

I'm for some reason not remembering a lot of the source material I've seen.
Like, I know I'm well steeped in the genre, but can't name many names due to a cloudy memory block?

Jennifer's Body seems like it fits, but I need to see it.

Also, what's that movie from like two years ago about hot chicks who are actually man-eating aliens?

Cool, John.

Buffy is good media, with characters who have integrity.
They wade through meaningful issues, that are presented by a strong storyteller.

Twilight is a pastiche of dysfunction, incomplete characters and hot ab shots.
It's written poorly.

They take similar elements and head off in different directions, with different quality levels. I get that. I was just making sure there wasn't something else I was missing.

Yeah, Joe. That's what I meant. Sorry for the crankiness.

Have you seen Roswell (the TV series)? (That's also where I thought your "alien" type would come in.)

Roswell starts with the heroine's life being saved by this guy with special powers who makes her swear to keep it secret, whose family of super powered Others want no involvement with humans... sound familiar yet? :)

Also: Sookie Stackhouse books (True Blood on TV), of which Twilight is a watered-down, pale YA copy.

Hi there. Just dropping by to say I think this idea is awesome. Right now out there there are millions of kids creating stories about vampires and wizards in different forms of proto-roleplaying like freeform forum play and collaborative fan-fiction writing. They could easily be converted into role-players if something like this project goes big and appeals to them, adding legions of well-needed young people to our hobby.

We can despise the base material and call it sub-literature and sub-culture, but what did other people think of us when we dreamed about being barbarians killing dragons in dark corridors to loot their gold? The only difference between our old fantasy and this new kind of fantasy is that the later appeals to girls also, so it's made of win.

Just my two cents here.

In summary, keep it up and good luck.

The only difference between our old fantasy and this new kind of fantasy is that the later appeals to girls also, so it's made of win.

I disagree with this; it isn't the only difference.  And it certainly has nothing at all to do with my own distaste for Twilight, though I can't speak for others.

However, as I've said a few times now, distaste of Twilight aside, I think Joe is onto something kickass here.  If it can help "recruit" teenagers to RPGs as a hobby, that's sweet as well, but not something I, personally am particularly worried about.

Sooo... can Tommy or Abby from Christopher Moore's vampire trilogy be characters?  Or are those books too silly and lacking in necessary angst?

Haven't read Christopher Moore yet. I should get on that.
Judging by the campy book covers, I don't really know.

I'm sure Monsterhearts can be played for dark laughs.

Ahhh, okay.  They are very much comedies and a lot of fun.  I recommend reading them (though not necessarily as inspiration for this game).  Abby (who is only in the 2nd and 3rd books, not the first) is very much a satire of a 16 year old goth girl.

Here's a quote from the beginning of one of the sections that's written from her POV:
"Much like the guy in Herman Hesse's novel Steppenwolf (which everyone knows means, 'wolf going up the steps') who runs into the ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY sign outside of the Magic Theater, when it comes to romance I am definitely not on the list. Loneliness is my 'plus one.' Bitterness is my boo."

Tommy is more of a normal 19 year old guy who wants to be a writer and ends up becoming a vampire.  He's got some interesting stuff going on at some points because his girlfriend Jody loves being a vampire, but he wants to be human again (and this is possible).

One of the actually-important-to-the-game differences between Buffy and Twilight, which Joe touched on already with his description of the Twilight movies, is that in Buffy, things actually happen at a remotely reasonable pace. The Twilight series, to the best of my knowledge, is predicated on a complete and utter lack of things happening -- they are 90% descriptive passages and wallowing in established-to-death 'conflicts' that the author is fundamentally unwilling to resolve at a rate of more than one per two books.

I have no idea if this is something Joe wants to support -- it could easily be replicated by a group playing AW if they simply did nothing but Barf Forth Apocalyptica for 95% of their play time, and rolled the dice like once per session. So it's possible that Joe is on to something by describing the difference primarily in terms of 'competent vs. incompetent', but if you were really devoted to Twilight (as opposed to the wider genre) you could add moves like 'When you consider how beautiful your lover is...' and 'When you are overcome by the emotion of the situation...' which would have results on some purely descriptive/internal level.

I actually really, really like "When you are overcome with emotion..."
I already have a move called "When you gaze into the abyss..." which covers a lot of the same ground, but with a more psychic-maelstrom-y vibe.

"When you are struck by the awesome beauty of your lover, roll +[stat]. On a 10+, their Hot becomes +3 as long as you're both together. On a 7-9, [some stuff]. On a miss, they gain 1 String on you and nothing else happens."