Mapping Freakangels to Playbooks

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Mapping Freakangels to Playbooks
« on: December 29, 2017, 12:18:23 AM »
Spent today sick in bed re-reading Warren Ellis & Paul Duffield's excellent
comic Freakangels (online at www.freakangels.com) and it struck
me that KK was obviously a Driver. 

And then my brain was off running and I couldn't stop mapping Freakangels to playbooks.

(Freakangels spoilers follow)

Obvious ones:

Driver: KK
Angel: Miki
Savvyhead: Caz
Kirk: Hardholder

Ones I had to think about:

Initial knee jerk was that Sirkka is the Skinner because she's Miss Hot Bitch
Baby, but after thought she's clearly the Hocus. She's all about her love cult
family and saving people.

Was initially confused between Kait being Gunlugger or Battlebabe, because she's
so cold and kind a spinny killbot but come on -- her Serious Armor, Serious
Wall of Guns, and Serious Seriousness settle it.  Gunlugger.

Jack starts out as a kind of vague, vehicle-oriented character, but it
eventually becomes clear he's the Battlebabe. He's slept with almost everyone,
does a bunch of gunplay that doesn't turn out the way he hopes, and is caught
in a Bad Romance, all moody broody, needing a shave, and smoking those horrible
little cigars.

I initially thought Arkady must be the Brainer because she's so psychic, but
that's lazy. Also she does more teleporting than brain manipulation. Luke. Luke
is all about creepy brain violation.  He's the classic Brainer gone bad.
(What about Mark? I'll get to that.)

Weird ones:

Karl is a weird kind of Maestro D, since he's such an avoidant grouch, but
eventually he assembles a crew and starts building greenhouses. He gives Alice a
strawberry. When the Freakangels need to meet up after the Freakcave is
destroyed, they meet in Karl's basement and drink his wine.

Connor is the Skinner. He's the only Freakangel who makes art. He's gentle. He's
a funny Skinner because he's romantically clueless and trying to get over being
the fat kid, but he's the Skinner.

Mark is the Chopper because he externalizes his power. Mark is all about his
gang, his zombie army. Choppers have a tendency to attack Hardholders if the two
appear in a game and Mark is playing to type. Mark has to be Alpha Dog.

Which leaves Arkady. I dunno, maybe Arkady is the Psychic Maelstrom? She comes
and goes unpredictably, and is a vector of surprising strangeness. She was the
first to die and come back weird.

(I mean obviously there's no requirement that the mapping between characters
in unrelated works lie all flat and tidy, but it's pretty uncanny.)

Re: Mapping Freakangels to Playbooks
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2018, 09:14:19 AM »
I'm not familiar with the comic, but one thing that people seem to miss when mapping established fictional characters to -any- rpg is just that; they're "established". They've been around, give them some improvements.

Maybe Sirikka IS the skinner, but has taken "get followers (you detail) and fortunes" as an improvement. Or a Hocus that has been pumping hot and taking moves from the skinner playbook where she can. Or maybe she started as one, but life became untenable at some point in the past and she swapped to the other.

Re: Mapping Freakangels to Playbooks
« Reply #2 on: January 31, 2018, 08:33:49 PM »
That's a great point.

A plausible story is that they are all brainers who switched to new playbooks when the apocalypse happened.