User blog:Chris Lang/Top Six Characters I'll Never Play in a Traitor Game

The Traitor Games have been on hiatus for a while, though games inspired by them have been happening elsewhere. I for one haven't found the time or creative energy to be involved in either the Traitor Games, the Convergence Series, or any similar fandom crossover RPGs lately.

But should I decide to get back to doing them, I have this list of characters who I'm not likely to be playing in the Traitor Games or similar such games any time soon. While I might change my mind in some cases, in other cases the title 'never' might very well apply. So, without further ado, here's my Top Six Characters I'll Never Play in a Traitor Game.

6. Fighting Game Characters
There are a lot of fighting game characters out there, and many of them have been given interesting enough backstories for various stories and spinoffs to be written about them. But here's the thing: I'm not a big fighting game fan. I only have passing familiarity with Chun Li, Cammy, and M. Bison, and the various other Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters, and so on characters. I don't really think I could do justice to any of them. So I'm not likely to play any in the near future.

5. X-23
I know a lot of people like her, but I dropped the X-Men comic books around the time of Decimation, and the little I saw of her then didn't really grab me. She's largely after my time, so I don't really know enough about her to play her in an RPG.

4. Real People/Celebrities
While some items on this list I might change my mind on, this is one I think I can safely say 'never' to. While some players might play celebrities even as parody, I for one will never do so for several reasons.

First off, these are real people who I don't know. I've never met them or spoken with them. I don't want to misrepresent them, even in a parody.

Secondly, celebrity parodies are often based in current events and tend to age poorly. There are all sorts of things they do that make for late-night comedy punchlines but which are forgotten about in a year or two. If one goes back to, say, old episodes of Saturday Night Live or Celebrity Deathmatch from many years ago, a lot of the jokes there seem very dated. Ditto for jokes about celebrities in sitcom episodes from several years ago.

Thirdly, celebrities are often getting themselves in big trouble. Sometimes, we admire celebrities and later find out they've done something so terrible it taints everything associated with them, and then we feel bad for any good things we've said about them. And parodies of them are suddenly nowhere near as funny as they once were. So to avoid potential Funny Aneurysm Moments, I will avoid any celebrity parodies.

3. Chloe Sullivan
Chloe Sullivan was a fan favorite character of Smallville. She was smart, snarky, and a fun Badass Normal. Sounds like a good fit for the Traitor Games, right? Well, not quite.

First off, I stopped watching Smallville around the time of Season 5, and haven't seen it in years. So I'm not up on what happened in the later seasons where they tried to work in more of the DC Universe and they gradually got distracted from the 'Superman before he was Superman' premise.

Secondly, the actress who played her is one of those celebrities I was talking about in the previous item, one of the ones who've done things so terrible in real life it overshadows everything else. I won't go into what she did, or even mention her name here (look it up elsewhere if you don't already know and your morbid curiosity drives you to do so). But as a result, it's just Too Soon. Maybe some day far, far in the future, when the dust has settled, we'd be able to seperate the wonderful character from the horrible human being who played her on TV, but that day is a LONG way off. So I think it's safe to say this one's on the 'Never' file.

2. Lisa Simpson
This one's a result of bad and/or inconsistent writing on the part of The Simpsons writers. Lisa at times is the moral center of the Simpsons universe, calling her family and other residents of Springfield out on their questionable behavior. In her best episodes, she's flawed and makes mistakes, but genuinely wants everyone to be aware of when they're doing things wrong. She's also one of the smartest characters in the show.

The thing is, she's been written a bit inconsistently throughout the seasons. Though some things have stuck, such as her vegetarianism. Another thing that stuck was her turn to Buddhism, which wouldn't be such a bad thing except that in 'She Of Little Faith', she does so for the wrong reasons. She does so not because of disagreements with dogma or anything like that, but because the churches in her neighborhood display advertising to help pay their bills. Changing religions over that seemed a huge over-reaction - I thought Lisa was smarter than that.

Anyway, this pretty much came after the Simpsons had already jumped the shark (most agree it jumped the shark in season 11 or sometime around then) and its best days were already behind it. But in any case, I don't think I'll be playing Lisa Simpson in any fandom-based RPGs any time soon.

And the number one Character I'll NEVER play in a Traitor Game (or Convergence Series, or other similar fandom RPG) is...

1. Anyone from Twilight
Yes, making fun of Twilight is basically beating a dead horse at this point, but still I can safely say I have zero interest in playing anyone from this poorly written mess of a sparkly vampire series. (I will, however, concede that the supporting cast is more interesting than the three leads in its badly-written love triangle).

So those are the characters I'm not likely to roleplay in any fandom RPG any time soon.