Ep 51 of The Letters Page discussion - Greazer

In regards to a remark made in the podcast

Hey, Greazer is a cult favorite thank you very much. We've always had a soft spot for the little guy just trying to make his way though this uncaring universe.

They tend to have the best prospects for recruitment.

I didn't mention Greazer by name when I mentioned "Someone selling shirts out of their space van to make some space moolah", though he was certainly in my mind when I did so. The fact that they decided bring up Greazer specifically would lead me to believe they had that idea before my letter. Though maybe not specifically T-shirts.

This was fun. The only thing I wanna know still is what HYP stands for. Time for an Editor's Note question!

It's always interesting to hear about the main characters outside of the main focus of Sentinels Comics.

Like I wouldn't have considered Greazer as a candidate for a hero deck, but after hearing how popular he was I'm kinda surprised that he wasn't! But like the editors of Sentinels Comics, C+A wanted to keep him on a certain path.

Edit: A weird question comes to mind as I type this: in the Meta-verse, are Sentinels Comics abreviated down to SC like a certain coumpany in our own universe? And if so, are they refered to as SC Comics? That's kind of redundant, like calling it an ATM machine.

I really enjoyed this episode, for me its a sign that once they finish up the core characters, these issue blow by blows will keep me listening.

However the fact that this episode is before Tempest and Voss, well... You're just stalling now.

Yeah, now I really wish there was a Greazer hero deck, too.  Seems weird that they'd say outright that he was starting to turn into a hero in his own comic, so they cancelled it because it clashed with their artistic vision.  I'd think is SC were real, they'd go ahead and make him a legit anti-hero.  Especially since he had his own book--you don't really make a whole book for a villain, except for limited series.

I was really, really hoping that the Pink Lady (the car) would end up having the "brain" of the Pink Lady (the robot) implanted in it.  Having his car give him statistical analyses and advice about whether a particular bounty or strategy is likely to "pay out" would have totally explained his success despite him otherwise being a dork, and have been incredibly cool besides.  And it would have given him someone to talk to for exposition and downtime, like a sidekick.  Missed opportunity there.

I don't think I agree on this one. If the Pink Lady was still around, he wouldn't take gigs that weren't going to be successful, which is kind of a defining trait for him. He'd be a completely different character. 

Just my thoughts, though. 

Naming his car after a broken robot is maybe the greatest single act of humanizing that he does, though.

I mean, I also figured she was reconfigured into the car somehow, before they finished the story, but I think I like this outcome better. :)

I...actually kind of disliked this episode.  

Admittedly, I'm the sort of listener that loves The Letters Page for the "insider baseball"--the unique piecing together of the lore that only the creators can really put forward:  the links between characters, the issues that provide the connective tissue between the big comics events, the interactions between heroes that you can't really see in the card game medium.

Obviously, Greazer isn't a main character.  Not every character can be.  But, based on the information in this episode, I feel like he just doesn't contribute much of anything.  He's relatively 'flat'--he doesn't evolve or change, he has the same relative mental state from his first appearance until Oblivaeon.  There's no character arc, no growth, not even any particularly meaningful interactions with the heroes.  His biggest moment, as we saw, was his capture of Skyscraper to kick off the Hero in the Arena (#4-6) event.  There's no major battle, no conflict, just "Oh, hey Kargaara, I've got that gladiator you wanted.  I need gas money..."

Yes, Greazer's funny, because of the '50s rockabilly styling, but...even the Guise and Wager Master episodes had more substance to them.  Here?  Greazer has no real impact on the multiverse, has no character arc, and barely any conflict with the main characters.  Heck, I feel like Galactra or Heartbreaker have more to them than Greazer, and they only have one card each, much less a full deck.

I'm not sure what I was wanting with this one.  I'm certainly not going to stop listening, but...yeah.  At this point?  I feel like there's just so much stalling to put off revealing what's going on with Parse, Tempest, and Voss.  And it certainly is starting to actively feel like stalling.

I admit I'm starting to feel a little bit put off by the people complaining about "stalling".

This is a podcast which exists to talk about characters and concepts in Sentinel Comics. Of course they're going to try and schedule OblivAeon-heavy characters and concepts to be talked about closer to when OblivAeon is ready to come out. But the stuff they're scheduling in front of it... is still stuff about characters and concepts that would be talked about at some point regardless. It's not "filler"; it's stuff that's still always been a notable part of the product.

On top of that, it was the fanbase who precipitated the switch from interludes to putting more stuff in the main episodes by complaining we felt like we were missing important stuff that was hidden in the interludes, so the fanbase is also partly to "blame" for some things being main episodes.

Personally I like listening to every single episode whether it's a big game-changing character with a major arc or a somewhat minor but fun character who has an equally fun story to tell. My complaints are more that we often get very little feel for the characters as people, so it's kind of nice whenever we get an episode where the character is given more of a personality rather than being mostly a framing for plot devices.

I can understand those people impatient for Tempest or Parse's episode because those are their most favorite characters, but I feel like everyone else kinda needs to make a cup of tea and enjoy the ride.

From recent comments in the podcast, it sounds like they're trying to get things to line up so they can talk about Oblivaeon right around the time it's physically being released. I imagine the characters who we're still waiting on are either more important to the story... or less so. There's still that unknown Scion left to reveal!

And, to a degree, I get that.  If Voss is, in fact, the [REDACTED] scion, then yes--it totally makes sense to talk about him once OblivAeon is out and once the proverbial cat is out of the bag.

But, minus that information, we're at this strange point where we've had extended conversations about a really minor villain--a conversation that is literally twice the length of that of Bunker, one of the core heroes in the biggest hero team in Sentinel Comics--but we're still missing conversations about one of the foundational heroes, that hero's nemesis, and another pretty-important hero who certainly makes the rounds... (Seriously, Parse spends time hanging out with Dark Watch and the Wraith, where she outright kills Spite, but then ends up spending a ton of time in space with Captain Cosmic?  That girl is busy!)

I went into the Greazer episode somewhat ambivalent about him as a character, but I ended up leaving with an overall negative view of him, even as a villain.  He seems to be a nuisance, at best, within the game at large, which makes me question why he even got a villain deck, when more-important villains (Heartbreaker, Galactra, and Highbrow to name three) seem much more deserving.  He wasn't particularly sympathetic to me, he didn't have unique powers or a neat motivation, and his story (outside of his origin) is minimal.  Past his rocakabilly demeanor, there just isn't that much to him.

If we're not going to get a Parse/Tempest/Voss episode until April (presumably to coincide with Oblivaeon), we're then looking at 2 more months of *something* between now and then.  Personally, I'd love to see more 'event'-based episodes:  an Iron Legacy timeline episode (as much of a downer as that is), a full Termi-Nation episode (especially since that event is really dribbled over several other episodes, but no real finite explanation as to what or why it all happened), a Time Cataclysm episode (since it's apparently more of an event than an environment), or the like.  Personally, I'm really looking forward to the "Mystic Settings" episodes, having submitted a ton of questions regarding Zhu Long's Temple.

Again, I'm not planning to stop listening or the like--I've really enjoyed nearly every episode thusfar.  This one was just a downbeat for me, especially when there are so many more exciting things to talk about.

Yeahhh...Setback definitely needs a revisit, especially following the RevoCorp episode.

Probably because there's no point in having episodes that would spoil an upcoming product or have to be so vague to compensate that they'd just need to do a second episode for them anyway.

I mean you're going "minus that information" to what is important, foundational information for the situation. If OblivAeon was out already no doubt we'd have those weightier discussions sooner and the more minor characters later.

You're a GM and writer; would you dump the entire plot on your players the second session with everything in the wrong order?

Because Sentinels and the Multiverse is a "crossover" game, with each of the decks representing events where more than one hero got involved. All three characters you mentioned tangled pretty much solely with one hero, while Greazer encountered several.

Plus he's a fun lightweight character in a franchise that's frequently weighty; a somewhat comedic villain to counterweight the various comedic heroes. Ermine is even more lightweight than Greazer is but people seem to be fine with her as a character. [shrug] I liked this episode better than Guise's... Guise's story was equally inconsequential on the whole but Greazer's felt more coherent and enjoyable to me.

Reminder (and this is NOT at anyone specifically -- just want to make sure we're all keeping this in mind): 

• Everyone is going to perceive things differently based on their own personality and life experiences
• Everyone is going to have different opinions based on their perceptions
• We want to respect and accept that others have different opinions, and there's nothing wrong with having those opinions

Thanks, folks! 

Your GMing analogy is hyperbole, pure and simple.  Even using your analogy, we're hardly in "the second session" of the multiverse.  We're 50 episodes in and pending the final release of the card game.  If you're 50 sessions into a campaign, I'd certainly hope that your players have a good handle on the overarching plot.

I'm okay with your posit of a "crossover" game, but where do we see Greazer active "in an event where more than one hero got involved"?  There's no reference to it in his episode.  There's no reference to it in Skyscraper's episode or in Kargaara's.  By contrast, Heartbreaker interacts with all of Darkwatch and is significant in the Wraith's story, to say nothing of his time in the Bloodsworn Arena.  Highbrow has significant interactions with Baron Blade and every hero involved in Termi-Nation, which is one of the reasons I'm interested in hearing more about that event.  If I were in Christopher and Adam's place two or three years ago (which I'm not) and had the benefit of 20/20 hindsight (which I wouldn't), I probably would have given one of those characters a deck, rather than Greazer.  Again, my opinion, my tastes.  Your mileage may vary.

Look, I'm not trying to convince you of anything here.  You liked something.  I didn't.  It's okay.  Could you please stop coming after me now for holding a different opinion than you?

You seem to be arguing that you wish the likely OblivAeon-detail-heavy episodes would be aired now, months ahead of seeing the game itself. I am honestly confused how my analogy was hyperbole in relation to that assumption. Of course if I'm wrong in that assumption, I apologize in advance.

Christopher and Adam have explicitly said that Sentinels of the Multiverse represents "crossover" events where more than one hero got involved. I apologize if it was unclear that I was stating established knowledge there, rather than my own conjecture.

And Greazer's deck represents him interacting with Captain Cosmic, the rest of the Prime Wardens, the Freedom Five, and Sky-Scraper. These various occasions were also elaborated on in the episode.

I will admit it's conjecture on my part that the "crossover" bit is why the other characters you mentioned got single cards, but it feels like a logical conjecture to make given the known parameters.

I hope we can agree there's a wee bit of a difference between disliking something and feeling you wish it didn't exist.

I also was initially a little confused that some of your criticism seemed to be predicated on wishing we'd get OblivAeon spoilers months ahead of time, or that you seemed to feel there was an issue with the fellas discussing Sentinels topics on a Sentinels podcast.

It also happened to match impatience I've seen elsewhere, so my post was sort of addressing everyone in general I've seen express that sort of impatience; you just happened to be the specific person expressing it here at this particular time to respond to.

If you're honestly troubled by polite debate, I'll respect that and never respond to any of your posts on the forum from here on out, but I admit I'm a little confused and taken aback by this sort of reaction to polite disagreement.

I admit to not being great with social skills so I find it a little offputting and discouraging when I attempt to phrase my disagreement as politely as absolutely possible and I still get accused of attacking people. :/

To me, a character having more of an arc doesn't mean that they're more deserving of a deck, but rather that they're more deserving of a Letters Page episode.  So bring on the full episodes for Highbrow and Heartbreaker!

I would think considerations for a deck are more about potentially interesting mechanics (and let's face it, how many puns they can make with the card titles).

And while Greazer is a relatively flat character, this episode was actually more in depth than I thought it would be.  There was actually some character development with everything that happened with the Pink Lady, even if that was all part of his origin story.

Now this I definitely wholeheartedly agree with. There's a number of minor characters we've collected at this point that I'd love to hear more about on the podcast, and Heartbreaker is definitely up there.

Seconded; those are two characters that seem to have been "talked around", for whatever reason.  

I can see the argument on "arc-worthiness /= deck-worthiness"; the Matriarch is a good example of that one, in your favor.  But, it's been said a couple times on the podcast that when you're playing the game, you're effectively playing an event, which in my eyes tends to read as, "Here's this big comics story arc from the comics; you're playing those issues."  Maybe I'm erroneous in that, but I think that's how it was intended.

Honestly?  I think part of my thought on this episode come from having been spoiled by the depth of the majority of the characters thusfar.  Even seemingly minor characters--The Hippo comes to mind here, as well--are given a lot of depth and 'roundness' to their characters.  Characters that might seem on their face to be 'joke' characters like Guise end up with a definable character arc.  To my mind, we didn't really get that with Greazer; there's no change, no evolution, and only tangential interaction with other, more round characters.  

Yeah, I can't see Heartbreaker or Highbrow having interesting decks--Heartbreaker is just an ex-detective with projectile weapons, and Highbrow is just a schemer.  Greazer may not be a compelling villain, but he has cool deck mechanics and is one of the more interesting Vengeance villains IMO.  But we needed to have an episode on him just to explain who he is, why he has a deck, and why he isn't in OblivAeon.

Still, while they explained why he (as a villain) wasn't in the reward deck, like Dawn and the Ennead are, I still think we could have had a Disparation variant in there.  He superficially reminds me of a certain fictional character also created in the 1950's...

-------------------------

The blue-skinned alien's wristwatch began to beep.  He set down his space-martini, pulled back his imeccably pressed suit cuff, and spoke into it in a crisp British accent.

"Clutch here."

The voice that came out of it was female and distinctly mechanical.  "Hey, there, daddy-o.  There's someone out here I think you should meet."

"A contract?"

"You could say that.  Big guy, no shirt, calls himself Haka."

"Never heard of him.  Doesn't sound like our usual fare."

"Me neither, but he recognized me in the parking lot and walked right up.  And lemme tell ya, I got a strong feeling about this one.  Like, the stakes on this are really up there and you do not want to let it go by."

"On my way, Lady.  Be there in five."

He drew a credit chit out of his pocket and waved it over the counter to settle his bill before leaving.  At a nearby table, a couple whispered to each other.

"Oh my gawd, do you know who that was?"

"Nice suit, but I don't know the face."

"That was Clutch!  Greazer Clutch!  You know... they call him The Gentleman."

The way I tend to look at it is: Does this character drive a plot? Is this character someone who starts something that the heroes have to stop?

Greazer drives a couple of them -- capturing Sky-Scraper, for one. Capturing Captain Cosmic for another, requiring him to be rescued by the rest of the Prime Wardens.

Someone like Heartbreaker, though, he's like a panda. Eats, shoots and leaves. He doesn't try to take over the city. He doesn't try to capture any of the Darkwatch. He doesn't have some scheme that's going to harm hundreds. No, he just shows up, stabs Fixer, then leaves.

Also remember that Greazer has been mentioned in other episodes -- he's mentioned as trying to capture KNYFE, hired by Sergeant Steel.

Plus, he's not a solo villain. I tend to see the Vengeance-style villains as being a bunch of side-plots; maybe they're working together on a team, or maybe Greazer is showing up to capture Haka while someone else is distracting the rest of the heroes.

Just a thought:

Like everything that has more practice, it gets better the further along it gets. If Setback or Bunkers episode came out now, it probably be more like Greezers. Thats why C&A are doing Editor Notes and it wouldn't surprise me at all that just prior or just after OblivAeon Ships some of these heroes will get more detailed episodes.

They got better at organizing their thoughts, their stories, and putting things together, so of course later episodes are going to feel more fleshed out than earlier ones, even if the characters are worlds apart in importance.

I was just happy to get a bunch of blow-by-blow story telling. That was fun! And, hey, it's also what we were wondering if/wishing that they would do after they "finish" the character episodes. I don't mind getting some of that early!

I second the idea of getting similar episodes about Termi-Nation and the Iron Legacy event. Those events sound like awesome stories.

You're right--C&A have definitely gotten better as the eps have gone on, as they've refined their podcasting style and their banter.  And, if I recall, the Bunker episode was somewhat rushed due to some other event or such, leading to the low runtime.  Hopefully, they'll give him some additional focus if things start getting circling back around.

Highbrow is actually on my shortlist for "Masterminds of the Multiverse*" if I ever sit down and get past "very vague decks" - her deck would be based around playing Schemes, and each Scheme is something bad that the heroes can take specific actions to stop. If they don't, it goes off and something terrible happens. 

As a main character it would not be fun, but as a team villain I think it would work well. 

I could also see her having a series of "Contingencies"--ongoings or the like that only go off if the players/Heroes take certain actions.  Something like:  "At the start of the Villain Turn, if there are at least H Hero Ongoing cards in play, destroy all but one of them, then deal each Hero psychic damage equal to the number of cards destroyed in this way."

Ooh, I like that. I am adding it to my deck design with thanks. :)

Also I am derailing this thread. Apologies. Greazer!

I think the reason Greazer got a whole deck is pretty simple - it was fun to make that deck. I believe C&A said as much; they almost put him in as a mini-nemesis in another deck, but it was too cool not to.

The result is that his character is a lot like Lobo - a bit of a fan favorite, and a great introduction to the character, but there's really not that much there under the surface and he doesn't go very far.

Any theories about who his partner is in the new setting?

Galactra, maybe?

Probably someone we haven't met yet.  With a name like "Dollface," I'm guessing an android.

I'd asked about some of the other aliens that appeared in Greazer's deck.  They're probably completely incidental (even though C&A have said that every single character in every card has a payoff somehow), but I suppose it could be the woman on "All the Best Toys."

That's who I thought at first, but then it sounded like she's supposed to be someone new.  Although I feel like Greazer would get along well with a chick who steals a moon because she likes it.

You might be on to something...

This went way too unappreciated, and so I’m clapping for Burning Stickman right now.

I really liked Greazer’s episode though, and especially the blow-by-blow of the however many books he became a bounty hunter in. Fantastic.