Ducking the issue

[Tigerwomble]

9 hours ago, Quackatoa said:

Cheers, David! (Though I see I still had absolutely no idea how to draw duck feet... 😉)

Still a great bit of art

[Hteph]

When I started playing RQ for the first time I also had a problem with ducks, so my solution was: I play one! This become one of my most beloved (by me) characters ever. Tompkin "Two-clacks" Pebbelfeather, Issaries peddler and constant source of astonishing stupid plots and ideas. I think I still can make the special "I have an idea/opinion"-duckish sound and my fellow gamers will roll their eyes thirty years or so later....

Soo, there is hope...

[Balakatun]

Who says there's a duck problem?

 

[JonL]

The black & white Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics are the best expression of those characters precisely because they're mostly stories about being a family of ninja siblings coming of age. The turtle form stuff is mostly just a complication they sometimes have to deal with or justifies some cool durability feats, and taken for granted the rest of the time. Their turtle-ness is not the most important thing about them in their stories, ther relationships with one another, with their friends, and with their shadow warrior tradition are. There is some humor in the ironic juxtaposition of their very much played straight Ninja tropes and the fact that they're little turtle creatures with over bites, but they're not a joke.

So too ducks.

Edited June 21, 2018 by JonL

[soltakss]

On 6/18/2018 at 10:49 AM, Tigerwomble said:

I have a friend who does not 'get' Gloranthan Ducks. He, quite rightly says that they have no heroic provenance (Howard the Duck notwithstanding).
It's a good point. They have never been part of the mythic landscape, unlike other birds such as Crow and Hawk. For me, Ducks represent
the kind of creative thinking that makes Glorantha special. But they can be quite a hurdle to overcome for some players new to the game
and difficult to avoid excluding so as to reassure those players.

How have others coped with this 'duck problem'?

In our RQ Game, we had a Humakti Rune Lord Priest, Pektok, who was a typical dour, humourless, "cut you if you laugh at me" Humakti Duck. He was vicious. Once, the players of Pektok and Derak the Dark troll went to someone else's game and played each other's PC for half the game, then switched and played their own PCs for the rest of the game. In that game, a PC Centaur, who hadn't met Pektok before, laughed and saod something like "Oh, a Humakti Duck, isn't he funny/cute?", to which pektok simply walked between his legs and gutted him with his Greatsword.

Ducks can be humorous or deadly serious. I like them being deadly serious, as that makes them even funnier.

In my game, they took shelter with Delecti in the Upland Marsh after the Dragonkill. Delecti saved the Ducks and even likes them. If it wasn;t for Delecti, the Ducks would all have been killed by the Dragons. He knows it, the Ducks know it, but the Ducks don't like it and don't talk about it. They even embraced the worship of Humakt and went against Delecti, knowing full well that they are going against their saviour. Delecti doesn't mind this at all, as Ducks will be Ducks.

So, treat them seriously and all will be well.

Duck bandits are good in water and can be found along the Zola Fel.

Duck Humakti bear a grudge and should never be crossed.

Duck entertainers have a natural advantage that they are entertaining.

Duck Lovers are funny because I cannot imagine how a Duck can be a famous lover.

 

[soltakss]

Also, Ducks used to live in Ganderland, a great and powerful Empire. Now, they live in hovels along the edges of rivers and in marshes. They have such an inferiority complex, it is hard to understand. Orlanth/Yelm cursed them to be Flightless (Probably both, in my opinion), they were used as scapegoats for the Starbrow Rebellion and their Bills were removed to collect the rewards. They are a vicious, spiteful, vindictive and petty people, with the biggest short-person syndrome ever. Everyone laughs at them and they can't do anything about it. 

This makes them great to roleplay.

[trystero]

My ideal duck is a mixture of personality bits from Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, and Rocket Racoon from the Guardians of the Galaxy films. (Yes, wrong species, but he's a short, irritable, irritating, generally-untrustworthy death-worshiper with no ability to laugh at himself, and thus basically an honorary duck in my book.)

[PeterPlatter]

23 hours ago, trystero said:

My ideal duck is a mixture of personality bits from Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, and Rocket Racoon from the Guardians of the Galaxy films. (Yes, wrong species, but he's a short, irritable, irritating, generally-untrustworthy death-worshiper with no ability to laugh at himself, and thus basically an honorary duck in my book.)

If we're using this examples I kind of imagined them more as movie Drax the Destroyer. 

[styopa]

On 6/22/2018 at 2:36 PM, soltakss said:

Duck Lovers are funny because I cannot imagine how a Duck can be a famous lover.

I can't imagine how they WOULDN'T be?