Thread "Creating Fictional Weapons" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 7:04PM, Apr. 1, 2019

I will go on a limb here to say that I love weapons, fictional weapons to be precise: The Omnitrix, The Sword of Omens, Batarangs, etc. It's what every writer enjoys writing in, and I'm no different from my character's Talismans of Lybia (Badges).

I feel that those most writers starting out would overpower their weapons, and focus more on their weapons rather than focusing more on the characters and the universe's they create, and yes I fell for that trap too when I was a little younger too…well before I decided I wanted to create a webcomic.

Eventually, those said weapons become characters instead of props for your story for you to use. They become Deux ex Machina, or overpowered plot machines to move your story forward and weaken the effectiveness of the weapons you created.

The more you focus on your weapons, and the more you overpower those said weapons, the more they become a Mary Sue of themselves and that's one thing no writer wants.

I'm still learning, there are things or habits I want to break such as not trying to overpower my weapons or anything. It's fun to make, I'll admit, but just remember to don't give your weapons too much screen time. There's a saying, "save the best for last" if that makes sense.

Do you agree or no?

Posted at 9:04PM, Apr. 1, 2019

Powerful or legendary "load-bearing" objects are fun in a story. Characters can start to lean on them, depend on them. The best plot device is when the villain destroys, steals, or neutralizes the all-powerful item about 2/3 or 3/4 into the story, and the protagonist has to figure out how to succeed without it.

Posted at 9:04PM, Apr. 1, 2019

True. You see that a lot in anime, especially giant mecha anime, rather than just the usual swords and guns in others.
In traditional anime like Voltron or Space Battleship Yamato it was the weapon OF the weapon that was overpowered: the sword for Voltron and the Wave motion gun for the Yamato.
In later stuff like Gundam it's the mecha that's overpowered.

What I love about Ghost in the Shell (first movie and TV series), all the weapons are just tools. None are overpowered, all have limitations and specific uses. In Pinky TA the weapons are the same as that: none can be used as the be all and end all.

The other trap to fall into is making the weapons your characters fight against being very week or cannon fodder, Like in the Avengers movies and numerous anime. Even a little pocket knife is a deadly weapon and swords will murder easily, full battle tanks a VERY hard to kill and extremely dangerous which is why they cost millions of dollars…
Respect the weapons in your comic - don't over or under-power them.

Posted at 2:04AM, Apr. 2, 2019

But in Space Battleship Yamato 2199 and 2202 they reined it in. Now there's all kinds of limitations and counter weapons. Gundam just sells more models.

Another thing about respecting weapons is making them incredibly fragile. Like Star Trek. Hit one point and the ship is disabled. Hit another point and every ship.goes up like a British battle cruiser. It's either that or something is invincible, like the Borg cube. But then a new weapon is always overpowering the first time it's encountered and battles can be awfully one sided at first.

Then with time all the ways to stop it and all the problems with maintaining the wonder weapon show up and it's not so exciting anymore.

And in my comics? I've done almost everything. The Robofemoid comics are about the development of a weapon system. Interstellar Bloodbeasts there's punch and counterpunch. Goob it's about teamwork and things used as weapons that you wouldn't normally expect. Mask of the Aryans there's tanks and machine guns to short swords and bare chested gladiators.

And there's still that World War 2 comic series I want to do.

Posted at 3:04AM, Apr. 2, 2019

Bare chests are the only weapons you'll ever need :D

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I think a lot of this comes from our common misunderstanding of weapons: we treat REAL weapons like cartoon props because we lack an understanding of the context they were supposed to exist in.

I love battleships but I understand they were used in a specific context the the BEST use of a battleship is never to have to use it at all.
People who don't understand them say they're obsolete because aeroplanes beat battleships and so aircraft carriers took over their role. That is a common misconception and not true.

The truth is that torpedoes were the nemesis of the battleship. Aircraft were just a delivery method, same with torpedo boats and submarines. Torpedoes will kill ANY ship, but it's worse with a battleship because they exist specifically to be invulnerable against everything. If they're vulnerable then they're not a battleship anymore.

It still took a long while for them to fall out of favour though. Aircraft on carriers meant that you could extend your range of attack far more and far cheaper than with a battleship which was a much more technologically advanced and more complicated weapons system than a carrier which was simply a floating airfield. War eventually changed to favour that type of longer range attack.

The battleship was still the most powerful ship at sea by far and able to go toe to toe with and destroy anything afloat, except another battleship. They could survive bombs from aircraft, shrug off direct hits from kamikaze, and even survive a close hit from a nuclear blast, with the crew inside surviving the blast too.
But war didn't call for mere ship to ship combat abilities anymore when you could control vast areas with planes instead and protecting them from torpedoes was just impossible.

Posted at 4:04AM, Apr. 2, 2019

You're right about torpedoes. The battleships sunk just by bombs are the exception.

And you want to RIP apart a D&D group, animals following their normal behavior are very effective. Predators are dangerous. The only thing that gives a traditional vampire an up over werewolves is their ability to control animals. Hand to hand they'd be torn apart.

People are also hard to kill. Strangulation can take forever. Unless you get the right place it's hard to kill with a knife quickly.

Someone can be hit by numerous bullets and if nothing vital is hit, they can move on. Some people don't even notice. Bigger bullets though have stopping power. Fast bullets have penetration and will put lots of holes. Low velocity lead balls often shattered on hitting bone so fragments could be all over.

And that's not counting super powers. Superman would routinely kill any normal person he hit unless he was very careful in pulling his punches. Asimov did a great article on the reality of super powers called "Man of Steel, woman of Kleenex."