Much like Rick, Dan represented a challenge for us. However,
in his case it was a different one. Whereas Rick had struggled with connection
and relevance, Dan had, by comparison, had problems with definition and role.
Dan was the “youngest” of the cast at launch, his game
having only just ended shortly before the first MSTings began.
What Worked?
At his core, Dan was a bit of a loudmouth, a bit of a jerk,
a bit of an idiot and a lot of a horny letch. That much had worked well for us,
giving him a strong personality profile and a good base to work from, albeit one
that was not being properly used. Likewise, he had a strong background, maybe
the strongest of the team, although again it was not being well utilized in our
MSTings. His evil twin sister also provided us with some good material, and not
just from doing one guest spot. All up, Dan had some great ideas and
background.
The other one that had worked fantastically was his prior
relationship with Rebecca and their shared mutual antagonism. The pair of them
playing off each other, taking shots back and forth and trying to get whatever
advantage they could had proven to be a goldmine that we used throughout the
entire run. The intensity of this hatred waxed and waned – on a couple of occasions,
Dan even tried being nice to her – but never let up.
What didn’t work?
As mentioned above, Dan had some good ideas and concepts.
The problem was that he rarely lived up to them. His background, as a Rifts player character no less, should
have been a goldmine of opportunities and material. Coming from a nonsensical mega-crossover
world that looked like every metal album cover ever at the same time which featured
dragons, psychics, wizards, cyborgs, giant robots and gords alone knows what else
should have been fantastic material. Instead, it wasn’t, and often Dan was the
most “normal” of them (We probably made more jokes about Rick’s comic then Rifts)
Likewise, Dan’s personality was being constantly edged out.
Rebecca’s odd hijacking of the ‘perv’ role early on (no we have no idea how
that happened and redressing that would be a constant struggle) hurt him a lot,
and he struggled at times to make up lost ground. Generally, for the most part,
Dan wound up being a butt monkey for Rebecca, whoever was guest starring that
day or whoever happened to be convenient.
What’s changed?
Dan’s background had to be completely retooled to fit the
new continuity. In doing such, we took elements of the Rifts setting that could be meshed in; the “wild frontier”
approach, the post-apocalyptic setting and the giant robots. The result was
that Dan was now a “giant robot cowboy” of sorts, which in turn gave us a lot
of opportunity for new material. Likewise, we re-tooled his personality to use this;
he’s now cocky, confident, swaggering and has a “funny story” foe every
occasion.
His appearance got a makeover, just like everyone else, but
his was probably the most minor. He looks the same, just with his outfit
re-worked to fit his new “cowboy” persona. Yes, after over a decade, Dan has
finally learned to wear a shirt. And it only took a complete continuity reset
to do it.
What’s stayed the
same?
Dan and Rebecca’s relationship is still there, although it’s
been tweaked a bit to better fit Rebecca’s new personality and background (and
more on that to come). He’s still cocky, full of himself and a letch, but this
time we’ve given it focus; ironically, so far he hasn’t had much of a chance to
use his spot as the ‘pervy’ rifer due to the material we’re covering.
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