I guess the title says it all, Chummers.

I know this isn't strictly SHADOWRUN-related, but the earlier threads regarding superpowered characters (such as the one about adapting "Spider-Man" to SR) got me to thinking:

Which of the current crop of actors would be best for the role of "The Foreigner", if the character were ever to appear in a future SPIDER-MAN feature film?

Please keep in mind that the character is an Englishman of Mediterranean ancestry (dark complexion, brown hair and eyes), about six feet, two inches tall and 180 to 240 pounds (1.88 meters and 82 to 109 Kilograms), and approximately 35 to 50 years of age.

He's also a master of several martial arts disciplines, a master of disguise, and is knowledgeable in the use of most forms of hand weaponry--firearms, bows, and swords at least.

As always, all responses will be sincerely appreciated.

--Foreigner

And please, no flames. I'm just curious what your opinions might be.

Hugh Grant.

Uhm. This is a Shadowrun board. This has, like your last one, absolutely nothing to do with Shadowurn. This isn't a flame.

I concur with the Doc.

However, from your description, I would say either Cheech Marin or Antonio Banderas, depending on which slant you want to take with the character.

Ladies and gents:

My apologies if I offended anyone.

I guess I got a little (okay, a lot ) carried away.

My only real previous roleplaying game experience prior to starting with SR was with classic TRAVELLER and the original TOP SECRET nearly 20 years ago.

I was trying to come up with a concept that fit my idea of an assassin character and, as I was rather rusty (I hadn't played any RPGs since mid-1986), I figured that adapting an existing character from fiction or comics would be the easiest.

I figured that "James Bond" and all the other fictional spies have already been done to death, so I chose "The Foreigner" as a template, as I believed at the time that he would be easiest to adapt--and also had the added advantage of being almost unknown to anyone who wasn't familiar with comic books.

Again, I truly didn't mean to offend. I and my character are still relatively new to RPGs (this time around, at least ) , and I was just asking for opinions and advice.

Mea Culpa.

--Foreigner

it's not so much the question just where you put it, this is a perfectly valid thing to put in the General Gaming section, at least it is IMHO.

Unless you meant what sort of SR stats would he have, (I can't quite tell from the two posts, they seem to suggest different things on this point).

It is bad enough that this thread sucks....but there is also two of them for some reason...argg.

Solstice: The double post wasn't intentional. I'm not a very good typist, and apparently posted it twice without meaning to do so.


paul HArkonen: That's essentially what I was hoping to do--develop my own version of the comic character for SR, and most of my posts were built around that idea--as well as trying to figure out how the comic character himself would appear if he were to be adapted to the game.

--Foreigner

An uncybered mundane could approach his versatility in skills (he's a real skill-monkey), but would get kicked around in melee and ranged combat - which does not fit the Foreigner's concept as a character. A sorcerer could use mind-control spells to duplicate his hypnotism ability, but that is a minor aspect of the character, and a sorcerer would not otherwise fit. Therefore, I think your best two options would be to make him either a sammie or an adept. I'll look at both, but preface it by saying that the Foreigner, as presented in the comics, is a goal - your character, even with the SR char-gen system (which creates pros, not beginners), will be more like an earlier, less-experienced version of the Foreigner.

As an adept:
You would probably still want to take one Magic point loss's worth of cyber and/or bioware, such as enhanced articulation, a smartlink, etc. To start out with, take Improved Ability in unarmed combat and pistols, along with Traceless Walk, either Blind-Fighting or Emotion Sense, and some Improved Senses. As you improve, take Quick Strike (which comes closest to duplicating his hypnotism trick) and some Improved Reflexes - both cost too much at char-gen.

As a sammie:
Take the million, then take a mix of cyber and bio that gives you lots of toughness, strength, and speed, but avoid the obvious stuff (in other words, plastic bone lacing and orthoskin instead of titanium bone lacing and dermal sheathing). Get a few nifty things like an internal GPS or an eye camera. With your high initial cost in resources and Attributes, his skills will be more limited - that will be your biggest area to improve in the future. One possibilty, though, is to take Skillwires: 3 and a CED: 3, giving him 6 dice for many secondary skills.



One thing to look out for: A character whom you are playing, ruled by the fickle dice, is a lot less in control than a character written for a comic. If you really like the Foreigner, ask yourself if you could handle seeing your character get beat up by a troll or shot by a ganger. You want a character that you can get in to, and enjoy playing, but you should also play a character that you can stand to watch die, or (sometimes worse) fail.

A lot of the Foreigner's coolness factor comes from how impeturbable and in control he is. You can give him a cool, flippant attitude, but NPCs can be unimpressed, a ganger with a cheap SMG and a lucky shot can wound you badly in one round, and so on. You might want to consider making the character merely similar to the Foreigner, or using the Foreigner as a starting point in the concept, rather than trying to completely duplicate him. That way, there won't be as much of a jarring discontinuity between the game you are playing and the character that you remember.

kevyn668:

Something like that.

In SR terms, I think the character could be described as a "Pre-Awakening Adept of the Magician's Way" (SR3 terminology; in SR1 or -2, he'd be a "Physical Magician").

He has inhumanly fast reflexes, can focus his concentration well enough to perform near-superhuman feats of strength, and is a superb marksman with most firearms, as well as being an Olympic-class archer and swordsman. He also, on at least one occasion, demonstrated an ability similar to the Adept "Missile Mastery" power, throwing one of the little umbrellas served in the top of tropical-fruit-based mixed drinks into a wall poster. I don't recall whether he ever used that ability against a human adversary, though.

Incidentally, he *may* be fully ambidextrous--The Foreigner himself appears to be habitually right-handed, but he has, on at least one occasion (in an issue of the short-lived SILVER SABLE AND THE WILD PACK comic series), used two pistols simultaneously--one in either hand. Also, one of his cover identities, Lieutenant Christopher Keating of the New York City Police Department Special Powers Task Force, appeared to be left-handed (in the MARVEL universe, the group in question was a subdivision of the N.Y.P.D.'s S.W.A.T. team intended to protect the civilian population from super-criminals--or, at least keep them away from the frequent battles between New-York-based superheroes and their enemies). The Foreigner had murdered the real Keating--described as a loner with no family or close friends; his life was pretty much dedicated to his job--in some as-yet-unrevealed encounter in the past, and assumed his identity in order to use the N.Y.P.D.'s resources to keep tabs on his enemies, as well as to covertly obtain background information on prospective clients or targets. Anyway, while disguised as Keating, The Foreigner defended himself from a sudden attack by people attempting to murder him and another individual (ironically, the man in question was also a long-time Spider-Man villain--Roderick Kingsley, the original (and current, IIRC) Hobgoblin) with whom he was having a conversation in his "official capacity" as LT. Keating by drawing a handgun from beneath his coat and firing it left-handed.

He also has a "near-mystical ability" (that's Marvel's phrase, not mine) to hypnotize anyone with whom he makes direct eye contact, causing them to black out for up to ten seconds. Anyone in this trancelike state won't know what The Foreigner's up to at the time and upon "reawakening", will likely assume that the Foreigner (1) has teleported, (2) has turned invisible temporarily, or (3) has moved faster than the human eye can follow. After he used this ability on Spider-Man a few times during a fight, Spidey noticed that the wall clock in the Foreigner's apartment had inexplicably "jumped forward" by ten seconds. Deducing that The Foreigner had somehow caused him to black out, Spider-Man was able to defeat him by closing his eyes and using his "spider-sense" to track The Foreigner's movements.

He's essentially Marvel Comics's answer to James Bond--in the way that Darth Vader was a counterpart to Luke Skywalker in the original STAR WARS trilogy--an "evil twin", if you will--a rich, debonair jet-setter who enjoys the good life, and uses a legitimate business (an import-export firm, ironically ) as a cover for his illegal activities. In many ways, he's also the European counterpart to that other thorn in Spider-Man's side--Wilson Fisk, the "Kingpin of Crime". Interestingly, he and Fisk have been friends for several years--it seems that he was hired to assassinate Fisk, but turned on his prospective employer when he discovered that he and the Kingpin shared the same birth date. He killed the man, and sent the corpse to Fisk as a gift. The Kingpin (wisely) decided that he'd rather have The Foreigner as an ally than an enemy, and they became friends--although it's more of a friendly rivalry than a true friendship.

He's also the ex-husband of another MARVEL COMICS character--Silver Sablinovia, a/k/a "Silver Sable". It seems that she married him before finding out what his true profession actually was--when they first met, she thought that he was merely a wealthy businessman. After she sabotaged his attempt to assassinate then-President Jimmy Carter during the 1977 Egypt-Israeli peace conference, they divorced. Since then, they've been playing a rather nasty variation of the children's game "tag", in which each tries (not *TOO* hard, apparently, as they were both still breathing at the time of The Foreigner's last appearance in the mid-1990s) to assassinate the other.

He's good enough at covering his tracks that most of the world's law-enforcement agencies--thirty-seven of them total, including the FBI and Interpol, according to MARVEL--don't even know that he exists, and the CIA has no record of his activities, either.

The only time that he was ever caught was in PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, Volume 2, issue #210 (March, 1994), and that was when he voluntarily surrendered himself to the N.Y.P.D. He'd asked Spider-Man for help against a "hostile takeover" attempt of his assassins' organization ("The 1400 Club"--described as "twice as deadly as its nearest competitor"), and Spidey's condition for helping him was that he (A) refrain from using lethal force while they worked together, and (B) surrender to the police and confess his crimes once Spider-Man had helped him defeat his enemies. Unfortunately (and unknown to Spidey), apart from his confession, the evidence against him was so vague that the police had to release him after 72 hours.

He even implied that he was the "man on the grassy knoll" in Dallas, TX, on November 22, 1963.

Police Officer: "If you are who you say you are, when did you start killing people?"
Foreigner: "Texas. Early 'Sixties. You MIGHT want to call your C.I.A.."
Police Officer: "Is that SO?"

Hope this clears things up.

--Foreigner (well, *ONE* of them )

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Frankly, I always thought that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be about right for the part (he's about the right age, height, weight, etc.), but the production crew would have to have someone else overdub his lines (much as was done in his first screen role, 1970's HERCULES IN NEW YORK, in which he was billed as "Arnold Strong").

Also, the filmmakers would probably have to resort to some sort of photographic trickery in order to simulate the character's hyperfast reflexes, his martial arts skills, and the like.

Other good choices might be Steven Seagal or Jeff Speakman but, as with Arnold, they'd have to have an English actor (or at least someone who could fake a British accent well enough to fool an audience ) overdub the character's lines.

--Foreigner

The actor who played Drake in Blade Trinity. The second best thing about the film.

Can youu guess the first?

QM

QM:

Would that be Dominic Purcell?

I haven't seen any of the BLADE films (I'm not a big fan of Wesley Snipes, I'm afraid), but I did watch the short-lived FOX-TV series JOHN DOE, in which he played the title role--an amnesiac who seemed to have a lot of interesting knowledge in his head (for example, he once kept a policeman who was hit in the inside of the thigh, severing his femoral artery, from bleeding to death by pouring sugar or flour (I forget which) into the wound).

I wouldn't know the answer to your second question, unless it was Jessica Biel.

--Foreigner

Gotta be Jessica Biel.

Speaking of Blade characters, what about Ron Pearlman as your man?

kevyn668:

Another good possibility--if Perlman can fake a British accent.

Considering that Spidey has essentially been updated for the 21st Century, they could conceivably retcon The Foreigner as an SAS/SBS veteran, possibly of the Falklands War.

Considering the character's apparent mixed English/Mediterranean ancestry, another good choice might be Alexander Siddig (formerly Siddig El Fadil), the Sudanese-English actor best known for his role of "Doctor Julian Bashir" on STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE.

--Foreigner

I don't really know your man's background but the upgrade seems to make sense. They upgraded The Punisher's background and that seemed to fo over well enough.

Bashir's a little scrawny. What about Vin Desil?

kevyn668:

Vin Diesel is another possible choice.

Frankly, I thought of Alexander Siddig first because he was the only actor who came to mind who had roughly the same characteristics as the character in the comics--Mediterranean ancestry, black hair, brown eyes, and a British accent.

Diesel has the right coloring (according to The Internet Movie Database, he's half-Italian-American, half-African-American), and he looks to be about the right size, but I haven't seen any of his films, so I don't know if he could fake a British accent well enough to be passable.

I don't want the character to be like Kevin Costner in ROBIN HOOD, PRINCE OF THIEVES, in which an obviously *American* actor was cast as the legendary English hero (although Sean Connery made a pretty good Richard the Lion-Hearted ).

--Foreigner

There's no way he could fake a British accent.

*Imagines Vin Diesel trying to pull a British accent. Expires shortly thereafter of laughter.*