Five-Man Band cleanup

Unrelated double post:

Looking through the sandbox, a lot of the newly added examples still lack context on the "work together as a team" aspect. ~acrobox you seem to be adding a lot of these, please try to add this if you're writing these up yourself and not copying them from elsewhere.

The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy definitely isn't a straight example. Arthur definitely isn't The Leader- he's hopeless and incompetent and is pretty much dragged around by everyone else. I don't really see how Zaphod is The Big Guy- he's not any larger or more combat oriented than anyone else, and he and Ford take turns actually being in charge. And Marvin is almost a parody of The Smart Guy- his extremely high intelligence is often ignored or underutilized or he simply doesn't participate due to depression.

Can I go ahead and remove The Princess And The Frog, which has been brought up before?

I don't mean take the whole system from Complete Monster I just mean organizing the actual posting of changes by having someone take all the edits we want to the locked pages thread at the end of the week. That way everyone here knows what edits are being made. Also if people start proposing new additions to the page we should figure out a minimum number of votes needed to be approved.

Edited by papyru30 on Feb 20th 2019 at 11:13:50 AM

I don't know if that'll help. We're all just sort of contributing to the sandbox at our own pace, and we'll post the changes when we all feel satisfied. Putting a weekly deadline of sorts seems silly, especially at this stage.

Ok just spitballing, if you guys think that the sandbox will work better then we'll do the sandbox. What do you think about what I said about votes?

More on the "must The Chick be the Token Girl" issue here. Still seems kind of unclear.

Indeed...

As for voting, I'm not sure. FMB isn't YMMV, so any example that properly fits the trope definition and provides context should go on the page. I don't think consensus is necessary.

Honestly I think that we should take a vote in this thread to put the gender discussion to rest, its been going on for a long time and we're never going to reach a 100% consensus. A vote is the only way I can think of to come up with a rule to go by regarding gender.

Good point, forget about that then.

Edited by papyru30 on Feb 20th 2019 at 12:04:43 PM

Instead of just a vote, what about a crowner?

I could set up a crowner if everyone agrees that it's a good idea. I'll check with a mod as well to make sure that we're allowed to make one.

Anyway, we definitely do need to go through the examples currently in the sandbox and double-check that each example is, in fact, a team.

Must say that scared the crap out of me

Okay, regarding my post over the page. gen:LOCK had the following added to the page:

• Five-Man Band:
  • The Leader - Madrani (note: in the previous entry, she was listed as The Lancer).
  • The Lancer - Val/entina (note: in the previous entry, she was listed as The Chick).
  • The Smart Guy - Mac Cloud
  • The Big Guy - Kazu
  • The Chick - Chase (note: Chase is male, and in the previous entry, he was listed as The Leader).

The person who added this trope then changed the entry from Five-Man Band to Command Roster, so the entry now looks like the following:

• Command Roster:
  • The Leader - Madrani - Aggressive, headstrong, and structured.
  • The Lancer - Val/entina - Similar to Madrani, but a lot more roguish in her/his approach.
  • The Smart Guy - Cammie - Electronic lockpicking, mech modding, she even figured out how to change her own personality through the mech software.
  • The Big Guy - Kazu - Paired with his Lightning Bruiser approach to missions.
  • The Chick - Chase - Level headed and sociable, with the primary interpersonal emotional arc to the story.

How should this be handled?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 20th 2019 at 11:25:21 AM

The examples still provide little context, and it seems like it's just a shoehorned attempt at keeping the information whilst getting around the Five-Man Band issue.

It also raises the issues of male examples of The Chick, so that would have to removed. On top of that, the main character and the team's leader is Chase, not Yaz. So it is bizarre to see Chase listed as The Chick and Yaz listed as The Leader.

They don't fit in either trope. Command Roster is for characters with authority, the group are a special forces group with no authority over others.

I'd say we move it to The Team, but that doesn't fix the ZCE and misuse.

I've cut the misuse and P Med the troper who posted it.

we can ax Princess and the Frog and Hitchhikers guide if the feeling is that those don't count.

since the sandbox is mostly about taking the best examples from the subpages, keeping it leaner will only make it stronger as a baseline resource for what is and is not a band.

If i can find team aspects of it i'll put them in.

also technically done with Live Action TV A-F because literally all of them felt like shoe horns.

another question is the lineup important to the format? i.e. does it have to be Leader first, Lancer second, Big or Smart, Chick last when you list them out?

there are a lot of teams where chick is officially Number Two (such that its leading man and leading lady as your main characters with the rest of the team filling behind them) or part of the Power Trio with the Leader and Lancer (like in a Three Plus Two team, or another situation where Big and Smart are more satellite characters)

If we always have to list her as the fifth ranger, we should also decide if Smart or Big is the third or fourth ranger since those two are inconsistent.

Otherwise i'm fine keeping the characters in whatever order makes the most sense In-Universe for the work.

Edited by acrobox on Feb 20th 2019 at 10:33:25 AM

I don't really care, but as you may have noticed all of my sandbox editions have gone:

• Leader
• Lancer
• Smart Guy
• Big Guy
• Chick

No real reason, though.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 20th 2019 at 1:33:01 PM

i typically do that listing when i dont have much context, but for works i was more familiar with i tried to list them in joining order, or actual rank In-Universe. but those were all recently undone.

I was going by the format listed on the pinned post, which I assumed is standard. However, I do think that order listed is generally the order of importance of the characters, and I'm concerned that examples with The Chick as the Number Two or where The Lancer is the lease important character would misuse. The Chick is supposed to be the least action-y and concerned with helping out.

This is how decision-making usually goes in a Five-Man Band:

The Leader: Proposes an idea or prompts the team to solve a problem. The Lancer: Argues with The Leader about the proposed solution The Smart Guy: Provides some useful wisdom that is key to solving the problem, but is less proactive about introducing the problem or solution. The Big Guy: If the solution involves physicality, actually solves the problem. Alternately, may propose a brute-force solution that is usually ignored by others. The Chick: Mediates between everyone else to resolve disagreements. Alternately, is the source of the problem because she is a Damsel in Distress.

To me, this shows a hierarchy of importance for the characters.