[Character] Popeye

[SKJAM!]

Popeye

 

Player: Created by E.C. Segar, trademarked by King Features Syndicate

 

Val Char Cost

17 STR 7

15 DEX 15

20 CON 20

14 BODY 8

10 INT 0

12 EGO 4

13 PRE 3

8 COM -1

 

8/14 PD 5

4 ED 0

4 SPD 15

7 REC 0

40 END 0

35 STUN 2

 

6" RUN 0

4" SWIM 2

3" LEAP 0

Characteristics Cost: 80

 

Cost Power

6 That tickles!: Armor (6 PD/0 ED) (9 Active Points); Only Works Against Limited Type of Attack (Killing Attacks; -1/2)

2 Tough as Old Boots: Lack Of Weakness (-2) for Normal Defense

Powers Cost: 8

 

Cost Brawling

4 Block: 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +2 DCV, Block, Abort

4 Can't catch me: 1/2 Phase, -- OCV, +5 DCV, Dodge, Affects All Attacks, Abort

4 Charge: 1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, -2 DCV, 7d6 / 4d6 +v/5 Strike, FMove

3 C'mere, you: 1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, -1 DCV, Grab Two Limbs, 37 STR / 20 STR for holding on

4 Got to get out of this: 1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +0 DCV, 42 STR / 25 STR vs. Grabs

3 Punch: 1/2 Phase, +1 OCV, +0 DCV, 7d6 / 4d6 Strike

5 Roundhouse: 1/2 Phase, -2 OCV, +1 DCV, 9d6 / 6d6 Strike

8 +2 HTH Damage Class(es)

Martial Arts Cost: 35

 

Cost Skill

3 Breakfall 12-

3 Climbing 12-

3 Combat Sailing 12-

10 +2 with HTH Combat

3 Hoist 11-

2 KS: Nautical Folklore 11-

0 Language: English (fluent conversation) (2 Active Points)

4 Navigation (Marine) 12-

5 PS: Sailor 14-

3 Streetwise 12-

3 Trading 12-

5 TF: Large Motorized Boats, Large Wind-Powered Boats, Rafts, Small Motorized Boats, Small Rowed Boats, Small Wind-Powered Boats

2 WF: Early Emplaced Weapons, Vehicle Weapons

3 Traveler

1 1) AK: Arctic Ocean (2 Active Points) 11-

1 2) AK: Atlantic Ocean (2 Active Points) 11-

1 3) AK: Indian Ocean (2 Active Points) 11-

1 4) AK: Pacific Ocean (2 Active Points) 11-

1 5) AK: Port Cities (2 Active Points) 11-

3 6) AK: Seven Seas (4 Active Points) 13-

Skills Cost: 57

 

Cost Perk

1 Fringe Benefit: Captain's License

25 Ship

Perks Cost: 26

 

 

Total Character Cost: 206

 

Pts. Disadvantage

0 Normal Characteristic Maxima

25 Dependent NPC: Olive Oyl 14- (Incompetent)

15 Distinctive Features: See Text (Not Concealable; Noticed and Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses)

15 Hunted: Sea Hag and Minions 8- (Mo Pow, Harshly Punish)

10 Hunted: Bluto 8- (As Pow, Harshly Punish)

10 Physical Limitation: One-eyed (Frequently, Slightly Impairing)

15 Psychological Limitation: Angered by Injustice (Common, Strong)

10 Psychological Limitation: Likes women (Common, Moderate)

Disadvantage Points: 100

Base Points: 100

Experience Required: 6

Total Experience Available: 6

Experience Unspent: 0

 

APPEARANCE

Hair Color: Black (what's left of it)

Eye Color: Black

Height: 1.70 m

Weight: 73.00 kg

Description:

Popeye is a Caucasian male probably in his mid- to late thirties. He's missing an eye, and does not wear a patch, giving him a perpetual squinting look. Popeye has a prominent clefted chin, low ears, a strong nose and smokes a corncob pipe. He is nearly bald, and almost always wears a hat. Popeye's forearms are overdeveloped, and each has an anchor tattoo. Popeye always wears a nautical uniform, either a blue or black jacket with a billed cap, or sailor's whites with a cloth cap. He's bow-legged, and moves with a sailor's rolling gait.

 

BACKGROUND

(Note: this version of Popeye is based primarily on the early version found in the Thimble Theater comic strip created by E.C. Segar in the 1920s.)

 

Popeye's real name, like much of his past, is shrouded in mystery. Even his own father only calls him "Popeye", indicating that the nickname, and the loss of his eye, date back to his childhood. We can gather that Popeye left school and went to sea as soon as he could find a ship that would take him. By the time he was hired by Ham Gravy to pilot a boat on a treasure-hunting expedition, Popeye was already a experienced salt, capable of running a small ship single-handed. On that expedition, Popeye met Olive Oyl, Gravy's girlfriend, who eventually became his own sweetheart.

 

Subsequently, Popeye became involved in many strange and fantastic adventures, fighting the wicked Sea Hag and her minions the Goons, battling the burly and treacherous Bluto, meeting the magical entity known as the Jeep, and eventually adopting a baby known as Swee'pea.

 

PERSONALITY

Popeye has been hardened by the rough life of a sailor, and is nearly fearless in combat or danger. He's less experienced in the ways of women, and can be swayed by a pretty face or sweet talk. (At this point, he and Olive are not yet the inseparable item they will become.) Although he claims to be purely mercenary, Popeye in fact has a strong sense of justice, and will often step into situations where he perceives injustice to be occurring

 

That said, Popeye does need money to maintain his boat and a reasonably comfortable life when he's ashore, so he often takes jobs ferrying people from one place to another.

 

QUOTE

"I yam what I yam, and that's all I yam." Popeye speaks in a possibly unique garbled dialect. A little practice is recommended before trying to imitate it in public.

 

POWERS/TACTICS

Popeye is an accomplished sailor who has been all over the world. He's also been in fights all over the world, so he's gotten really good at brawling. He's also tough enough to shrug off small knives and bullets with little effect, and he's tough all over, making it hard to spot his weak points.

 

Like many brawlers, Popeye doesn't do subtle. At his trickiest, Popeye will block until he can find a good opening for a punch.

 

CAMPAIGN USE

Popeye is a sailor man, suitable for waterfront encounters and available for hire if the player characters need oceanic transport. He won't Hunt anyone unless they take Olive Oyl, but then he will follow them to the ends of the Earth. If Popeye needs to be more powerful for your campaign, add his spinach-eating (which came very late in the strip). Aid to STR, DEX & SPD, 1 charge, OAF spinach. Possibly some brick tricks only usable when he's aided, as well. If he needs to be less powerful, knock off a point of SPD and one of his brawling damage levels.

 

_Important People_

 

Olive Oyl is your typical Incompetent DNPC girlfriend type. Early on, she's not quite as stuck on Popeye as she later became, and often chases after other men, which almost always results in her needing to be rescued.

 

Wimpy J. Wellington, not actually on the character sheet, is Popeye's best buddy. In the tradition of fat comic relief sidekicks, Wimpy is lazy, cowardly, and a perpetual mooch. While he's basically useless, Wimpy is smart enough to get out of the way during combat, unlike Olive.

 

The Sea Hag is both a ruthless pirate queen and the last true witch on Earth, capable of bone-chilling black magic, though she can never venture far from salt water. If you're running a "realistic" campaign, then the Sea Hag is a charlatan who uses chemicals, hypnotism and sleight of hand to make it appear that she has magical powers. Her minions, the Goons, are large, misshapen humanoids of great strength and little brains.

 

Bluto is a large, hairy sailor who is motivated by greed and lust for Olive Oyl. He only appeared for one plot arc in the actual strip--in the cartoons he (also known as Brutus) is either a Rival of Popeye's or a 14- Hunted, while the Sea Hag is virtually unseen.

 

 

 

Thoughts, comments?

SKJAM!

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Popeye

 

(snip)

 

Thoughts, comments?

SKJAM!

 

 

 

Where's the 20d6 Aid to STR, 1 charge, OIF Spinach of Opportunity?

[Teflon Billy]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Where's the 20d6 Aid to STR' date=' 1 charge, OIF Spinach of Opportunity? [/quote']

That was what I was wondering about.

 

TB

[OddHat]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Great work. Makes me want to look at some of the early, pre-Spinach comic strips.

[OddHat]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Where's the 20d6 Aid to STR' date=' 1 charge, OIF Spinach of Opportunity? [/quote']

 

That was what I was wondering about.

 

TB

 

It's under Campaign Use as an option.

[keithcurtis]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

I don't think Spinach was a gimmick of the Thimble Theater strips. They were excellent pulp adventures, by the way.

 

Keith "Uk-uk-uk-uk-uk" Curtis

[SKJAM!]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Where's the 20d6 Aid to STR' date=' 1 charge, OIF Spinach of Opportunity? [/quote']

 

As mentioned below, it's in the Campaign Use section as an option for high-powered campaigns. If you're doing the animated Popeye, you might also want to add Jack of All Trades for all the jobs that aren't "sailor" that he pursues.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

I wonder what sort of connections Popeye could develop with organizations like the Navy and the Coast Guard. Given the timeline, he would have served in the Great War in some capacity; officially the Navy wouldn't have taken him because of the missing eye, but when you've developed the sort of set of skills and knowledge he has it isn't an asset a nation at war discards lightly.

 

In any event, if he had served on any merchant ships he would have been fighting the Germans anyway. Any ship flying an enemy flag, or a neutral flag but headed for an enemy port, was fair game for the U-Boats under the doctrine of Unlimited Submarine warfare. For Popeye as a merchanter to survive the war he would have to have developed a knack for spotting submarines and dealing with the danger they posed, and probably would have survived at least one sinking (the Germans might even have captured him, but holding him is another matter). And since this version of Popeye does not have access to the superhuman power possessed by later versions, it would be more cunning than brute strength.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

I wonder what sort of connections Popeye could develop with organizations like the Navy and the Coast Guard. Given the timeline, he would have served in the Great War in some capacity; officially the Navy wouldn't have taken him because of the missing eye, but when you've developed the sort of set of skills and knowledge he has it isn't an asset a nation at war discards lightly.

 

In any event, if he had served on any merchant ships he would have been fighting the Germans anyway. Any ship flying an enemy flag, or a neutral flag but headed for an enemy port, was fair game for the U-Boats under the doctrine of Unlimited Submarine warfare. For Popeye as a merchanter to survive the war he would have to have developed a knack for spotting submarines and dealing with the danger they posed, and probably would have survived at least one sinking (the Germans might even have captured him, but holding him is another matter). And since this version of Popeye does not have access to the superhuman power possessed by later versions, it would be more cunning than brute strength.

If anything, Popeye would have been in the Merchant Marines.

 

He comes off as too much of a career cargo sailor (IMO) to have been Navy , and Coast Guard is right out.

 

TB

[mattingly]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

To chime in with the introduction from the Champions Can of Whupass game with their mishmosh of character ideas:

 

He'll punch ya and bang ya,

With anime and manga,

He's Popeye, the Sailor Moon!

 

I wish I had a picture of him to share here.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

To chime in with the introduction from the Champions Can of Whupass game with their mishmosh of character ideas:

 

He'll punch ya and bang ya,

With anime and manga,

He's Popeye, the Sailor Moon!

 

I wish I had a picture of him to share here.

 

And some wishes must never be granted, because once seen some things are never un-seen.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

The Popeye from the comic strips was actually a lot stronger than the one in the cartoons. I recall one instance when Eugene the Jeep was apparently predicting that Popeye would lose an upcoming boxing match, and Popeye was losing confidence and getting depressed, he punched a brick wall was disappointed that only 20 or so bricks fell out.

 

The spinach power boost was there too, but not used nearly as much as in the cartoons (blech...overdone cliches). I recall once when he was swallowed by an octopus, he couldn't break out with his regular strength and needed the spinach.

 

The strip was awesome though. Funny almost every episode, and yet with an adventurous ongoing story line. I would get a newspaper subscription just for that if someone with E.C. Segar's talent was writing a strip these days.

[st barbara]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Anyone who has access to Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson's book "All In Colour For A Dime" should read Bill Blackbeard's article "The First (Arf ! Arf!) Superhero Of Them All" on "Popeye" !

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Which is why it makes sense that the people who made those great B&W Popeye cartoons would take the techniques they developed for them (especially the fludity of motion) and apply them to the task of animating Superman.

 

Popeye's adventures are very much in the tradition of Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan and other 'tall tale" characters -- which may be one reason the character was so prominent in the American consciousness at his peak.

[Susano]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

The Popeye from the comic strips was actually a lot stronger than the one in the cartoons.

 

Err... I recall the cartoon Popeye punching alligators into luggage and wreaking military hardware with his bare hands.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Err... I recall the cartoon Popeye punching alligators into luggage and wreaking military hardware with his bare hands.

 

Possibly. The black and white ones seemed to be a little closer to the comic strip in many ways. By the time they were making them in color, Popeye was only heroically strong after eating spinach.

[Susano]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Possibly. The black and white ones seemed to be a little closer to the comic strip in many ways. By the time they were making them in color' date=' Popeye was only heroically strong after eating spinach.[/quote']

 

True.

 

I recall, a long time ago, there was a Popeye cartoon show here in Maryland on one of the local channels. I vaguely recall the host mentioning bits of trivia about each episode.

[starblaze]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Err... I recall the cartoon Popeye punching alligators into luggage and wreaking military hardware with his bare hands.

 

I remember him using a deck gun with his bare hands like a rifle.

[Susano]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

I remember him using a deck gun with his bare hands like a rifle.

 

I think he also punched piles of scrap metal into warships.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Popeye was me boyhood idol. I saw my first popeye cartoon when I was three. It was the one where some little boy who'se mother dresses him funny gets beat up and popeye come to life from the front of hi comc book to give the lil' feller a pep talk. At the end of the cartoon, the kid eats some spinach from a can and punches the bully so hard his subsequent trajectory takes him up and away (from street level) through a second or third-story window.

 

My very first ever Champions character Fist-Man was an homage to Popeye. In fact he was the illegitimate son of a one-eyed sailor and got his powers from smoking dried spinach.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Popeye was me boyhood idol. I saw my first popeye cartoon when I was three. It was the one where some little boy who'se mother dresses him funny gets beat up and popeye come to life from the front of hi comc book to give the lil' feller a pep talk. At the end of the cartoon, the kid eats some spinach from a can and punches the bully so hard his subsequent trajectory takes him up and away (from street level) through a second or third-story window.

 

My very first ever Champions character Fist-Man was an homage to Popeye. In fact he was the illegitimate son of a one-eyed sailor and got his powers from smoking dried spinach.

Dried "spinach", sure it was.

 

TB

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Dried "spinach", sure it was.

 

TB

 

That's muh story an' I'm stickin' to it!

[OddHat]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

I think he also punched piles of scrap metal into warships.

128 Scrap Metal into War Ships: Summon 1000-point Period War Ship, Expanded Class of Beings Very Limited Group (Any Period War Ship; +¼), Slavishly Devoted (+1) (450 Active Points); OIF Immobile Expendable (Difficult to obtain new Focus; Huge Pile of Scrap Metal; -1 ¾), Concentration (½ DCV; Wind Up; -¼), Extra Time (Delayed Phase, Wind Up; -¼), Gestures (Punch; -¼) 45

[Susano]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

71 Scrap Metal into War Ships: Summon 1000-point Period War Ships' date=' Expanded Class of Beings Very Limited Group (Period War Ships; +¼) (250 Active Points); OIF Immobile Expendable (Difficult to obtain new Focus; Huge pile of scrap metal; -1 ¾), Gestures (Punch; -¼), Extra Time (Delayed Phase, Wind Up; -¼), Concentration (½ DCV; Wind Up; -¼) 25[/quote']

 

Sigh....

 

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to OddHat again.

[Agent 13]

Re: [Character] Popeye

 

Just a note - Fantagraphics Books has recently released the first volume in a set of reprints of the Segar strips.