LogFAQs > #973131841

#57 - Roulette
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Roulette is the house, this is Las Vegas, and the always, always wins. Except when it doesn't. Let's play our game.

For a few years, Metabrawl had risen to prominence as the preeminent underground fighting organization in the world, thanks to the no holds barred approach to metahuman combat. So enamored was the Society with Roulettes work that they allowed Metabrawl to serve as the crown jewel in their vacation destination, Las Vegas. But Roulette soon found herself contending with various Society vacations around the city, and in order to gain an edge, she sent a group of disguised Checkmate agents after a weapon in Excalibur that could place power solely in her hands. However, plans went awry, and Metabrawl was burned to the ground. Losing control of her city to an outside visitor in Zazzala, Roulette was forced to concede her position of prominence, having not made too many friends with her distaste for Libra. Returning to Zonn Zorr, Roulette wasted no time in putting together a new Metabrawl once more, this time so that Checkmates forces could hone their craft in secret.

Roulette is this little pet project that began with humble beginnings in campaign 1, blossoming between campaigns and returning as my favorite sort of character in Campaign 2. Villainous, but calculating. Angling for a better deal at every stage, manipulating just enough to stay a step ahead of disaster. Roulette has it all together - she's hypercompetent, but she's not perfect any means. She lives in a perpetual state of frustration, and her obsession with perfection means that she sometimes lets her rage hang out. And we all know she's a bitch of a boss if you let her down. She's really a gamble in terms of alliance, and that's why Vegas is what it is. It's almost impossible not to be enticed by the idea of a risking the biscuit with some with such an attention to detail, such a sense of looseness and improvisation. Both in the short run and the long term, Roulette knows how to play the game. Hair coifed to perfection, outfit snug in exactly the right places, Roulette is just a well-designed bitch. I love her to death, and I could spend an entire campaign propelling her to the top of the pile. Forget Darkseid - this should be Roulette's world. Why not roll the dice with her?

Roulette stands at the head of a list of most underserved NPCs in the campaign. Savvy, so perfectly in control of every facet of herself, there is a certain magic in seeing a frustrated Roulette. You can tell that she has labored and toiled for such a long, long time to micromanage every facet of the person she presents herself as. And thus, this meticulous preening and primping and performing manages to underlay an organization that is, for lack of a better phrase, a cult of personality. In fact, all of Las Vegas revolved around the fight scene, the marquee title fights and the take at the tills on the nights of big bouts. Then four people and a dog came in and the world erupted. The idea of Metabrawl remains, however, transposed to the icy wastes of ZZ, presented with a new coat of paint. Maybe, even, a fresher one. And despite the fact that Roulette was an integral part of the morale department in the Society, she shifts easily to Checkmate, in that she is a businesswoman, and more than that, she is a survivor. Roulette reads the tea leaves, and sees that it isn't a craps shoot to make that move. I enjoy the contemplative, thoughtful Roulette, a manipulator of crowds and cities, and not just one or two individuals. She plays with the sway of crowds and the shifting of movements. It's macropsychology, and you don't get that anywhere else in the campaign - at least not in as satisfying a way.

#56 is a high-value pick for a late-stage round.