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Back to School (1986) Rodney Dangerfield, then best known for his standup routines, plays middle-aged retail men's wear magnate Thornton Melon. His father, a immigrant tailor, had wanted him to go to college, but he loved tailoring and chose that route into wealth and fame. Now his own son is off to college and having trouble, so he follows him to his university to help him out and reluctantly enrolls as a freshman. Comedy ensues as his real-world experience collides with the theories of an arrogant business professor. This is a classic fish-out-of-water comedy. There are numerous lovely set-pieces -- Melon sending his secretary to take notes in class when business calls him away, showing surprising skill as a diver, and a closing scene where he addresses the entire student body at graduation. Dangerfield, at the peak of his fame and comedic talent, is really, really good in it.

No argument, Pariah; but close behind those, I would put Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Sadly only ran for two seasons, to be replaced by the more MCU-inspired but also more simplistic Avengers Assemble. Among its many accomplishments, A:EMH gave us IMHO the best animated rendition of Dr. Doom:

My response to that was the same as yours. "WTF? 4e, p 154 says, 'This is basically an all-out punch, and takes an extra segment to execute.' In what world does that imply that it can be used for lightning bolts, etc.??" And then, on reflection, "Well, the risk/reward is the same either way, so I guess extending it makes sense." Like you, we still don't play it that way, but accept it as valid. And that's one of the hardest things about being online: accepting that your ways aren't the only ways, and that others doing things in other ways that work for them is fine.

You know, I can't really blame Americans who voted for Donald Trump the first time. I appreciate the frustration many of them had with the status quo, the appeal of a political outsider who talked like a populist, and sold a line they wanted to hear. I never bought it myself, but I get why many people were at least willing to give him a chance. Nobody could have foreseen the magnitude of how he would screw things up. But at this point everyone in the world has had years to perceive who Donald Trump really is, what he wants, and where he's leading the United States. I apologize if this sounds harsh... but if Americans re-elect him, they truly will deserve the government they get. I will have pity for them, but not as much as for the rest of us, who will have had no hand in his election but will have to deal with him anyway.

After some wrangling, I was able to get everyone together. Our PBeM Golden Age game started today. I am using most of the excellent suggestions from the above posts.

In my fantasy campaign world, the gods are real, and their reality is more-or-less undisputed. But they don't make personal appearances in the mortal world, at least not since some mythical age many centuries or millennia ago. And mortals' understanding of the gods may not always be 100% accurate. I have a rather large pantheon (50+), but less than half of those are well-known. Some are known only in certain areas (The god of the sea is not well-known in a landlocked nation, for example). Some are minor gods with small followings. Some are secret, like some of the evil gods. There are not separate gods for each nation or culture, but different nations may have different names for the same god. Likewise, there is no "god of elves" or "god of orcs" - any more than there is a "god of humans". Yes, some gods are going to naturally be more popular among certain races than others. The god of forests is very popular among elves, and the god of mountains is very popular among dwarves, and not the other way around. And also unlike the deendee model, each god is not a separate religion. Everyone worships any or all the gods according to their need at the time. For example, when a loved one dies, people will pay homage to the god of death (who is not an evil god - just the god of that particular natural life phenomenon). Individuals may have one particular patron deity, and priests/clerics are usually devoted to one specific god, but all the gods, all the priesthoods - at least the "good-aligned" ones, get along with each other. And many cities and nations will have a specific patron deity, but probably not most small villages. And most people live their day-to-day lives without thinking all that much about the gods. If a travelling priest happens to visit the little village of peasant farmers, they'll listen to him teach and preach, and maybe they'll get some wisdom or inspiration out of it, but then they go back to work. And yes, there are magical, mystical places in the world that may have derived their mysterious and unnatural properties from the gods in some bygone eon.

I also have to add one criticism about the Drakine: the description of their reproductive issues, on TA p. 31, makes no sense. It could not be natural for most female Drakine to "give birth but once in their lives, and often die in the process." If that were true, a given population of Drakine would be cut at least in half with every generation. Not only would they have gone extinct very much earlier than stated, they could never have reached substantial numbers in the first place. For their role in Ambrethel to have held for all those millennia, this birth rate either could not have been the case, or it's a recent development, perhaps the result of some disease or curse. (Kal-Turak, anyone?)

I wouldn't allow a two-gun attack to be a Combined Attack if the character didn't pay points for those guns. And even if he did, it still doesn't sit right to me that two different bullets, from two different guns, use the same hit roll, so that either they both hit or both miss. The Two-Weapon Fighting skill is certainly available, and various other similar options. And if I may, allow me to take a shot (no pun intended) at rephrasing the earlier question: Please explain in what possible way hitting somebody with two 50-point attacks is an advantage over hitting somebody with one 100-point attack?

WHAT ???!!!!! No-one puts Rodeo Clown in the corner !

I have a binder full of old Hero characters, the a Majority of them FH characters. I am busy tomorrow, Friday I will scan and upload a couple of characters as examples. What I would do is to keep everything of that character in the same sheet protector, so that progress can be compared, and I had a lower point total version of the character for convention games. Character sketches as well. ( one side was the character sheet and the other was character art. )

I am horribly confused right now. As far as I can tell, you're arguing that 2x60AP is better than 1x60AP (obviously)? But why in the world would a GM check off on that? Are you assuming that the GM is a robot who blindly allows anything that fits within AP caps? If that's not the scenario you're presenting, please explain to me in what possible way hitting somebody with two attacks is an advantage, by providing an example. What single power could the character have used? What pair of powers could they have used? Why was the pair of powers superior? What were the campaign caps? Why did the GM allow the pair of powers?

In their own way, Alabama unites us all

Nothing makes my heart sing like "Alabama losing streak."

Cart before the horse, but yes. Multiple move-by, sweep, rapid fire, mecha gangfire, then 4th edition. Edit: Dang it, I keep seeing this thread pop up and thinking it's for me.

Tech-vs-magic is a recurrent theme in much of Norton's early fantasy work, most explicitly her two "Janus" novels. I have to admit, I've long been intrigued by the idea of a campaign based around a war between a magic-based fantasy world, and a technology-wielding alien invader. I would like to use Hero's Atlantean Age setting, with the Atlantean global empire at its height, as the invaded world. With their magically-enhanced and -armed soldiers, war golems, sky-ships and sky-chariots, not to mention wizards with mighty elemental combat magicks, Atlantis would make a far more appropriate opponent for a tech-equipped army than most fantasy societies. On the other side of the coin, Champions Beyond briefly describes a malevolent alien race called the Ghok'pa, destroyed by the Star*Guard "tens of thousands of years ago" (about in the Atlantean ballpark) after they tried to enslave other worlds using "the dark mental powers of their priests." That sounds like a motif that wouldn't be a major tonal discord with a fantasy milieu.

That would be a Multiple Attack. With -2 OCV for each attack beyond the first, roll to hit at -142 OCV against each target, one at a time. First miss means all the rest miss. Of course, this assumes you are still conscious to use that RKA after paying its END 72 time. It also uses your full phase, and halves your DCV. Oh, Chris, it's also the Multiple Move By. I do find the 6e rules poorly laid out in this regard. I would rather have seen Combined Attack and Multiple Attack listed as separate maneuvers, not combined as they were.

I started a re-read of the Turakian Age book today. I, admittedly, didn't go beyond the Introduction today, but I figure I will probably read a few pages to a chapter every couple of days until I get through it. So far, my impression of the Turakian Age re-read is going pretty well. I do not have quite the same hardline stance against its inclusion into the Hero Timeline. Not much else of note beyond the Chapters summary. I'll have more commentary as I read further into the book.

Really? Not a Star Wars fan here, so what do I know, but I thought the prequels pretty well wrecked any credibility the original two movies might have had; certainly they removed all doubt that Lucas never had the plan for prequels he said he did. And I thought Rogue One was not only the sequel the first two movies deserved, it fit into the feel and theme of those movies far better than did any of the prequels. As for the new movies being "deconstructionist," well again, not a fan, but thus far they strike me as little more than remakes (if you go with salt planet = snow planet, anyway). Thus far, I have now paid to see the rebellion just about to be disintegrated by a planet-sized planet killing weapon, only to be saved in the nick of time by a ragtag host of fighter craft _three_ stinking times! (never would have seen the second time if it wasn't for a date; never would have seen the third if it wasn't for kids. Peopling is expensive ).

Endgame was one of the in flight entertainment options on last night’s flight. I thought I’d watch the part that I missed the first time. Instead I watched the whole damn thing, and I teared up again. Different part this time though.

If he's got the Infinity Gauntlet, there's no combination of heroes that can stop him. By himself, yeah any two big guys should be able to do it. But if I've got six (and leaving out plot device characters like The Spectre), I'll go with: Superman and Thor -- They've got the physical power to stand up to Thanos in a fair fight. Doctor Strange and Mister Fantastic -- Because Thanos doesn't fight fair, and so you may need to counter unexpected traps. Silver Surfer -- He knows Thanos, and has had to fight against him on his own. Batman -- Because Thanos will 100% underestimate him, and sometimes you need to pull out the cheese.

Happy Birthday. Now you can look forward to a ton of AARP recruiting letters. 😉

Maybe gods don't intervene directly in the mortal world because they're too powerful; or from their perspective, the mortal plane and all that lives there is just too delicate. What would happen if Godzilla tried to fight crime or help at a soup kitchen in downtown Tokyo? Godzilla's mere presence in your city causes massive damage, tens of millions of dollars worth of loss, and probably some injury and death. Even when he's on your side, you don't want him showing up in your home city unless things are VERY dire. How much more powerful is a god than a Godzilla?

OK. I'm ready for some teams. The Brain Trust: The Overmind and Lynx are older, and Mr. Zombie never ages (funny how Steve Long's pet Soloman Grundy doesn't have Regeneration). While Ape-Plus is probably past his lifespan, he probably repeated his technique and created Ape-Plus-Plus. Only Black Mist would probably have passed on. Which is the perfect chance to add anyone based on the original Brotherhood of Evil or Society of Sin which would fit (both DC villain teams closely related , I'm avoiding the Brotherhood of Dada cause that seems to be the bases of Paragon Raiders group). New members idea: Bouncer: Man given a rubber body by chemical experiments. A cross between Madam Rouge and Monkey D. Luffy with a side order of "brick" and Speedball (with all the bouncing). Paindriver: Man who can project pain into whoever hurts him. Also can quickly recover from said pain...even if it would be normally kill him. Nicknack: Midget mad scientist and student of the Overmind. The Circle of the Scarlet Moon: Under new management, but the same old evil mystical organization. Roger and Martika Duqussne are dead, and Roger's Rune-Axe is now in the posession of Pamula Dunqussne. The old Archdruid Airetach is also long gone from the world of flesh, but his ghost can be called upon from time to time by Scarlet Moonies in the know. They went back to there secret mystical war with the Trismegistus Council. Cirque Sinister: Since they were a young group before 2020, they are still around in 2050. The current lineup is Amnesia, Cauldron, Flow, Minimax, and Telka (Bobby Holmes all grown up) and Giga (Bobby Holmes' summoned TK giant). The Crimelords: While the original team is long since disbanded, the name keeps on being used by young supervillain teams who want to be just like they were, or who just can't think up another name. Out of all the members, only Morgaine is still semi-active, and mostly between vacations to Faerie. Warhammer might still have a half-functional armor on Earth somewhere... The Crowns of Krim: They been bamboozled by The Devil's Advocates into letting there crowns be destroyed in 2024 or so. Out of all of them, only Dennis Walthingham, Barronet of South Mallon retained some mystical powers, othoe the ex-Dark Seraph is forced to work in the shadows more and more. The rest met there end either by old age, there own excesses, or by slaughtering each other. Deathstroke: Requiem and Frost have fully embraced the pro-Mutant cause 100%. There occasional strike forces have been named Deathstroke in the honor of there old team. The Devil's Advocates: The Demonologist is still alive and active, having slowed his ageing via various means, not including academical formulas and spending more time in Faerie than other dimensions. Golem's flesh body has succumbed to rot and death, but his ghost lives on inside his stone body. Gyre has 'retired' to a more techo-mystical dimension of Clockwork. Kapilasa simply ceased to exist one day...he was physically there one moment, and gone the next. It is believed he achieved some form of anti-Nirvana and reincarnated himself into a lower life form. Tartarus had to leave the body of Jos Tehune and go back to Hell, and he took a willing soul of Jos with him. Vilsimbar went back to the Onyx Kingdom in Faerie to rule. He recruited Stingray, kept Golem, and added the odd math mystic Ahnu Aheh Eh, and is searching for more members as we speak. Eurostar: Still exists. Fiacho still rules the group, having to redesign his cybernetics. While the first Durak died of heart attack, he was recreated. Feuermacher died horablly as his powers physically consumed him. Mentalla still exists in the group, as does a now older Pantera and Scorpia. Ultrasonique is still around, looking for someone to pass his equipment on to. Der Westgote got upset that he wasn't made into the next "Fist of Fiacho" that he left the group permanently. They have a new recruit in White Flame, an English mutant. The Futurists: The Fiend is still around as a solo act. Sometimes the supergroups he forms takes on the name "Futurists" from time to time. Morticus' armor still is intact, but Ethan has long since abandoned his criminal ways when one day his suit just stopped working on the job. The Fiend still has the suit, and is happy to give the identity of Morticus to the first person to fix it up. Grab: The name has been passed down to a new generation of superthieves approved by all the surviving old members. Sometimes some groups call themselves Grab without permission, thinking somehow it is in 'public domain'... Merc-Force 1: The name lives on as Merc-Force 3 or simply Merc-Force. The original team retiered when Stareye left for outer space, and The Cahokian returned to his original dimension. Piledriver still does mercenary work from time to time. Psi: Disbanded way before 2020. Most members eventually died of brain cancer. Deuce became a superhero. Red Winter: The original team is long gone, but The Russian Organised Crime uses that name from time to time for there own supercriminal teams. More later.

From 6E2P54: Hand-To-Hand Combat (“HTH Combat”) is combat between two characters who are within Reach of one another. A character’s Reach is 1 meter around himself — about the length of an ordinary human arm, with a little extra space to allow for the minor movement that occurs during any combat situation. Some Powers or abilities increase a character’s Reach, as can using a long weapon (see 6E2 201). HTH Combat usually involves punching or melee weapons such as swords, not attacks that work at Range (such as guns or Blasts). If you are using 1-meter hexes, I interpret this to mean that HTH combatants can be 2 hexes apart, since each combatant will have a 1-meter reach.

Yeah, THAT should have warranted the Balrog...

On the Moon ... when we on Earth see an eclipse of the Moon, then witnesses on the Moon would see a total eclipse of the Sun. But the experience would be importantly different. From our perspective, Moon and Sun are nearly the same angular size: the Moon barely is large enough to cover the whole solar photosphere, which is what lets us see the solar chromosphere and corona so strikingly in a solar eclipse. Earth as seen from the Moon would be rather larger than the Sun in terms of angular size: Earth would cover the Sun with lots to spare, so the spectacle would be rather diminished, actually. I know that yes, Earth (and its Moon!) does transit the Sun's disk as seen from Mars. One such event happened in 1984. There is a Wikipedia article about the phenomenon: link What that article doesn't say is if such an event would be a "naked eye" thing, that is, whether a normal human observer with only "eclipse glasses" to prevent injury from the glare of the Sun (but giving no magnification) would be able to see Earth's disk traverse the Sun from a vantagepoint on Mars, as is true for a human observer on Earth during a transit of Venus (but is NOT true for a human observer on Earth during a transit of Mercury). The answer to that is ... dicey. Earth as seen from Mars would have about half the angular size of Venus as seen from Earth, which puts it near the limit of what a normally-sighted human can see. My guess that such an observer would need a bit of aid to be sure of seeing it, not even as much as pretty standard 7-power binoculars... probably cheap opera glasses would be adequate, aside from the eye-protection issue.

Night Duck roams the wilds of the city and dispenses justice, a caped vigilante that is the terror that flaps in the night CES

Sure I liked the film. And this thread is not a competition. Plus, my description is better.

How long before I can force you to take my money?!

Thanks, Drunk, it ended up being maybe a bit too grim for my own tastes, but the grim parts are buried deep under a chunky layer of good and kind people. For instance, there's a very low-level super-villain called Dr. Mischievous, who is totally harmless and does some petty crime, like stealing candy or pets. He makes sure to harm no one and generally works with new rogues to get arrested by them in the most flashy fashion, to get their fame up. Also, each time he gets arrested, he's broken out by a mysterious super-villain group called the Black Parlor. They're all dressed in black owl costumes and only appear to break out low-level super-villains like Dr. Mischievous and rogues. In truth, the Black Parlor is made up of rogue super-heroes (from that group the ASHRRaD is investigating) who don a super-villain costume just to help their friends. They're a close knit, kind, cooperative and very wholesome community. They help each-other, get together every second Friday of the month for a barbecue, work with villains like Dr. Mischievous (who is actually an important part of the community, he's the one serving the sodas) to brighten up the day of the people, put stars in the eyes of children and make sure the community sees rogues with a good eye again. They also do things like giving blankets to homeless people, work as unpaid volunteer at shelters and might even try to work with schools to sensibilize children and teens to important matters, like drugs, sex, crime, bullying etc. Thanks Tjack! Unfortunately I'm French and I'm bad at DMing in another language, tried for 4 months, each Saturday, but it didn't really work 😕 I'll make sure to post session reports! And if there's enough demand, I might actually do that roleplay Discord server that's been in my drawers for almost a year now...

The Music Man (1962) - A Conman in the early part of the 20th Century finds himself dropping off a small town in Iowa. His mission? To inform folks of the terrible trouble they're in and convince them the only way out is a band for the youth with himself as their musical professor. Of course, as he "Don't know one note of music from the other" it's going to take some fanciful foot work to pull off this scam but his biggest threat is the Librarian Lady who teaches Piano. With colorful characters, scenery chewing done right, and , of course, music, it's a classic for a reason.

Constantine was never a CW show. It was an NBC series, and their requirements for ratings are a lot higher than the CW’s.

To be fair, the hobby itself suffered a general downturn. Only a few of the tabletop games are really prospering today, having absorbed most of a diminished player base.

I really enjoyed the movie Sneakers (1992). Starring Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Ackroyd, Ben Kingsley, David Strathairn, River Phoenix, Mary McDonnell, James Earl Jones... lots of major acting power there. Redford heads a team of security consultants, often hired to break into places to identify security weaknesses, and they get involved in something way over their heads. The tech is pretty outdated now, but the storyline is still good (at least IMO) and the characters are great. Strathairn's blind sound expert is my personal favorite, but the interplay between former CIA agent Poitier and conspiracy nutcase Ackroyd is hilarious too.

Not gonna lie: I have a personal distaste for naked advantages in "normal humans" type games. Fantasy, sci-fi (all permutations), etc-- well, then it's still case-by case, but normal human stuff like Westerns and Daredevils? I don't know. I don't generally like or allow it. No; I am not arguing against the legality: I _know_ it's rules-legal. I'm arguing partly against the validity, and partly against the over-all feel. That being said, I would like to point out that I am not arguing that the end effect is inappropriate. I just feel-- much like my Hammer Fanning skill mentioned above (there is a long-gun version of that for the two revolving rifles that were more widespread during the era, but it requires you spend the money to modify the rifle to give you an open hammer. I can't recommend the rifles, though, as they were famous for burning your bracing hand as the exhaust gasses vented in the open air between the cylinder and the barrel- you know: right behind and aiming at your bracing hand. ;)-- sorry; let me re-state that, as the digression was longer than the actual thought I prefer in "normal human stuff" that the end effect be achieved with a custom Skill that achieves that same effect. It reduces that feel of "is this a super power or just magic?" and turns it more into a "_damn_ that guy is _good_" kind of feel. I mean, with a naked Advantage, there's no chance that he's _not_ going to pull it off flawlessly. Even if his skill rolls is 24 or less, there's still that 18 to wreck his day..... --- this one is also a "just me" thing: The only time I'd allow "aiming a ricochet" is if I was playing magical cowboys, comedy western, or freakin' Roy-Rogers hundred-shot revolver type stuff. Or an actual cowboy-themed superhero in Champions (you forgot "Indian Wrestling." )

He looks like Captain Santa.

So, who is going and what are they running if they GM? HERO, obviously right? So far, there are 6 tentative hero games. (Schedule not finalized until sometime in January.)

I'm signed up for the long haul. Verizon gave out a free year to all of their customers with unlimited data, I paid in advance for two years and got a third year for free when they did a sale a month or so ago. I am covered for the next four years of Disney+ content releases.

Alcohol burns nasal passages. News at 11.

Except you don't currently need those things. 6e2 p. 50: One of the most common ways for a character to be Surprised is to be attacked from behind. However, that’s not to say that all attacks from behind qualify for the Surprised bonus. As always, the GM should apply common sense and dramatic sense — remember, combat is a dynamic situation where the rules reflect many variables. For example, if an opponent a character doesn’t know about attacks him from behind, that usually means the character is Surprised (though not necessarily, as discussed above). But if the character knows about or can see an opponent, that opponent can’t get a Surprised bonus just by making a Half Move behind the character before attacking. The opponent might get the bonus if the character is distracted (for example, if he’s already fighting one foe who’s in front of him), but moving behind a character before attacking does not per se earn an attacker a Surprised bonus.

I would add the performances of Oliver Reed, Christopher Lee and Michael York to that list. I do not understand why some of the films muck about so much with the source material such as having the Musketeers disbanded or making it steam punk. Hard Boiled 1992 Want a gun fight ? This one delivers in spades as John Woo delivers a bullet ballet of extraordinary violence. As one police officer tries to crack the gangs from outside, another is an undercover officer in one of the gangs. The shoot outs in a restaurant, a warehouse/garage and a hospital are something to behold.