sinanju

I listen to a lot of RPPR (Role-Playing Public Radio), a podcast of a group playing a variety of games*. One of the things I've noticed (and they've commented on it in the non-role-playing podcasts as well) is that the GM almost always gives the players a choice of actions in a given situation. I mean, explicitly. And they're mutually exclusive, each with benefits and drawbacks, so that if you try one the other option is off the table. You can't try one, then fall back on the other. So the players have to make a decision that means something. Try to infiltrate the crime ring and learn the secret du jour (and risk discovery and possible torture or death, if the other PCs can't rescue you or don't even know you're in trouble--cause you can't communicate with them)...or go in guns blazing, overpower the bad guys and hope the guy who knows the secrets doesn't a) escape in the melee (and now knows you're after him) or gets killed in the firefight, in which case the secret dies with him. It's a fairly simple technique. It means player choices matter. Some approaches are easier than others, but you aren't going to have all the details, so you don't always know which. And it means once you've chosen a path, you're committed. It sounds like the causal influence diagram approach is another way of doing essentially the same thing. Even without a causal influence chart, the GM could tell the players, "Okay, the Flux Capacitor is out. You can either do a wild (random) hyperjump, quite possibly into a worse position--or you can keep fighting the alien warships for X turns while the engineer swaps out the damaged unit for another and then make a controlled escape. But you can't do both. Once the engineer yanks out the damaged device, there's no hyperjumping anywhere until he gets the new one installed." So the players have to choose between immediate escape (and at best a delay in their mission, and at worst another life-threatening obstacle) or risking defeat/death in combat, but also still having the possibility of defeating the enemy and reaping the rewards thereof. But the key is: it's one or the other. *But never Champions. They're intimidated by Champions. "Learn Champions, or go to Law School...hmmm."

Iron Maiden probably knows him well (in her civilian identity), as a family friend. She grew up amongst criminals. But she probably hasn't seen him in years, since she cut herself off from most of her toxic birth family years ago. If she thought he had information she needed, she might try to coerce him into telling, but otherwise she has no use for him.

My approach (in a GURPS game, actually) was similar to some mentioned above. I mandated that the healing was relatively slow. No "Poof! You're healed!" It took about 5 minutes per point of body healed. So a mage *could* heal the whole group in a day (given resting time to recover lost Fatigue from casting the spells), but there was still an interval during which people were weakened by their wounds. An interval that left a window of opportunity for the bad guys, and sometimes necessitated retreat and regrouping by the PCs. (This might have been more problematic in a classic dungeon crawl, but we didn't do those.) If you wanted, you could always opt for "but healing POTIONS work instantly!" for times when you really, really need to have Conan back on his feet now. But if they're expensive and hard to obtain, they become a limited but vital commodity.

...and which Star Trek Admirals ought to expect by now. (See Kirk and Scotty for examples of this.) So the ship was not, in fact, overpowered. I stand by my theory.

Nah. The Defiant was "overpowered and overgunned." Which was, by far, the WTF-iest statement ever uttered on Star Trek--and that takes some doing. In a universe where the primary weapons of war are ENERGY weapons, it is by definition impossible for a ship to be overpowered AND overgunned. Engineer: "And now, Admirals, we'd like to put the Defiant through its paces. I'm sure you'll agree that it's just what the Federation needs." (Demonstration follows) Admirals: Stunned silence. Admiral 1: "My god, man, that's...that's..." Admiral 2: "A...warship. A ship of war!" Admiral 3 (to engineers): "What were you THINKING?" Engineer: "That...you asked for a warship?" Admiral 1: "A warship yes, but not that--that blasphemy! This won't do. This won't do at all!" Other Admirals: "hrmph hrmph hrmph. Quite so, quite so."

"Manual" override that consists of pushing a DIFFERENT BUTTON on the non-functional console. "Switch to manual!" <Pressing button repeatedly> "Manual Override is non-functional, sir!" Gah! One of many things Stargate: SG-1 got right. On more than one occasion, when they needed to cut power to the gate and the controls weren't working, they resorted to throwing the big, manually-operated Frankenstein-style switches down in the power room. (Of course, plot needs being what they were, that usually didn't solve the problem--but they TRIED. And they tried an actual, manually-operated switch.) And it's worse than having kids on an exploration vessel. They have kids (and entire families) on a WARSHIP. And don't give me any Federation-style propaganda about the Enterprise not being a warship. It's THE primary ship in the Federation fleet when they have to respond to hostile invasions of the Romulan, Klingon, Borg or other persuasion.

First episode of "Person of Interest." I'll watch more. Continuum. I kept hearing good things about this show, so I'm watching the first season now. I like it. The lead is very cute, and I like how the future-tech works (especially the fact that it's not perfect, it can be hacked and it can be damaged). First episode of Heroes Reborn. So far it shows every sign of being no different than its predecessor, but I'll hang in for a while to see how it goes. The Intern. A very charming film. I liked it. Trailers for Supergirl and Jessica Jones. I. Am. So. Very. There.

I designed a character whose power was being a lucid dreamer. The whole world is a communal hallucination or dream, and she's the only one (or one of the very few) who recognize that fact--and as a result, like a lucid dreamer, she can change that dream/reality to suit herself. One of her powers is an ability to seamlessly join a group of people who would normally react to her presence--but that take her presence for granted. They ignore it. So she can walk into any secure area, or sit in on a meeting of her enemies and listen to them make plans...and they'll see her (she's not invisible), and they'll even know it's her--but her presence will just seem normal and unremarkable until and unless she draws attention to it. I used Shapeshift for this. I think that's all you need. The effect is that you have horns--but people react as if you didn't (or rather, they see them, they just don't notice or care).

My Fantasy: Gilded Age Traveller (as mentioned in another thread). It looks like traveling on the Titanic. Gleaming polished woodwork and brass and thick carpeting, and delicate china and silverware and crystal drinking glasses and plushly upholstered easy chairs and sofas in the lounge. With men in elaborate suits and hats, wearing muttonchops and other antique beard styles, and ceremonial (but probably still quite useful) swords and handguns that look like early pistols (easy to aim--and with lasers, you don't need a grip at near right-angles to the barrel to feed bullets or deal with recoil....). At least in First Class. The lower decks get more...utilitarian. In practice: it would probably look a lot like Eclipse Phase. Ridiculously potent electronics/computers, genetic engineering, nanotech and whatnot inside habitats and spacecraft--but still using old-fashioned reaction drives for propulsion and spin gravity because FTL and artificial gravity are no more than wishful thinking.

I use Jungledisk, and have for years. (On the other hand, I only use it to backup my data--documents, photos, music, videos, and so forth. I either have the original install disks or saved links to downloaded software to reinstall if that ever becomes necessary.)

Mystique, at least in the movies. The actress (actresses, now that Jennifer Lawrence has played Mystique in the First Class movies) goes mostly naked. Yes, she's slathered in body paint and artfully applied, uh, appliances. But she's still naked.

FOURTEEN by Peter Clines. Didn't actually read it, I listened to it. My wife has an Audible account and stumbled across this book and really, really liked it. And convinced me to try it, and man, it was gloriously entertaining. Nate Tucker is a 30-something working as a data entry clerk in Los Angeles. His life is going nowhere, and he's perpetually strapped for cash. Then an acquaintance recommends a place to live--a nice, but cheap building. Really cheap. As in what's-the-catch cheap. No catch, it's just...a little weird. Not everyone finds it comfortable to live there. But Nate takes a look, and signs on the dotted line immediately. He moves in and finds the building as advertised: cheap, moderately nice (very nice for the price) but with a few quirks. Other the course of the novel he meets and interacts with many of his fellow tenants, who all have their own stories of oddities about their rooms. Like, every single apartment in the building is laid out differently. And what's with the elevator that has never, ever worked in the 23 years Oscar the building manager has lived there? And why are a couple of the apartments locked up tight (with padlocks, even)? Nate (and some of the others) begin investigating, and everything they uncover points to still deeper mysteries. My wife described it as a "horror procedural" and she's right. It's very slow build, with no overt threats for a long time, but a growing sense that something really weird and potentially dangerous is going on. The characters are distinctive and interesting, and interact entertainingly, and they're smart--and at least a couple are very pop culture-savvy, frequently quoting Ghostbusters among other things. By the time they (and the reader) discover what's really going on, the worst is yet to come. I highly recommend this book.

Only one. "Nice boots...." (there's a line that goes here which I will leave out in the interests of good taste.) I am SO ready to watch this show. And so is my wife. We watched the trailer yesterday after work (I've already seen it two or three times), and I was pleased that she thought it was worth trying. I'm all over superhero shows (generally--I don't like Arrow), but she's not so rabid a fan. But this appealed to her, so maybe CBS know what they're doing.

What looks on the surface like a classic D&D fantasy world, but when you dig deeper you discover that Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Ogres, Hobgoblins, Goblins, and all the other humanoid races are actually just different breeds of the same basic form, like dogs. They were all bred by the long-gone Ancients to serve them in various capacities (hence the various traits each species exhibits). And humans...are the mutts. Unless the various specialty "races" are careful to control their breeding, they revert to the mean (human in appearance and capacities) pretty quickly, and that where all the "half-whatevers" come from. Why are the languages "Elven" and "Dwarven" and so forth? Because those are the languages spoken in the cultures where those races are purebreds (mostly), so cultures (and kingdoms) tend to form along racial lines for that reason. A human kingdom probably doesn't even exist. There are humans (i.e., mongrels) throughout the world, living in small communities in most towns and cities. There are relatively few classic D&D monsters. Lots of animal-type encounters. But few Monsters . Mostly combat encounters take place between different tribes/nations/kingdoms or in fights with brigands and the like. When characters DO encounter monsters it's because they've gone poking around in the twisted landscapes that surround the blighted cities/ruins once inhabited by the Ancients (before they vanished in some kind of cataclysm). THAT'S when you encounter giants and giant animals, or Outsiders and so forth. And poking around in such places is a good way to stumble across Cthulhuesque Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, and weird magics far too bizarre and dangerous for mere mortals to play with. The sorts of things that may require the importation of Sanity mechanics from the D20 Cthulhu game.... The standard D&D magic spell lists? Those are the APPROVED spells. Even the nasty necromantic ones. Nasty, vicious and possibly illegal in many areas--but not the sorts of spells that will drive you insane or are likely to set off an Apocalypse. Or at least, if I ever run a D&D game again, that's what I intend to do.

Or as Larry Niven suggested, a world shaped like an LP phonograph record. Imagine it as big as the solar system, with a sun-sized sun bobbing up and down thru the hole in the center (the sun is definitely the junior partner in this orbital dance). If the disk is thick enough to have earthlike gravity, you could have an atmosphere across the whole thing, though of course it would lethally hot near the sun and lethally cold as you move toward the outer edges. But you could have Things from the inner or outer reaches wandering into human-habitable space, and endless assortment of human cultures on a living space that large.

I was going to say more or less the same thing. Intelligence isn't a goal, it's a tool. If it's not the right tool for the job, it's a waste of effort and resources. If some other tool works as well (or better) at less cost, that's what you're going to get more of. The human brain consumes something like 25% of the energy our bodies need--that kind of drain on the system won't evolve if it's doesn't carry its own weight and then some. Intelligence is our competitive advantage as humans, so we tend to think it's the most important thing. But alligators and crocodiles have survived essentially unchanged for vastly longer (by orders of magnitude) than humans have existed. They're not smart, but they fill their ecological niche so perfectly that they've changed little in millions of years. Is getting smart a better strategy than theirs in the long run? Maybe. But the jury won't be in on that for a very, very long time.

One theory I've heard recently is the explosive growth in human intelligence (on an evolutionary scale) has more to do with SOCIAL interactions than with dealing with the physical world. We're social creatures, and being able to communicate, to detect (or hide) emotions, motives, and so forth is an advantage--so the ability to read facial expressions, body language, remember past interactions, gauge someone else's truthfulness and trustworthiness and so forth becomes an "arms race" of sort that ups everyone's game. Yes. We're still evolving. Medicine means people survive and even thrive (and thus reproduce) despite accidents and illnesses that might have killed them before they could do so in the absence of such technology. On the other hand, it isn't only physical traits that evolution works on, it also operates on the behavioral level. Why are we living in the most peaceful era in human history (which it is, no matter how awful the news sounds)? Is it because we've "learned" to be less aggressive and warlike? Or is it because we've spent thousands of years culling out of the most aggressive and non-social members of society? If your culture(s) execute criminals* with sufficient zeal, what you have left is a population in which the desire to be criminal* is either absent or restrained by caution. Are we domesticating ourselves? *"Criminal" of course can mean murder, rape, robbery, theft and so forth--or refusal to do your "fair share" of the work needed for the community to survive, or a refusal to submit to the totalitarian desires of your rulers. Either way, if such behavior becomes an impediment to survival**, then you're less likely to pass on the temperament to behave that way. It's a long, slow process, of course, as is evolution in general; but incremental differences do make a difference over time. **A friend of mine who went to Iraq as part of a mission to help train the new government in running prisons in a more "modern" (i.e., American/western) fashion, saw this firsthand. In our system, if someone is in the prison and no documentation can be found to justify his presence there, he gets released. In Iraq there were a lot of prisoners the reason for whose presence in prison couldn't be determined, but without explicit instructions to release someone, he stays indefinitely--because decades of brutal rule by Saddam Hussein had thoroughly culled the population of anyone willing to show any initiative. That could get YOU imprisoned or executed. And it wasn't just the prisons, my friend saw evidence of this everywhere. Now, this was cultural, not genetic, of course. But I think the principle may well hold on a larger scale, on a longer-term scale.

Having watched at least part of one of the videos, what I saw was that he unholstered his weapon when--and only when--two young men began approaching him while he was dealing with the girl. They immediately retreated (in fact ran off, pursued by other cops), and he holstered his weapon. I never saw him threaten the girl with his firearm. Did he overreact two young men moving quickly toward him? I dunno. Did he draw his weapon on a teenage girl in a bikini? No.

Kinetic She's telekinetic, after all. She may or may not own up to precognition (I wouldn't, if I were her-- better for enemies not to know that).

Okay, so it's probably moot now (what with Thawne's fate) but... "Psst. Hey, Barry. Yeah, you in the red suit." "Who are you?" "Never mind. See that man lying on the floor over there? Not too far from your dead mom?" "You mean my dad?" "Yeah." "What about him?" "Well, it occurs to me that if he were bound and helpless in a roll of duct tape, the authorities would have a much harder time accusing him of the murder." "..." "And you're superfast, and you're right here, and you've got a few seconds to spare so--" Whoooooooooooooooooosh! "Done." This was LITERALLY the first thought I had when they gave us that shot of Barry's dad lying on the floor unconscious. DUCT TAPE HIM! He can't be the killer if he's a victim! Okay, so he couldn't save mom. But at least dad won't spend twenty years in prison.

Sure they are. They're trying hard to make sure the downside TO THEM is bearable. A movie that makes boatloads of money is--by economic necessity--going to be one that appeals to the vast majority who don't buy comics. A BIG comic might sell 100,000 copies. A multi-million dollar movie that only sold 100,000 tickets might as well be the boat anchor the money guys are going to use to make sure the body of the guy who greenlit it stays at the bottom of the ocean. If you follow the conventional wisdom (brightly colored costumes won't work) and the movie founders, well, you tried. If you went against the convention wisdom and you succeed, hey, you're a genius! If you do it and fail...you're finished. No more donuts and whores for you. Sure, fanboys are gonna complain. But so what? Anyone who knows anything about ANY field can point out countless ways that Hollywood gets it wrong because either the truth doesn't make for an entertaining story or they just don't care because it looks good enough. Everyone complains about something. "Good enough" is good enough if makes money.

I must be a 20-something girl too, then. (Which would come as quite a surprise to me, my wife, and many others....) Because I liked it. It wasn't what I expected, I admit. It looks very CW-ish (if that's a word), but still--Supergirl. She flies. She's bulletproof. She can stop a speeding semi without budging. And I really like the "learning to be a superhero" aspect to this. Yes, you have Phenomenal Cosmic Power , but you have to learn how to use it. And when to use it. I'll be watching it.

Well, on a really big newspaper, there'd be more than one of each, including the editor, though there would be an Editor-in-Chief to oversee the whole operation. Heck, the Daily Planet had at least TWO crime reporters--Lois and Clark. Don't forget photographers (though the ubiquity of cell phone cameras these days means there's likely to be amateur footage of just about any big event--especially super-brawls. Plus the graphics guys and website creators/maintainers and researchers (who can do the dusty, unexciting research the crime reporters are too busy dodging gangsters to bother with).

EARTH: His strength comes from the earth. Perhaps literally, in that he's only superstrong when he's standing or walking or running along the ground (or on a floor or the like)* AIR: Perhaps when he huffs and puffs, he can produce gale force winds (all out of proportion to even his superhuman strength--kinda like in Superman II). FIRE: Perhaps his defense is a fiery aura, or at least things that strike him take heat damage. Maybe he can generate huge amounts of heat by means of friction--he rubs his hands briskly together until they're glowing red hot and does fire damage to things he touches. Or he spins a twig between finger and thumb and it bursts into flame. WATER: ...really, I got nothing else. *Think of it like Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. It's so heavy nobody can lift it...but it can be placed on top of a toilet seat or a glass-topped coffee table quite safely. It's just--nobody can move it.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. In my mind, Sovereign is not a villain. He's a wild card. He's a hero, but he is So Done With This **** when it comes to dealing with politics and politicians. Since they seem to feel a deep need to control everything and everyone--and to destroy that which they cannot control--he's made a vivid example of anyone, no matter how politically powerful, who might dare in the future to threaten his loved ones, and he's withdrawn from the world stage to tend to his own knitting. Which is not to say that he won't intervene in a truly world-threatening situation (he's not Doctor Manhattan), but politicians and governments will have to run their own affairs without his help, though he reserves the right to act to protect his own interests and values (such as the lives of innocents), and any government that doesn't like it should remember what "sovereignty" means.