sinanju

Most superheroes (in the US) are affiliated with the government. It's not unlawful to possess--or even use--superpowers, as long as you don't use them unlawfully. If it's unlawful for the average human being, it's unlawful for you. It's unlawful to wear a mask and go out "fighting crime" (or even just 'patrolling') unless you've been inducted into the Guardians, and have all the legal rights and responsibilities (and privileges) thereof. If you don't bother with a mask, and don't engage in vigilantism, you can do pretty much anything you like that doesn't threaten or endanger others. A lot of metahumans have migrated to Hollywood (or Bollywood or other equivalents), where they use their powers to build careers as actors or stuntmen or whatever their powers give them a boost with. Antarctica is Sovereign territory. Literally. The superhuman known as Sovereign, one of the earlier superhumans and without any dispute the most powerful of them, grew tired of the government's attempts to manipulate or coerce him (this was before the creation of the Guardians program). But it was when they realized he would not and could not be moved by threats to himself and turned to his friends and family that things grew...heated. He produced for the press copious evidence of the crimes of the politicians and government goons involved. And then he killed them. Publicly and thoroughly. Then he flew to the United Nations where he addressed the General Assembly to announce that he was renouncing his US citizenship--claiming Antarctica as his own, as the world's first sovereign individual. It took a few months, but the world's governments accepted that he could--and would--defend his territory, violently if necessary. Eventually, most of the world recognized his sovereignty (the US government, unsurprisingly, does not). He also announced that any superhuman who felt oppressed by his or her own nation was free to emigrate to Antarctica and join him. Over the last few years a vast building project has been underway, establishing an arcology for the inhabitants, or so many believe. Little is known about the project; spies sent to Antarctica invariably come back with no memories of what they did, saw or heard. Spy satellites tasked to look that way go blind--or missing. And so forth. Rumors abound; that Sovereign is building an ark. That he's building a starship to leave the system entirely. That he's building an army. In the meantime, he mostly stays in self-imposed exile, occasionally visiting nations which have recognized his one-man nation and granted him permission to visit. He never comments on politics, no matter how obliquely. But there are rumors...that superhumans who genuinely wish to escape the lands of their birth, but who are not able (or dare not try) to communicate that desire to him nonetheless can expect a brief, completely unobserved visit from Sovereign, where he gives them the choice to join him in Antarctica, or not.

Iron Maiden has nothing against casual sex with lots of different partners. It's one of her favorite pastimes, in fact. But not with wanted supercriminals--and especially supercriminals who can turn you into lust-addled slaves. She's a classic flying brick and he's absolutely no threat to her physically, but she doesn't know the details of how his power works, so she's not going to take any chances--she's going to stay away from him and call someone else (the Black Knight, most likely) to come take Byron into custody. Legion will recognize him immediately, being the superspy that she is and having (or having read) files on everyone. Being a shapeshifter at the cellular level turns out to be a great help is situations like this. She'll change into one of her male forms and then see what she can do about taking him down. Rose Hancock, Iron Maiden's half-sister with the same power set, grew up rich and entitled instead of poor and neglected/abused, so isn't nearly as hypervigilant. She is, in fact, rather naive. She'd probably have no idea who Byron is, or that he's a superpowered womanizer, and would probably fall prey to his charms. Until/unless someone intervened.

We have this guy in our gaming group. It's especially apparent whenever we play Champions, but no matter what the game, he never plays a character for very long before he retires him to produce something new. Or a well-socialized rules lawyer. I've been in a group of rules lawyers, but they were all well-behaved (probably because whoever was GMing was also a rules lawyer and perfectly comfortable with giving as good as he got); if the GM vetoed a particular build or rules exploit, they'd go along. "Yes, you're very clever and that's technically legal--but not in my game" was sufficient reward to satisfy them. Then they'd settle down and actually roleplay.

I didn't mind adding the "Episode IV" bit--the movie was an homage to movie serials, so that fit. But going on to pretend that he had some grand arc planned out is just insulting. As you say, the story buckles under the weight of all those retcons. And yeah--twenty years ago, there were these mystics who could do for-real magic and had laser swords that could cut thru anything, but then they were wiped out...and people who were ALIVE AT THE TIME now no longer believe that they existed. Say what? But worst insult of all, worse even than "She's your sister" is "What I said was true...from a certain point of view." No, no it was not. "Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father" in no way matches up with "Darth Vader IS your father." Gaaah.

And that's because they weren't. I don't care what George says about having six or nine movies planned out. That's post-success BS. Star Wars was a one-shot, and "farmboy saves the galaxy and gets the girl PRINCESS" is as classic as it gets. The whole twins thing was a retcon.

I saw it, reluctantly. (My wife and son wanted to see it, so we did.) I didn't walk out thinking, "That's two hours of my life I'll never get back," but--it was not a good movie. Visually breathtaking, yes. It was a B-movie with A-level costuming and special effects. But the plot makes little sense. "The refrigerator logic is strong in this one," my wife said. The heroine, Jupiter Jones, shows little agency throughout most of the film, and is very naive. On the other hand, Luke Skywalker (to name one male epic space fantasy protagonist) also showed relatively little agency in Star Wars. A lot of things happen TO him, through most of the movie, and he handles them well, but not a lot happens because he made a decision and then acted to implement it. The same is true of Jupiter Jones in this film. In part, I think, that's because in both films the protagonist is the newcomer being introduced to this amazing movie world* (and thus, the audience is as well), so they don't know enough to make and carry out complex plans, but they think on their feet and have the right personality/values to choose the correct path--and to sway more powerful figures to their side in their battles against the real villains). But a lot of things really don't make sense, if you think too hard about them. Why, for instance, if the gravity boots and force-shield Caine used were so phenomenally useful (as they clearly were), was nobody else using them? *Or, in Luke's case, being introduced to the gritty details of the romanticized "heroic rebels vs vaguely evil empire" he knew from stories--he got first-hand experience of both, things he'd never known before.

When he 'ports into a space, the air which had previously occupied that volume is violently pushed out of the way. The result? A concussive wave emanating from the teleporting character (in technical terms, an area effect stun attack with a hole in the middle for the character, which goes off automatically every time he appears). Probably also a very loud thunderclap. When he vanishes, the air slams into that momentary void (under 14 PSI), producing another ear-splitting thunderclap. Subtle, he ain't. But between the Hearing Flash Attacks and every time he appears or disappears, and the Explosive Area Attack every time he appears, he could do a real number of the folks he's attacking.

In the beginning, yes. And I think it was a good concept. Having supers (heroes and villains) running around in normal clothes made it easier for non-comics fans to buy into the story. But toward the end? When he was The Blur, and basically acting like Superman without being called Superman? They still refused to have him wear any sort of real costume.

I gotta agree. The original X-Men movie had black leather--and it worked because real people can wear it and look badass, as opposed to yellow spandex. A bad choice of costuming could turn an otherwise good show into a comedy. So I understand why they're cautious. On the other hand, as a friend of mine has pointed out repeatedly, if you want to see what looks good in real life for superherowear--check out how Olympic athletes dress, especially those in the winter games. Some of it is heavier than you'd want in a warm environment, but they wear form-fitting outfits that look good and are colorful. On the gripping hand, hey, at least she's wearing an actual costume, not like Clark on Smallville.

In a mystery writing workshop I took, they described Noir (as opposed to other forms of mystery stories) this way: Structure of Noir: Noir is the most realistic of all subgenres of mystery. 1. Urban setting. And it is crime-ridden. 2. It's dark, gritty, sensory-filled and nasty. 3. Character-focused in relationship to the setting. 4. The ending: the crime gets resolved, but it's not pretty and it's rarely uplifting. 5. Voice is off the charts: deep, resonant, powerful, worth listening to. A riveting storyteller telling you a horrible, horrible story. Other things about Noir (not necessarily the case): 1. Often the main character is a vigilante or someone outside the law. 2. It's the anti-cozy. 3. It rarely has a moral compass. Sometime the moral compass is broken. Morals don't exist at all in most noir stories. Morals are for people who have money, time, a "real life." They can afford it.

Yeah, random generation was just How Things Are Done back then. I remember Steamteck (former denizen of these boards) and I creating a superhero game way, way back before Champions. We used random generation for everything, including powers. It produced some really weird but memorable characters, but it was very, very silly as a result. The idea that you could CHOOSE your character's strengths and weaknesses, skills, powers, etc--was one of the early big draws of Champions for me. Nowadays, I really really dislike random generation of characters. Even when we play D&D we tend to use systems where you choose your stats with a pool of points instead of rolling dice.

Perhaps that's how they saw it, but I only ever saw it as a waste of time. I'm creating characters to play in the actual game; generating a squad in order to produce one playable PC is a pointless exercise. So we quickly changed it (as many groups apparently did) to "death" equals "mandatory mustering out. We also instituted the "rolling a 2 on your re-enlistment roll means a dishonorable discharge" rule, with the players free to make up reasons why. They ranged from Captain Randath's Last Stand (he lost an entire battalion of TL 10 solders to a bunch of TL 2 primitive screwheads and didn't even have the decency to die in the process) to "I was cleaning my fully automatic weapon in the barracks when it went off...killing my whole platoon."

Yeah, there are tropes that are tropes for a reason. The "Universal Translator" (however it is supposed to work in a given work of fiction or campaign) is really there because the difficulties inherent in constantly dealing with new languages are a pain in the butt. Same with artificial gravity on spaceships. You _can_ make a movie in which zero-g is the default (Gravity, for instance), but when you're filming a movie (and especially a weekly tv show), it's way easier to just say "we have artificial gravity" and go with it. (And a running joke in my gaming group, whatever the campaign, is "Artificial Gravity is, hands down, THE most reliable technology we possess. The engines can crap out, life support can shut down, the lights can go out...but the artificial gravity never fails.")

In my view, it has very little to do with the rules you're using and a lot to do with your approach as a GM. I mean, ultimately, the GM has the power to arbitrarily kill off any character in any game. He has the whole game world at his command. Also, the GM always has the option of ignoring the die roll that would kill a character and substituting something less lethal and more entertaining (for the characters and players). That said, the longer I play rpgs the more I'm drawn to rules-lite systems. Maybe because I passed thru my slavish "He who lives by the die roll shall die by the die roll!" phase many, many years ago. I'm more and more about telling an entertaining story and less about simulationism. And by "telling an entertaining story" I do NOT mean railroading the players thru a predesigned plot--I mean making the game entertaining for everyone, even when--or perhaps especially when--it means deviating from the original plotline because something you never foresaw happening is clearly more fun than sticking to the plan. Rules-lite systems make that sort of thing easier, but crunchy systems don't make it impossible, just more difficult. Of course, it also depends (as usual) on what the OTHER players want out of the game. If you've got a group of players who love to throw their characters into dangerous situations knowing that a few (or even one) bad die roll could cripple or kill them, well, that's what entertains THEM. If you've got players who love interacting with NPCs and engaging in melodrama, that's what entertains THEM. Maybe they can cooperate and get a little of both in a game...or maybe they really need to be two different gaming groups (or at least in separate campaigns).

Well, it's not public domain, but I'd recommend looking at Dreamstime.com. It's a site where you can buy the rights to use an image (non-exclusively) for publication. For less than $20 (typically, and depending on the size and resolution of the image you want) you can get non-exclusive rights to use an image in up to 50,000 copies of a publication. (You can buy an extended license if you are going to exceed that for not a lot more.) There are a number of other such sites, but I find Dreamwidth to be the easiest to search and it tends to have the most choices of images. Check out the cover art for my Starship Repo series (the books by Will Tate on the Amazon link below). Rights to each cover image were $20 or less, for a 300dpi image at least 1200x2100 pixels in width and height. It would take only a few book sales for each book to make back I paid for the cover images--well worth it, in my opinion. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=starship+repo&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Astarship+repo

Eh, that's an artifact of trying to produce a weekly tv show. Spending half of every episode engaged in pantomime or struggling with pigeon English (or Egyptian or whatever) would get old real fast, and take up valuable story time. Note that in the original movie they did, in fact, need Daniel Jackson to translate for them. It's really a question of how you want to spend your limited show/game time. A PC who knows a lot of ancient languages could be fun to play and an important part of the game. Or you could handwave the issue and go with the universal translator effect. As for the kawoosh--I wouldn't stat it out. I'd make GM Fiat. Anything engulfed by the kawoosh is vaporized. End of story. We never saw anything that could withstand it (the iris prevented it from forming in the first place, according to canon.)

Local newspaper: "Masked Vigilantes taking the law into their own hands are a plague on our fair city! The result? Masked Villains crawling out of the woodwork in pursuit of the same fame as their so-called opponents, leading to crime in the streets! We must put an end to this. We already HAVE constumed crimefighters--they're called THE POLICE!" Local shopkeepers: "I dunno about that, but I do know that Don Generica's goons don't come around every week to collect on my 'fire insurance' anymore. And I don't worry about my mother walking home from the garment factory every night anymore--not with Captain Hero (et al) patrolling the streets. Thanks, masked vigilantes!"

I will confess to being a nay-sayer prior to Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy. Having seen Chris Evans as Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four movie (in which I thought he was really, really good and he captured the character perfectly), I couldn't envision him at Captain America. I was wrong. He's a superb Captain America, and anyone who takes his place is going to have some big shoes to fill. I was dubious about Guardians of the Galaxy too. And, again, I was wrong. The story wasn't particularly novel or riveting, but the characters were fascinating and fun to watch. That being said, I cannot express a) how little I wanted an Ant-Man movie from day one, and how utterly unmoved my opinion is after seeing the trailer. It tells nothing except that a) it's ANOTHER. ORIGIN. STORY. (Really, Hollywood?) And it does nothing to make me care about Pym OR Lang. If it's supposed to have a lot of humor, that trailer doesn't indicate it--the music is full-on "dramatic action story" music. Now, maybe I'm wrong, and it'll be great. Clearly Marvel knows more about what they're doing than I do--they've been right and I've been wrong twice. But this time, I don't think so.

I guess it would depend on what system you chose to use. I mean, you could play it in any of them. Also in GURPS, for that matter. Personally, I'd probably go with Monster of the Week (an Apocalypse World hack for playing games like Buffy/Supernatural/Dresden Files and so forth).

Eh, the thing about the borg that annoys me the most--okay, second most*--is how they will just ignore intruders on their ships. Until and unless you cause enough trouble to rally the Borg against you, you can come and go and plant bombs and study them for weaknesses and whatever else you like and they'll just go about their business like morons. *Worst, of course, is how they instantly "adapt" to any attack after one exposure so it becomes useless. Adapt...HOW, exactly? It's ridiculous.

Yeah, but as Instapundit often says, there's "insufficient opportunity for graft" in simply policing actual crimes. (And by "graft" I don't only mean cops on the take, but also the city/county/state enjoying the fruits of ticketing and fining as many people as possible).

Yeah, but as Instapundit often says, there's "insufficient opportunity for graft" in simply policing actual crimes. (And by "graft" I don't only mean cops on the take, but also the city/county/state enjoying the fruits of ticketing and fining as many people as possible).

Well, it's all rubber science so it's not like either of us can marshall compelling arguments. I just think that, esthetically, I prefer the idea of a stargate as a doorway you walk thru rather than as a disintegrator/reintegrator. That seems like an unnecessary step.

I've served on a Grand Jury. Once, for an an afternoon. It was for a small county in rural Virginia when I was about 20, so a long time ago. In theory we were on call for a month, but in practice, we spent one day at it during our term of service. We the jurors sat in a room in the courthouse and prosecutors and cops would enter, tell us who the defendant was, what crime he/she was being charged with, and what evidence they had to support the charge. They did not present any exculpatory evidence, only the evidence for the prosecution. Our job was to decide whether they had enough evidence of the defendant's guilt to warrant a trial. They say that a competent prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. In my experience, that's true. We okayed every case brought to us (everything from passing bad checks to one murder). And why not? They had a convincing case for guilt (at least in the absence of any defense); presumably, if they didn't think they had enough evidence to convince us, they'd have waited to find more and presented it to another grand jury later on. If they had fabricated evidence or the cops perjured themselves, would we have known? No--but that's why all we can do is okay a trial. The defense would be able to make those arguments in the actual trial later on. This is why I have no doubt that the presecutor in the Ferguson case deliberately sabotaged his own case against Officer Wilson. He didn't want to prosecute but wasn't man enough to make that decision himself and stand by it in the face of public anger, so he used the grand jury process to engineer the same result while retaining barely-plausible deniability.

Well, yeah. The original movie has dialogue about how the objects traveling thru the gate get dematerialized and then reintegrated at the other end. That never made much sense to me. An actual wormhole, as I understand it, would simply be a shortcut. No disinte- and reintegration. You look thru the gateway, you step thru the gateway. For that matter, the whole "using constellations as the coordinate system really, really doesn't make any sense. I always preferred to think of it as every gate has its own "IP address" and hitting the big red button was the equivalent of pressing "enter" on a keyboard. I really, really loved the SG-1 series, and they did a lot of things right. Most things, really. But those were two items I had to just sigh and ignore to enjoy the rest of it.