Spence

Isn't it more like 3 or 4 months? I know I will not be paying an additional $29.99 (or $31.99) just to stream it. I'll be waiting for the regular streaming release at a less insane price.

Well, just an opinion of course, but they had great actors for the main cast, Paul Blackthorne as Dresden, Valarie Cruz as Murphy (except she was way too big/tall an actress) and Conrad Coates as Morgan. The problem was that the moron that was directing was 100% sure that the audience was too stupid to follow the plot so they changed 90% of what made The Dresden Files The Dresden Files. The Blue Beetle was a Jeep. Instead of his wand...err... Blasting Stick they went with a hockey stick(???). They simply changed too many integral things that made the books great just to change them. It is not like changing a wand to a hockey stick made it easier for the actor to carry it or something. The TV series is a classic example of how not to adapt a book into a TV show.

I can just see it. A dogfight in the the skies over Europe in 1943. F-22 Raptors engaging Fokker D VII's over France as B-52's struggle to reach their targets through the teeth of flak and SAM's. Of course anyone that criticizes it or is puzzled by none of the aircraft being from the actual time period will be branded a hater and the show will automatically be called a "satire". Since that fixes everything.

I find myself swapping around a lot fro my casual reads. Right now I am back to reading some of the classics. But before that I reading Fantasy/Isekai RPGLit books. And before that it was space opera. For me there are two kinds of books. 1) Non-fiction books that you read to learn something, these are books that you buy in hard copy and usually cost a pretty penny. These books are ones that I take my time to read and actually make notes and regularly flip back to re-read a passage or even chapters. 2) Fiction, these are disposable books that you may never read again. Kindle or PDF's are my usual formats for fiction. They are books that do not require any real effort and can be read at a fairly fast pace and are made to fill time. For space opera I recommend Weber's Honor Harrington series. All the storylines are pretty good with the exception of the Crown of Slaves spin off series, for me it was really not interesting at all. For a great series that centers around grand battles between large star fleets I recommend the Starfire series he wrote in collaboration with Steve White. The books were based on one of their old Starfire campaigns, Starfire was a old science fiction wargame from the 80's.

I literally just did that less than 10 minutes ago

I am actually in the process of re-reading/listening to Zelazny's Amber Chronicles. I have always wished to see this one make it as an Epic TV Series such as Game of Thrones. With modern effects it is very doable and the story has always been a good one.

So many possibilities and 99.9999% changes that it will all be a cringing hot mess. Batman has already become twiggy in a cape. And while I really hope that WW3 can resurrect the awesomeness of WW1, I fear we will just get more indoctrination. Superman has already been cancelled. I would have loved to see a real Zatanna movie based on actual Zatanna, but I am sure it will just have to be "fixed" somehow. I have hopes for Aquaman3, Black Adam and Shazam. Dim ones, but still hopes. The news that they were making Blackhawk just blew me away, then I remembered it was 2021 and the idea of actually using a Blackhawk comic to make the movie will never fly. So tantalizing and yet so depressing....

Lynch's Dune may have looked amazing for anyone that never read the book. But if you have read the book it was all WTF am I looking at. And the stupid 'weirding modules". I could go on and on. Though I have to admit that as bad as both Dunes were, they are absolute perfection in adapting a book to the screen when compared to the horrific toxic abomination that was inflicted on the book Starship Troopers.

I agree with Christopher R Taylor and the first paragraph of DShomshak's post and completely disagreeing with the "core explanation" sentence. Not to be antagonistic, but because it is expending far too much effort for something that is ridiculously simple. RPG's have players taking on persona's that then kill and pillage. The game is supposed to be fun and it generally is. Orc's, Goblins and such exist in an RPG for many of the same reasons they exist in fantasy books such as LotR's. They are zero dilemma enemies that may be freely killed/destroyed without morale quandary. They are not "people". They are evil (or any other fill in the blank reason) enemies of the players. In my games they are not available for players. In fact most "evil" concept beings are not. In D&D 5th Half Orcs and Teiflings and Warlocks and the other munchkin evil based race/class types are not either. People are free to play what they want and if that want is not in alignment with the type of games I run or play, then more power to them. I just don't participate. The whole redeemed evil whats'it makes a good book or show where the author/directer literally controls every word and expression by literally everyone. But in RPG's it basically degenerates into munchkin murder-hobo, which is usually fiercely denied by the murder-hobo's. I'm not saying that murder-hobo is not a legitimate way to play a RPG. I am saying that I do not like them or participate in them.

I enjoyed it too. Enough that I have bought the series to read in kindle. Hmmmm... I just watched that on Tubi. It really wasn't bad for a 50's scifi drama.

That movie is painful. So much potential that went swirling down the drain. Every time they did something great they had to stick in something completely crappy. Like Emperors generals commanding the fight on a merry-go-round!?! Just a waste of money and actor talent. The two SciFi Channel mini-series were actually better.

LOL People always tend to react to change. IIRC there was a bit of push back on the piers when things like forklifts and container cranes came into being. This is just replacing the forklift and driver with a person that is a forklift. Or as in one case in the book a flyer that was just that a flyer and not too fast at that worked as a fall safety restraint for high work. Just hover above the workers hooked into their rigs in case of a fall.

The H.E.R.O. world tackled this issue with people with powers that were not Superhero oriented. A lot of "strong" types entered the construction field. Many had specific powers that fit exacting special niches. Such as neural surgery. The world concept is that when a person transformed their subconscious had a big influence and so super-florist is a thing. In the world there were several people that worked for H.E.R.O. in non-crime or monster fighting. Super-medics, super-damage control teams. And so on. If you are interested in the concept, I would suggest reading the first book H.E.R.O. - Metamorphosis or just the H.E.R.O. - Illustrated Guide. But while the concept is great, the author really needs some help with characters. He tends to write them as excessively stupid or oblivious to things that no person could possibly not notice. That said they a decent supers stories. As far as the original question from the OP. I don't worry about most of the "issues". The most "modern" supers campaigns for me are in the 80's, but I prefer the 60 & 70's. A cell phone that actually works in the campaign city is super-tech.

This is actually very very close to the premise of the H.E.R.O. series by Kevin Rau. Supers can join H.E.R.O. and respond to calls. The storylines themselves vary in quality, but the overall premise is solid. I have already stolen it for my next supers game.

Update So they are crediting forward last years tickets if you had them. You should have received an email if you did. The first three in my line up are one-shots I have run before at various game days. I just need to make sure they run in a con slot. Warparty (Down Darker Trails CoC 7th, 1865) The Island (Fear Itself, GUMSHOE, 1970’s) Terror on the DEW Line (Delta Green, FoDG, 1960’s) I am tinkering with two others. One using Hero 5thR and one using Star Trek 2d20. Once I have all five up and ready I have to decide which ones to run. I want to be able to do more than just run at the con so I don't think I will run all five.

IIRC there are a lot of Heroes in Marvel's books that came from those cultural backgrounds. Write a story with a good plot/reason for them to come together/team up and then cast them with actors that fit the parts. But that will never happen. My guess is the nearest thing will be taking an existing super team and change all the white people to Indiginous and any males to female and then rant about how all whites are genetically racist, all males are toxic and anyone that didn't like the show is something'phobic. So many great Marvel characters are being left to obscurity just so they can swap everything. Now that they are openly proud of being discriminatory, I expect we only have a couple more years of cringe worthy movies and TV before the MCU ends.

I didn't see this thread until today and have just skimmed through. But I don't think their original intent had intended anything beyond using it as a easy way to sidestep having to come up with origins. I remember the X-Men from when it was just superhero adventures. That is when I really enjoyed the books, it was also when we were full into playing Champions. I remember deploying, and when I got back stateside and was trying to buy back issues to fill the gap is when the end of my comic days began. When I left it was Heroes vs Villains. When I returned they were starting to replace that with "other". Even the beginning of Genicide was written as more Heroes vs Villains with the mutant thing being just an easy excuse to not think too much about it. But when I started reading the stories quickly morphed from Heroes vs Villains to thinly veiled and extremely heavy handed moralizing. Many times completely losing anything resembling adventure and most definitely not having Heroes vs Villains. In fact, many times the villain was glorified while the heroes were villafied. Basically why I stopped reading comics and started reading fantasy novels and scifi. Then I found Anime and by extention Manga. Since the late 90s, my comic experience has been the occasional sampling of mind numbing disappointing mediocre hackdom.

The best kind of campaign is the one that has a life of its own

Sometimes RAW doesn't have the right feel. Overloading defenses by saturating them is very very Mecha.

Thanks. I try to present my thoughts in a way that they are understandable without be perceived as antagonistic. I don't know if I succeed, but I hope so. Understanding does not equal agreement, which is why I am puzzled sometimes by reactions.

I see what your are saying, but there is marked difference in game content. A person who is going to GM a game of D&D, can't do it without owning the Players Handbook and Monster Manual. You can get away with never buying a Dungeon Masters Guide, but most people that run will buy it. The PHB, MM and DMG are widely considered the minimum "core" books needed. So leaving out of an adventure module the creatures/monsters that everyone already has a copy of won't cause waves. Leaving out key NPC's, Monsters and Villains will break it. But Hero by design has no centrally required NPC, Creature, Monster, Villain book required just to play. D&D gives you stat'd monsters and creatures but never gives you the behind the scenes "rules" that they use to create and balance monsters. For Hero the GM and players create them all as they go. Or they can buy extra books where someone else did the drudgery of the builds. The point is that games like D&D requires the DM's to buy the book that contains most of the monsters needed to play the game. So an adventure only has to refer to that manual because the DM will already have it. A Hero game adventure designer cannot assume that the buyer will have more than the core rulebook. For a superhero game, a espionage game, or pretty much any game that relies on a relatively small cast of antagonists all of which have detailed roles to play, they have to include them and the associated details. Cranking out a D&D adventure is easy barely requiring thought. Sketch out a plot/storyline (the hardest part) and then just plug creatures with the appropriate CR. Done. A Fantasy Hero Adventure is much harder and almost requires you include not just all the encounters, but pre-gen player characters as well. If not to play, then to allow the GM to gauge the parties needed strength. Because Hero has no established method to determine just what is what PC power-wise. D&D has Levels. FH has nothing. Every GM establishes their own limits and caps. MY idea of a starting point for PC's may be built on far more points than your multi-campaign veteran. Or the reverse. The very core concept of Hero as a tool kit ensures that if you compare FH campaigns from people in four different states they will all have different build limits. I have seen games where one persons "Goblin" was more deadly than anothers "Great Orc". /ramble

One thing that I have noticed that I personally consider on the "not good" side of the meter is when adventures seem to always introduce "new" villains. For me it is a bad thing mostly because I prefer to run in and play in worlds with low numbers of supers completely ignoring "real world" politics and legal mishmash. If I wanted lawyers and political intrigue for fun I'll just turn on the TV. I'd rather see adventures that use existing supervillains with notation and advice on how to slot your own villains into the adventure. For instance I create an adventure and center it around the Ultimates (Binder, Blackstar, Cyclone, Radium, Slick, Thunderbolt I) and Binder has a plot to take over the City. Creating the adventure will be work on its own, but how do you handle the Ultimates? If you tell the customer that they need to buy Conquerers, Killers and Crooks in order to play the adventure, many will consider the product incomplete and not buy. Which means you will need to put the Ultimates into the adventure, so you need to get permission. And then how much of them can you put in? It quickly devolves into many many questions. In my opinion using existing villains in adventures serves to give people a reason to buy Champions Universe products and play in that world. Or at least their modified version of that world. To me the biggest issue with old Hero was it was almost deliberately designed to turn away players from the CU. There was very little product designed for people to actually roll dice and play in the CU. Lot's of books about the big picture, virtually nothing for sitting down to play. People like Christopher R Taylor, who are actually putting out product (Not just CRT, but all of them) have really gotten me pumped up about doing something myself. But I have discovered that putting together an adventure module has turned out to be far harder than writing a custom lesson plan on data bus maintenance and troubleshooting for new techs. With a lesson plan I can just decide what I what to cover and what they need to know. With an adventure I need to ensure it is flexible enough for the GM and players to play a written or completely go in another direction. It needs to be easily adjusted for threat level. It needs to be able to stand alone or be plugged into an ongoing campaign. All that and the awareness I am probably running myself around in pointless circles . I mean we now have an open pathway, the Hall of Champions, and I still have not actually put anything out

Exactly

I tend to buy adventures of either flavor. Now the biggest way to get me to hand you my money is to include maps that are high definition enough to blow up and print. Maps Maps Maps maps maps and maps. That said, for old adventures that are updated. If the rewrite expands the adventure and includes updated MAPS then I guarantee you I will buy it. I pretty much will buy any superhero adventure that is put out even if I can't use it. Many supers adventures are too specific to be easily inserted into on going campaigns or worlds. I (as opposed to we) don't need a master villain or earth threatening plan. I already have the Big Bad and their dastardly objective. What I need is the stuff in between. Adventure lines that help the heroes gain experience needed so they can fight the Big Bad. A multi adventure smuggling conspiracy or a multi adventure drug ring. All designed to be dropped into and run along side of the existing campaign.

Not at all. Maverick was an a$$hat in the beginning and wasn't liked at all by pretty much everyone except the backseater. He alienated pretty much everyone and even killed his best friend. That arrogant version of Maverick is not what a real combat pilot is. There is a difference between "arrogant" and "aggressively confident". In the movie Maverick was on the edge of losing his commission and being kicked out but was given a last chance at redemption. Not because they CO wanted to, but because the situation forced him to. It was a twist on the Hero's Journey. In other words the Maverick you are citing was the "bad do not be like this jerk" version of the character before he understood his real purpose. Like many Hollywood types (as well as many civilians) their concept of the military is actually parody itself. They applied their "not correct" concept of what a military pilot was to Carol Danvers. The issue is her character was never shown the Hero's Journey and they completely misinterpreted the concept of "aggressive competence" with arrogance. I have been around military aircrew my entire adult life and there is a vast difference between the Hollywood idea and reality. But back to Captain Marvel, I really can't say if the personality and character of the character Carol Danvers followed the comic closely or not, but they had her glomp on to every bad stereotype of a military pilot and then never even tried to have her become the Hero in the end.