Spence

Unlike Paul Verhoven, I expect that J. Michael Straczynski has actually read Starship Troopers. If he were to undertake a remake of the movie, I expect that it would be a much better film. Not that that's a particularly high bar to clear.

I was laughing my ass off.  They were obviously an expendable distraction and none of them were expected to survive. 
 
It was like a British comedy along the line of Black Adder or Mr. Bean.  Over the top stupidity somehow surviving.
 
The big starfish sealed the deal.  Stupid enough to be hilarious. 
 
No.   I liked SS2.  It wasn't high cinema, but it was entertaining.

In addition I would argue that Hero (any version) needs guidance/limits. 
Hero the game system gives the players and GM's unlimited ability to build stuff. 
To an RPG player from virtually any other system and any new to RPG beginners, unlimited options breaks the game for them.  There is a thing called option overload.
 
A set of guidelines or "rules" defining how things are bought and various limits would give the new player a definitive starting point.  A reference to base decisions on. 
Once they get the hang of it, then they can easily ignore them and build their own world. 
 
 
 
 
 

I was laughing my ass off.  They were obviously an expendable distraction and none of them were expected to survive. 
 
It was like a British comedy along the line of Black Adder or Mr. Bean.  Over the top stupidity somehow surviving.
 
The big starfish sealed the deal.  Stupid enough to be hilarious. 
 
No.   I liked SS2.  It wasn't high cinema, but it was entertaining.

Actually the military was the least used path and the MI was really looked down on as a "useless" vestige of an earlier era.  Federal Service could be anything.
The "navy" was a actually mostly consisting of cargo ships to supply the colonies. 
The only reason that the book features the military is because the central character was in the MI.  In the book it pointed out that "what" you did to gain you franchise of citizenship and the vote wasn't important.  What was important was you committed and completed service period of two years.
 
“Why, the purpose is,” he answered, hauling off and hitting me in the knee with a hammer (I kicked him, but not hard), “to find out what duties you are physically able to perform. But if you came in here in a wheel chair and blind in both eyes and were silly enough to insist on enrolling, they would find something silly enough to match. Counting the fuzz on a caterpillar by touch, maybe. The only way you can fail is by having the psychiatrists decide that you are not able to understand the oath.”
Heinlein, Robert A.. Starship Troopers (p. 33). Penguin Publishing Group.
 
IIRC the MI only had two brigades in total and the only military starships were the Fleet Transport Corvettes used to move the MI. The entire "military" was essentially seed stock in case there ever arose a need to defend humanity. 
 
The entire first part of the book was the MC going through MI training while literally everyone he knew, including his family, thought he was throwing his future away.  And the MI was constantly trying to get them to quit and go do something else.   The after the Bug War started was humanity getting is collective a$$ kicked and having to throw its very few combat troops into hit and run raids as they lost colony after colony.  Things didn't start turning around until the last few chapters as they started cranking out actual warships as well as getting trained troops to flesh out the MI. 
 
But the big thing is that Federal Service could be military, but 99% of it wasn't.  The concept was that in order to be a full citizen and uphold the responsibility of the vote, you demonstrated a minimum ability to be reliable and complete a beneficial function.  Be it cleaning bedpans at a hospital or driving a delivery truck. 
More of a Meritocracy than anything else.
 
None of that is in any way reflected in the movie.
Instead we get bugs and a cheap image of fascism. 
By cheap I mean is makes light humor about a seriously screwed up reality. 
Extremely sad....

I was laughing my ass off.  They were obviously an expendable distraction and none of them were expected to survive. 
 
It was like a British comedy along the line of Black Adder or Mr. Bean.  Over the top stupidity somehow surviving.
 
The big starfish sealed the deal.  Stupid enough to be hilarious. 
 
No.   I liked SS2.  It wasn't high cinema, but it was entertaining.

I was laughing my ass off.  They were obviously an expendable distraction and none of them were expected to survive. 
 
It was like a British comedy along the line of Black Adder or Mr. Bean.  Over the top stupidity somehow surviving.
 
The big starfish sealed the deal.  Stupid enough to be hilarious. 
 
No.   I liked SS2.  It wasn't high cinema, but it was entertaining.

I was laughing my ass off.  They were obviously an expendable distraction and none of them were expected to survive. 
 
It was like a British comedy along the line of Black Adder or Mr. Bean.  Over the top stupidity somehow surviving.
 
The big starfish sealed the deal.  Stupid enough to be hilarious. 
 
No.   I liked SS2.  It wasn't high cinema, but it was entertaining.

I was laughing my ass off.  They were obviously an expendable distraction and none of them were expected to survive. 
 
It was like a British comedy along the line of Black Adder or Mr. Bean.  Over the top stupidity somehow surviving.
 
The big starfish sealed the deal.  Stupid enough to be hilarious. 
 
No.   I liked SS2.  It wasn't high cinema, but it was entertaining.

That is what Champions Begins is, as a first stage.  I want a basic Champions Campaign book out there too, something people can grab and run your standard Bronze Age game with.  A base, some bad guys, some NPCs, a larger story arc, prepared character stories you can plug into most PC complications, and a series of related adventures and such for the GM to run a campaign with.  
 
Note, this works best if there are a lot of Champions adventures already out there to run, that can be referenced.

Agreed. That's why I typically recommend that total newcomers to TTRPGs start with something else, like D&D. That's how it went for me; I went from AD&D (1e) to Champions 2e and the transition was very smooth. I would not wish jumping straight into Champions 6e on my worst enemy.

Actually the military was the least used path and the MI was really looked down on as a "useless" vestige of an earlier era.  Federal Service could be anything.
The "navy" was a actually mostly consisting of cargo ships to supply the colonies. 
The only reason that the book features the military is because the central character was in the MI.  In the book it pointed out that "what" you did to gain you franchise of citizenship and the vote wasn't important.  What was important was you committed and completed service period of two years.
 
“Why, the purpose is,” he answered, hauling off and hitting me in the knee with a hammer (I kicked him, but not hard), “to find out what duties you are physically able to perform. But if you came in here in a wheel chair and blind in both eyes and were silly enough to insist on enrolling, they would find something silly enough to match. Counting the fuzz on a caterpillar by touch, maybe. The only way you can fail is by having the psychiatrists decide that you are not able to understand the oath.”
Heinlein, Robert A.. Starship Troopers (p. 33). Penguin Publishing Group.
 
IIRC the MI only had two brigades in total and the only military starships were the Fleet Transport Corvettes used to move the MI. The entire "military" was essentially seed stock in case there ever arose a need to defend humanity. 
 
The entire first part of the book was the MC going through MI training while literally everyone he knew, including his family, thought he was throwing his future away.  And the MI was constantly trying to get them to quit and go do something else.   The after the Bug War started was humanity getting is collective a$$ kicked and having to throw its very few combat troops into hit and run raids as they lost colony after colony.  Things didn't start turning around until the last few chapters as they started cranking out actual warships as well as getting trained troops to flesh out the MI. 
 
But the big thing is that Federal Service could be military, but 99% of it wasn't.  The concept was that in order to be a full citizen and uphold the responsibility of the vote, you demonstrated a minimum ability to be reliable and complete a beneficial function.  Be it cleaning bedpans at a hospital or driving a delivery truck. 
More of a Meritocracy than anything else.
 
None of that is in any way reflected in the movie.
Instead we get bugs and a cheap image of fascism. 
By cheap I mean is makes light humor about a seriously screwed up reality. 
Extremely sad....

Actually the military was the least used path and the MI was really looked down on as a "useless" vestige of an earlier era.  Federal Service could be anything.
The "navy" was a actually mostly consisting of cargo ships to supply the colonies. 
The only reason that the book features the military is because the central character was in the MI.  In the book it pointed out that "what" you did to gain you franchise of citizenship and the vote wasn't important.  What was important was you committed and completed service period of two years.
 
“Why, the purpose is,” he answered, hauling off and hitting me in the knee with a hammer (I kicked him, but not hard), “to find out what duties you are physically able to perform. But if you came in here in a wheel chair and blind in both eyes and were silly enough to insist on enrolling, they would find something silly enough to match. Counting the fuzz on a caterpillar by touch, maybe. The only way you can fail is by having the psychiatrists decide that you are not able to understand the oath.”
Heinlein, Robert A.. Starship Troopers (p. 33). Penguin Publishing Group.
 
IIRC the MI only had two brigades in total and the only military starships were the Fleet Transport Corvettes used to move the MI. The entire "military" was essentially seed stock in case there ever arose a need to defend humanity. 
 
The entire first part of the book was the MC going through MI training while literally everyone he knew, including his family, thought he was throwing his future away.  And the MI was constantly trying to get them to quit and go do something else.   The after the Bug War started was humanity getting is collective a$$ kicked and having to throw its very few combat troops into hit and run raids as they lost colony after colony.  Things didn't start turning around until the last few chapters as they started cranking out actual warships as well as getting trained troops to flesh out the MI. 
 
But the big thing is that Federal Service could be military, but 99% of it wasn't.  The concept was that in order to be a full citizen and uphold the responsibility of the vote, you demonstrated a minimum ability to be reliable and complete a beneficial function.  Be it cleaning bedpans at a hospital or driving a delivery truck. 
More of a Meritocracy than anything else.
 
None of that is in any way reflected in the movie.
Instead we get bugs and a cheap image of fascism. 
By cheap I mean is makes light humor about a seriously screwed up reality. 
Extremely sad....

I'm sure it is to those who enjoy its style of storytelling. I am not among them, however.

4th was the fun edition. The BBB was slot of fun, we played the heck out of it. for years and years til life got in the way.
 
Collected 5th and 6th. But when we go back its going back, it will be 4th with 5th and 6th rules mixed in. 6th might have cleaned up slot of rules, but it feels dry and lacks the fun factor 4th had.

I agree overall but I think that properly designed and written supplements and adventures for 6th can bring the fun back.  The presentation is too much toolkit and not enough game, but that can be solved with lots of game

My preferred edition is what I call 4e+. It is 4e with stuff cherry picked from 5eR.

Here's the original thread on the new Babylon 5 series--perhaps the discussion should be continued there.

While I agree that Starship Troopers is a horrible adaptation by a Director who’s apparently still dealing with his mom being constantly short changed while working as a wh0re for the Nazis when they invaded his country and therefor despises all military and was dopy enough to have a star that looks like the a Third Reich recruiting poster play a character from Rio de Janerio named Juan Rico. And costumes that look like he got them from the wardrobe dept. of Schindler’s List.
   When friends asked why I never went off on the film I told them that Virginia Heinlein was now a widow with limited funds and her and her husbands medical bills to pay.  So every time anybody said or did something stupid I just pictured a cash register ringing and a bunch of bills being stamped PAID.
   But I’m not bitter.

You can.  I have taken villains and such from various editions and used them in other edition games without taking time to "convert" them. 

I am a completionist and a collecta'holic so I have pretty much everything available in PDF and hard-copies of everything 3rd through 6th.  I have most of 1st and 2nd, but there are some holes I can't fill. 
 
For me I had the most fun with 4th, but have actually played more 5th, well...5thR hybrid .
 
While I can't really point at exactly the reason I never was able to enjoy 6th.  Too many game traits that I found very useful and comfortable were dropped.  I am not opening the great debate again, but one of the changes was the loss of figured stats.  That and other changes fundamentally changed the "feel" and "approach" of playing the game for me.  A change I could never get past. 
 
Objectively, there is very little difference in the play of various versions of the game.   Most of the differences in the versions aimed at the build rules, or at least the ones that stand out to me.
 
Right now I am concentrating on using 5thR.  I was able to load up on many 5th edition books including 6 copies each of the 5thR Character Creation Handbook,  Combat Handbook and the Resource Kit.  This means that we are not shackled to share one or two rules books during character creation or during play.   Of course I have recently located two like new 5thR core rulebooks bringing me up to 6 there too.  I only have 2 Sidekick Revised.  I'd like to find enough for a full set of 6, but not having any luck.
 
6 is my magic number.  I find my sweet spot for running a game is 3-5 players.  So 6 copies means everyone, including me, can have a book during play. 
 
I don't run a table if there are devices at it.  Through all the excuses all device means is that we will be continually wasting time because of distractions. From texting to typing "something important" into the laptop. 

All I can say is "Yep, nailed it".
 
Green Hornet and Starship Troopers......

I’ve had this conversation in a couple of different places.   The main factor in all this is something we have no way of knowing.....How much fight does JMS have left in him?
    There are of course stories left to tell in the B5’verse.  The lost tales were kind of a bust. They seemed more like some of his old Twilight Zone scripts recycled for B5, but Crusade and Legend of the Rangers were very good.  Crusade especially had many potential seasons in it.  The Drak plague was only going to go one additional season before being cured and then the show was going to focus on the the darker forces still maneuvering about the galaxy.
    But the CW has never been very interested in shows with deep plot lines and mature casts. Whether it’s soap opera or flashy action-adventure their stars don’t tend to be older than their late 20’s.
   To keep Babylon 5 on course it’s going to take a show runner who can go toe to toe with the network on a weekly or even daily basis.  There have to be easier and probably more profitable things for JMS to do with his time.
   Seeing a hacked up version of this show would drive a stake thru my heart.  During a very bleak time in my life, looking forward to this show every week was all I had to keep me motivated. For the one hour of the show and for a few hours after I would be happy. I would rather have that memory than the same sick to my stomach anger I have towards Green Hornet. I’ll watch and wait, but I’m not hopeful.

Part of what I liked about Ant Man was that he wasn't saving the universe or anything, it was pretty low key.  The Hulk movies, same way.  Iron Man, all three were not epic world-saving adventures.  Its been a mix between gigantic epics and smaller stories.

I am a completionist and a collecta'holic so I have pretty much everything available in PDF and hard-copies of everything 3rd through 6th.  I have most of 1st and 2nd, but there are some holes I can't fill. 
 
For me I had the most fun with 4th, but have actually played more 5th, well...5thR hybrid .
 
While I can't really point at exactly the reason I never was able to enjoy 6th.  Too many game traits that I found very useful and comfortable were dropped.  I am not opening the great debate again, but one of the changes was the loss of figured stats.  That and other changes fundamentally changed the "feel" and "approach" of playing the game for me.  A change I could never get past. 
 
Objectively, there is very little difference in the play of various versions of the game.   Most of the differences in the versions aimed at the build rules, or at least the ones that stand out to me.
 
Right now I am concentrating on using 5thR.  I was able to load up on many 5th edition books including 6 copies each of the 5thR Character Creation Handbook,  Combat Handbook and the Resource Kit.  This means that we are not shackled to share one or two rules books during character creation or during play.   Of course I have recently located two like new 5thR core rulebooks bringing me up to 6 there too.  I only have 2 Sidekick Revised.  I'd like to find enough for a full set of 6, but not having any luck.
 
6 is my magic number.  I find my sweet spot for running a game is 3-5 players.  So 6 copies means everyone, including me, can have a book during play. 
 
I don't run a table if there are devices at it.  Through all the excuses all device means is that we will be continually wasting time because of distractions. From texting to typing "something important" into the laptop.