tkdguy

... Does anyone else miss the Catsuit Thread?

Really tiny dragon, or really big giant?

Or an especially potent joint?

Fool!  The cats have always ruled the world.

a symbiote in a Christmas story

Dead Pool Society
 
A group of private school kids learn about life from a different kind of teacher...

From The 5th Edition it's a psychological limitation in which the character respects authority, always keeps their word, and protects the innocent.  It's what Superman has along with the Code Versus Killing.

y minus y over x minus x.  Why is this so hard to remember?  And why do you always mess up subtracting negative numbers?  It's not that hard!!

Okay, this week's hero: Black Nova. 
 
The obligatory pic:
 
 

Hermit's long-standing feud with Darth Maul was settled with water balloons.

Flying car prototype?
 
 

Time for some historical fencing
 
 
And some Bruce Lee
 
 

Obituary for Major Geoffrey Langlands. A teacher who stayed on in India and Pakistan at the behest of a local leader to teach.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-46757125

I agree with modern Pulp as a good thing.  The problem, at least as I've seen in regards to comments here and moreso in the real world when the subject comes up is that we are far enough removed at this point in time that a huge chunk of people seem to think that Pulp is "guys in hats."
 
The charm of Pulp was a lot of things-- even the hats, of course, but Pulp will, at least to me, always be about exhilarating adventure.
 
Now to narrow that down a bit: thrilling adventure with Pulp tropes.  Such as:
 
The Heroes were not just people of action, they were people of _resolve_.  They were people firmly aware of their moral compass, and who used that compass as an actual compass: it guided their lives, from the tiniest decision to the risk of their lives.  They did not question themselves, because what they did they did for the preservation of morality and "goodness" and to ensure the punishment of the wicked. Justice was not something you waited for a judge and seven thousand short-attention-span strangers on Twitter to define for you: justice was punishment for evil deeds, and it was the absolute _duty_ of every man, woman, and child to work-- actively!-- to ensure that justice was served.  There were rules, and the righteous enforced them.  There were laws, and the good lived by them.  There were social mores, and living one bit less upright than you were capable of was unthinkable: it was the place of all virtuous people to remember that they were honor bound, by unspoken social contract, to be the best examples of virtue they could be.  All adults were leaders, and leaders inspire.
 
People knew in their hearts that they were not only responsible for others, but for _themselves_.  No one did anything without the resolve that comes from knowing that what you are about to undertake-- and all you may suffer from it-- are results of nothing but your own decisions and your own actions.  You understood the importance of that in society, as well.  Society should be concerned about others; you knew that.  But making society responsible for you was evil.  No man was a man who was not responsible for himself.  No woman was a woman who could blame away her problems.
 
Attitude was fifty percent of pulp.
 
The rest was high adventure, split evenly between falling-from-grace type stories involving crime-- detectives or policemen or gangsters or enemy spies-- dealings with evil people, or perhaps recovering from your evil past, and exotic locations.  We as a country knew so little about the rest of the world (which is, unfortunately, the source of the misguided rumors that we never bothered learning), and as such the world was filled with mysterious locations-- every jungle had treasure and lost civilizations; every continent had a jungle!    Those little bits of random art on the maps covered over long-forgotten islands filled with voodoo priests and volcanoes.  Every plane crash discovered a hole in the earth, leading to all the hollow layers inside our planet, each large enough and mysterious enough to be yet another world.
 
Action and adventure was the rest of pulp.
 
 
And that's why no one is interested today-- the younger folks, I mean.
 
We've spent a couple of generations teaching them that society works best when you wait for it to hand you things.  We've spent a couple of generations teaching them that no shortcoming or defect of character is their own fault.  No one has the right to stand up for himself, and if you're obnoxious enough, you can do whatever you want, any way you please.
 
I don't know a nice way to say it, so if someone can help me out here, I'd love to edit it in, because at this point all I can say is something along the lines of "we have filled the world with too many self-absorbed self-important candy asses who want nothing more than what they can get without effort, because someone somewhere owes it to them."
 
I guess that will do for now, but it really doesn't seem like the nicest way to say that.  At any rate, that's our new social norm: you're the most special because you say you are, and everyone else should have to cope with that and make sure you're happy all the time.
 
Even if that does _not_ apply specifically to a person-- or even if it does not apply to _ANY_ person, ever, it really is what's being pushed as the new "way things should be."  It's really hard to take someone who thinks _that's_ the ideal society and convince them that Pulp is anything but a moral aberration.  It saddens me.  Honestly, I blame the loss of the Western as common entertainment.  That's where we were introduced to these ideals, early on, and we all reinforced it in each other.  Whether we personally behaved accordingly or not, we understood that society was totally about being self-reliant and self-responsible. 
 
 
But I suppose we could replace all that with cool beaver-felt hats and cars with bobbly headlights.  Those are cool, too.
 
 
As far as that goes, though:
 
Pulp lived at least as long as did Heinlein.  The "Golden Age" of comics?  Pulp.  Righteous good guys, serving society. Clear-cut bad guys.  Fantastic adventure.  Exotic locations.  I'd like to break this down further, but I have talked well more than long enough, and it all boils down to "Pulp is that segment of entertainment that becomes more and alien with each generation, and less and less intriguing to them."
 
 
Duke
 
(seriously: if anyone can think of a nicer way to say that, let me know and I'll edit it in there)
 
 
 

A blade runner, a smuggler, and an archaeologist walk into a bar....
 

A blade runner, a smuggler, and an archaeologist walk into a bar....
 

Champions: The Musical. 
 
Seeker brought down the house with his rendition of "Georgy Girl. "

It had, and there was plenty of tension between the Chainmail-era grognards and the new generation of roleplayers.  Gygax Himself complained about it in Dragon #102 (1985):
 


 
One of the things that really set Hero apart was the invention of a mechanic for roleplaying--Disadvantages, particularly psych lims.  Though it may have been based in four-color Comics Code inflexible superhero values, it was the first concrete mechanic that forced the character to behave differently than its player would.  And even today few games have such a mechanic.  D&D5 doesn't.  Pathfinder doesn't.  Shadowrun doesn't. 
 

Cancer has no idea how badly his last post can be misconstrued!

I've been working on a document to introduce high school D&D players to Champions. Specifically, I wanted to address some of the fundamental differences between the two systems. Here's what I have so far. Any constructive feedback would be appreciated.
--
So, how is Champions different than Dungeons and Dragons?
 
Characters are built, not rolled up.
Champions characters are created using a point build system. Each character starts with a certain number of character points, which can be used to buy powers, skills, characteristics, etc. This takes a bit longer, but creates a lot more flexibility in character design.
 
There are no character classes.
Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, Paladin...there are no such distinctions in Champions. There are character archetypes like Brick, Energy Projector, Martial Artist, Mentalist, Gadgeteer, etc., but those distinctions aren’t defining or limiting. Want a character that is both stealthy and a great fighter--like, say, Batman or Daredevil? Build the character that way, and don’t worry about labels.
 
Characters don’t “level up”.
There’s no such thing as a “2nd-level Brick” in this system. Instead, experience comes in the form of character points--just like you use to build your character in the first place--that you can use to improve your character’s abilities as you see fit.
 
You don’t earn experience points just from combat.
Your Game Master (GM) will award experience based on what the characters accomplished during the adventure; this may or may not involve fighting the bad guys. Experience points are also awarded for exceptional role-playing, problem solving, and so on. There’s no “We wiped out the goblin village because they aren’t worth XP alive” rationale at work here.
 
You also don’t earn experience points by accumulating stuff.
Finding treasure is an important part of fantasy literature--the genre upon which D&D was based. It is not a particularly important part of the superhero genre. Unless money is a defining feature of your character’s identity--Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, etc.--nobody really cares how rich or poor your character is. And equipment? The equipment your character has is what they paid character points for.

Champions characters have liabilities as well as assets.
This is another convention of the genre. Examples include things like a Secret Identity (think Batman/Bruce Wayne), a Dependent Non-player Character (or DNPC, think Spider-Man’s Aunt May), a Vulnerability (like kryptonite to Superman), a Psychological Limitation (like Violet Parr’s shyness), and so on. In game terms, these liabilities are called Disadvantages (Disads) or Complications, and they give you more points to spend on your character’s abilities. 
 
Thoughts?

And here's a new version of one of Enforcer84's characters:

Bloodsport
 
If the scimitar he wields wasn't bad enough to have to face, Bloodsport also has a pair of kukri knives for very close-quarters
combat; the armored gauntlet worn on his left arm is not only strong enough to withstand and parry blows from an enemy's
own weapons, he can also use it as a hand-to-hand weapon as well. For those who might think that they're safely out of his 
blades' reach, Bloodsport has an unpleasant surprise for them: two razor-sharp, saw-toothed chakram throwing discs. When
used in the way that some sources suggest -- twirling it on the inside rim to build up speed before hurling it with considerable
force against an opponent -- these weapons have the potential to cripple, if not outright kill, any foe facing Bloodsport.
 
When you add his unarmed combat skills to the mix, you've got someone who redefines the phrase "Extreme Fighter" -- as
well as someone you can count on to take a fight seriously (unlike the Inigo Montoya-type, spear-dancing moron in Game
of Thrones).
 
 
Major Tom 2009 

The first pic of the new year from yours truly:
 

 
Firebreak
 
The newest member of the Tech Squad, Firebreak was recruited from the fire department of a major city of the Midwestern
U.S.  This was as a result of the Tech Squad's encounter with a high-tech arsonist calling herself Madame Inferno, who the
team was ill-equipped to deal with, especially given her penchant for deliberately setting fires in places where there were
certain to be fairly large numbers of innocent bystanders.
 
As a member of the Tech Squad, Firebreak has access to technological gear that is in advance of anything else currently in
existence anywhere on Earth -- especially given the specific focus that it has: to enable him to not only survive in extreme
high-temperature environments such as the interiors of burning buildings, but also to put out fires (if possible) and carry
out the rescue of those trapped by said fires. To this end, the suit worn by Firebreak incorporates a backpack-mounted
extinguisher unit, which is capable of spraying wide-angle jets of fire-suppressant foam. In addition, there are canisters of
various types of concentrated fire-suppressant chemicals housed within the unit, which allows Firebreak to tailor the foam
to better fight whatever type of fire he happens to be dealing with at the time (whether it be chemical, electrical or other
type of accelerant-based fire). A secondary system within the unit consists of two tanks of Halon which are under high
pressure; when activated, these tanks are capable of filling a large area (approximately 50' x 50' x 10') with Halon gas in
order to deprive a fire of the oxygen it needs in order to burn. The combination of the foam and Halon gas allows Firebreak
to fight a fire far more effectively on his own; when working alongside a local fire department, his presence means that a
fire can be put out more rapidly than usual, and with a minimum of casualties (whether said casualties are fatalities or
simple injuries).
 
Firebreak also has one additional piece of equipment which he uses when fighting a fire: a fireman's axe, which was forged
from a single piece of an as-yet unidentified (and highly-classified) super-alloy. With this axe, Firebreak can cut or smash
his way through doors and walls that would give other firefighters (with their mundane versions of the fireman's axe) a hard
time.
 
 
Major Tom 2009