Michael Hopcroft

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "There is too little sexual harassment in this company"

Re: Anime Champions? They named their company "#Kids Entertainment", and that pretty much sums up their attitude. Anything they touch must be rendered completely safe for the North American juvenile market. That means airbrushing out cigarettes whenever needed (the Japanese have a much less stringent anti-smoking taboo), not translating the Pokemon episodes in which James sprouts bigger breasts than Jessie, and -- mot importantly -- doing everything possibly to keep the image of their characters as pristine as possible. The otaku community does not matter to them, except as a possible threat. There were indeed bitter complaints when 4Kids went on their current spree of licensing and editing new stuff before the fans really had a chance to lay onto it.

Re: Anime Champions?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Sorry, sir. You know how a Godzilla attack on the city really fouls up the commmute." NT: Signs the oncoming storm is going to be worse than it says on the TV news.

Re: Nanotech! "You want to come down from the trees? Are you nuts? There are lions down there! And leopards! And elephants! You don't stand a chance!" Man's first mistake.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "You see, the letters move like so when you move the joystrick on the controller, and the damage bar on the top tells you how close you are to knocking out your opponent. By the way, it's really tough to beat Freighthandler -- it's the pre-Boss." "Wow! Can I be Predator?" "Sure!"

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "What? Mardis Gras in si February? My travel agent is really going to g---" glub.... glub.... glub....

Re: Website Aims To Archive EVERY Starship Design. Did anyone eler release schematics for the Liberator or the Scorpio from Blakes 7, or the Serentity from Firefly? Although it's not technically a starship, I would love to see someone do a schematic of the Mobile Battleship Nadesico, an intra-system battlecruiser/carrier with several interesting features. I don't know if a schematic for Ryo-Ohki's battleship form would be all that enlgithening, but it could be amusing. I've be relutant to try to draw out the Soja, because it's too big, or the Ryu-Oh because it doesn't last very long (although it does take a massive suspension bridge with it on the way down). It would be hard to map out the Macross, especially once that city is brought aboard.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "honey! Didn't you remember? It's your turn to juggle the porcupines!"

Re: A VILLAINY AMOK Freebie! I'm glad you appreciate the correction, but I am sorry that I couldn't have put a Spoiler tag or something similar on my post. Some people are able to use color codes to do that (hiding the text until it is dragged over), but which color to use utterly escapes me.

Re: Anime Champions? Along those lines, there's The Big O, whose look seemed to be openly modeled on that of Batman: TAS. Whikle Giant Robo is, for the msot part, high-class adventure, The Big O attempted to do seomthing ore serious in its concepts (beyond a ceretain point nobody has a past, and Roger Smith is trying to figure out why).

Re: A VILLAINY AMOK Freebie! Really good hooks. One quibble: in the NFL quarterbacks can only wear numbers ranging from 1 to 19. A player wearing 77 is most likely to be a linebacker, defensive lineman, or offensive tackle. A linebacker or defesnive lineman who is "hopped up" can dominate a game and werak a great deal of havoc, though, so the basis of the scenario still stands. hye'd be even more devastating, actually, since his phiysical and reaction game can be boosted more easily that a quarterback's game, which is essentially mental.

Re: Website Aims To Archive EVERY Starship Design. Somebody is probably going to give this guy a heart attack by suggesting "OK, now map the TARDIS...."

Re: Essence of Desriability You have just summed up the essence of why Tenchi Masaki consdiers himself only slightly worse off than a damned soul.

i have a weird project for Fantasy HERO: a bizarre take-two-unalike-things-and-mix-them-in-a-blender idea which i currently refer to as the Marmalade Prince. Lady Miki lives in a castle in a fanatsy world with her noble parents. All this changes when her parents tell her that, with the permission of the King, they have agreed to swap partners with another couple of similar birth and move together into a larger castle! Lady Miki is horrified -- but when she is introduced to the other couple's son, the enigmatic Lord Yuu, she realzes that her life is going to be a lot more complicated from now on. None of these devlopments sit well with Captain Ginta, the young gruardsman who is Miki's closest male friend, or with the sorceress Arimi who has been trying to land Lord Yuu for years. Miki's lovely cousin Meiko wants to help -- but she doesn't want Miki to find out about her relationship with their handsome tutor Na-kun. Hovering around the group is Miwa, a msyterious young man with a secret connection to Yuu. The key to the whole matter -- indded, the fate of the kingdom -- may be the mysterioius amulet that has been entrsuted to Miki. Will its power enable her to sort through what is really in her heart? Or will her turmoil place the entire realm in peril?

Re: I need a name for a Robin Hood-like fantasy character

Re: Usagi Yojimbo HERO Lina must be miffed that her fox-analogue has bigget ****. Didn't draw Lina and Naga look-alikes on purpose? Right. No way it could be the coincidence Sanguikne always insisted it was. The odd thing is that a duo of wandering warrior-sorceresses would be completely out of place int he world of Ironclaw, and that magic in that setting never comes anywhere near lina Inverse levels of power. (then again, GOO gives Lina Inverse a d20 CR of 23 -- meaning they think she's a 23rd-level character, which is low-Epic from what I've heard.)

Re: Concept help! Hair Powers

Re: Ideas for Cliched Cartoon Powers Tunnelling, No Conscious Control, Activation Roll 11-, the special effect is painting a tunner in a wall. The downside is that, while the tunnel functions for everyone else because everyone else thinks it's supposed to be there, it won't work for you. Also, random things will come out of the tunnel from noweher (like semi trucks and oncoming trains). Which reminds me -- one of the staples of the Looney Tunes is that someone will do something expecting one effect and the actual effect will be completely different. Sort of like digging a Burmese Tiger trap only to find a Burmese Toger is already there when you fall in. It's hard to model such extremely unreliable powers in HERO,l but for many campaign concepts it would be handy. Not just comedic effects either -- characters with really powerful magic will want to thyink twice about using it indiscriminately if it has unpredictably damaging effects (particularly if those effects are random).

Re: Brass knuckles and high strength characters At what point on the STR scale 9we're probably getting into the superheroic level) would augemntation of damange by something like brass knuckles seek to make and substantial difference? If the Thing were to punch you in the face full froce, would it matter if he were wearing brass knuckles? System-wise, at what poiint does an extra die of damage really cease to make any practical difference? On the heroic scale, a 4d6 normal attack from punches, plus whatever bonus you get from a martial amnuver, ought to be sufficiently damaging for most human opponents to want to give you a wide berth.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat THX 867-5309

Re: Anime Champions? All I can say is that I'm a hippopatamus, and I've got noodles on my back.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? From "My Generation", the song that launched thre Who: People try to put us down Just because we get around Things they do seem awful cold Hope I die before I get old! Although Roger Daltrey was the vocalist, Townshend wrote the lyric. And he didn't die before he got old, ublike all too many fo his friends (including Who drummer Kieth Moon).

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "I was out of cake flour, so I used grout. It still came out OK, though. And the rat poison in the frosting really adds zip!"