Chuckg

Re: Ethics for mentalists

If the patient is ASKING me to do it, it's no more unethical than going to a hypnotist to help quit smoking. Except for the difference that what I'm doing will *work*.

Informed consent from the dude you're doing it to won't excuse EVERY-thing, but it will excuse a LOT of things.

Re: WWYCD: The Safe

Starguard: -- wouldn't bother, this is not her style of thing at all. If she for some reason found it necessary to get into that safe, she'd simply magically wish it open.

Dr. Pain: -- has absolutely no knowledge of safecracking whatsoever. OTOH, he *is* a STR 60+ brick. So he'd step up to the challenge, along the veins of 'Sure, you guys built a superduper lock, but how *sturdy* is it?'

Baron von Darien: -- the Baron would face little difficulty in cracking this thing, but he'd never bother. Why expose yourself publicly?

Re: Will the real Jolly Jonah Jameson please stand up?

> On the more serious side, I guess the New Avengers portrayal didn't bother

> me as much, in part because the character of JJJ has been more fluid

> in my mind. Yes, it was a cruddy thing for him to do, but then he was in a

> room of super powered people who could rip his head off and even if they

> weren't going to do it and JJJ knew it (Which he should, given Cap's

> presence) one can see why Jonah might decide to play along at first.

As I mentioned, J. Jonah Jameson was the only editor in town willing to run exposes against the Kingpin, even *after* the Kingpin had sent hit men to kill Ben Urich for composing said exposes in the first place.

There is also a flashback story of Jonah during his days as a reporter, when he literally was seconds away from death, staring down the gun barrel, and still fearlessly telling his attempted murderer that he, J. Jonah Jameson, was going to see the crooked cop in question put away for life for his dirty dealings. (Jonah survived that confrontation by concluding with the punch line of 'Oh, and by the way, everything you said to me has already been broadcast live by the radio in my jacket to the newspaper, so, really, pulling that trigger right now would do you no good.' In case you were wondering how he lived.)

There's also several scenes of Jonah refusing to cooperate with psycho supervillains, the Scorpion (his own creation, ironically enough) being one of them.

So the threat of death, from people who are seriously able and willing to deliver it, has repeatedly proven unable to make J. Jonah Jameson back off even an inch. With that in mind, positing that he was deterred by fear of *the Avengers* entirely destroys my threshold of disbelief. A guy who refuses to bend his journalistic ethics to the Kingpin is supposed to be worried about the possibility that Captain America will come after him in retribution?

As far as J. Jonah being offended by being offered a bribe -- such is perfectly in character, but the in-character response to such would be to angrily refuse the bribe and throw them out of his office. Most definitely *not* to actually *accept* the bribe, and then try to stiff the other party re: services rendered.

Edit -- I'm also offended that J. Jonah's hit piece on Luke Cage mentioned that Luke had been arrested for drug-dealing (true) but *didn't* mention that he was acquitted, and the charges were shown to be trumped-up stuff done by one of his enemies. (As was reported by all the papers back around that time... including, IIRC, the Daily Bugle!)

Except in the case of his pet obsession Spider-Man, which is literally at the delusional 'can't see it even if it's right in front of him' level, J. Jonah Jameson should never have deliberately withheld information from a story for the purpose of giving a false impression. Especially not information that had previously appeared in the pages of his own newspaper. Doing such violates old-fashioned journalistic ethics, and said ethics (and the aforementioned truth crusading thing) are J. Jonah's religion. The guy has Total commitment Psych Lims in that department.

[snip]

> Far less a travesty than Iron Man and Captain America seeming to want

> Wolverine in just so he can do the dirty work.

This I agree with, but this is kind of like saying that a bus crash that kills dozens is less devastating than the destruction of the World Trade Center. While such a statement is the literal truth -- one event is clearly far larger and more damaging than the other -- it doesn't change the fact that both events are still tragedies.

Re: Will the real Jolly Jonah Jameson please stand up?

Dude' date=' whatever. Chill. Again? Sorry, don't remember the first time. As for "irrelevant personal issues", it doesn't get much better than "you *know* how much I hate that ****". Which I didn't. Why did I bother trying? To get an honest answer to an honest question, to understand something I didn't. If you wish (or must) misinterpret and overreact to that, so be it. Again, whatever.[/quote']

 

I'm sorry, but I tend to have this delusional belief that questions are the things that come with question marks on the end. What y'all were making was more on the order of a statement, said statement being 'Chuck, there must be something wrong with you, that you keep on reading comics that you hate.'

 

BTW, I've gotten that exact same line of crap at least 3/4ths of the times I've seriously complained about comics on this board, so trust me, I am hardly 'overreacting' when you come along saying the exact same **** and I react to it the exact same way. If I have to 'overreact' to make the point that I absolutely do not ever want to hear that crap again from anyone, then I will 'overreact', and hopefully people will eventually get the damn word. God knows that subtlety is completely wasted on a message board, so maybe outright frickin' displays of anger might get somebody's attention.

 

Especially since at least *half* the time I heard the 'why are you reading stuff you hate?' before, it was coming from the same people who were sneering 'if you haven't read something, you can't criticize it fairly'. i.e. -- if I don't read the comic, I can't criticize. if I do read it, I'm stupid for having read something I didn't like. Heads they win, tails I lose. You go wade through *that* crap on a recurring basis for the past couple of years and then tell me how much patience *you* have left. Or *should* have left.

 

If I am complaining about a comic, don't ask me, tell me, or otherwise hint, imply, insinuate, or otherwise indicate in any way whatsoever, direct or indirect, that it's my fault for having read it in the first place. We frickin' clear on this, people?

Re: Will the real Jolly Jonah Jameson please stand up?

The key thing that many modern writers forget about Jonah is that the guy is not your standard bitter, spiteful, likes-to-bring-people-down paparazzi dick.

Jonah sees himself as the last of the old-time crusading reporters, bringing the truth to the people no matter what kind of influence or corruption is brought to bear. This has been shown as both a moral strength (for example, in Frank Miller's DAREDEVIL run, the _Daily Bugle_ was the only paper in town that dared to try and write exposes vs. the Kingpin even when he was putting out contracts on reporters to deter them from such, and Jonah the only publisher in town brave enough to accept the risk and back up his reporters, like Ben Urich, when they were brave likewise -- and to yell at them for falling down on the job when they were not) and a tragic flaw (J. Jonah's ongoing crusade against Spider-Man, where he will stop at nothing to communicate the 'truth' of Spidey's 'evil' to the world, because Jonah can't see that he's completely wrong about Spidey.)

The key element to both, however, is that J. Jonah Jameson is doing such because he is The Fearless Crusader For Truth. Lying or backstabbing or even spite should not play into it. Jonah goes after you if he genuinely believes you're the bad guy and the people need to know about you, even if he's horribly mistaken about how bad you are. But all of his mistakes should be sincere ones -- even the crazy ones like hiring supervillains to go beat on you because he thinks *you're* a supervillain too -- and he should never make a promise (especially not to Captain America, of all people!) and then go back on it the instant you leave his office.

Like I said, the hit pieces would have been perfectly in-character for Jonah -- if he'd just written them flat-out. But no, Bendis has to go the extra mile to have Jonah agree to give the NA some good press, and *then* come out with the hatchet job. The first is free speech, the second is duplicitous weaseling.

Re: Will the real Jolly Jonah Jameson please stand up?

> Well, did he poison-pen the various New Avengers, *including* Spider-Man,

> or did he poison-pen everyone *except* Spider-Man? If the deal was only

> to lay off of Spidey, then I don't see it as going back on a deal.

> And even if he hit them all, if he hadn't gotten the exclusive info yet, he

> voided the deal, so again no big problem. (shrug)

... breaking a promise you made is not 'voiding the deal'? Dude, they had J. Jonah Jameson lie to Captain America's face. Further OOC I cannot imagine.

> Off topic, but I [snip]

... am bringing up irrelevant personal issues for no good reason, and you *know* how much I hate that ****. Why the **** did you even bother trying? Again? Stifle it. (add) I want to be psychoanalyzed, I'll go to a VA hospital. I don't need to get it from fanboys on message boards.

(Besides, I belong to a group of fans that review bad comics on a regular basis, for the purpose of warning people away from bad books. We don't have a website or anything, but we used to have a thread on another board. Something that you could have found out, had you bothered to *ask*, rather than sit there and wonder out loud for the entire message board to here as to what was wrong with my brain.)

Re: Ethics for mentalists

Kinda hard to arrange, given that casting Detect Magic first to make sure that the only magic on the witness stand was yours is also prudent procedure.

But even so, the counter-counter for that is very simple.

Judge -- "Mr. Jones, before you testify, kindly read the cue card we have placed in front of you."

Witness -- "My name is... Belladonna Smith, and I... am a sentient rutabaga from the planet Mars?"

Bailiff -- "It says he's telling the truth."

Judge -- "Oh really."

Re: Ethics for mentalists

In GURPS Technomancer, they also handled that problem by making 'Detect Lie' a cheap, easily cast, and very common spell -- that was entirely constitutional to use. (Since it did not force you to answer the question, it merely infallibly told whether your answer was true(*), it was held to not violate the constitutional provisions re: self-incrimination.) AAMOF, the ceremonial casting of the Detect Lie spell was considered legally part of the witness swearing-in oath "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

They also noted that the commonest use of the "You Can't Lie" spell was for innocent people to plead 'Not Guilty!' while being zapped with it. (Guilty people pleading 'Not Guilty' had their lawyer do it... remember, your plea doesn't have to be made under oath. Indeed, unless you specifically plead guilty, your be presumed innocent, and all that.)

(Note -- while you could take the Fifth and refuse to testify against yourself, if you *did* choose to testify, or were subpoenaed to testify against someone else, you *had* to testify 'under oath' -- i.e., under Truth Spell. Refusal to do that was considered the same as a witness today refusing to swear the oath... i.e, contempt of court.)

i.e. -- the little kid wants to try claiming he was mind-controlled to steal that candy? The court can handle this in two minutes with one cheap casting... 'OK, junior, just step this way and make your deposition -- under oath.' *casts spell*

(*) They did note 'Yes, it is possible for the spell to be resisted. However, since the caster *knows* if the recipient successfully resisted it or not, they simply cast it again until it sticks. If you deliberately drag your heels in and resist for long enough to exhaust the judge's patience, they hit you with a contempt of court charge and keep going.'

Re: Will the real Jolly Jonah Jameson please stand up?

I agree with you 100%. Way too many writers play Jonah as 'Hyper-Reactionary ubergreedy Right-Wing Media Guy'' date=' and pay no attention to the factthat he does have some few positive characteristics.[/quote']

 

Case in point, the latest NEW AVENGERS, where the latest Avengers lineup strongly suggests to Jonah (add -- he wanted the exclusive story for the birth of Jessica Jones' child, Luke Cage and the gang armtwisted Jonah with 'sure, you can have it, but only if you do us this favor'), said favor being 'for the love of God, can you lay off Spider-Man for a while? He's a teammate and all, and the guy's got enough problems.'

 

Jonah's response? To haul out the poison pen and go all journalistic hit-team on every single *other* member in the New Avengers lineup (some of whom, to be fair, have legitimately questionable pasts -- but then again, let's remember where Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver started off, shall we?), and close with the flourish of 'and then they threatened me to not write anything bad about that miserable wall-crawler! Censorship! Freedom of the press! Yadda yadda yadda!'

 

*shrugs* Granted, the New Avengers were also portrayed as dicks -- guys, if you want to control what the _Daily Bugle_ writes, then have Tony Stark haul out his checkbook and *buy* it, fair and square -- but still, Jonah's response of first promising to go along with it and then knifing 'em in the back is just not J. Jonah Jameson. I mean, old-school Jonah would simply have told them to their faces 'Bite me, I print what I want, and tomorrow's headline is going to say that you all suck. Especially web-head. Now get out of my office.'

 

Although, given that old-school Jonah also highly respected Captain America, and Cap was one of the people asking... oh, n/m, Bendis writes what he wants and continuity be damned. *fume*

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical?

Urban legend. Martial artists do not have to register.

It is true, however, that a non-beginner martial artist (or a professional boxer, or equivalent) faces additional legal penalties if they get in a brawl -- what would be a simple assault cjarge for Joe Schmo is instead aggravated assault for them, as they are considered to be 'armed' at all times.

Re: CHAR: Captain America

And yet when the Maestro punches the shield when it's being held by someone other than Cap (an elderly future Rick Jones, to be precise), they *DO* go flying, across the room, to die when they land, impaled on something sharp.

The Knockback Resistance appears to come from Cap's own skill, in knowing how to brace himself against impact. (I'm also remembering a scene from some comic over 10 years ago whose name I can't recall, where a sudden explosion knocks everybody except Cap and Spider-Man sprawling. Spidey goes 'Um, Cap, I stick to things... but how did *you* not fall down?' Cap goes 'It's all a matter of balance and knowing how to react.')

Given that Hero System allows superhero martial artists to buy truly bodacious amounts of Knockback Resistance defined as super-skill, Tai Chi stance, the Root maneuver, etc, etc. this is easy to stat up for Cap.

Re: Ethics for mentalists

In what sense?

In the 'if you use the +20 level of Mind Control so that the victim thinks it was their own idea, raping them isn't really hurting them all that much' sense. Seeing somebody post that in all seriousness shocked the crap out of me.

Re: Ethics for mentalists

The GURPS IST people missed a bet here -- the defense (or the prosecution) can scupper any telepathic testimony they like simply by having their guy "accidentally" screw up a significant detail or several.

Now, an honest and ethical prosecutor will, upon discovering exculpatory evidence (such as the guy's own mind saying quite clearly that he didn't do it) will drop the charges. However, there are always those few bastard prosecutors out there.

But the real potential for abuse comes from the defense side.

Can anyone here imagine a defense attorney who, if the telepathic scan of his client comes up 'guilty as charged', will *not* do everything he possibly can to get that telepathic scan ruled inadmissible as evidence? Working the exclusionary rule is what defense attorneys *do*, for God's sake.

And given that the system as set up can have telepathic testimony utterly nixed if *any one of* the three telepaths says 'I got a different reading!', and that one of those three telepaths is being paid by the defense counsel?

Edit -- case in point today. How often do expert scientific or psychological witnesses hired by the defense say the same thing, or interpret the same results, as expert scientific or psychological witnesses working with the prosecution? About that often.

(Sure, we can argue that most telepaths will do this honestly and aboveboard. So the Johnnie Cochrans of the legal field will simply hire the other guy, you know, the one who shares their lack of ethical standards.)

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

Hrm. This might work:

http://www.macdisk.com/msxcelen.php3

And a quick google groups search seems to hint that the major obstacle between Mac Excel and MS Excel is that the two versions handle macros differently. (MS Excel macros are based on Visual Basic, Mac OS Excel macros are based on God Only Knows.) If you use lots of macros, no joy.

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

No, to the best of my knowledge, they won't.

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

Erm, ze point is, a .csv or .txt file with tab delimiters should import into damn near *any* version of Excel.

Re: Ethics for mentalists

This discussion is reaching levels only describable as horrifying.

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

Have you tried exporting it to a text file with tab delimiters and then importing said text file into MS Excel?

Re: I could watch him get slapped around all day

He and Kitty Pride got along really well too' date=' come to think of it. [/quote']

 

*stabs people*

 

The Logan/Kitty saga was wonderfully well-written on a foster father/daughter level, and you shouldn't compare it to the Jubilee... thing. Which should never have existed. Like, ever.

Re: I could watch him get slapped around all day

I really hate to say this, because I loathe Jubilee with the intensity of an entire galactic cluster of supernovae.

But, facts are facts, and I must yield to them.

To be fair, Jubilee did not learn acrobatics and etc. by growing up in a mall. Before her parents died and all, she was in competitive gymnastics, in the 'seriously trying to get into the Olympics' level.

It was after they done died (in a car crash, I think, but can't remember for sure) and she apparently came up entirely minus on either living relatives, legal guardians, or a Social Services department that could remember that even she existed, that she started living the teenaged runaway on-the-streets lifestyle, which included sleeping in that mall, yes.

So her gymnastics actually wasn't that stupid. It's merely everything ELSE about her character that was stupid.

(Such as the martial arts... although again, IIRC, she didn't actually *have* any martial arts unlike Logan started training for her reasons known only to the writer, because seriously, I never understood WTF he gave her the time of day.)

Re: Worst Fear!

It might be amusing if the attack sought out the "worst fear you haven't already overcome"' date=' so that for folks like the Baron, it would have to go down to oh say, peanut butter sticking to the roof of his mouth, because everything more traumatic he's already dealt with.[/quote']

 

Vampires don't eat peanut butter sandwiches.

Re: If you liked the movie Equilibrium

"That was simultaneously one of the best Dune references and worst puns I have ever heard."

-- Marten Reed, 10/3/05

Re: WWYCD: A Brief Warning

Starguard: -- sends one simple message back to herself shortly after she got her powers. "Helene Richer, Canadian citizen." Not that she didn't eventually find out who she was anyway, but finding out sooner would mean she would have had a chance to get back together with her parents and learn more about the person she used to be *before* all the superhero craziness started and there wasn't any time to.

Dr. Pain: -- "Dude, it gets way better than this." Sent back to himself in the last year of his pro wrestling career, when he was beginning to wonder if there was anything better. So far, Leon's *liked* his new superhero life.

Baron von Darien: -- struggles mightily with the temptation to tell his younger self to just lay the hell down and die, instead of accepting the offer of vampirism so that he could continue his vengeance beyond the grave. Because, really, so *epically* Not Worth It.

Then he thinks about the centuries' worth of monsters and demons he's prevented from preying upon humanity.

Then he thinks about the idea of a world where the Cabal of the undead *wasn't* methodically handicapped and eventually broken over the course of centuries from the inside, but instead achieved its goal of dominating Europe and then the world.

Then he thinks that this entire 'you get to send one message back' thing is merely yet another way God has found to emotionally torture the crap out of him. He removes the temptation from himself by using up the opportunity to send back a trivial message to last week and then gets back to his brooding.

Re: This week on "Champions"...

Just a reminder -- I post the weekly entries for my "UNITY Prime" game in its own thread, not here. (I was posting them both here and there, but then I decided that redundant posting like that was, you know, spamming.)

I also put them up on the campaign website here.

http://chuckg.schtuff.com/session_summaries

Enjoys!

Re: [Campaign] UNITY Prime

Update:

Several continuity errors were found in the campaign timeline. (For one thing, I had Eurostar's 'first appearance' happening *twice*, several years apart. )

I have just finished going over it and blipping out the wrongbad entries. Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the timeline as it currently is.

http://chuckg.schtuff.com/Timeline