Lord Liaden

Well, sure, promotion is part and parcel of the mechanism, but what I meant is that it's human nature to try to find a title or a label for themselves or what they do that makes them stand out, that encapsulates what they believe is special about themselves. BTW the 5E Champions supplement, Everyman, containing a whole bunch of diverse and useful NPCs, also features a public relations firm called "CC Promotions" which provides image consulting and publicity, licensing and money management, and costume design and construction, to superheroes.

Do dog years count?

I'm 63 and single. Do the math.

Latest announcement from epelesker on the Champions Online forums: (Yes, I know what day it is today, but this is 100% serious.) New update, and one that's probably important to those of you in the community that have been sending him well-wishes. Thundrax has been moved from ARH to another local area hospital as of yesterday. However, don't consider this a bad thing: his sister has been encouraging him that "next week" is when he will finally be back home.

Probably the same folks who thought of the Beatles and the Foo Fighters, the Rock and the Undertaker.

Infinity War is full of love stories, particularly if your definition of "love" isn't just romantic. Vision and Wanda. Tony and Pepper. Gamora and Quill. Thanos and Gamora. Thor and Loki. Gamora and Nebula. Tony and Peter. Bucky and Steve. Rocket and Groot. Drax and Thor.

I've come across enough online porn to believe this would actually do it for some people. Just in case that's a serious question: current president of Brazil, and a massive denier of the severity of COVID-19, who has botched his country's response to the pandemic. That it's this bad in Brazil now comes as a surprise to no one.

First two as a top priority. Both because they're primarily English-speaking with goodly numbers of Hero gamers, and culturally accessible due to common roots. The first Kingdom of Champions demonstrated the tremendous supers potential in the UK, which is long overdue for development within the current setting. Moreover, the notes about it in Champions Universe indicate significant amounts of the old KOC were carried over into this universe. OTOH Australia is criminally underutilized for Champions. As I've mentioned elsewhere, it would be easy to explain a sudden boost in the continent's super population. Other parts of the world are certainly deserving of development, but will require author(s) with more cultural expertise and hence probably more expensive.

Some may disagree, but "Dingoes" sounds like dipping back into Australian cliches. Especially when promoted by non-Australians. I've said it before: One attempt to exploit the Well of Worlds at Uluru by DEMON or a sorcerer supervillain goes wrong, releasing a wave of magic across Australia, and BAM! Origins aplenty. In-setting there's no need for the majority of those origins and powers to be magical, any more than after the Walpurgisnacht Working. Completely fits with the CU and so easy to justify, it's remarkable it hasn't happened sooner.

This is the part that's so striking to me. The GOP literally has no platform, no policies. They offer no alternatives to what the Democrats are doing. Republican governments in states all over the country are trying to pass voter suppression legislation under the guise of vote security, because they recognize they have nothing to offer the public to persuade them to vote for them. It's all about promoting fear and hatred, demonizing the opposition, inventing external threats, to try to manipulate the American people into giving them power. Not power for any purpose, they don't even pretend to govern any more. This trend in the GOP began with Reagan and Gingrich, was exacerbated under Bush Jr. and fueled by absorbing the Tea Party, and reached its nadir during the Trump "administration." I don't think the Conservative movement is dead in America, but the Republican Party as its voice is facing a dead end. Their current message has reached everyone it's going to, and that body can only shrink over time. The GOP has lost credibility with everyone else, even if they try to rebrand, which they no longer seem to understand how to do.

Bolsonaro.

I can just imagine Peter Jackson's pitch to the studio for King Kong: "You know how the original was the greatest monster movie ever? Well this is going to be just like that, only MORE! In the old one Kong fought a T-Rex, well in mine he'll fight three! The first movie had one brontosaurus, but this one'll have a whole stampeding herd! With a flock of raptors from Jurassic Park thrown in! And it'll have a native village like the first one, but I'll use a lot of Lord of the Rings sweeping overhead shots to make it look enormous! And the natives won't just be natives, they'll be traumatized psychotic zombie natives! Who pole-vault through the air like Spider-Man! And, and...."

I was led to believe that decades ago from the film Walkabout. Does this term not refer to that type of journey? Has it always been used pejoratively, or is that recent, or was it in the past?

In the generally pejorative sense, or specifically referring to legitimacy?

The Hobbit movies, and Jackson's King Kong, demonstrated to me that when he has the freedom to do what he wants, to invent, Jackson tends to excess and indulgence. The sheer scope of LOTR forced him to be restrained and economical, to prioritize what was necessary to show, resulting in a tighter, tidier film.

For decades Aquaman was treated as a joke by people outside the comic reading community, and even some within it. Nobody's laughing now.

I may be mistaken, but it seems your objection is to something being in the novels and then either being excluded or changed for the movies, simply because it was excluded or changed. You appear to feel that was arbitrary, but as someone who's witnessed some of this process, I assure you that it's not. When you're dealing with a project this big, this important, and this expensive, there are reasons behind all these decisions. You may not recognize the reasons, and if you do you may not agree with them, and that's fair. But they're no more arbitrary than some of the things Tolkien himself did. Tom Bombadil was based on the appearance of a doll the Tolkien family had. The character did nothing to advance the story, in fact Tolkien had to later invent a reason why Tom couldn't just solve their ring problem himself. He admitted that when he introduced Strider to the story he had no idea of who the character was -- that came into focus much later. JRRT loved trees, and as a child he was bitten by a spider and became seriously ill. Guess what? LOTR is a great novel, a landmark in the evolution of the fantasy genre. But it isn't perfect, and it isn't sacred. As someone who appreciates Professor Tolkien's work I thought Jackson and his team did an exceptional job preserving the essence of the story in its transition to another medium, all practical constraints considered. But it isn't perfect either, and I don't agree with all of it. That doesn't keep me from respecting the effort and result.

Yes, I apologize for my misreading in my haste. It's actually you I disagreed with, Spence.

Well, I do have to conditionally disagree with Derek's assertion. DOJ/Hero published two 5E multi-adventure collections, Champions Battlegrounds and Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds, and while the adventures in them can all easily be run separately, there's a metaplot provided for each one linking them together if a GM chooses to use it. There's also Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth, which offers three separate, lengthy scenarios for Champions revolving around the rise of King Cobra and his COIL organization. None of these comprise a full campaign in themselves, but they do represent multi-adventure story arcs.

Well, Kansas doesn't have crocodiles. Kansas does have tornadoes. I'm not sure either is preferable.

Just to try to get back to the topic of the thread , Arthur Curry's journey in the movie Aquaman is essentially the same thing. He doesn't want to be king of Atlantis, doesn't think he deserves it, considers himself an outsider everywhere. Over the course of the movie he comes to understand and accept his responsibility to more than just himself, and to believe he can lead in that role.

With respect, Glorfindel of Rivendell was a throwaway character. Within the constraints of a movie, if Jackson stuck to the books Glorfindel would barely have gotten any lines. Any time you adapt a long-form entertainment to a shorter form, you try to eliminate extraneous characters to focus the audience on the ones you want them to care about. Yes, Elrond did possess Vilya, but many Elves in Tolkien's stories worked magic through words or songs of power, so Arwen doing that was no great stretch within this world. And after all, she is part Maia. Arwen's presence in the movie was not just to show another strong woman, although that was a plus. Elrond had told Aragorn he would accept no lesser consort to his daughter than the King of Men. Throughout the books and the movies you see Aragorn struggling with self-doubt over his worthiness to be king, to be with Arwen. She was perhaps his greatest motivation to accept his destiny, and crucial to his character arc, which is the true classic hero's journey in this story.

For my own games I moved the headquarters of King Cobra and his COIL organization to Australia, for the dual reasons of it being outside the main focus of other supercrime orgs, so his group would have room to grow; and the continent's having a large number and variety of dangerous snakes and other reptiles he could experiment on. That gives Australia a little more distinct identity compared to the rest of the CU.

Champions Worldwide has a few that aren't stereotypical. Anathema is a mentalist who projects negative emotions into the minds of her victims. Lightning Man found a couple of enchanted axes which gave him super strength, flight, and the power to cast lightning bolts. Taipan does use the name of a snake endemic to Australia, and has a "venomous touch," but his schtick is more incredible speed and melee skills.

Despite experience and research, it's often pure guesswork as to what's a good idea in game writing in theory, versus what a profitable number of gamers will actually buy. One can only hope for the best while awaiting the actual sales.