Lord Liaden

I'll bet you credits to Navy beans that exists somewhere.

Well, for starters, I'm pretty sure that Hydra trooper Cap threw out of the Red Skull's bomber didn't land lightly. Or the people in the Hydra tank when he threw grenades into it. I would think the Chitauri whose arm Cap cut off didn't have the best survival chances. The goons joining Winter Soldier's ambush likely didn't get up after he reflected the minigun barrage back onto them. And of the mercenaries serving Crossbones, Cap landed on one after at least a forty-foot drop, another Cap kicked a car into, while a third he kicked twenty feet into a concrete wall. We're talking broken bones and internal bleeding minimum. MCU Captain America doesn't kill if he doesn't have to, and with his strength and skill he often doesn't. But if he has to he won't hesitate. He was a soldier.

It's actually interesting to see how the definition of Club Caprice has changed between Fifth and Sixth Edition. Take the following passage from the 5E book Millennium City, p. 43: "One restaurant/club thriving on its superhuman cachet is Club Caprice, an upscale cocktail club in Rivertown owned by Lewis (Masquerade I) Frey, a thief and master of disguise who battled Black Mask in Chicago in the 1950s and ’60s. The Mask defeated Frey in 1971 and sent him to jail. He got out in 1985, and after apprenticing in a couple of Chicago restaurants opened Caprice in 1995. With clever marketing and deft menu planning, he maneuvered the Caprice into one of the genuine hot spots of Millennium City. Part of the Caprice’s popularity derives from the frisson of danger patrons get from dining in the establishment of a known supervillain. Rumors say shady deals and criminal activity go on in the private rooms upstairs at Club Caprice, and Nighthawk reportedly watches the place closely." And then, from the GM's Vault of the same book, p. 97: "The rumors are just that — Frey is truly retired. He just goes out of his way to foster the notion that untoward things go on at his club, especially to the press, to keep his patrons pleasantly on edge. The idea has taken such deep root, however, that some criminals have begun hanging out at the Caprice. Frey may soon find himself playing with fire." Now compare the description of CC from p. 38 of the 6E version of Champions Universe: "The two primary socializing spots for superheroes take very different approaches to resolving that problem. The first is Club Caprice, located in one of the buildings in the City Center complex of Millennium City. Parts of Caprice are open to the public in general (and are very popular, especially with “hero groupies” hoping to catch a glimpse of their favorite “cape”). But other parts are off-limits to anyone who doesn’t have superpowers. Built by Trans-City Construction to be extra-durable, equipped with security devices designed by Dr. Silverback, and staffed by extremely competent personnel (several of whom have low-level superpowers themselves), Club Caprice is the perfect place for a hero to unwind. It’s jumping nearly every night of the week, though things don’t really “get started” until after most heroes have finished patrolling their cities and decided to stop by for a drink. A few socially acceptable villains, such as Lady Blue, have even been allowed in from time to time." I'm practically certain the change was made after the sale of the Champions IP to Cryptic Studios, to conform to their vision of what they wanted to use Caprice for in Champions Online. However, I gave some thought as to how one could reconcile the transition within continuity. What I would propose is that criminal elements did start to make Club Caprice more of a regular hangout, in turn leading heroes to frequent it more often to investigate their activities. Lewis Frey may even have passed information on to the heroes about particularly dangerous criminal activities, earning him some respect and goodwill. As a consequence, superheroes began frequenting the club more often just to relax and enjoy themselves. That inspired Frey to make Caprice an establishment catering especially to superheroes, redesigned to accommodate their special security concerns and the need to protect civilian patrons. Mind you, in play in Champions Online the club doesn't cater just to superheroes and normal restaurant-goers. The PCs who frequent it include many vigilantes, supervillains, and outright monsters, as the fiction by Scott Bennie that AlgaeNymph linked to highlights. I'm afraid it's just a reality that players of a MMORPG are going to play what they want, regardless of whether or not it makes sense within the game's setting. Besides a frequent maturity level less than adult, the online game's clientele also includes a high percentage of gamers with little to no experience with the comic-book genre and its themes and tropes. They often come to CO from other computer RPGs, particularly in the fantasy genre, where such characters are common. (I've noticed quite a few elves and wizards in CO as well.)

I think it would be beneficial if many Trumpists have exactly that crisis of "faith."

I have a friend who's big into playing the lottery, and was always nagging me to buy tickets. She kept telling me, "You can't win if you don't play," like that was a decisive argument. I finally told her, "You can't lose, either." She gave me a sour look, but never brought the topic up again.

What I heard and read is not that Hemsworth wanted Thor "lighter," but that the character wasn't growing and was in a rut, as I mentioned earlier. The tone of the film was reportedly due to Taika Waititi's input.

I've seen that point raised in commentary before. Having built his political reputation on being a "tough guy" and a "winner," Trump visibly caving as he has may be the one thing that will undercut his support.

AFAIK the info in the books you cited is all that's been released for that side of the setting. I'm not aware of any published exchanges in the club.

In the comic book Thor got soft, fat, and drunk, and was the recipient of a measure of ridicule for it. One-to-one correspondence is neither necessary nor desirable.

The Sutherland Presidency

Yes, I've noticed comic-book women usually come equipped with those.

For everyone wondering how to reach Trump-worshiping relatives or friends, this is a tack I haven't seen before, and it's a good one. The video on YouTube has a link to the list Beau refers to here.

The first twelve seconds of this clip are to the point.

Yes, as I mentioned earlier on the thread, one inspiration for this change in Thor was a story arc in the Guardians of the Galaxy comic -- that is, the original Guardians from a millennium in the future -- in which Loki had seized rulership of the Inhumans on the Moon, and was breeding them to be an army to seize Asgard. In that time line Asgard had experienced centuries of peace, which left warrior Thor bored and frustrated. He turned increasingly to food and drink for solace. When he started beating on Sif, his wife in this time, he found he was no longer worthy to lift Mjolnir, which exacerbated his self-destructive behavior.

Or don't. If you've ever spent any time role-playing in an MMORPG social instance full of horny power-fantasizing adolescents... it's like that.

I'm willing to bet it's going to be another typical snooze-fest. I haven't watched television in about five months, I'm not about to start again over this. Anything spectacular happens, there won't be anything I can do about it, so I'll find out in due course.

Biggest single lottery prize we have in Canada is the so-called "Lotto Max" that goes up to $60 million. But if it gets to that point and the prize still hasn't been won, they start adding additional million-dollar prizes you can win separate from the big jackpot. I've occasionally played the Lotto Max when there's a bunch of those side pots, which are more my size.

I thought the point was to kill mutants. There's something to be said for a range of sizes. Tactically, sometimes you need artillery to take out the enemy. At other times you need a sniper.

Son Doong Cave in Vietnam, largest cave in the world.

Too much of a sentence. Needs to be a phrase, and there needs to be a person/place name cited.

Do you mean "Duke Steel," from Nighthawk's anti-VIPER "Project Mongoose" team? (In Champions Universe: News Of The World.) If so, it's not at all clear whether or not Project Mongoose is still operating (Signal Ghost has gone back to theft, for ex), or if Duke matured into a true hero or fell back into criminality.

I am of the opinion that making Trump pay for his transgressions, big time, will be an important step in restraining that next would-be figurehead. They all need to see that there are clear and severe consequences to becoming a demagogue and aspiring tyrant, and failing. As for Republicans being "extremely likely" to retake both houses in 2022, I believe that will be strongly affected by what happens under a Biden administration. If the country is doing relatively well in two years and a socialist dictatorial asteroid didn't fall on it , the Dems may hold the line or even make some gains.

The Minuteman robot used by the Institute for Human Advancement, for the current official setting, is around 10' tall per its write-up in the Fifth Edition version of Champions Universe, the only place where it's been game-statted and drawn. The character sheet for Fourth Edition Genocide's version of the Minuteman Mark VII, from The Mutant File, lists its height from Growth at 16 meters, but the accompanying text claims it's over a hundred feet tall. I would choose the shorter height as the taller is limitingly unwieldy for many scenarios. It was also too powerful as written for how I wanted to use Genocide in my games. I was good with the 5E robot as my template because it's powerful enough to threaten standard superheroes, and can get into most places easily. However, if you wanted a true Sentinel-level threat to the world, TMF's Minutemen should be more than adequate for nearly any campaign.

Hero's Valdorian Age fantasy world setting -- stylistically resembling the fantasy fiction of Howard, Moorcock, and Leiber -- includes an interesting dynamic between the two major powers of the age, the Valdorian Empire and the Empire of Abyzinia. Abyzinia's economy is based on slavery. Even the rank-and-file of their military are slaves, albeit with more privileges than most. The rulers of Abyzinia are sorcerers, and sorcery used to be much more common among them; but during this age magic is in decline, so powerful sorcerers are rare. OTOH the Valdorian Empire was founded by rebels against non-humans who were also sorcerers, and who had conquered and enslaved their human subjects, treating them cruelly. Valdorians hated both slavery and sorcery, and outlawed the practice of both in their lands. As you might imagine, these two empires eventually came to blows, in a conflict lasting centuries which ultimately destroyed both of them as world powers.