Nolgroth

I literally cannot remember the last time I had a good night's sleep.

I'm with you there. Mine is from a combination of job-related stress and working a shift in opposition to my circadian rhythm. Got so bad that I decided to give notice a couple of weeks back. Today is my last day in this little slice of Hell.

Long As I Can See the Light - Creedence Clearwater Revival

 

Tried shopping around for covers on YouTube but none beat the classic CCR version.

As far as the overall story, I enjoyed it. I still think the best character, in terms of classical character growth cycle, was Ward. He was a much more interesting character than Danny, which is part of the problem. Danny should have been the spotlight character....

 

When you hear there's going to be a series about The Immortal Iron Fist, you don't expect to get The Ward Meachum Story. Marvel simply told the wrong story. Period. The fact that it had a very good actor playing (what should have been) a relatively minor secondary role does not change that one bit.

 

I think we are in agreement there.

 

Lately I've been on a low fantasy/SF kick. The campaigns I've created in recent years have been populated solely with humans. I know I'm in the minority here, but that's how my tastes run.

 

I actually have a hard time visualizing aliens that are not anthropomorphic so I also tend to think in human only terms. Of course, I also tend to think cybernetics and genetically engineered "breeds" designed for specific tasks. Add in A.I.* like androids and you have a pretty diverse body of playable "races" without touching upon true aliens. I think, in Hero terms, Alien Wars without the presence of friendly alien species is probably the best of the settings. I would reign in access to FTL and use a "gate" system, but otherwise the setting would be incredibly fun as a foundation. I would make the tech a little bit more futuristic

 

 

* I'm of the "A.I. are not all automatically hostile and different A.I. constructs will have different motivations based upon their interactions with organics and underlying programming" school of thought. 

"Close government" huh? He really does think he is that special.

 

Shine on, you crazy cubic zirconian.

What were we talking about again? Somebody threw in an artificial statistic and my brain did a little skip. Sort of like an old, scratched vinyl record.

A friend tells me I have to watch it. It will be my first time.

 

I'm with BDH here. It was not entertaining to me. It was almost parody or lampoon or maybe tried for parody and utterly failed. Still, I know a couple of people that loved the movie so what do I know?

Bunch of random videos on YouTube. 

Well thanks for inputting the number ranges on that web page. I think the Alt-Killing method is my favorite, just looking at the charts. The curve isn't as "pretty" but the results are right in line with what I would like to design around. 

See: http://anydice.com/program/c9e5 to compare a standard 2d6 killing attack to your 6d-alternate-killing-attack.

 

Spreadsheets make me sleepy Shepherd.

 

Actually change the formula to 1=0, 2-4=1, & 5-6=2 and you have a sharper curve with low probability of either extreme but still a possibility.

I think the vast majority are based on D&D, which borrowed liberally from Tolkien. The whole multiple fantasy race setup being the most identifiable aspect of both D&D and Tolkien. 

What's truly disheartening is that the situation in the United States has come to the point where we feel the need to even debate equivalency to fascists.

 

I don't. Seriously, all of my vitriol towards Antifa, pales in comparison to what I feel about the other side. I just don't mention it because of the whole foregone conclusion thing. I just think that hanging our hopes on domestic troublemakers (terrorists seems way like too strong a word) may not be the way to go. Then again, history may prove me wrong and in two hundred years we look back with fondness at the Antifa movement and erect monuments to them. 

 

Also, Right-wing does not equal "fascist" anymore than Left-wing equals "socialist." Sure, members of both sides gravitate towards those ideologies, but not everybody does. Somewhere towards the middle are people who disagree, but can still have a healthy debate.

I like this rule a lot. I see mrunku's point but that seems more of a factor for superheroic play than heroic play. Plus I hate the Stun Lottery with a passion.

 

Thanks for posting this. I will be sure to rip it off and pass it off as my own brilliance. Wait!  I mean "properly credit the source."  Yeah. That's the ticket.

No, doubt evil there, I just see it with Antifa involved Bad vs Evil.  Antifa is less of a threat, but I still see it as a danger, if allowed to grow.  It might be enemy of my enemy is my friend right now.  But, I worry it might be the Stalin we deal with to defeat their Hitler.

 

 

Nothing I hate more than Nazis, but in our rush to stop one group, I don't want to underestimate the next threat. 

 

In Dan Simon's excellent post above, using the ISIS analogy, Antifa would be the equivalent to Al-Queda. They are definitely enemies of our enemies, but that doesn't necessarily make them our friends.

My teeth grinding because Fallout 4 CTD'd on me just after I had an epic battle with two different Raider factions and a Sentry Bot, all the while listening to Papa Roach's Leader of the Broken Hearts. Le sigh.

It appears the fash are outnumbered a bit in Boston today--400 to 1. Charlottesville cost them Bannon, the Stormfront site, a few jobs and families, a bunch of statues, and the polite tolerance that allowed them to spread their message. They still have Trump though.

 

Potentially even more damaging is PayPal closing down their transactions and just about every social media site actively closing down accounts of any bigots that they can find. At this rate, they will soon have to actively pursue communications through the USPS or even personal courier. They should really start laying low, licking their wounds, and letting the general public forget about them again. Well that would be a smart strategy. Let's hope they ain't that smart.

I lost track of the mechanics after 2E, the edition I played under and abused the hell out of.  There were things I liked about them, like the dice pools and the interplay between cyberware and magic, but you could also get some really counterintuitive results as well.

 

The 3E mechanics were much like 2E. Many things changed in 4E. I think for the better.

Just giving it the once over, I notice that there are a lot of missing references in regards to beasties. I can tell that this is a draft.

 

Overall design and layout are nice. The scale thing is important in a Hero game, but you can always ignore the printed hex and assign a scale to whatever you want.

 

Chadros Fane, supposedly very powerful, could be an awful lot for a party to handle. That triggered healing has the potential to keep him in the fight for a very long time. Every other phase he can potentially heal almost all of his Body and that could tip the balance unless somebody gets a lucky, high damage hit. The "claws" are going to be a nightmare for any PC group, but if kept as henchmen instead of garden variety mooks, you should be okay.

 

All in all, I like it.

In the NFL Preseason, the controversy over not standing at attention during the National Anthem as a form of protest has intensified after recent events. 

 

Not standing during the National Anthem, to me, is a form of expression. To me it should always be a method of protesting something. I am a patriot that sometimes borders on Jingoism, but I haven't yet jumped over that line. 

When I first read your message, I thought "What does he mean irrelevant roleplaying games?" In a case of how mistaken interpretation can start wars, I was going to completely dress you down. Then I read it again and saw that the word is irreverent.  So never mind then. Carry on. Nothing to see here.

Or Shadowrun too, everyone likes Shadowrun (despite the mechanics).

 

And I am the odd ball because I like the mechanics a lot. I admit that they need to have somebody like Steve Long or another Hero author give them the once over to make sure that they are balanced, but overall I think that they are pretty decent. I also love the "present" time in the earlier Shadowrun editions more than the later ones. I do not like the socio-political conclusions that the authors made on how they got there, but I am able to easily overlook them and just enjoy the show.

 

On a separate Shadowrun note, I found my Shadowrun 1E rule book not too ago. I don't want to play with those rules, but that was a nice little surprise. I just wish that I had found the Street Samurai Catalog so that I could convert my Elf Street Samurai to 4th Edition. I mean, my character was even further upgraded with all sorts of Beta cyberware so I could probably just re-interpret the character. Any, I digress and risk pulling the thread away from its intended course. Sorry about that.

My gaming library isn't that big.

Defenders was good. It started out kind of disjointed, almost like gaming sessions where the GM has to switch focus between each player's story every few minutes. As a result it felt like a slow start. It quickly warmed up and got engaging pretty fast. I won't spoil anything but dramatic things happened. My only complaint is that it was over too fast (only 8 episodes). They told the story they were telling and it took eight episodes, but for once I wanted one or two more. 

The voices in my head.

 

Whew! I thought I was the only one.

 

In terms of music, Carly Rose Sonenclair's rendition of Hallelujah from one of those Choose Your Own Celebrity talent shows.

Marvel's Defenders on Netflix. Went well with my insomnia last night.

 

Started out kind of slow and disjointed. Got much better. Ended too soon.