wcw43921

I'll bite--Judo lessons?

Okay, I'll bite--what have you got against time travel?

Insofar as I remember, the Mayfair Expoential Game System (MEGS) for unintentional targets. The closest thing to the "bad miss" you describe is rolling double ones, which according to the rules is a complete failure, which I always took to mean that nothing happened. Besides, the only way you could get the column shifts necessary to inflict enough damage to destroy the moon would be to roll doubles several times over--and if you roll doubles that many times, you're going to hit your target, no matter how hard he dodges. Did this happen in a game, that soemone missed and destroyed the moon?

According to Topless Robot Champions is listed at #2, after Mayfair's DC Heroes game. This is part of what the author had to say-- "After two decades of playing Champions, I've found that the game is a perfect tactical simulation of comic book action. It's a kind of Star Fleet Battles with superheroes. But I've also found that the heavily mechanical character creation rules have two flaws. First, as inspired as effects-based powers are, the super math geek can manipulate the balance of the game to get extra-competent who push the boundaries of balance. As a small - and not particularly advanced example - players often buy 1 extra inch of movement so that their "half move" is one inch more than normal. Character creation can be heavily mechanical-exploit oriented, which I believe affects the feel of play. Second, it can be intimidating to new players. There are few games that take as long to create a character in as Champions. Only GURPS is more challenging since GURPS requires the same amount of time Champions would take to create Batman to create your average Little League ball player." Like many here, I don't really see his first point as a flaw. In fact, it was recommended for players in the supplement Champions II to buy an extra inch of ground movement for their characters. I think of it as part of the rules, like the way in chess that each distinct piece moves differently. The player works within the rules to to attain the best advantage, and the other players and the gamemaster are doing the same. As for his second point--like most RPGs, Champions is not as difficult as it first appears--once a potential player takes a closer look at the game to study the rules, the complexity falls away. Of course, having experienced players around to answer questions and check the math helps a great deal, too. Anyway, the article is a great read. There it is for anyone who's interested.

Well, Stark. like Han Solo and Malcom Reynolds before him, puts on a good show of being a complete scoundrel, but when it comes down to the point of the matter, he can be as upright and self-sacrificing as Rogers. The climax of The Avengers, where he backpacks a nuclear missile through the dimensional portal to strike at the Trade Federation control ship Chitauri command station is one proof of this; the fact that he uses the Iron Man armor to fight for the weak and helpless, rather than just mass-producing the suit and its attendant systems and making himself--at the very least--a dozen times richer than ever, is another proof. Granted, his proclivity for womanizing rivals those of Howard Hughes and Hugh Hefner, but who says the good guys can't have any fun? Just my thoughts on the subject--take them as you will.

I remember Stan Lee writing in a compilation of Marvel origin stories that his goal with Nick Fury, Agent Of SHIELD was to "out-UNCLE UNCLE, and out-Bond Bond!" So both SHIELD and UNTIL owe a debt to UNCLE--as does CONTROL, for that matter, except that CONTROL was an exclusively American agency. That said, I always thought of SHIELD and UNTIL as visibly uniformed forces, not the undercover covert operations agency that was UNCLE. UNCLE never had anything like SHIELD's helicarrier or UNTIL's Swordfish submarine, nor, I think, did they have any vehicles boldly emblazoned with their emblem. They just had impeccably smooth, thoroughly competent agents who always kept their cool no matter how hot the situation would get. Not unlike the inspiration for UNCLE himself--Bond. James Bond. (Is there a Champions Universe analog for James Bond? There ought to be. ) Anyway, given the number of Marvel-influenced characters in the Champions Universe--Doctor Destroyer (Doctor Doom) Mechanon (Ultron) Icestar (Iceman) Brick (The Thing) Grond (The Hulk) and VIPER (HYDRA), it seems more likely that UNTIL was modeled after SHIELD. Hope that helps.

12 Truths All Cat Owners Have Come To Accept-- http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/family/12-truths-all-cat-owners-have-come-to-accept/ss-BBeFQJa#image=14

Cobra's organization was originally called C.O.B.R.A.--which according to the entry for Mongoose (ENEMIES, p. 19) stands for Corporate Organization for the Benevolent Return to Autocracy. It was changed to the COIL with the publication of CLASSIC ENEMIES--most likely, as bubba smith said, to avoid confusion with GI JOE. Hope that helps.

And Her Arch-Enemy-- PRINCESS PERSIA! Just like her namesake the Persian Cat, deadliest of all the feline breeds, Princess Persia slinks upon her unsuspecting enemy and STRIKES, tearing them to bloody ribbons, then easily eludes her pursuers by vanishing silently into the night!

Presenting that legendary heroine of the Golden Age-- AIRPLANE GIRL!

That did not look like a good-bye kiss to me.

Tonight's episode had Captain Cold. A great improvement over the Captain Cold of the 90s series. He had a freeze ray weapon--and a parka. He may even keep the name. Great episode of a great show. I hope to see more.

Thank You for the explanation. To be fair, it kinda-sorta made sense back in those days before skill levels and damage classes, when Martial Arts cost as much as your Strength and only allowed you to do extra damage. Players wanted their characters to be able to put down a street-level thug before he had a chance to blurt out "Wait! I surrender!" Can't really do that with an OCV of 5 or 6. Not really defending the practice, but I can understand why it happened. Hope that helps.

First, Good Job on the conversions and coloring the pics. Second, what do you mean by their stats are "gaudy?"

Honestly, would that make any difference?

He actually wore the shirt? I got the impression that he pulled his shirt open and then they cut to a close-up shot of a stand-in. At any rate, the answer is--No.

The only bit that bothered me about this show was the scene where West and his partner try to arrest Mardon (the Weather Wizard). Instead of referring to himself as "God," he should have had a line like, "I can do magic. I'm a wizard!" To which West would have replied, "Well, get your hands in the air, Voldemort--you're under arrest!" There were a lot of things that reminded me of the Raimi Spider-Man movies--the narration at the beginning and end of the episode (which was also part of the Wally West era of the comics) the science geek aspects of Barry's character, his amazement at his physical transformation ("Lightning gave me abs?") and the fact that he's "just friends" with the hottest girl he knows. I would not call this a Smallville rehash as some people have, for the simple reason that Barry has put on the costume and accepted his identity as The Flash. It took ten emmin-effin seasons for Clark Kent to become Superman--and even them we didn't quite see him in costume. (Seriously, would it have killed Tom Welling to wear the Big Red Cape and the Big Red "S" for one scene? Plus dialogue?) Granted, we didn't see the Weather Wizard in costume, but that doesn't mean the other villains can't have costumes or villain names. ("So everybody's impressed with The Flash, huh? Wait'll they get a load of Heat-Wave!") I remember seeing the first The Flash TV series in 1990. I had been waiting for that show since I was eight years old, and I tell you it was worth the wait. So is this show, and I hope it gets the chance the first one didn't. The Fastest Man Alive is back--and I couldn't be happier.

It's on. It's on now. If you're not watching it, you should be.

Okay, that comes out to $5658 per second, give or take a penny. We could get a bunch of players together, have them hold up a poster and a bunch of rulebooks and scream "PLAY IT!!!" at the camera. Yeah--that'll work. We can do this. All we need now is for someone to chip in a kidney--

Perhaps HERO could attempt to make people more aware of Champions. I remember in the 80s the comic book and magazine ads for Dungeons & Dragons; they didn't just advertise in gaming publications, they were actively attempting to court the mainstream. Heck, they even had TV commercials--and they weren't entirely alone, either; I remember hearing a radio commercial for Traveller on a local college radio station. I don't know what advertising HERO has done in the past, or what kind of advertising budget they have--the answer to that last one may be none at all. But I think HERO should make more of an attempt to popularize Champions outside of the usual audience. Comic books are a must, as are science fiction and fantasy magazines. Perhaps they could coem up with some "radio" commercials for SF/fantasy-themed podcasts like The Nerdist or Wil Wheaton's show. TV commercials may be out of the question, but if you could buy some airtime on an episode of Agents Of SHIELD or The Flash, it might just well be worth it. Hope that helps.

I think they did a great job introducing Crusher Creel, especially with the depiction of his powers. I liked the notion that each substance he absorbs feels different to him, and some substances make him feel better to him than others. I look forward to more of his appearances. I'm also very concerned about the fate of Fitzsimmons. With Gemma gone and Leo operating at only a fraction of his usual capacity, it doesn't look like Coulson will have the two brightest minds in SHIELD in his corner this time around. Thing is, I had a feeling this might happen. Something else has occurred to me--I said once before, possibly here on this forum, that the Marvel Cinematic Universe needs to have its own Spider-Man character, and since the wall-crawler himself is still locked into a movie deal with Sony-Columbia, I was thinking either the Richard Rider Nova or Speedball could stand in for him. But as we've seen with Coulson and SHIELD in the Season 2 premiere, nobody likes them, nobody trusts them, everyone's out to get them--and yet they keep fighting the good fight to protect people and defeat the forces of evil. That's right--SHIELD is the MCU's version of Spider-Man. They may not have web-shooters or be able to climb walls, nor do they have an elderly aunt looking after them--although maybe May's mother might put in another appearance this season. But even if they don't say it, the notion of "with great power comes great responsibility" is there, as Coulson and his team have taken on the responsibility of protecting the world. Just my thoughts on the new season. Take them as you will.

A new thread for a new season seems appropriate, don't you think? Anyway, the show's been moved to a later hour--it's at 9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central, and so on as you head west. So be sure to set your Tivos, DVRs, DVD-Rs, VCRs, wax cylinder recorders, or hire animation artists to draw up highly detailed flipbooks of the episode. Or you could watch the broadcast as it airs, like people used to in the oldentime days. Dare to be square. If it's good enough for Phil Coulson, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

The Real Life Superhero Project

I'd say it's a pretty good field. wouldn't you?

"MINE!!! ALL MINE!!!"