DShomshak

Last week I watched the premier episode of the new Tom Swift series on CW. I have fond memories of the Tom Swift Jr. book series from my youth, so I expected to be disappointed and by cracky I was. Actually, my first reaction was, "Wut?" I mean, does anyone under 50 even remember this kid's book series about a Boy Genius Inventor? But watching the ep explained why anyone would be interested in this IP. (For those not in the know, Tom Swift was the hero of a series of kids books from, like the 1920s or thereabluts, with titles like Tom Swift and his Giant Airplane or Tom Swift and the Big Oil Gusher. He's a young inventor and industrialist who travels the world and has adventures. Series rebooted for his son, Tom Swift Jr., going into outright SF with titles like Tom Swift and his Polar /Ray Dynosphere, Tom Swift in the Caves of Nuclear Fire, and Tom Swift and the Visitor from Planet X.) I did know that Tom's character would have to be changed significantly because in the books, he doesn't have one. He is a perfect whitebread straight arrow, exactly what 1950s America thought a young person should be. So, boring. The series makes him Black and gay. OK, whatever. Tom also starts as an undisciplined party boy as well as a scientific genius, and he has major daddy issues. Also an AI assistant. Aha! They're trying to make him Tony Stark. Reasonable, because Tony Stark is well known and popular, but of no interest to me because we already have one Tony Stark and I don't see the need for another one. The acting, dialogue and plot are meh. Tom Sr. blasts off in the cpmpany's new rocket to Saturn. Leaves the company in the hands of someone other than Tom Jr., because Junior is undisciplined and a disappointment despite his genius. Rocket blows up once it reaches Saturn. Junior finds evidence there was sabotage, but also that his father survived in an escape pod. Who sabotaged the rocket? A secret society, "an offshoot of the Illuminati," dedicated to reversing technological progress (but is nevertheless willing to use advanced technology to do so). Episode ends with Tom going on a road trip to collect the three parts of the message capsule his dad rocketed back to Earth, Tom vowing to reclaim control of his father's company, and a revelation that the conspiracy has already infiltrated the cpmpany. I ought to have watched episode 2 to see if it got any better, but I forgot and don't mind much. Honestly, I cannot imagine why anyone should waste their time on this derivative drivel. But then, I am also certainly not the target audience. Dean Shomshak

And oh hey, I was looking for armory plans a while back and still have one on my desktops!

Yes, this could be a CW show with frightening ease... 'Shipping included. Dean Shomshak

I approve of this villain team! (Makes popcorn, sits back to watch the fun.) Dean Shomshak

For a similar idea, a block of row houses or other conjoined housing. A book I read about historic architecture of New York City inclided plans and a brief description of the Henry Villard houses, 6 variously-sized homes forming a Y around a courtyard, built in uniform style to suggest a single Italianate mansion. I thought it might make a nifty home base for a "people with powers" campaign: A group of super-criminals made their big score and retired, buying such a block of houses to live in. Years later, their kids have grown up all knowing each other -- and then discover their heritage as mutant powers and family curses manifest, power rings and battlesuits long set aside are found, etc., and they find the secret entrances to the underground labs and training areas that were set up "just in case" but were long neglected. I never developed the idea, though (my group has more campaign ideas than we have time to play). EDIT: Oh hey, the Villard Houses still exist. They're a Historic Landmark. Here's the Wikipedia article, with ground floor plans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villard_Houses Dean Shomshak

This sentence seems backwards. Don't start by saying what something isn't. We have no expectations that must be contradicted, so this makes no sense. Rivers generally empty into seas rather than seas into rivers. Is the Kulana River in fact an outflow from the Gefting Sea, on the way to some other body of water? If so, look for a way to briefly and gracefully remind the reader of this. Dean Shomshak

<blink> Whoa. I don't like Rittenhouse either, I might even agree with the sentiments, but that's stronger language than I think I've ever seen fro you, P. Maybe edit before Simon says, "Ahem." Dean Shomshak

Cool Science Dept. For this one, listening is a must. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/06/1103372492/a-volcanos-song-could-contain-clues-to-its-future-eruptions-scientists-hope Dean Shomshak

Regarding the Ukraine invasion, we've heard a bit about the "Wagner Group" of mercenaries. All Things Considered just had a story about what it is and how it works. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/06/1102603897/wagner-group-mercenary-russia-ukraine-war Dean Shomshak A brief history on how a few radical misogynists pushed the 19c campaign to ban abortion and birth control. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/06/1103372543/abortion-was-once-common-practice-in-america-a-small-group-of-doctors-changed-th Dean Shomshak

I think the academics who wonder why so many Russians back the invasion are overthinking. For millennia, it was perfectly normal for a stronger group to attack, conquer and pillage weaker neighbors. Successful conquering despots got labeled "the Great." Putin is just playing by the old rules, and the Russian people respond -- not b ecause they've suffered some special historical trauma, but because they *haven't* been raised in historically unusual safety, comfort, and Enlightenment ideology. So for instance, of course Russian officers aren't trying to stop Russian soldiers from (as the article notes) sending stuff looted from Ukrainians home to their wives, who are grateful to receive them. Pillaging is traditionally part of why you go to war, no matter what international law says. It's a compensation leaders offer for soldiers' risking their lives. Russians aren't strange for embracing Putin's war. We're strange for finding it strange that they do so. And I dare say that many Americans, Canadians, Australians, and other folk would act exactly the same way under similar circumstances. Condemning it is, arguably, intellectually elitist. But I'm okay with that. I consider the fundamental work of civilization to be making people treat each other better than comes naturally. Dean Shomshak

Re: the Uvalde cops... I've learned never to believe the first day's reporting on a mass shooting or other tragedy. Anything beyond the raw fact that it happened, and where it happened, is likely to be corrected later. For instance, IIRC for several hours after the Sandy Hook shooting, the shooter was mis-identified. People are confused, or they fabulate what they think must have happened, or they flat out make stuff up and it gets repeated. But usually, within 24 hours the contradictory reports and rumors shake out and a reasonably consistent story emerges. I am generous enough to presume that the reporters are at least trying to find and report what's actually true. (Fox "News" always excepted, of course.) But the Uvalde cops keep changing their story, or at least other people are coming forward to say No, it didn't happen that way at all, and everyone seems to be consistent except them. So even granted that everybody, everybody, spins to make themselves look good... they just keep looking worse and worse. Just fess up, guys. No matter how bad you look when you immediately tell the truth, you always look worse after you're caught lying. Dean Shomshak

June 2, 2022 on the NYT podcast/radio program The Daily: California has been passing gun control laws for decades and... they work. At least, in 2020 the rate of gun death in Cali was 8.5 per 100,000 compared to over 13 per 100k in the US as a whole. Here's how they did it. And (hee hee!) Ronald Reagan was part of it. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/podcasts/the-daily/uvalde-buffalo-gun-control-california.html?action=click&module=audio-series-bar&region=header&pgtype=Article Dean Shomshak

A quick Google search turned up these floor plans for a Masonic temple: The print is too small and blurry to read what the rooms are, but you're going to change them anyway. Dean Shomshak

IIRC his Star Trek geekery was also a lot of fun. I too will miss TJack. Dean Shomshak

If one more weather-related digression may be tolerated... I live just a few degrees of latitude south of Vancouver, so the weather's probably not too different. Our winters tend to be wet and relatively mild; the temperature rarely drops below freezing, even at night. (This also describes our springs and autumns. ) Well, except in January, when a blast of arctic air rolls down the Frazer River Valley and parks over the Pacific Northwest for a few weeks. Heavy snowfall is also rare. About every 10 years, though, that blast of arctic air meets a "Pineapple Express" of warm, moist air from Hawaii. Then the media bandies about terms like "Snowmageddon," no doubt to the amusement of Midwesterners who think a foot of snow is just a light drifting. Problem is, we lack practice at dealing with snow, so there's always a huge wave of traffic accidents and stranded vehicles. Dean Shomshak

This seems eminently workable. In the unlikely event you aren't aware of it already, you can also draw on the H. P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands setting pack that Chaosium did for Call of Cthulhu. PRE 25 might be a bit high for Lovecraftian teens. Erudite, possibly unusually self-possessed, but I don't see Lovecrarft protagonists as ever being particularly charismatic... in the Waking World, at least. And part of classic Teen Drama is that people don't take you seriously. In fact, for Waking World characters it's probably best to stick to Normal Characteristic Maxima for INT and EGO, too. As teens, they are still growing into their full potential. Archetypes seem limiting, especially if there are only 3 of them. Something like them might be useful as suggestions to help players who don't know where to begin (a common problem with players, especially for games where everything hasn't been spelled out in advance by decades of pop culture.) I would like to see this idea developed more. Dean Shomshak

sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn) was interviewed on All Things Considered yesterday, about legislative efforts at gun control. He's still trying, but warned that the numbers in the Senate are, not to put too fine a point on it, impossible. No Republicans, he said, are going to have epiphanies and switch their established party-line vote. Change will only come through "exercise of raw political power": when there are enough Democrats in the Senate to push through gun control laws by themselves. Ditto at the state level. Unfortunately, I also read that a large fraction of Millennials and Zoomers have given up on politics and don't intend to vote for anyone. They think it's more useful to go to protest marches. This seems to me a recipe for keeping Democrats for ever reaching Murphy's threshold -- which means they will never be able to enact the policies that younger liberals want. Sorry, kids, but "Hey Hey Ho Ho" is not a magical mantra: It doesn't matter how many times you chant it, it will not force change. (And I'm sorry to be the grumpy old guy saying "Kids these days," but I have a low tolerance for magical thinking.) Dean Shomshak

You will notice that the old motto of "To Serve and Protect" does not say who cops serve and protect. A cynical person might say it's the ruling class. And that though police are part of a wider "pacification project" to keep the wider populace sufficiently docile that they do not trouble their betters, a certain degree of random violence does not entirely displease some of the people in power. I have no proof, of course, just a nasty, suspicious mind. Dean Shomshak

Well, I spotted that some names were other names backwards, like "Rodne" was "Endor" backwards. Did n't get all the references, though. Dean Shomshak

And to think that back when NPR had the "Left, Right and Center" political talk show, David Frum was the designated conservative. But back then, "conservative" could mean something very different than it generally does now. Tangentially, I am reminded of a maxim from, IIRC, m'man William Blake, that a prophet is not someone who tells the future. That is merely a fortune-teller, a profession the Bible condemns. A prophet is a person who reminds us what was, is, and ever shall be true. Dean Shomshak

a) Always (though the players don't hear it until later). b) I try, though it can be sketchy if I'm in a rush to prep an adventure. c) I always stat out NPC heroes. Non-powered supporting cast, not so much. d) I like to have an illustration for villains and NPC heroes, but it's so much work (I am no artist) that I often can no longer manage this. Maps limited to sketches on notebook paper or, maybe, hex paper if I'm ambitious. Once in a while I've printed out pictures of real locations that become important for an adventure, such as the "Cathedral of Learning" in my adventure, "Wings Over Pittsburgh." e) I try to give each PC their own little vignette at the start of adventures, to show what else goes on their lives. One of my friends started it in his Champions campaign, and I think it works well regardless of game genre. Dean Shomshak

Let me say, after this Superdraft I will have to be much more creative and daring in the gods I design for my Fantasy settings. Thanks, all! Dean Shomshak

Science That Could Cause Origins Dept.: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/23/1100828758/study-finds-microscopic-life-in-830-million-year-old-crystal-and-it-might-be-ali Though reviving microbes sealed in a salt crystal for 830 million years could only result in a Lovecraftian monster. The scientists say they'll be careful, and anyway after 830 million years of missed coevolution the microbes would be so maladapted they couldn't possibly infect humans, that's just the sort of cocksure statements that scientists always make before The Horror Begins. (Though they also try to preempt fate by saying that yes, the situation sounds like something from a B movie. Not enough, I tell you!) Dean Shomshak

If I may be forgiven for stealing from Jenna K. Moran (formerly Rebecca Borgstrom): The Scripture of the Dancer Once there was a maiden... ...who stood in the center of every dance. Back then, she knew all the dances. She never missed a step. One day, she heard something in the music, as a singer dropped the beat. It taught her the joy of dancing poorly. She started dancing more and more awry. "Love has no rules," she said. -- Exalted: The Sidereals Interpret for yourself what the Lovers might have meant. Dean Shomshak

"...Or they'd mate," said the Lovers, with a speculative gleam in Their eyes. (These are not mutually exclusive) Dean Shomshak