DShomshak

Duke, you're not alone. I've used my own character sheets for years -- but they're based on those old 2nd/3rd ed sheets. Because those were right. Dean Shomshak

Hey, it could still be two Chthulhu eggs. Spawn of Ghroth. Whatever, Just very cold, as if that meant anything to the Outer Gods. But seriously: As usual, the newly sighted object is like nothing we have seen before.First contact binary in the Solar System. Whee! Dean Shomshak

Every time a probe visits a new celestial object, we find something that makes scientists say, "WTF? We didn't expect that. And there's another batch of theories thrown into the Dumpster." (All said with big grins and occasional mad giggles.) I would be surprised if Ultima Thule did not continue the tradition. Dean Shomshak

A retired four star general takes issue with Trump's claim that Americans were "suckers" before he became president: Former U.S. Commander: ISIS 'Is Not Defeated' : NPR www.npr.org/2018/12/27/680559430/trumps-view-of-u-s... General John R. Allen is with me now. He's a former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. He was also President Obama's special envoy to counter ISIS.

Mockery of Elric by way of 1980s-90s X-Men, I think -- "heroic outcast alien mutant sorcerers from another dimension." "after much angst," etc. The Cosmic Balance is from Michael Moorcock's "Eternal Champion" books, but I suspect Marvel's Living Tribunal was an homage to it. And X-Men writer Chris Claremot loved that sort of pseudo-mystical claptrap. The Shape's origin story is an excellent bit of parody, and another example of why Scott Bennie is my favorite Champions author. Dean Shomshak

Overthinking, moi? <hand to chest, eyebrows raised> Hey, I'm not the one who saw a "glaring need" for something comics have usually hand-waved. Okay, I'm overthinking. It's what I do, baby, it's part of my brand! So let's overthink some more. I'll skip the discussion of which campaign styles that something like Oversight will fit within. Also the discussion of whether a world in which government pursuit of villains makes Oversight necessary for internal coherence is a world in which governments would allow freelance heroes. I'll stick to how to make Oversight work as a way to patch some of the less believable tropes of the superhero genre, without making it a campaign-defining feature. Here's the big problem I see with Oversight: If there is an apparently impenetrable communications network just for supervillains, governments and heroes will go nuts trying to penetrate it. The longer it lasts, the more it bends the world around it. So Oversight should not seem infallible or impenetrable. The Malvan probe just wants to give supervillains an edge, not a Win Button. So it operates behind blinds, using methods that seem just a little more advanced than state of the art. Back in the '80s, maybe it was behind the shortwve "number stations" (RL: Shortwave enthusiasts found channels with nothing but a woman's voice, saying a number over and over for minutes at a time. At the time, at least, impossible to track to a particular location; meaning unknown. I really should check Wikipedia to find if these were ever explained.) Nowadays it's all on the Dark Web, with encryption that even the best NSA code-breakers can't crack. But really good encryption doesn't scream, "Aliens!" or even, "Super-tech!" Bits of the Overworld seem to fall to law enforcement all the time. A villain gives the location of an underworld bar as part of a plea deal; the Feds raid it, capture a few supervillains; another bar sets up a week later, and Oversight tarts spreading the word about the new location. Ditto for underworld doctors, capture insurance, and other services. Every 5-10 years, a major government or hero team penetrates deeper and shuts down the network, exposes the crime syndicate, corrupt corporation or rogue regime that seems to sponsor it, and there is much rejoicing. (RL analog: The downfall of Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which did business with a lot of shady customers.) But within a year a new Oversight network starts operation, with new communication methods. (Jefferson Gable, from the 4e VIPER book, could reprise his role as the latest front for Oversight.) The prevailing opinion is that Oversight has become a brand name adopted by one party after another. Maybe even multiple groups at once. Onbly paranoid conspiracy nuts think it's all one entity behind many masks. (And paranoid conspiracy nuts usually think in terms of the CIA-Big Oil Axis, or the Illuminati. Though in a superhero setting, paranoid conspiracy nuts do occasionally grasp the truth.) This approach achieves the stated goals: A service network for supervillains that is at once robust enough to function for long periods without interference, but not so obviously impenetrable that governments -- and PCs -- obsess over discovering its secret and taking it down. It also gives the PCs in a campaign the chance to be the first to discover the truth, without imposing arbitrary stupidity on the rest of the campaign setting. And I think that's enough overthinking. For now. ? Dean Shomshak

Hm. If Oversight is obviously unbeatable -- any attempt to trace it quickly dead-ends, with no discernible instrumentality to the communications -- then you've created a campaign-defining feature, even if that wasn't your intent. It's also a feature that players will likely find frustrating. So, you need to define ways that Oversight can be traced or balked. Ways that are difficult enough that it s plausible why governments have not shut it down, but not flat-out impossile. For instance, it uses phased heavy neutrino beams to plant messages in servers, from where they go to their targets over ordinary internet channels. (I'd say it uses tetrions, but that might be a registered trademark of the Star Trek franchise?.) Thus, law-enforcement hackers find messages apparently coming from nowhere. But, a super-scientist who monitors the servers might detect the slight electromagnetic disruption caused by the process and infer, "Aha! Oversight uses phased heavy neutrinos to communicate!" and set out to build an appropriate detector. Tech villains can do this too, but so far Oversight has fooled them with blinds analogous to the Prime Serpent, which criminals would find plausible. Because of their different motivations, heroes might be more skeptical. Which brings up some possible discrepancies between meaqns and ends. Even if a Malvan probe has no capabilities beyond travel, information-gathering, communication and concealment, it is still one of the most powerful entities on Champions Earth. If it wants to drive human progress (earlier I said "to Malvan standards," not "re-create Malva"), it has more ways of doing so than by fostering conflict between heroes and villains, and no obvious reasons to eschew them. Acting exclusively by assisting supervillains sounds to me more like the actions of a God of Crime, or some entity of caprice whose motives are by definition arbitrary (think the changing interests of Mr. Mxyzptlk in, IIRC, "TheLast Superman Story Ever Told.") I'd suggest coming up with some additional reason why Oversight prefers to assist criminals instead of using other channels to drive human progress. One is that it's trying to stay deniable in case the Malvans finally wake up and take notice. As in VIPER 4e, it's just playin' a game, nothing serious going on here... Or it might be a fake-out to impel governments into embracing technological development at a faster and more socially disruptive pace than they might do otherwise. But I also don't think there needs to be such a powerful and untouchable service provider for supervillains. More on this later, when I have time. Dean Shomshak

Thanks be to my local library. This looks like a good one-stop shop for Juno news: Latest News About the Juno Mission to Jupiter | NASA Solar System ... https://www.space.com/topics/nasa-juno-jupiter-mission-news Cached NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno probe will study the gas giant's atmosphere, magnetosphere and gravitational field. Juno will orbit Jupiter for about a year.

Since Oversight wants humanity to advance to Malvan standards, it might invest in diverse high-tech fields, not limiting itself to supervillains. This could add another layer of mystery. One standard plot (thank you, Iron Man/Tony Stark) is the techno-hero whose company is going under, in part because its genius founder spends so much time fighting crime instead of managing the company. Sometimes this is the prelude to a takeover attempt by a villain (Obadiah Stane) or government body that wants to control policy (SHIELD). But maybe instead the company is saved by a surprise "angel" investor... who is just a front for a shell company... and when you try to follow the money further, you hit a brick wall. A hero with business connections might find this sort of thing has happened several times, including funding for various transhumanist/techno-utopian groups. Someone seems interested in pushing human advancement. Though the fringe technologies show a distressing tendency to be stolen or independently(?) be re-invented by villains. Dean Shomshak

They seem a little small to be clubs, though some might be the right size for jojutsu or escrima. I think those tend to use paired weapons, though. A larger instrument might work better for a single-weapon martial art. Dang. Now I want to write up a quarterstaff/bo fighter who wields a bassoon. Dean Shomshak

Last week the BBC aired a short interview with a NASA representative about the Juno spacecraft's discoveries at Jupiter. Interesting but frustrating, as the NASA rep didn't have a lot of time and wasn't very good at explaining, and the BBC presenter didn't know enough to ask clarifying questions. If I understood correctly, though, one unexpected discovery is that Jupiter's magnetic field is asymmetrical in ways that cannot yet be explained. But it may have something to do with evidence that there's something very strange about Jupiter's core. If the planet even has a core (which they aren't sure about), it might be, in the NASA rep's words, lumpy. I'd like to look for an article with better information, but my internet connection is very slow and generally sucks. I hope someone else can post a link to something good. Dean Shomshak

I'll try to dig out former PCs of mine for each proposed city, though I won't post character sheets. For Houston, the hero Solar Max goes well with his fellow extraterrestrial Obsidian. Solar Max is a Solarian, a race of plasma entities living in the Sun. M@x was a Harmonizer, counseling his fellow Solarians when excessive selfhood brings conflict and discontent. He discovered that a Solarian called R0n was forcing energy from other Solarians, even to discorporation. When M@x exposed R0n's crimes, R0n fled the Sun. The Solarian leaders, the Majestrons, told M@x that R0n had taken refuge on a small condensed-matter body by merging with one of its indigenous intelligences. M@x must follow and capture or destroy R0n. Per their instructions, M@x rode a solar flare out into space, to Earth. He was unwilling to steal a life as R0n had done, but he found a congealed-matter being whose life-energy was ebbing toward extinction already, and merged with the dying human, a failed artist who had committed suicide. M@x was fortunate in finding other beings with unusual powers who share his interest in upholding social order. They call him "Solar Max" based on his origin and attempt to express his name in human speech. He found R0n, now a supervillain calling himself Corona, but R0n escaped by incinerating his own human host and reverting to plasma form. While Solar Max continues his hunt for Corona, he assists his new friends in restraining other socially damaging individuals. He also learns about humanity. To his disappointment, humans in Texas do not seem eager to emulate the successful Communist, near hive-mind society of the Solarians. On the other hand, Solar Max finds he enjoys some aspects of human individuality very much. Perhaps he can find some way to harmonize these two modes of existence... He also figured out that the Majestrons must be keeping a lot of information from his fellow Solarians. Solar Max is of course an energy projector. By rousing his Solarian energies, he can surround himself with a protective field of plasma, fly, and evoke bolts and bursts of plasma, laser beams, brilliant light or powerful magnetic fields. Physically he is a human male, mid-20s, fit but slender. His costume is a plain white body-stocking surrounded by the swirling, yellow-green glow of his Solarian energy field. I originally imagined him as Caucasian, but I wouldn't insist on it. Dean Shomshak

When I attended the University of Washington (and starting my first Champions campaign), I was delighted to learn the UW had its own small nuclear reactor. How convenient for radiation accidents and faculty members who become mad scientists! Dean Shomshak

Well, that's one on me. I onlyt thought in terms of pipelines from the Caspian itself; I never thought of a pipeline across the Balkaqn Peninsula as an alternative to sending tankers through the Bosporus. Which is, I admit, a smart idea, considering how crowded the Bosporus is even without tankers. The Guardian article suggests the real motivation for assisting the Kosovars was to sweeten Albania on the pipeline deal. Did that make saving more than a million people from murder and expulsion wrong? I don't think so. If a pipeline is the price for stopping ethnic cleansing, then God bless the oil industry. (Wow, those are words I never thought I'd write.) For the rest... Okay, that's fair, too. Trumpist craziness is way beyond the bounds of anyone I can think of for the last 40 years or so, and I did not mean to suggest that far-left craziness was of the same quantity or virulence. Not yet, anyway, which means non-crazy people on the left can try to make sure it never gets that bad. (One possible tactic being to listen to non-crazy people on the right and trying to understand their concerns.) In fact, I actually have to withdraw the suggestion of "blue lies" from the left. Social scientists such as Jonathan Haidt and Arlene Hochschilde have found that team loyalty forms the moral and emotional center of far-right beliefs: loyalty to flag, faith, race, community, leaders. Repeating a blue lie is a way of showing that your loyalty is so total and passionate that you are willing to say blatantly crazy and extreme things. The moral and emotional core of liberalism, however, consists of care for those who suffer and liberation for the oppressed. (See Haidt's The Righteous Mind.) It results in different forms of virtue-signaling, with different lunatic extremes. But that is a discussion for another time. Dean Shomshak

ADDENDUM: In fairness, I can cite examples of equally delusional blue lies from the Left. My personal favorite came from the Kosovo campaign, when a woman calling i to a local public radio program insisted that the campaign had nothing to do with stopping genocide and mass expulsion, it was Evil Imperialism to help the Oil Companies by securing a Mediterranean terminus for a Caspian Sea oil pipeline. Never mind that Kosovo is land-locked, and the Balkan peninsula is rather overshooting the mark for such a pipeline, which was merely hypothetical in any case. But it's a good orthodox far-left America Is The Root Of All Evil rant to show one's political and moral superiority to the common herd. Dean Shomshak

Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress tries to stay away from Trump directly, but Pinker admits that Trump's election gave the impetus for the book and he does discuss Trump followers' ability to loudly cheer and repeat whatever insane thing he says. He calls these "blue lies," by comparison with incidents where cops lie to protect each other. Statements are not believed (or at least claimed to be believed) because there is evidence for them, but as a show of loyalty to one team and hatred toward another. For instance, he cites claim circulating in far-right circles that Barack Obama must have known about the 9/11 attacks -- and even been part of the plot! -- because on that day, he stayed away from the White House. Does any sane person need to be reminded that in 2001, was not president! Not even a senator yet? But it's repeated and affirmed to show how deeply one hates him. Likewise, the other alternative facts of the Trumpverse, such as the crowd at his inauguration being the biggest ever. You say it to show the other cultists that you're loyal, and to show contempt for the elites whom you believe feel contempt for people like you. Dean Shomshak

I picked Houston, because I like Obsidian and for the space adventure vibe. Seattle would have been too easy. I live nearby, and I already set my two Seattle Sentinels campaigns there. (Plus my two Keystone Konjuror supermage campaigns based in Tacoma.) Pittsburgh was mentioned. Pittsburgh is cool: perhaps the closest the real world comes to Millennium City. Once notorious as a symbol of Rust Belt post-industrial urban decay, it has rebuilt itself as a high-tech hub. Three major research universities, one of which boasts the Gothic skyscraper "Cathedral of Learning," as cool a setting for a super-battle (or super-team base!) as you could imagine. Except maybe for the PPG, Inc. corporate headquarters, which looks like Superman's crystalline Fortress of Solitude from the movies. Villains who are into subterranean lairs can find plenty of room in the old coal mines. I had the heroes of Avant Guard visit Pittsburgh in pursuit of the mad biotech mega-villain Helix, and it worked really well. Dean Shomshak

If you don't have fun running this campaign, soon enough your players won't have fun playing in it. End it. (It sounds like it's near its natural senescence point anyway.) Come up with a final adventure or story arc that'll resolve some hanging subplots, give the PCs a chance to defeat a longtime enemy once and for all, and you can go out on a high note. If the other players are absolutely determined only to do D&D/Pathfinder and this doesn't interest you... eh. Hm. Do you remember anyone expressing interest in any other games? Because trying something completely different now and then can be refreshing. Star Hero. Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. Barbarians of Lemuria? Compromise between interests with Fantasy Hero, giving a chance for a type of setting that D&D doesn't support so well? Dean Shomshak

I can't watch the trailer over my home connection, so I can't comment upon it. But yeah, there's sure a lot of deconstructions, subversions, parodies, blah blah blah of Superman. After a certain point, it's no longer clever. When "subverting" a trope becomes the trope, it's actually more "subversive" to try going back to the original and play it straight. In the case of Superman, this is the common man given godlike power -- born an alien, but raised in idealized small-town America -- who does *not* misuse that power. Who is indeed in all ways good. Dean Shomshak

As far as common-or-garden wands go, the only example we have is the scene in Ollivander's wand shop (book 1). Ollivander starts by taking numerous measurements of Harry. One may presume these figures mean something to Mr. Ollivander, suggesting he has some occult science (like palmistry or moleosophy) for calculating what properties a wand should have. Only it doesn't work with Harry. Eventually, though, Ollivander has Harry try the wand that is "brother" to Lord Voldemort's, and that's the one. Curious, as Ollivander says. In Hero terms, it looks like Ollivander has some kind of Skill for matching wands with wizards. At first he seems to have failed his Skill Roll. But then he looks beyond the mechanical, calculated system -- thinking in deeper, mystical terms. And that Skill Roll succeeds... incidentally giving the first clue to a deeper, ongoing connection between Harry and Voldemort. Or possibly, there's only one Skill Roll here. Normally, Ollivander's system matches each customer with a wand that's good enough. In most cases, there's no special difficulty. When the system doesn't work with Harry, Ollivander succeeds at his KS: Wand Lore roll to get some idea why the system isn't working, and what he should try instead. The Elder Wand is something different, though. It has very precise requirements for who can use it. In this case, one might actually represent the Elder Wand as a Follower, a computer with, hm, Detect Victory and Defeat? Dean Shomshak

My local newspaper, the Tacoma News Tribune, reprinted this story from the Tri-City Herald on Sunday: Hanford observatory detects black hole waves | Tri-City Herald www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article222554785... The LIGO Hanford observatory near Richland has detected gravitational waves in space from 4 more black hole collisions. The black hole detections were in collaboration with Virgo and LIGO Livingston. Possibly more for the "local news" angle than for the pure science angle, but I won't complain. Dean Shomshak

Hagrid was no squib: With the broken wand in his umbrella, he was able to light a fire and give Dudley a pig's tail. Okay, he was trying for a whole pig, but he seemed well ahead of, say, Filch. The Elder Wand was no psychological crutch: It had power of its own, which it did not grant to Voldemort because he hadn't met its conditions. It's also a running theme through the books that magic has deeper mysteries that Voldemort persistently ignores. So, I'd say that there really is such a thing as having "the right wand," which gives an advantage to the witch or wizard who owns it. Perhaps Ollivander's insistence that "the wand chooses the wizard" is a clumsy attempt to enunciate a resonance that no one really understands... but is nevertheless quite real. In Hero terms, it might be something like levels to a Skill Roll on a personal Focus; or even a small separate VPP that only adds to a character's VPP, again on a personal Focus. Dean Shomshak

Heard on the evening news: InSight sends back the first audio from Mars. The seismograph and, IIRC, wind gauge register the sound of the Martian wind. Dean Shomshak

Speaking of Ebling Mis, the Mule's driving him to discover the secret of the Second Foundation might include an INT Aid as a well as an induced obsession. The obsession is the "special effect" for the INT Aid, though -- Mis was driven to "push" his own thought processes, raising his Deduction high enough to infer the Second Foundation's true location. Dean Shomshak

I remember the song, too. Heard it many years ago on the Doctor Demento radio show and taped it off the air. (Wow, I'm old.) I also thank Death Tribble: It's a classic! (Classic of what, let us not say.) Dean Shomshak