bigdamnhero

No one is saying they're incompetent or stupid; I've said repeatedly that illiterate does not necessarily equal idiot. Sure, they were competent mechanics, at least when working on a 70-year-old model.* They're able to swap parts around, repair existing systems, and so forth. Tho even then they still seem to need Droids for technical diagnostics (see Threepio & Artoo in Empire), and without them there seems to be a fair amount of "Try it now!" guesswork involved. Han & Chewie are the equivalent of the auto mechanic who prefers to work on older models because they're simpler and they know where all the parts go. And nothing wrong with that! When I need my carburetor replaced, I don't care if my mechanic has an MS in Automotive Engineering Technology. Nor do you need a degree to cobble together a go cart pod racer from spare (ie - existing) parts. But we also need people who do understand the theories and principles behind how and why cars work so they can improve on them and invent new stuff. Those people seem to be frightfully rare in SW, to the point where the Empire is able to conscript basically all of them at a handful of scientific bases. Ask the question from the other direction: if you were to design a sci-fi(ish) society where 99% of the population is functionally illiterate and relies on Droids for anything above manual mechanical labor, with only a tiny scientific elite that can read and actually understands basic scientific principles, AND where there's no journalism or reference encyclopedias so that all knowledge seems to rely entirely on word-of-mouth, what would that society look like? I'd argue it would look pretty-much exactly like Star Wars. * The YT-1300 series is 70+ years old at the time of Ep4; I don't think it's ever stated exactly how old the Falcon specifically is, but certainly everyone talks about it like it's an antique.

Dunkirk. It was good, enjoyed it, glad I saw it, but didn't really love it as much as a lot of the critics seemed to. Visually beautiful, but the characters are (quite intentionally) paper-thin, which made it hard for me to get too invested in them as individuals. Also Nolan just can't resist messing around with timelines, and in this case I thought it really confused things. Spoiler not for plot, but just for overall structure:

Yeah, on the one hand I salute them for trying to use Superman's death as an opportunity to change the tone of the DCEU. But OTOH, "Did you guys ever watch the show previous movies?"

I thought that was still just rumors. Has it been confirmed? (The Affleck Is Out part, not the DCEU Is A Shitshow part, which was confirmed long ago.)

I think you're missing his point. Every popular and successful thing Marvel (or DC, or Image, or...) has ever done has been accused of being a cash grab by someone. No matter what Marvel (et. al.) does, some fans will complain. Change a character? "They're Ruining My Childhood!" Don't change a character? "They're just churning out the same stuff over and over!" Too much T&A? "Sexist!" Not enough T&A? "PC Nazis!" Do something original? "They're ignoring canon!" Remain faithful to canon? "There's no originality!" Too much fighting? Not enough fighting? Too much dialogue? Not enough dialogue? No minority representation? Too much minority representation? Kill off a character? Bring a character back from the dead? Fans. Will. Bitch. Part of this, of course, is because "fandom" is not a monolithic group and different people want different things. But a large part is because a lot of comics fans are too often - and I say this with love for my tribe - a uniquely whiny bunch of entitled brats. For Exhibit A, I present: The Internet. Don't get me wrong: I've never been shy about criticizing comics companies for doing things I think are stupid. But I also appreciate the Catch-22 they're in. As for Franchise Mania: there's nothing wrong with it per se, and as pointed out it's not even really a new concept. The problem comes when Building A Franchise takes precedence over making good individual movies. Personally I thought the 1st Captain America movie suffered from this a little bit, and Age of Ultron even more so. But those were petty misdemeanor offenses compared to Batman v Superman, Kong Skull Island, or the Mummy. Nothing wrong with teasing the next movie, but not at the expense of the movie we're currently watching. I feel like Marvel got that message after the complaints about Ultron; sadly, the other studios have yet to figure it out. Re Disney Princesses Assembled: in general I try not to get too worked up over "Some actor(s) think it would be neat if the studio made another movie for them to star in." But at least there's a common unifying theme there, and it would be building on (mostly) successful existing movies rather than starting with the Big Franchise Crossover! and working back from there.

I have seldom wanted to punch an actor as badly as I wanted to punch Gary Cole. Not sure what it was, but everything about his performance rubbed me the wrong way.

A bunch of good ones for M… The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The private journal of the 2nd Century Roman Emperor, written while campaigning. Musings on philosophy and stoicism and what it means to be a good man or a rational man. I frequently pick up Meditations and read a few random passages; I finally got a Kindle edition I could read on my phone because I wore out my paper copy, and now it's my favorite "I've got 5 minutes to kill" reading. Mao Tse Tung on Guerilla Warfare. Still the seminal work on the topic as far as I’m concerned, a highly practical book written while Mao was actively fighting a guerilla war against the Nationalists. Mind Hunter by John Douglas. Douglas is the guy who founded the FBI behavioral science “profiler” unit, and served as the basis for Scott Glen’s character in Silence of the Lambs. More recent research has cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of his type of profiling, but it’s still a fascinating read, tho a teensy bit dark. The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols. A wonderful novel about a struggle for water rights in a fictional New Mexico town. Mandatory reading if you’re from NM – if you’re not, you may not get it, but that’s not my problem. Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway. Connects the dost showing how the group of scientists and advisors that are claiming climate change is fake are the same people – literally the exact same people in many cases – who in previous decades used the exact same tactics to create public doubt that smoking causes lung cancer, coal smoke causes acid rain, and CFC harm the ozone layer. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Some of his best work IMO. Men Against Fire: the Problem of Battle Command in Future War by SLA Marshall. Published right after WWII, and based on interviews & research he conducted during that war, Marshall made the claim that only 25% of US soldiers actually fired their weapon with intent to kill even when they were under direct enemy fire. Hugely controversial to this day, and a number of people have seriously questioned his research methodology, so read with a grain of salt; but still well worth reading.

I have the perfect idea for them...

Yes, you've just described the only two instances of "reading" shown in the entire original trilogy. Which is why the thread title includes the phrase "functionally illiterate," ie - someone able to read a short Tweet or a couple of numbers, but little beyond that. And as discussed in the OP link and many subsequent posts, the SW universe doesn't really look or act like your typical "high tech" society. Clearly there is a scientific caste who do the bulk of the inventing & building, and they're presumably literate. But the bulk of society shows few signs of literacy.

Glad I'm not the only one.

Same here. I realized about 2/3 of the way through last season I was watching solely out of habit and was having trouble even remembering the previous week's episode. I think the show has run it's course, at least for me.

In that situation, my normal response is to say "OK, but before you can get around the corner the guy gets a shot off at you." And of course it works both ways if villains try the same tactic. Sure it's a little artificial, but IMO the hole that leaves is several orders of magnitude smaller than the hole from saying you can't move at all after attacking. The only difference is we're used to the latter hole because it's been in RAW for so long. And more important to me: because most players tend to think of attacking first and movement as an afterthought, it makes for much more movement in combat. YMMV and all that of course. But I do find it telling that whenever the topic comes up (every 1d6+6 months it seems) the objections are almost always from people who have never tried it because they're convinced it'd be a nightmare. I don't see a lot of (or any) posts from people saying "We actually tried it, it caused problems, and we switched back." Edit: Actually re-reading your post it sounds like you're suggesting some sort of move-attack-move thing? You still only get two half-actions, so if you move before attacking, you don't also get to move afterwards. Or did I misunderstand you?

I'd actually be more worried about that if it was on one of the "traditional" networks, cuz yeah for them comedy = sitcom. But Freeform might have more room to play around. Could be interesting.

Ah, I had missed that. Thanks.

Just to clarify: the Attack of Opportunity rule I was proposing is entirely tied to an action in the future. You don't get an additional action, you're simply taking your next action early like any other Abort. It follows all other rules for Aborting.

The challenge is going to be that Squirrel Girl in the comics doesn't really work as part of a team alongside "conventional" superheroes. So the show's producers can either make the entire show a wacky spoof of superhero tropes, or they can tone Squirrel Girl down to be the team jokester but an otherwise conventional superhero who bears little resemblance to the comics character.

Also this. If you want your players to be creative, you need to be willing to reward that creativity.

That is the example always given for not allowing attack-and-move. And yet it has literally never come up once in any game I've run or played where attack-and-move was allowed. Not once. The phrase I use with my players is "I allow attack-and-move as long as it's not abused." If someone tries to munchkin it, then I either don't allow it or invoke the Attacks of Opportunity rule I posted above. But then I'm fortunate to have players who aren't jerks and are more interested in playing a fun game than in exploiting rules loopholes. Sure, if a character only has one effective attack, then it's not fair to penalize them for using it over and over again. But most competent boxers (at least in my games) usually have a few different maneuvers they can use to mix things up. Even without martial maneuvers, you can still slip a Block or a Grab into the mix. Or use PRE to feint and throw the guy off his defense. Or turn and punch Thug #2 suddenly instead of continuing to pound on Thug #1 for the 4th Phase in a row. Heck, even moving your CSLs around so you're not on ALL OFFENSE! all the time, or even narrating your attack differently can count. As I said it's a rule I invoke very sparingly. But it's useful for helping players get out of a rut. Especially for That One Dude who wants to throw Offensive Strike every single time because more damage bro! So much this. I make this mistake too, but not every opponent has to fight to the death every single time. Heh, I don't know about "Master GM" but I'm lucky to have really good players. And yeah with the wrong players it's definitely open to abuse. The key is to define the purpose of the rule, and the circumstances in which it's allowed. Here's the text from the Campaign Guidelines doc for my current campaign. Again, it really doesn't get used that often, it's mostly just there as a deterrent to gaming the turn sequence. In fact it actually came up in last night's game, the first time in awhile: Player: [starts to move his mini past a ready opponent to get at a 2nd character, pauses] "Crap, that's going to invoke an Attack of Opportunity, isn't it?" GM: "It could, yes." Player: "Yeah, ok." [movies his mini back to attack the first opponent]

Exactly. As long as your players accept that this is an RPG, not a wargame, and that the intermittent turn sequence is an artificiality, not a Law Of Nature, it's all good. Sadly, it only takes that one bozo to screw it up for everyone.

Now I'm curious what the derail was and how you fixed it?

I loved Tony's "I am Iron Man" moment at the end of IM1, because it was funny, it totally fit the character, and because having a Public ID allows them to tell different stories. Yay! Plus from a film-making standpoint, it avoids the problem of paying Handsome Actor millions of dollars but then forcing him to hide his face for most of the movie. But when every hero has a Public ID, then you've lost the contrast element. You would've thought after Mandarin blew up Stark's house, that more heroes would see the advantage in keeping their faces hidden. Tho it's admittedly too late for Stark and the original Avengers, and most of the heroes they've introduced since then don't really have a need for an SID, aside from maybe Ant-Man. So yeah, I'm glad they're keeping Spidey's SID; the character doesn't really work without it. And I don't quite agree with the linked article that they changed his reason for keeping it secret. Sure his main reason to-date was to keep Aunt May from freaking out, but that's because up until now he hasn't really made any significant enemies to worry about. I'm pretty sure we'll see that explored more in future movies. (Plus in the comics, one of Pete's biggest fears was that May would have a heart attack if she knew; but that makes less sense with MCU's younger Aunt May.) Uh, based on the last ComicCon I went to literally last weekend? Lots of folks. Black Widow was probably the 2nd most popular female costume I saw, after Wonder Woman. Hawkeye wasn't as popular among guys, but I saw several MCU Hawkeyes and zero old-school-comics Hawkeyes.

I have a vague memory of playing an RPG with a mechanic kindof along those lines. Initiative was kindof a pool (ala END) reflecting how many actions you could take in a Turn, and SPD was almost like REC. I've been racking my brain to try and remember what game it was, but I'm afraid my brain remains rack-less. As I recall I thought it was an interesting idea, but I only played the game once or twice so I never got a really good feel for it. My $0.02: 1) I do this...sometimes. The catch is with the wrong players it can be stupidly abused. Picture two minis facing each other on the tabletop. Munchkin #1 on his Phase moves his PC around behind the villain - presto, rear attack. Then on the villain's turn they do the same thing, and now every attack is from behind. Sounds stupid, but I know people who have literally played that game, and I think it's the main reason Hero doesn't have facing rules. Assuming you have players who aren't complete dickheads, all you have to say is "Look, it's assumed the other character isn't just standing there frozen in place while you move behind him, right? In reality he would be turning with you, right?" And then if you have a situation where a character gets in a legitimate rear attack (because the defender didn't see him coming, or the attacker did something clever) that's really already covered under Surprise Move. 2) This sound good in theory, but I find in practice it gets problematic; giving players "free" attacks in Hero creates problems because the system isn't built that way. I do have a house rule that essentially lets players Abort to an offensive action if their opponent is ignoring them - they don't get a free action, but they can take their action early, and may get bonuses. It's really only designed to prevent abuses of the turn sequence like "I run right past this guy because it's not his Phase so he can't do anything about it." It rarely comes up, and is more of a deterrent than anything else. (I once heard another GM say they allow PCs to essentially Push their SPD in similar situations; an interesting approach but I hate changing SPDs in mid-Turn.) 3) Abort To Stupid is always allowed in my games! Tho actually the examples you mentioned are both already permitted under RAW. See 6e2 p21: This. Honestly IMX the single easiest way to make combats more dynamic is to be generous with Surprise Move bonuses. It's simple, it's already in RAW, and once your players see someone else get rewarded for creativity you'll be amazed with what they'll come up with just to get a +1! Conversely, I'll very occasionally assess a -1 "predictability penalty" if a character keeps doing the exact same attack several times in a row; you don't want to use that one too often, but doing it even once gets the point across.

Broadchurch, Series 1 & 2. British crime drama series starring David "10th Doctor" Tennant, who once again shows he's really good at playing dark. Small town shocked by the brutal murder of a child; damaged cop who's new in town racing to solve the crime while hiding a dark past; resentful local partner who knows everyone in town and doesn't want to believe any of them could have done it; and lots of local characters who all seem to be hiding something... The formula isn't entirely original, but the writing is great and the acting is absolutely top notch, especially for the 1st series. The 2nd series got a little soap-opera-ey for my tastes, but was still good. Also watched the first episode of Wynonna Earp. There are elements of a decent urban fantasy story in there somewhere, but...yeah no.

I would agree with this generally. I just think it could've been handled better.

But then you know he'll just go out in that pre-Stark "onesie" that he has hidden in the attic. No one wants to see that.