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bigdamnhero

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Everything posted by bigdamnhero

  1. Admittedly, at this point dumping on Batman v Superman is piling on a dead horse with an elephant gun, or some similarly mixed metaphors. But the guy who does the Really That Good videos (well worth watching!) did a series dissecting everything wrong with BvS. There was SO MUCH wrong that it took three 1-hour episodes to go through it all! But hey, it's way more entertaining - and more well-thought-out - than actually watching the movie. What I like is that while he's clearly a fanboy, he comes at it from a filmmaking standpoint. In other words, as I've said before, the problem isn't (just) that they make a dark & gritty Superman, the problem is they made it badly. From a fan standpoint, I think his best insight comes from examining what Snyder got right and what he got wrong with Watchmen. Basically Snyder understood what worked in Watchmen, but not why it worked. Paraphrasing here: Watchmen was meant as a cautionary tale about why superheroes in the real world would actually be a Very Bad Thing, but Snyder saw it as an instruction manual.
  2. Yeah, the ham-fisted racial allegory was as ham-fisted as most Hollywood attempts at racial allegory, but no worse than most. It seems like most of the people I know who hated it did so because they tried to take the racial allegory more seriously than the writers ever intended. Like that would be a bad thing? But honestly the only thing it had in common with Shadowrun was "fantasy creatures in the real world." Actually I liked that Smith wasn't playing his usual quip-driven persona. Granted, it wasn't exactly a huge departure... Yeah, it wasn't entirely clear to me if the elves (or some elves) have any magic of their own apart from the wands? It it something that's being actively suppressed by the government/elves/corps/whoever? Or just something that's largely been lost? But I'm okay with them leaving that vague, rather than trying to cram in more exposition. You're not wrong, but it's a testament to Netflix's success that their films are no longer graded on the Made For TV scale. My $0.02: It was entertaining. Not great art, but an entertaining way to spend an hour or two. "District 9" meets "Training Day," which isn't a bad concept, as such things go. Yeah, the plot was a tad simplistic. But I actually liked that they didn't have an 11th hour plot twist that Changed Everything You Thought You Knew! That trope has been overused to the point where it's become a parody of itself. And you know what I absolutely loved? That it didn't feel the need to open with a 5 minute voice-over monologue explaining the history of this world and why there are orcs and the Dark Lord's backstory and blah blah blah. Instead the opening credits sequence takes us on a tour of LA where we *see* how this world is different, mostly through really clever use of graffiti, and assumed we were smart enough to fill in the blanks. Goddamn brilliant, that was. I hope the rest of Hollywood was paying attention.
  3. Finally saw it - WAY funner than I expected!
  4. That's why I like using Drain or Dispel; they'll be effective against mooks in VIPER powered suits, but Defender's armor is going to be too high-tec (ie too many AP) for most people to affect.
  5. This is the only gaming forum I'm on; sorry.
  6. Last night's Historical/Fantasy Hero game. The Heroes are trying to find a way through a partially-collapsed building. So they turn to the Priest, whose VPP is primarily modeled after recorded Biblical miracles: Alchemist: "Wasn't there anyone in the Bible who walked through walls or moved a bunch of rocks or anything?" Priest: "Well, I can think of one example. But it'd take three days and we'd have to die first." Alchemist: "...OK, but aside from That Guy...?"
  7. Word. "We didn't know every plot detail going in! How do you expect us to enjoy something like that!"
  8. So it's Tarantino's story idea, but he apparently realizes his um, unique writing style isn't really suited for Trek. So they're bringing in another screenwriter, the guys from Revenant (which I haven't seen but is supposed to be great), but Tarantino's still directing. OK, that sounds somewhat less like a horrific train wreck in progress.
  9. Ralph Bakshi's Wizards. Or at least the first 20 minutes or so. I vaguely remembered trying to watch it 30ish years ago, and didn't get much further then; now I remember why. [shakes head sadly]
  10. From a conversation last night with a non-gamer friend who is super-outdoorsy. Gaming came up somehow... Me: "I know it's geeky as hell, but I do enjoy it." She: "Aren't all hobbies a little geeky tho? I mean what do I really get out of my hiking obsession?" Me: "Besides good exercise, being really healthy, looking great, getting lots of fresh air, connecting with nature..." She: "Well...yeah." Me: "I mean I appreciate what you're trying to do. But not all hobbies are equally geeky; I'm cool with that" She: "OK, fair enough."
  11. Hathaway was the only bright spot of that movie IMO. If only they hadn't muddled it by trying to cram in a second love story with Talia...
  12. A friend ~dragged me to a concert last night, and now I have a new addition to my list of favorite Christmas songs. Also a less-serious song (in a slightly different style) by the same group:
  13. Sidebar: I actually enjoyed Valerian. Don’t get me wrong, it was an objectively terrible film. But I was in just the right mood to completely turn off my brain and watch the pretty pictures. And they sure were pretty: the whole time I kept thinking how much I’d love to play in that campaign. Honestly if they’d cast a couple of competent actors for the lead roles, and tightened up the script a bit (losing the so-dated Pepe le Peu hostile-work-environment subplot) they could’ve had a decent movie on their hands. Coulda shoulda woulda...
  14. This seems like as good a place to ask as any: is the character art from GAC available anywhere? (Other than in the book, obviously?) I'd like to add them to the character sheets I'm putting together for a convention game, ideally in color if such beasts exist? Thanks again for an awesome book!
  15. It's not just the media. 4 airlines control 83% of air travel in the US. 3 rental car companies control 90% of car rentals. 2 brewery companies produce 70% of our beer. Etc. The US government has largely given up even pretending to enforce antitrust laws. John Oliver recently did a bit on it recently:
  16. You just answered your own question. The player doesn't want it to cause problems; he wants it to be more useful than burdensome. So making it a DNPC is counter to the player's concept. And again: does that mean I should make all their horses DNPCs too? Personally I don't think the two have to be mutually exclusive. The Book says you can't have the same character as both a Follower and a DNPC "unless the GM permits it," but I don't think it's a problem if done correctly. The cost of the Follower Perk represents how useful they are, while the savings from the DNPC represents how much of an inconvenience they are. Robin is actually a perfect example. At the start, he's going to be a pretty cheap Follower and his DNPC "cost" is going to be pretty high. As he gets better, the Follower cost goes up, and eventually he buys the DNPC value down, both in reduced frequency and in increased competence. The legal way to reflect that would be to buy Robin as a Follower, but add Complications on his character sheet like "Hunted By Everydamnbody, 14-, Wish To Use As Bait" or just "3d6 Unluck, Gets Captured A Lot." But either way can work, depending on the exact concept. Again, GM permitting.
  17. Yeah, if you're hoping to build a franchise off it, fine. But start by making Good Movies and let the larger story develop around them, rather than starting with The Franchise and then trying to shoehorn everything into those constraints. And to be fair in his early days Claremont was writing strong female superheroes at a time when the Wasp & the Invisible Girl were still mainly there to get knocked out or captured every other issue. I agree his work went downhill, but introducing characters like Storm & Kitty Pride? Can't fault him there.
  18. Yeah, I've heard a lot of speculation about whether DC/WB shot themselves in the foot by leaving Superman out of all the trailers. I don't know how open a secret that was outside of geek circles, so I don't know how many more people might've gone if they'd known Supes was in it, let alone whether or not he was "the real Supes." To me, the trailer just screamed more of the same Suicide-Squad-meets-300. If that's not fair to the movie (and it sounds like maybe it wasn't), they have no one to blame but themselves. Edit: We can't even blame Snyder for the trailer; that's all on the studio.
  19. If I was making players pay points for mundane equipment, horses, etc. But since I have repeatedly said I'm not doing that, no I don't feel it's appropriate to make a lot of fuss over one bird. Don't get me wrong: I understand your argument, I see the logic, and it's a perfectly sound way of running a game. But it doesn't really fit how I tend to run my games, and I certainly don't feel like retooling in the middle of an existing campaign. The nature of this campaign in particular would make implementing a points-for-everything policy difficult. Early on, they had use of a ship, but then they went inland and had to leave it behind. Later on, they captured another ship and sailed it around for awhile...until the crew mutinied and abandoned them. They've gone through multiple horses, either buying them (Money Perk) or convincing a friendly monarch to give them as rewards (accomplishments + Persuasion Skill), but in all cases have had to leave them behind sooner or later. At one point, they were captured by the bad guys, lost all their gear, and had to escape with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs. Keeping track of the point cost of all those would add a great deal of unneeded complexity and IMO distract from the point of the campaign. Again, all YMMV, etc. Yeah, as long as we're just talking about adding a CSL or the like, I'm going to let it pass for free. If he tries to turn it into Super Bird or something - which I know is not the player's intent, but hypothetically - then I'd most likely charge him for anything over ~110% of the bird's baseline cost. I think that allows it to stay focused on the roleplaying of training the bird, while keeping a safety valve to prevent it from getting unbalanced. I forgot to mention there is one special ability that is on the PC's sheet, which is that he can develop a Mind Link with any bird he's had long enough to train up. (He's currently looking at buying that up to Clairsentience, Only Through The Bird's Eyes.) We specified it was a PC ability, not something special about the bird itself, precisely so if the bird ever got killed he could buy & train a new bird and eventually use the Link with it. Which is exactly what happened: he let the bird get too close to a battle, it got shot down, and he went without for several sessions until his new bird was sufficiently trained.
  20. Well, except that's not what the player wants the bird for...
  21. Yeah, that movie had many, many problems, but Routh himself was fine.
  22. "Mad Idolatry" was officially the most Star Trek thing I've seen since TNG went off the air. Well done. I also got a genuine belly-laugh out of the opening with lonely-Ed trying to find someone to drink with. I'm glad I stuck with this show.
  23. The Crown, season 2, on Netflix. Only 2 episodes in so far, but definitely hasn't lost the momentum from the first season. And Matt Smith is really throwing himself into the role.
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