bigdamnhero

Mostly just Barry. But it's the CW, so it's more complicated than that. I assume you're not worried about Spoilers since you asked, but in case anyone else is:

Speaking of Alex, here's some interesting speculation: http://moviepilot.com/p/supergirl-is-alex-set-to-become-batwoman/4142877#_ga=1.46196583.1563710661.1480619270 Totally just speculation of course, but I can kinda see it.

I have to say how impressed I am with how they've handled the Alex Coming Out storyline. Most TV shows treat "turning gay" as a single Very Special Episode moment, cue a little family angst, and then everyone hugs it out and moves on. But with Alex it's been a process, and one that feels much more authentic and closer to what I've watched my LGBTQ friends & family go through. I liked that Kara was supportive but awkward about it* while Mom/Eliza had already figured it out, processed it, and is totally cool with it. And with so many gay characters on TV being defined by their promiscuity, and lesbians in particular often coming across more as fanboy fetish material than anything genuinely representative,** this felt like an actual character having actual character growth. And they've even managed (so far) not to fall into the Maudlin Soap Opera excess that is CW's relationship go-to place. Solid. * Loving-but-awkward is kindof Kara's baseline anyway. ** I mean I love Caity Lotz, but come on...

I enjoyed the episode, but that was the sloooowest response to an alien invasion EVER. I mean, the big fight was awesome and I understand the budget can only support one of those per episode. I just would've preferred more investigation/exploration and a little less "let's take this time of crisis to explore our feelings and visit the daughter I didn't know I had." But hey, it is the CW. One small thing I wanted but didn't get: Felicity: "They've captured the President!" Kara: "They've got President Marsdin? Oh no, I really like her..." Felicity: "Um no, President Smith.* Who's President Marsdin? Wait "her?" You have a female President on your Earth? That's so nice..." Ollie: "Can we please focus here?" * Or whatever his name was

I assume this is an NPC villain power, rather than something the PCs will be using? The only RAW precedent I can think of is certain types of Healing that don't work on certain types of damage based on sfx, such as a werewolf's Healing that doesn't work against damage from silver weapons, or demons that can't heal damage from holy weapons. Doing it from the other direction is trickier. If it were me, I agree with those suggesting just using a custom Advantage or Adder. How much should that be worth? Well, one way to look at it would be to compare it to Delayed Return Rate. If magical Healing is common enough in your game that it's normally available in a Turn or two, that's comparable to the standard return rate for Adjustment Powers. Whereas natural Healing (assuming normal-heroic REC scores) is closer to 5 points per Month, which is a +2 1/2 Advantage. I'm not sure I'd go quite that high, but it really makes the suggested +1 seem much more reasonable, no? I like this idea. (And it's probably much less likely to get you lynched by your players - gamers expect their magical healz dammit!) In that case, the Adv only applies to 1/3 or 1/4 of the damage on average, which would be a -1 1/2 Limited Power Limitation but instead of a separate Limitation you use that to reduce the value of the Advantage. Which knocks that +2 1/2 down to +1?

I always thought of it as C3PO telling the story to baby Ewoks. The basic historical facts are there, but 3PO's memory has been wiped so many times he's a little fuzzy on how they all fit together and he's framing it as a kid's story. But I like the Imperial Propaganda idea better. That's one of the problems I'm having with the Edge of Empire game we're playing; the GM has elected to include all of the prequels in canon as written. Which means the Jedi were a big bunch of dicks, and incredibly stupid to boot. Which kindof undermines the theme of the original trilogy IMO.

Dude, name three TV shows where the incurable disease isn't cured by the end of the episode. Apart from cancer, "incurable" is just TV speak for "it'll take us awhile." I mean I get your point, but that's one of the most common medical TV tropes there is.

Exactly. Given her obvious horror at learning her father's role in creating genocidal bioweapons, there was no way she was going down that path.

The sad thing is I must've read that three times to make sure I was saying it right...

I enjoyed "New Trek" for what they were, ie - Star Trek as Big Dumb Action Movies. Tho I certainly wouldn't describe them as TOS-like, and I can understand why die-hard fans might be disappointed by the intellectual emptiness. I'd add a rating category between "enjoyed it" and "want to own it" which is "would watch it more than once, but not enough to own it." The first two New Trek movies fell into that category for me; the most recent "Too Trek Too Furious" fell into "enjoyed it, mostly." I finally rented Batman v Superman. There's a whole `nother thread for bitching about that it, so no need to do so here. Suffice to say I went in with very low expectations and was still amazed at how awful it was - not just a bad Superman film or a bad superhero film, but an objectively awful film period.

I guess I forgot a sarcasm tag. Yes, I understand the definition of dawn and how the filmmakers want us to interpret it.

The other stray thought I had was that even detonating a nuke over Metropolis couldn't actually cut through the gloom. I mean you'd think they could've at least gotten 2 minutes of bright light out of it? I'd almost admire Snyder's commitment to his own vision, if said vision didn't suck so bad. Edit: does using the word "Dawn" in a movie almost completely free of sunlight count as ironic? Or as lack of self-awareness?

That was my assumption as well. Might've been nice if they specifically called that out, but they were already trying to cram too much into one episode. Again. Minor eye roll, but nothing more than that for me. I was more disappointed that they jumped from "We have no cure!" to "Yay! Cure!" too easily. And yeah, "curing" Jonz' White Martian problem as a throwaway was a wasted opportunity too. And yeah, I was disappointed that the Big Crossover was confined to the tag scene. Especially when they had Cyborg Hank say "Who's going to come save you?" and a portal opens up behind him...and the Flash doesn't come through to kick his ass? Seriously? Why even set that up if you're going to ignore it until after the A, B & C plots are all wrapped up?

Finally got around to renting BvS. (Wife's out of town on travel, no game tonight, expectations are low, I have beer, I figure WTF.) If someone had told teenage-me that one day I would get to watch a major motion picture with Superman fighting beside Batman & Wonder Woman, and that when Superman sacrifices himself to stop Doomsday the only emotion I would feel...is relief that the damn movie is almost over...I probably would've killed myself. No need re-hash the last 40+ pages of everything wrong with this atrocity. But one thing did jump out at me. When Marvel wants to set up the coming conflict with their Big Bad, we get multiple movies over several years teasing Thanos and the Infinity Stones, they establish his Bad Ass creds by showing how even major villains like Loki & Ronin are scared of him, everything short of a flashing neon sign that says "Warning: Cosmic Encounter Ahead." How does DC foreshadow the coming throwdown with Darkseid? WW: "Why do you say they'll have to fight?" Bats: "Just a feeling."

Good question. Typically, the actual film score isn't completed by the time the trailer is released - hence the whole point Two Steps From Hell's existence - so this could very well be "Generic Action Trailer Music #375." (It's not bad, tho.) I guess we'll know in June.

Ah, the full text for HA in 6e1 p231 (and 5ER p125) makes it more explicit: So assuming this is a superheroic game, then the RAW answer is no and you probably need to go the MP route described above. Doesn't make much sense to me tho. Any potential for abuse that might exist in allowing Ranged HA exists just as much with Ranged HKA,* so allowing one but not the other doesn't compute IMO. Letting someone buy a dagger or spear with Range Based On STR, but forcing them to build a Multipower to do the exact same thing with a thowable hammer defies common sense and adds needless complexity. So personally, I'd treat it as a Caution Sign and look closely just to make sure someone isn't being munchkiney. But for something like this, I would allow it. * As far as I'm concerned, HKA is just an HA with a +0 Advantage "Killing Damage." But I realize that's not Hero doctrine.

CC p165 addresses this: 6e2 p201 says the same thing about Range Based On STR, tho it doesn't mention Charges & Beam (which seem like overkill to me personally). The standard RAW build for things like spears & javelins includes Range Based On STR, so I don't see why you couldn't add it to a hammer. Edit: ...unless there's some reason why HA should be treated differently from HKA in this respect? Nothing comes to mind.

Depends on how high we're talking about. Big difference between 1.5G vs 5G. Hmm...what about: Determine Knockback normally Divide the distance by the local gravity, so in 2G you go twice as far back, in 0.5 G you go half as far, etc. If you hit a wall or vertical object, determine damage normally based on the original KB value (ie - not the modified distance). If you hit the floor - or if KB angle is downward - multiply the KB damage by the local gravity (again, based on the original unmodified KB value), so in 2G you take twice as much, in 1/2 G you take 1/2 damage, etc. Remember that if you're Knockedback horizontally and just hit the floor rather than a wall or something, KB damage is halved in addition to adjusting for gravity. I have no idea how close this is to real-world physics, but this ain't the Star Hero section so it should be close enough for superhero purposes.

Saw Arrival last night. A few minor science nitpicks - Hollywood's inability to understand how radiation works is a personal pet peeve - but overall an interesting idea and a very enjoyable movie. I love a good SF action movie as much as the next nerd, but it's nice to see that thoughtful sci-fi pictures are back in fashion these days. (see also Interstellar, Martian, Gravity.)

Hell, one smile from Melissa and I'd work for peanuts...

Oh I completely agree, and have stated that in multiple posts. Hence the words "as a mental exercise" above.

Given CW's preference for hiring near-unknowns, I have no idea how much of their budget goes to actor salaries but I'm guessing it's a much lower percentage than effects-lite shows. From the network's perspective, two shows that pull X million viewers are both going to get handled comparable budgets, whether they have to spend a bunch of it on vfx or not. So if your show does have those vfx costs, what are you willing to cut to make the books balance? Frankly I think the only reason CW shows get as much money as they do is because their demographic shews younger and thus more marketable than average. Which again, drives who the shows are aimed at, hence all the teen soap opera. That was Flockhart's stated reason, since the move to CW was first a rumor. I agree with the rest of your post, but the bolded portion is a bit of a misconception. If you read film & TV scripts, they're typically less than half dialogue compared to action/description. (Except for maybe sitcoms and such that are essentially stand-up comedy.) They don't normally block out details like who's standing where - you're right that's on the Director - but especially for staff writers on established shows they go into more description than you might think. But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if whoever wrote that scene wasn't thrilled with the way it was staged either. For that matter there's always behind-the-scenes stuff like the Hank Henshaw actor wasn't available that day or got left off the sheet or something and they didn't have time to go back and re-film it.

Well, the pilot never actually aired. There have been a lot of pictures & a few vid clips showing up online since 2011. But I hadn't seen the entire episode anywhere before. And yeah, Palicki really did pull off the look IMO.

Sure. So throw on a Conditional Limitation "requires a cell signal." Other than that, the fact that the data isn't actually on the phone itself seems largely irrelevant for game purposes?

I was musing about the 2011 pilot after watching it last night. Quality aside, some thoughts on Kelley's take on the character: (spoilerized in case anyone cares, because tags are free)