bigdamnhero

From the Feige interview: In the comics, sure. But I really can't see them making a Cap movie without Chris Evans. While Hollywood is occasionally willing to continue franchises without the original actor, it's usually only when the original actor is no longer available/interested and they're usually portraying the same character. I mean that would be like making a Bourne movie without Jason Bourne...oh wait, they tried that and it bombed... And since they're presumably not done with Evans/Rogers in the MCU, introducing a new Cap would I think be seen as too risky and too confusing. At least not in his own movie - I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of "scab" Captain America as a secondary character, but only to set up Rogers reclaiming the title. But if it's a Cap movie, it's going to star Evans until he quits or is too old to keep going. And plus let's be honest, Hollywood isn't terribly interested in/good at portraying patriotism as a positive virtue anyway, outside of simplistic over-the-top Rambo-type flicks. I mean it's not an accident that both of Cap's post-war solo movies have featured him working against the system rather than for it. So if they're going to introduce a replacement for Steve as Cap, they almost have to set him up as a bad guy - or at least as a naive patsy - to serve as a foil for Steve. We'll see an Iron Man movie without RDJ before we see a Cap movie without Evans.

That's just a LOT of shows! I mean even if half of them suck - and so far Marvel's record has been way better than 50-50 - that's still a LOT of shows! It's particularly nice to see Hollywood getting the memo that superhero stories can be something besides action & drama. Superhero comedies have been done before (My Hero comes to mind), but they've usually been low-budget things that didn't take the concept seriously and didn't have an established world behind them. Setting up Damage Control as a sort of comedic Rosecrans-and-Guildenstern of the MCU has potential. Of course with comedy it's all in the execution, so we'll see. Of the non-Netflix shows, I think I'm most excited to see Runaways moving forward - a great concept and great source material that wouldn't have to be tweaked much for TV. Cloak & Dagger? Meh. I was never exactly a fan, but we'll see. (My favorite C&D moment was actually when they appeared in Runaways: "Wait, your secret origin is...drugs? You guys are the worst role models ever!")

Typically 3-4m. I always thought Lances were considered Long, and Extra Long was reserved for things like pikes, which could get up to 6-7m. But FHC classes lance as EL, so oh well.

Yeah, all of us together couldn't afford rent in Hell's Kitchen these days. But in Daredevil they specifically stated Hell's Kitchen had been heavily trashed in The Battle Of New York (I refuse to call it "The Incident" - sorry Netflix), which was enough for my suspension of disbelief. But Harlem? Yeah, they're definitely stuck in a 1980s view of "the hell that is was the Inner City."

I agree it was a meta-comment aimed at audience expectations, rather than in-world expectations. Which is why it felt out of place to hear someone in-world express it. The notion (perceived or actual) that some parts of town get more help than others didn't bother me.* And I'll accept "spandex" as just being shorthand for "colorful costumes." But even there, that still implies there are heroes in colorful costumes helping people in other neighborhoods. If as you say above, it wasn't meant as "a factual statement of actual superhero behavior and dress codes" then why would someone in-world draw that contrast? Just feels like they're trying to have it both ways. * Aside from the fact that Harlem is so heavily gentrified it doesn't exactly count as The Projects anymore; but that's another aubject.

No, you're correct. Normally if you Hold an action until the Segment when you have your next Phase, you can act earlier than your DEX if you wish, but you essentially lose the second Phase; you can't take two Phases in the same Segment. So your suggestion would be different all right. Tho I'm hesitant to open the door on allowing multiple Phases in the same Segment - it seems like that has potential to lead to a whole lot of munchkinism IMO.

Ah, apologies. I'm not sure how I gave you that impression, but of course there are spears and polearms in my world - I agree that would be odd. I was merely saying that a mounted fighter with [weapon] is going to have a reach/height advantage over a foot soldier with [same weapon]. After all, cavalry get to use spears/lances as well. I think I would treat mounted weapons as effectively having one Length longer than normal (except for Extra-Long weapons, which probably shouldn't be allowed while mounted anyway?) As far as using Special Hit Locations - which I think is what you were originally responding to - yeah, a foot soldier with a spear or pike probably shouldn't be limited to a Low/Leg Shot.

I was thinking Viscountess Vertigo to keep the alliteration going with Mirror Master, but that's a bit of a mouthful.

I ran an urban fantasy/monster hunter game several years ago based on a roughly-similar concept. Most of the "magic" was various types of mental powers. But since I'd established that EDM portals were a thing, I had some very-high-end mages that were able to open small portals as energy conduits to throw power around - straight-up fireballs & lightning bolts. Was quite a surprise to the PCs when they first ran into it! I didn't use that very often myself, but you could just as easily make that a central plank of the campaign if that's the game you want to play.

I had a random thought the other day while watching Luke Cage. Neither Luke nor Jessica wear costumes, and both deny being heroes. But both of them have supporting cast members urge them to become costumed crimefighters. Trish even makes a costume for Jessica. Pops (among other people IIRC) talks to Luke about he should be superheroing like it's a perfectly ordinary career choice for people with his skill set. In one of the last LC episodes, a civilian says something like "Superheroes mostly run around in spandex and help people downtown - never thought we'd have a brother in a hoodie here in the neighborhood." All of which strongly implies that "spandexed heroes with powers fighting crime and helping people" is an established thing in the MCU. And yet, with the exception of Daredevil and I guess Spidey* now that he's in the MCU, are there any other costumed heroes fighting street-level crime in the MCU? The Avengers (both original and new lineups) operate more of an international quasi-military strike force than crimefighters. Ditto for SHIELD's supers/Inhumans, who also don't really wear costumes. Anybody else I'm missing? I don't have a problem with them subverting the norm, but they seem to want us to accept it as the norm without establishing it as such. Not a big deal, but am I missing something obvious? * Neither of whom technically wear spandex, but I'll let that slide...

Yeah, that reveal is going to catch no one by surprise...

Also meant to comment on this after musing on it for a couple days. Seems there's several different factors going on here: Folks who know the character know WW's whole shtick was originally to be an ambassador for women, so it makes sense to them. To those with only a casual familiarity with the character, it's just "Oh gawd not another damn superhero..." There's a legitimate complaint in there about not doing enough to recognize actual, real-life women doing good stuff, rather than focusing on fictional characters. Seriously, the UN doesn't have better things to do? And lastly, again for those only passingly familiar with the character, as one friend put it: "It's hard to take the character seriously as a strong female role model when the art screams Whack-Off Material For Dudes." (And yes, as a comics nerd I can go on at length about the historical context, and as a straight dude myself I don't exactly mind a little cheesecake. But let's not pretend it doesn't color other people's perceptions of the character, and of comics in general.)

“My day job is writing thrillers,” Cain said. “Bestsellers. Sold millions of copies. Never had to block people until I started writing comics.” But to be fair, she never worked in video games either.

Sarcasm duly noted.

I wasn't sold on the whole Barry-Iris romance initially, but I feel like I'm getting there. Mirror Master was fun. Top was okay, tho that's Sisko's worst name yet. Hipster Welles was hysterical and I can't wait to see more of him! I'm looking forward to seeing more of Killer Frost too, tho I'm not clear how she got her powers without Alchemy's involvement?

Ah, for a campaign where Martial Arts are the major focus, I can see trying it. Let us know how it works!

Thanks Sean! That's about how I'd planned to handle the "getting it done" side of things, but I hadn't thought it through in as much detail.

That's my question too. I dunno - I'm not saying I'm right here; just that was my impression. Last season the Fort Roz escapees were mostly treated as The Worst Of The Worst, but this season so far has all been Aliens Just Trying To Live Their Lives, so I'm not sure how to reconcile the two. Certainly based on what we've seen Krypton didn't send you to the Phantom Zone for jaywalking, so it seems like Alex should've shown a bit more alarm & concern if everyone in that bar had been an escaped dangerous criminal. And John never made the argument "All these aliens are only here because they're convicted criminals," he just said "Some of them are dangerous." So I feel like something's missing either way.

I like the idea of making it a Weapon Familiarity rather than a separate Skill, or a flat penalty (that you have to buy off with PSLs). Would you make Mounted Archery a separate WF? FH6 p196 says normal bows (not longbows) can be used from horseback without penalty. (I would assume the -2 OCV from 6e2 p31 still applies, but it doesn't specify that?) But that seems a tad easy to me, given historically how specialized horse archery has been. So I'm thinking separate WFs for Mounted Melee and Mounted Missile Combat.

I hadn't even thought about using that as an extension of the Weapon Reach rules - nice idea! Yes, that's mentioned in FH6, tho it first says to just use the Special Hit Locations. Which again, doesn't help you actually hit someone. Honestly I've never understood why Hero doesn't have some sort of High Ground combat modifier for melee - it's such a staple of most every genre. But I agree whether you call being mounted a Weapon Reach advantage, or a Relative Position advantage, it amounts to the same thing. I don't think the mount/vehicle rules changed significantly (or at all?) between 5ed & 6ed. But even in FHC, the section on Mounted Combat starts out with the sentence "A mount essentially functions as a vehicle." (FHC p157)

I hate when I start a thread and then forget to reply to it! True. Tho aside from Impairing/Disabling wounds, the Knockdown rules are basically just "if you would take KB, then you fall down;" so I tend to use the terms interchangeably. I usually tend to use a kind of Standard Effect rule for Knockdown: instead of actually rolling KB for every attack, I just ignore it unless the attack does more than 7 BODY (for Normal Attacks) or 11 BODY (for Killing Attacks), and if it does I have the target make a STR Roll to keep standing at -1 for every BODY above the threshhold. So we could certainly use that for determining if someone gets unhorsed. I don't much like the Unhorse maneuver as written either, as the target has no chance to resist. So Miles Mookley with his 10 STR manages to tag Sir Studalot, and Studalot's 20 STR does nothing to help him? Hmm...maybe we should treat Unhorse more like a Disarm rather than a Trip?

I've always used straight-line distance (ie the Earth's diameter) rather than surface distance (ie half the Earth's circumference). That's assuming it's traditional teleportation; if it's something like a speedster's ability to run so fast that he can be anywhere, built as Teleport but with "Must cross intervening space" or "Cannot pass though solid objects" or whatever, then I could argue a case for circumference.

I like the idea in principle, and I don't think it would be unbalancing. But I question how it would actually work in gameplay, since the player would have to declare "I'm going to use a Quick Strike" before it's actually their action. I have long had a house rule on the books for Hurrying: basically Pushing for initiative rather than STR/damage/effect. But I can count the number of times it's actually come up on 1/5th of one hand. The players don't typically think of it until its their action, by which time it's too late. (I keep a SPD Chart spreadsheet on my laptop filled in with everyone's SPD & DEX so I can call out "You're up next" rather than going through the "okay, who goes on Phase 3? DEX 20, 19, 18, 17..." singalong. Easy enough to change DEX/SPD by cutting & pasting, but again the player would have to declare it before I call on them. Maybe if I had the chart projected somewhere they could see it and have a better sense of exactly who goes when? But that might lead to more metagaming than I prefer...)

Also in FH the line between "magic item" and "non-expendable material component" can get fuzzy, since both are typically built as Foci. If a priest buys his spells with OAF: Cross, does that work with any cross? Or only this specific one? Partly this is covered under Personal-vs-Universal Focus, but really the correct answer is "it depends."

The guidelines for our current campaign state: Magic items are typically acquired in-game, and don’t generally cost character points. However if your character concept involves starting with a specific magic item or focus-based power, that can be purchased with points subject to GM approval.I have in past games even had character offer to pay points for an item they initially got for free in game, under the principle that it was now fundamental to their character concept, and as insurance against the GM taking it away (or at least not permanently).