Duke Bushido

Despite all the jokes about the south, it's the only state where it's legal to marry a sibling or a parent. I am far more concerned about the people who don't leave.

Yeah, I'm the odd man out, but I've never made a secret of my favorite: Mark Williams. Yep. Nothing fancy. Looked almost like it was drawn with a ruler in hand. But two things: First: While I was never a comic book kid (never made a secret out of that, either), his art looked so much like the comic books of my childhood. It was _huge_ pull-in for me. At the time, there were a couple of "super hero" choices. It was Williams' art that led me to find a Champions group over anything else: it _looked_ like a comic book looked in my head. (Again, it's not like I was -- or ever became-- very familiar with them. Second aside: Superbabes or whatever it was called had appeal for art reasons as well-- the "comic book rightness"; not the idea that you're thinking). Champions or V&V at that time. Williams' art told me Champions was what I wanted. Second: You have to see this from the point of view from a guy who _all of his life_ wanted to be able to draw. A guy who killed hundreds and hundreds of trees "practicing" because that's what everyone who could draw kept saying was the key. (I'm hear to tell that they are all hands-down a pack of lying bastards. Practice is undoubtably super-important, but it is _not_ "the key." If there is not at least a hint of talent, twenty hours a day of practice will get you nowhere). Anyway-- let's say that you're me: a guy who his whole life wanted to be able to draw-- a guy who had several siblings who could sit down with a pencil and in ten minutes whip up an entire page of a comic book or a photo-realistic drawing of a trout breaking from the creek, leaping for a hand-tied fly. A guy who had all these ideas and images and notions in his head yet found himself completely powerless to share them with even his closest friends. Mark Williams' art looked _attainable_. It looked like something that I could _eventually_, with practice and determination, be able to do myself, and it was, apparently, good enough to go into a commercial product. (Yeah: I know. RPGs of the day would ink a chicken's foot and let it walk across the page and still publish it, but again: you had to be me to really appreciate how much Mr. Williams' art meant to me at that time-- and frankly, still does.) I could never fool myself enough to believe I could achieve what Storn Cook does, or the covers of 4e Fantasy books, or anything else. But the simple-- someone on this board once characterized it as "workman-like," and I can't over-stress how accurate this description is, nor can I ever fully explain how complimentary that is to his work from my point of view: it's something that I could achieve.... Now, what-- pushing 40 years later?-- it's clear to me it's not something I can achieve. Believe it or not (and it's not important if you do, because I don't do it for you anyway)-- I still practice. Yes: I am fifty-nine years old, and I have been practicing drawing _every single day_ with rare exception since I was six. Fifty-three years, and all I have to show for it is a large missing forest somewhere. Why? Because it still looks like everything I ever did when I was six. No; I'm not kidding. Practice is _not_ the key. But I still practice. And when I do, without fail, the thing I'm trying to draw is usually one of those simple unshaded, un-lit characters drawn by Mark Williams. Even knowing that I will _never_ get there, he still inspires me. So regardless of just how amazing the artwork by any other contributing artist, none of them have had the effect on me that Williams did, and still does.

GAD! I have seen that movie, laughed uproariously at that scene, and totally forgotten everything else about it, including the title.....

Happens to all of us at one point or another, Sir.

Isn't intuitional a limited firm of DS? I ask because it has been some time since I read 6e, and I have yet to find the time to read Basic. But it sounds like the side effect of how far the hair was split, in this case.

And brooding. And that one glowing eye.....

Right. The more effective the STR is, the less effective it is. Got it? hey, wait......

That is never not worth doing.

That's it. I'm too damned old for this conversation.....

I'm agreeing with you: The things that I would like to see "fixed" (mentioned further above) have never been touched. After six editions, I'm pretty sure they're not going to be.

That's fine, but is it a _wrong_ build? To clarify where I was coming from: I'm on a touch screen during the day, which means it takes a stupid amount of time for me to type anything. At the time I was composing that post, the conversation was about agents and the Thing, who where high SPD because of training, and the dissenting view was something olong the lines of "how does combat training make them Olympic class sprinters?" It doesn't, obviously. But just watching even an amateur boxing match demonstrates that a normal human can train to up his reaction time well up to what we consider a speed 5 or even a 6, able to dodge, block, strike, and counter-strike at speeds most of us are just never going to achieve. For a more personal real-world perspective, reference my own post about getting my ass kicked by a guy who had only a modicum of combat training. I grew up scrapping, and generally held my own. I couldn't compete with one guy my own age who had only the training he got in the Army: nothing complex, but more than I had. As far as seeing it done, I've got four agent groups for my supers games that use that build: up SPD and cut movement. It gives what I'm looking for: a couple inches per turn more movement than a normal, but heightened reaction speeds. I'm not making that argument, though: I am suggesting that HERO combat _models_ people moving non-stop while attacking and defending, and that the fact that it is modelled in stop-motion, stop-go-stop-go-stop as its broken across phases seems to lead toward an acceptance that this is what the characters are actually doing. They aren't. X inches isn't when you stop then go again, it's the point at which you are able to react or make a decision. I would prefer that myself. I'm a huge propenent of movement-by-segment. Partly because I think it would more clearly demonstrate SPD as something more than "it's how fast you move," and partly because it segues nicely into figuring mobe-throughs based on inches-per-turn. With the current model, someone with SPD8 doing 20" hits only as hard as someone SPD1 doing 20", which right there should be something of a hint that SPD and movement could use a bit of separating.

Cool; thanks. I wasn't fuzion's biggest fan, but it's easy to teach and get running right away.

Having a SPD 6 doesn't mean you run three times as fast as a normal person. It means you react three times as fast; can make three times as many adjustments to your plans. We all remind each other all the time when seeking / offering help with unusual builds that it is entirely possible to sell speed back. SPD 6 with 2" movement means you don't run one cussed bit faster than SPD 2 with 6" movement. However, youre reaction time is way, way better. Why is it that while we all know this, every time the DEX / CV conversation comes up, we conviently forget it?

Eight movies? Someone doesn't know what a small town in the bible belt actually _is_.

Okay, just got back. That is the most I have enjoyed a movie in _years_! Seriously; I haven't had that much fun since the first Lego Movie, and I'm not sure I liked that as much as I did Shazam. No fan boy service, no concerns about "Canon" or establishing some meta-plot through a franchise, or following a storyline from a comic that was popular fifteen years ago or anything outside "this is our movie, and we had a good time making it." Just pure fun from start to finish. Loved it. As for a review: everyone in the movie was much better than I expected, but I personally thought the guy playing Dr. Sivana was probably the best actor of the lot. I mean, I genuinely _hated_ that character, and it had nothing to do with the comics (in which he was kind of a joke). My son was overjoyed at the "peep" of Mr. Mind in the origin sequence, and doubly-excited at the hint of him featuring in a sequel. As others have noted, Darla stole every scene she was in. even the one with Santa. If you haven't seen it, kick yourself. Hard. It's just a fun, fun movie that at no point pretends to be any bigger or any more grandiose than it is. Loved it.

I hate to hit you with this so soon after the pig brains, but in these parts, no. Of course we don't do that; I just had this picture of your expression, and I couldn't let it go.

I'm with ya, Brother!

Missed the matinee, the evening show, and waiting for the late show-- taking the whole family, and hoping to have a good time.

Geez, Scott. That's an upgrade to killing attack right there!

I got no dog in this fight, so I'm not going to go through and quote / reply, etc. I just want to make comments regarding some things posted recently in this thread: I always bought high CON. Always. Not for _any_ mechanical reason, though, as the GM I learned HERO under didn't use CON-Stunning at all: he felt it slowed down an already-sluggish combat system. To this day, I don't use it much, and when it do, it's part of the campaign guidelines (which should give a pretty good idea of how little I use it). At least, I _always_ bought it up in Heroic levels. I _usually_ bought it up for Supers, but not always. Why? I hate to throw this word out, as I have been taught repeatedly what a horrible mistake it is, but I did it for character concept. I felt Constitution-- the general health and robustness of the character-- was a _huge_ part of being the larger-than-life adventurer. Croc Davies, Doc Savage, and the other heroes of my youth-- the didn't catch the cold; they didn't succumb to Montezuma's Revenge. When lesser men were killed with poison darts, the heroes were laid low, but they recovered. Their ability to soldier on while lesser men dropped with exhaustion--- the list goes on, but it all fell back to their legendary robustness and good health. Thus, my adventurers had high CON, and there was no real "meta gaming the system" behind it: it was pure truth to conception that drove it. I also found myself frequently having to buy a pip or two of PD as STR wasn't quite as important in some characters, though I'd just as often sell it back to even things up and to, again, stay true to concept. I can't answer for the person to whom this question was directly put, but I can say with complete honesty that I have had more than one character with an 18 DEX and a SPD 2. I will temper this by saying that, as best I recall, this was always in supers games, because I can't remember a single Heroic character with a DEX above 14, ever. Hunh. I had a couple of other short comments I wanted to make, but I fail to remember them now that I've type those. Accursed takes-too-long touchscreen!!! Grrrrr! Moving along: I don't have a big problem with the elimination of Figureds. Never did, mostly because it's easy enough to completely ignore. (I mentioned before that we tried it a few times over the years, for building aliens or fantasy races, but none of us ever really loved it.) When I heard the rumors that Characteristics were being completely "reworked," I had hoped it would be in a way that made them more granular-- more capable of having _useful_ utility at the lower (i.e., "Heroic" end of the scale, where HERO really shows it's Supers roots and kind of breaks down). Alas, that didn't really happen. One thing I think would have helped a bit would have been getting rid of "killing attack" and instead having a "Killing" Advantage. In this way, dice of damage from various weapons could be better-modeled by changing the number of dice as well as adding or removing a half-die or a pip, but still fall within a sort of "range" of damage. Eliminating the STUN Lotto doesn't seem like a terrible thing, either. (But I will grant that is entirely an opinion, and likely to be an acute minority.) I would like to have seen Skills repriced and re-worked as well, at least an "option skill system" for Heroic-level games that would allow for an actual difference between say INT 10 and INT 11 or 12-- something that makes Heroic Level characters _distinct_ from one other, and something to encourage "settling" for a number that isn't divisible by some meta-mechanical magic number. In either of these cases, costing wouldn't have mattered to me, because it would be a part of genuine improvement to my favorite part of the game: non-supers. I didn't get it. I didn't even get a half-step to it. I did get an entire encyclopedia's worth of expensive rules books that continue to not solve this problem, which goes a long way toward explaining my complete lack of interest in it (beyond Basic or any other "one thin book" type-game that might come from this, of course). carry on! I'm still enjoying the conversation. Duke

I don't make apologies for it, either. I don't make apologies for hating modern society's apparent _need_ to tear down their heroes. I will offer an explanation for my hate, though: I believe in the value of good people. I believe there are people who will stand in the face of insult, attack, and denigration because none of these things change the value of doing the right thing.

Use Doc's idea of NCM, and take on a "requires a bicycle" focus.

I don't use Primus, but I have a couple of "secret government enforcer agent" type agencies. One thing my universe has is lots of low-powered "supers." They aren't really "super" in the classic comic book way, but they have "powers beyond those of ordinary men." It just makes sense to me: in the observable world, it's not a matter of "You're in the NFL or you can't play football at all" or "you're a professional ballerina or you can't dance at all" or anything like that. Talents, skills, intelligence, and native abilities come in shades and levels. Drawing from what I see, it just makes sense to me that there are low-leveled super powered people, and likely enough of them to make it easy to recruit a few to a political cause. These agencies are essentially doing all their psyche screening specifically on folks who have some ability or other, and are, when possible, selected for a certain "desirable" power set: high defenses, high STR, exceptional movement (running or flight preferred). The programs are geared toward training-- endless training-- and various chemical stimuli that can be sneakily administered via bits of gear the uniform contains. Ideally, one or the other or even the combination increases the subjects' power levels. Further augmentation through armor or exo-suits is afforded to certain kinds of operatives. Operatives are trained according to type: "Standards" (movement and high defense) "Shooters" (ranged attack) "Sharps" (ranged attack and movement) "Ferrals" (combat and recon: fighting and enhanced senses: one of the endless Wolverine clones) Training for type is so important that often these "agents" have an additional ability that is flatly ignored: "there are certain things we want, and certain things we don't care about." Key on the selection list is the psyche profile, however, and _none_ of them want mind-readers. Go figure.

It's not like they are going to leap into you, Michael. Besides, since all restraints are chain restraints anymore, you really have to go out of you way to find a place that still has them on the menu. Used to be everywhere, but slowly, surely, the emblandoning of culture takes its toll. Now you almost have to prepare them yourself (you can still find them in butcher shops and local grocery stores: just not the chain ones), but that's pretty easy to avoid, too.