Dr.Device

I remember very little of this movie, but I loved the bit with Kurt Vonnegut.

It's not enough, but the minimum she'll serve will be five years. For murder (and a host of other dire felonies) in Texas, a convict must serve at least 50% of their sentence (minimum 2 years), before being eligible for parole.

I don't see how anyone can look at the call summary released by the White House and not see enough evidence to impeach. The president of the United States conditioned giving id to an ally, aid that had been voted for a approved, on that ally performing a political favor for the president. Not for the country, but for the president. That's a violation of campaign laws, and even if it weren't, it's a clear abuse of power that calls for impeachment and removal from office.

I don't know what you're talking about

House to open impeachment inquiry

You know what you did.

The existing default does tend to work better (if not perfectly) for stats than powers, I agree. And it's never been that big a deal for me, because I mostly GM, and I just require the players to build the powers in a way that makes sense. I've had very few players who wanted to use adjustment powers (other than for healing or self boosting) anyway. And when I do play, I write up my own characters to make sense (to me, of course). It is definitely one of the easiest to work around flaws in the Hero System. The work arounds are built right in, with the various advantages, The default just grates. That's all. For my next kvetch, I'll go into why I really haven't liked any version of Shape Shift since 4th edition.

The thread on draining longevity has reminded me of an issue I have always had with adjustment powers in Hero. By default, they are based on mechanic rather than special effect, which to me sems to go against the spirit of the Hero System, and is simply illogical to boot. Take "Drain Blast" as an example. What special effect justifies a power that will be equally effective against a Gout of Flame spell (6d6 blast, AOE cone, no range), a baseball cannon (6d6 blast, OAF, 16 charges), and a bio-stun power (4d6 blast, IPE, NND), but has no effect on a Searing Flame spell (2d6 RKA, AOE cone, no range), a spike cannon (2d6 RKA, OAF, 16 charges), or a bio-kill power (1 1/2 d6 RKA NND, does body)[1]? It was a little worse in older editions when armor and forcefield were their own powers. If I bought my forcefield as armor because it was supposed to be persistent anyway, I'd be immune to Forcefiend's forcefield drain because it was bought as Drain Forcefield. But there are still similar problems. If I buy Super Running (40m Flight, Only In Contact With A Surface), I'm immune to Caltrop's Caltrop power, because she bought it as Drain Running[2]. Given that virtually any power in Hero could be purchased with at least two different mechanics, there are virtually unlimited similar examples. A system where special effect comes first would both be more logical, and more consistent with Hero philosophy. [1] This is rhetorical. I know you could come up with a justification, but the level of contrivance would be very high and not suitable as a base. [2] Perhaps better purchased a Change Environment, but that's not the point.

And you are right to do so! That was a really fun movie.

Thanks for the info! My next character will be another originally-villainous archetype, the Robotics Mastermind (I think that's right). I played a lot more Champions Online than I ever did CoH, but I think I like the play style of CoH better. In theory, I really liked the more freeform nature of powers in CO, but I feel like they never got the balance as good as it could have been. It also felt sort of like a half measure. One thing I definitely missed in CO was the CoH teleport. An actual teleport instead of a weird desolid+flight. I'd love to see a super hero MMORPG that was more Hero-like in its philosophy, with special effects more separated from mechanics. I have ideas, but the probably isn't the place to go into them.

I installed this yesterday and played a bit. I wasn't a huge player before (I only got one character to 50), but I enjoyed it. For my first character I recreated my previous level 50 Will Power/Super Strength Tanker as a Super Strength/Will Power brute. I really like that the archetypes aren't restricted between the sides, now. Was that change made before the end, or was it introduced with the return?

I get it. I went from very prescriptivist when I was younger to pretty much totally descriptivist these days. If people are using it, it's a word. And if enough people are using it wrong, well, they're using it right, now. (But occasionally the prescriptivist in me rears up and screams when someone uses "flaunt" for "flout".)

Thanks for the detailed answer. I can see where you're coming from, but there is even less reason to be bound by the rules of a language that we are borrowing a word from then there is to be bound by outdated rules in our own language. I sizable group of Latin individuals adopted that term because they felt using Latino to describe them all was insufficient. No one is pretending it's a panacea, but it is a small step toward moving away from the masculine as a default. And as for the non-binary folks, why find some other work around when we already have this one? This reminds me strongly of the resistance to the singular "they".

You seem emotionally invested in this. What is it exactly about "Latinx" that bothers you? Do you have a better word for talking about a mixed gender group of Latin-American descent? Or talking about non-binary folk of Latin-American descent?

Language evolves. Existing words weren't serving a needed purpose, so a new one was created. It happens all the time.