zslane

"A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved." -- Lazarus Long

I don't think he overstates matters when he describes JL's performance of under $94M for the opening weekend as an unmitigated disaster. Remember, he means that in the context of WB/DC's goals and expectations for the franchise. WB/DC needed it to be a huge money making winner in order to view the DCEU as a viable property worth pouring any more money into (apart from Aquaman and Wonder Woman 2). You're right, WB/DC is not financially doomed because of JL's woeful underperformance at the box office, but the DCEU as we know it today probably is. It also doesn't help that the whole Batman branch of this is in chaos with nobody quite knowing what's going to happen with that, not even Matt Reeves.

Unfortunately for WB/DC, they needed JL to be more than just "pretty good". They needed it to be so loved that it became a knocked-out-of-the-park sensation akin to the first Avengers movie, and that simply did not happen. I think it's safe to say that was never going to happen given the way the movie was produced, and so it was pretty much doomed from the start (in terms of achieving the goals set for it by the studio).

I haven't seen JL yet but from the reactions I've heard, I get the impression that Superman is back to being the Big Blue Boy Scout by the end of it.

I have to believe that the "removed while in combat or resisting" was intended to refer to physical removal by direct contact/struggle with the wearer. Using Teleport UAO is (usually) the instantaneous relocation of matter which pretty much transcends the notion of a physical struggle to wrest control over someone's Focus. So you then have to ask yourself, does that phrase in the RAW intend to also restrict removal of Focii by unconventional means (i.e., by special powers like Teleport UAO)? Personally, I would say no. But each GM will have to decide for themselves.

Don't let the narrator's accent and occasional odd pronunciation of words deter you from watching this:

Oh, I'm sure he did make that demand, but as a viewer I don't feel the results of his demand paid off. If a FF movie were to be done today, I'd rather see the Thing be all CGI, like the Hulk, actor demands be damned.

JL has to bring in at least 800M worldwide to net WB/DC enough to just break even against the $300M + P&A costs. Toy sales might help, along with DVD and On Demand streaming sales, but by all the ways Hollywood measures success, JL is a disaster because it utterly failed to launch the brand (i.e., "DC on film") into the same league as Marvel's MCU, which was its sole goal. The Aquaman movie is already done shooting and Wonder Woman 2 has been greenlit and will definitely be made. Everything beyond that is now on the chopping block as WB/DC reassesses the future of the brand.

Joss was already working on the film before Snyder's family tragedy, but he did not contribute enough to warrant a co-director credit. Consequently, the movie as released is considered "Zack's Justice League," even with Joss's additions and changes. This has fueled speculation that there won't be a Director's Cut because neither Zack nor WB sees a need for one. But only time will tell.

Yeah, I don't get the critics. On the one hand they seem to universally agree that the grim, dark direction of the DCEU isn't really what audiences want, and then they turn around and slam JL because it isn't "grim and dark like audiences have come to appreciate about the DCEU". I think these people just make up whatever opinion they have to in order have something contrary to say on their YouTube channel every week.

That's primarily because even when it would have benefited a production to have an all-CGI character instead of an actor in prosthetics, it was either cost-prohibitive or simply impossible at the time. I think we all agree that MCU Hulk is much more like what we expect the Hulk to look like than the Lou Ferrigno Hulk. By the same token, I would have preferred to see an all-CGI Thing instead of Michael Chiklis in a rubber suit. In the same vein, Thanos should neither be an actor covered in prosthetics, nor an all-CGI model sculpted to look like a well-known actor. There's just no reason to do that apart from SAG contract clauses and/or outdated beliefs about what audiences will "connect with".

Hulk looks like Ruffalo for the same reason almost-Gollum looks like Andy Serkis...the CGI character was morphed into from the human/hobbit portrayed by an actor. Thanos has no such associated "normal person" upon which to logically base his appearance. Caesar doesn't look like Serkis to me. To my mind, seeing Serkis in Caesar is like seeing Jesus in a potato.

The Clairsentience idea is clever. Though to make the mechanics easier, I'd just make the player roll to-hit on his Phase as normal, and if the attack misses, then no END or charges are expended. The cost for this "benefit" is simply the cost of the Clairsentience. No need to actively use the Clairsentience as an action; I'd just fold it into the concept of the attack power. As long as the points are paid, I'd be okay with streamlining the mechanics. However, if the Clairsentience is needed to avoid even using a Half Phase to "try" the attack, then things become trickier, unless we allow the Clairsentience to be treated as a zero-phase action, with the to-hit roll being more like a glimpse into the future, and not actually happening unless the roll hits.

Exactly. The whole reason to make Thanos an all-CGI character is so that he can look like this (not so he can look like an actor we know):

Yes, that is the generalized notion I was getting at with the specific example (of the powered armor). And I agree with you about it happening too often, which is why I qualified my position with:

I guess the folks who liked JL have Joss Whedon to thank for much of that. For the folks who disliked JL, they also have Joss Whedon to thank for that. It's difficult to say how involved either Snyder or Whedon will be in the DCEU going forward, if for no other reason than it is difficult to say whether or not JL was successful, and if it was, which of the two had more to do with that success.

The design-for-effect (abstraction) approach of using the Hero System is native to its intent by its designers. Of course, you can design-by-mechanics (direct simulation) instead, whereby you build a power according to how it is actually doing its thing (Teleport for something being teleported out of its armor) rather than according to the end result (Transform for a thing in armor that is no longer a thing in armor), but the rules of the game often make direct simulation extremely cumbersome, whereas the abstraction of design-for-effect + SFX often gets you there much more easily, both in terms of game play and in terms of power write-up complexity. But some folks are really uncomfortable with that much abstraction, and I can sort of understand why. Too much abstraction obscures what's supposed to be really going on when the power is used, making it difficult to adjudicate in unusual or complex situations. It is the classic struggle between simulational accuracy and fundamental playability. This is one of the big reasons, IMO, that systems like the Hero System are such a challenge to play. "Getting it just right" is not as straightforward as one might think. There's also the struggle between play styles. And this is where my own personal philosophy of RPG play kicks in: Point build systems give players the false impression that they are in control of the campaign through their character. They forget, however, that the GM must approve everything on the character sheet. They forget that when they take an action, they must wait for the GM to tell them what the result is, or if that action is even allowed (there could be extenuating circumstances the players aren't aware of). They also forget that just because they paid extra points (or, rather, chose not to take a Limitation discount) for their powers, it doesn't mean the GM isn't free to exercise his ultimate authority and override the canonical game mechanics in order to achieve a particular dramatic effect. Obviously the GM can't do this too often or the players cease to feel as though they have any agency in the game, but if your powered-armor guy isn't getting stripped of that armor now and then (Focus Limitation or not), you're doing something wrong IMO. Players who can't handle the ebbs and flows of the dramatic needs of an RPG campaign (in any system) should probably do something else with their time (or play in a Care Bear group).

P&A has been >= the production cost for movies for quite a long time. It isn't a "these days" kind of thing at all.

Yaphit is growing on me after this episode too. Of course, his tirade in Mercer's office was pretty unprofessional, but there's not much of that in evidence anywhere, really, so picking on Yaphit for it is perhaps a little unfair. I kind of feel that this move with Lamar is an attempt to essentially reboot the character. Do they expect us to just forget he used to be a complete dumbass (along with Malloy), and accept him as Mr. Big Brains now? I don't really buy the explanation, and I don't really buy the jarring and unearned character re-write. But I guess this is the sort of "adjusting" a show goes through during its first season as it works out all the kinks. On most shows, though, changes like this tend to happen gradually, and with much more subtlety. BTW, I'm surprised Bortus had digestive troubles after consuming a piece of Yaphit. I thought Moclins could eat anything...

The scatter distance has never been a function of the area size. As far as I'm aware, Megascale does not change how scatter works. If there is a rule in the book that says otherwise, I'm not aware of it. But then, I confess I don't know the full extent of the cruft 6E has added to the system.

I think these stories work best when there is a strong emotional foundation as well. However, I think the most recent crossover strayed way past drama and far too deep into melodrama with the whole Martin/Jacks thing. It was positively maudlin, and it reached a point of excess where my eyes hurt from all the rolling they were doing. I'm also getting tired of Alex's grief over leaving Maggie. Yes, in real life that sort of thing would send any ordinary woman into a tailspin of wallow, but this isn't real life it is a superhero tv show, and Alex isn't no ordinary woman, she's a tough, kick-ass DEO agent. And while she's still human, yes, I think the show needs to let her move on gracefully, and not let it be the dominant feature of her character every episode. The same goes for Kara with Mon-El, but of course the show had to intefere with her moving on by bringing him back (and married no less). It's as if without Cat Grant around to call everyone out on their narcissistic navel-gazing, the show has (partially) turned into a daytime soap.

Well, the target (hex) doesn't have to be very far away, in fact, it could be the hex adjacent to the attacker. Just because the area is Megascale doesn't mean the range to the target (the hex) is (or has to be). In any event, I sort of categorize that power build as one of those "How could you break the Hero System with a 1000 points?" things. It either takes a lot of contorted design effort (as in that example) to subvert the game's design axioms, or the GM must put in campaign-specific limits that make it then possible to achieve "always" and "never" effects by simply surpassing those limits in special circumstances (e.g., gods who wield Primal Power). I'd like to think, however, that everyone is nevertheless capable of recognizing, understanding, and respecting the game's design axioms just the same.

I'm kind of bored with all the Caligula clones in the MCU. First it was Maximus, now it is Kasius. I liked the mystery of where(when) they ended up, but the explanation of Earth's, um, condition leaves me somewhat dissatisfied.

The evolution of Thanos' look is the evolution from "vanilla CGI model" to "CGI model of Josh Brolin with a funny chin". I don't particularly agree with this approach since I want Thanos to be depicted as an entirely unique individual, like Gollum, not the CGI equivalent of Brolin in prosthetic make-up. As for Thanos' character development, I have a feeling that a lot of folks are seeing the trailer and thinking that the movie is going to spend more time on the heroes than the movie actually will. I suspect that half the movie will be spent with Thanos, exploring his character and his motivations, and you will only see Our Heroes (in each of their disparate locations) just long enough to see them banter with each other for a minute before getting their asses kicked and the gems they possess taken from them. The other half of the movie will be spent in Wakanda setting up (and then showing) the big set-piece battle for the Soul stone. I predict that by the end of the movie, Thanos will have all the gems placed into the gauntlet, and the cliffhanger will be the elimination of half the universe's life forms (or something equivalent), with audiences leaving the theaters wondering, "Holy crap, now what?" There seems to be a lot of online speculation as to whether or not Thanos will fill out the gauntlet by the end of this movie, but when I put my writer's cap on it becomes obvious to me that he will. What can we deduce just from the trailer? Well, by the time Thanos appears in New York he already has the Power stone and the Space stone. The Space stone he obviously gets in the beginning of the movie when he attacks the Asgardian vessel and Loki gives him the Teseract, probably in exchange for sparing the lives of the remaining Asgardians (putting him in conflict with Thor's never-surrender ideology). The Power stone he gets from attacking the Nova Corps on Xandar, obviously, but it remains to be seen how much of the Corps remains intact after that. In NY we see Thanos' Black Order goons taking the Mind gem from Vision while Thanos himself goes after Dr. Strange's Time gem personally. That only leaves the Reality gem and the Soul gem. The trailer shows us bits and pieces of the battle in Wakanda for the Soul gem, which leaves open the question of how he gets the Reality gem from The Collector, though to be honest, I doubt that would be much of a challenge for Thanos, and I suspect the movie won't spend more than five minutes on that.

AFAICT, In 6E, the treatment of a natural 3/18 isn't optional. 6E2 pp 35-36 just states the rule outright. Am I missing something? When you roll an 18, you automatically miss your intended target hex, but then you roll to determine which hex you hit instead. With an area the size of the universe, who cares which hex you hit as long as your target is inside the area (the universe).