Scott Ruggels

My Hero! And they would be legal in California! For 6 months!

Wait... there is a problem with The Hollywood Reporter? Variety has a paywall though.

They got rid of the star system just over a year ago, ad replaces it with a thumbs up/ thumbs down system.

They used to have a star ratings, but after the Amy Schumer debacle, they changed it to a thumbs up/ thumbs down rating, and the “you might like...” selections got noticeably less accurate. The do have a list system, where you can stack up shows you intend to watch. Just make sure you watch within three months, or they could be cycled out.

If Netflixs knows what I am watching at any particular moment, and tracks my current watched series over multiple devices, then they know down to the last digit, what viewership is, and what the viewer habits are. the Netflix app reports back to Netflix.

I based a mage in One of Doug Garrett's Fantasy Hero campaigns, on Dr. Zin from Johnny Quest (complete with the voice, as I am a passable mimic).

Our rule was you can push if you made an EGO roll. That was dangerous, because our play style was almost never Boss Battles, so there was almost always an opponent around to take cheap shots. Recoveries were done behind cover and fell into the team tactics. We were almost always about good, fluid team works. And were pleased when we could use rehearsed set ups and maneuver upon our opponents. Myself I tended to buy things to 0 end, because I am bad at math and hate accounting.

This! So much this!

Well I guess if we simplify it. Superheroes are "square", and Fantasy is "Metal".

John Constantine was introduced in Swamp Thing, and originally was a face swipe of "Sting" from The Police. Can I just say I dislike the show, mostly because of basic historical errors, and they make bad attempts at getting the time periods correct?

THe literary sources are radically different. Comics are far more accessible to the public than prose "literature". Because of this accessibility, and more mass appeal, this is why comics were regulated so heavily during the war, when "The Office of War Information"< the american propaganda organization, just about dictated subjects to the comic publishers at the time. The enforcement of the Status quo came early and officially, and Dr. Wertham's efforts just shoved comics back into it's wartime box, for a while. "Literature", has been a class distinction as well, and comics have been decidedly working class. "He's not interested in books, unless they have pictures in them." has been a classic insult to those with limited education or social standing. Tolkein may have been a large influence on RPG's, but not the only one, and not the first. If one reads through Appendix N, Gygax's own list of sources and inspiration, you find early fantasy by Lord Dunsany, and other authors, but probably the most influential, was Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, documenting the career, of Fantasy's number one "Murder Hobo". Conan I believe was far more influential for those that were not part of "The counterculture", and as such had a broader influence on the original RPG authors, than Tolkein. Fritz Leiber's, "Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser" stories are more prototypically D&D, than Tolkein, but the game mechanics of D&D's spell casters was lifted from Jack Vance's works.

We love what we love, but games are an escape. The majority of folks want that epic adventure, to win the prize, to defeat their enemies; overcome challenges, and find the treasure. Superheroes, unfortunately, have to return the treasure to the rightful owners. Lots of people likes superheroes, but there is a certain selflessness needed to be one, and escapism is an inherently selfish activity. Players want to keep the treasure, even if it’s just a score keeping tool. In short, you will probably get more players with fantasy; than superheroes, because their are fewer rules and tropes to get i the way of their score keeping.

Reprint the core rules and such?

Thats what I figured. Always give authors too much information and you get acknowledgements and free books. The info provided was from a 1950’s perspective. Today scarcity and inflation has flipped the dynamic. What used to be a $100 war souvenir, in the 1950’s, is now a $3. -$5000 collectible today. Yes, your American player character, can have an MP-40, in an irradiated, post nuclear adventure in the US.

The Hex you are standing in has a 0 DCV, the one next to it has a 1 DCV, subsequent hexes have a 3 DCV, then add in Range mods, and the DCV gets higher and higher the further away it is. Which makes sense.

Generally, your history is correct but for a few items you may have overlooked. Comic books started in the 30’s as collections of reprints of newspaper comic strips. Superman was unique in that he wasn’t a comedy, or A pulpy adventure strip. There is a famous photograph of a G.I. sitting on a Sherman tank reading a copy of Captain America. Comics were popular with the GIs as they were light and portable and disposable. Frankly any sort of reading material was Coveted by GIs, and shared amongst the unit. After the wartime paper restrictions were removed, the number of genres exploded in comics and superheroes were just one. True Crime, Westerns and horror eclipsed Superheroes after the war, and even Romance comics sold in the tens of millions. It was against the horror and true crime, that Dr Wertham’s crusade focused on. It was only after the CCA was enacted that the silver age began. My father had a huge comic collection spanning from August of 1944, until his little sister went to high school in 1955. Grandma kept them in stacks in Dads old room, and we would read through them every summer. They were mostly Walt Disney Comics & Stories, but there were a few war comics, and westerns. Grandma, being a sensible,church going sort, normally could never abide throwing out reading material, did end up pruning all Superheroes and crime comics from the stacks though, mostly Superman comics. My brother packed up and sold the comics for a good profit. In short, before the CCA, comics were more a medium, than a genre. The only thing fromDC in the early 70’s worth reading were their war comics, like G.I Combat, Weird War, and Sgt. Rock. Us cynical lads thought that the 1966 Batman ruined DC. Wayne Boring’s Superman stories didn’t help. Spiderman and the Fantastic Four were good in the late 70’s and the comics explosion in the 80’s returned comics to a medium again. After the CCA, EC Comics, became a magazine publisher and made their top selling title Mad, into the legend we see today. Other genres followed with the True Crime, becoming “Men’s Magazines”, and Westerns following suit for a time. The Savage Sword of Conan was also a magazine featuring art that, while not obscene, was too much for the comics code.

That’s a strong stop.

Some may be forgetting that video games have come a long way since the 1980’s. Genre taste have shifted. Post apocalyptic games have moved off the table, and into the console, or PC. WW2 is very popular, from Warthunder to IL-2 Battle of Ali an, to Postscriptum. Modern combined arms and close teamwork exist in the Arma series. I won’t say a lot about Star Citizen, but it is a Science Fiction environment. Fantasy endures on the table top, because, unlike other genres(exceptSF), fantasy allows for more creativity, and interpretation.

They are adding Picard to the new live action season of Trek on All Access, so it can't be all bad.

Part of of the reason, I never have puzzles in my games as a GM. It’s not about me trying to be clever. Everything is straightforward, but needs to be discovered through investigation, whether it’s talking to folks, or rolling your Batman skills, It’s bad scenario design to have one solution As a player, I dislike puzzles, give me something to hit. The problem is this filters out introverted players, for one, and kind of blunts the escapism for some. I filter for maturity, and if they bring something to the table. Now, I admit there are deadweight players, but most of the time they self eject (unless they are another’s significant other, and then you are pretty much stuck with them). If the players are engaged with the scenario, and help the plot along, as long as everyone is having fun, I have no problem with roll play. I am an introvert, but I can fake extroverversion really well. It’s exhausting, though. After running a game, I want to sleep for a week. I sympathize with the wallflowers at the gaming table. Sometimes, location or circumstance limits you selection of players, so you play the hand you’re dealt. I got invited to the Fantasy Hero playtest, because a few of the Hero games folks saw me at cons, doing the “Draw your character” schtick. The wanted character art for the campaign, and knew I knew the rules and combat fairly well. I learned at their feet how to be a better player.

Your gonna make me cry.

Having lost any optimism regarding running Hero easily on Roll20, how would a non-technical like me with no script, macro, or bug fixing experience (and who types like a brain damaged chimp) approach running a Herosystem game on Maptool? I have Hero Designer. From my two years of playing on Roll20, features Inwould like to see would be to be able to track stun and body separately for otherwise identical mooks. A duplicate look button would be nice, I.e. load in one one, and then generate others with a button. I like the tracking of conditions on individual counters (DCV, STUN, BOD). It would be nice to auto generate a speed chart. It would be nice for it to grab specific Hero designer formats to create character sheets (even dynamic ones). Separate “public” and private player character sheets. Some way to calculate range in meters and/Or hexes for flying characters, ( or sniping from a d-story building) so range limitations can be taken into account more accurately. A held phase indicator on counters. Hex snap for characters, so that facing is enforced. aAOE templates seconded. Again, this is from my experience with Roll20, though non from the back end as a GM, and a I am unfamiliar neither Maptool or any other VTT.

Pretty widely available, though the main source would be surplus British, and allied ammo. Commercially manufactured Ammo by Remington would be widely available as well, just not as powerful. The availability for sale of MP-40’s would be slightly restricted due to them being an NFA, item, and the $200 tax stamp would be a bit of a bite, however, acquiring one from a ex-GI under the table would be cheaper. Just don’t get caught. Remember, most gun restrictions were as a result of the political violence and assasinations of the 1960’s.

This is a good question. I am old enough to have experienced the presence of real hippies, and disliked them. My tastes in RPG tended towards SF, and modern combat, but I came at this hobby from war gaming. I think the attraction to fantasy is mostly the escapism, and to be someone else, if not heroic, but capable. Part of it is playing by their own rules, rather than society’s. Fantasy also has the advantage of attracting more women to the game table than superheroes. Overthrowing and abusive local tyrant, is something you do in fantasy, there is that hint of revolutionary romanticism nfor some, that in a Superhero environment would spark a diplomatic incident, or worse, look like domestic terrorism. So yes Superheroes wield great power, but do stand to uphold the status quo, and bourgeois values. Superheroes also are mostly analogies to modern society, whereas Fantasy is more mythic, and open to different interpretations. Superheroes are Civic minded. Fantasy is tribal.

Someone please post a photo and make the puns stah-Hahp! >sob<