Scott Ruggels

It would have to be general labor, as the smiths, the masons, and carpenters are skilled trades and would have to be paid to leave the business in the larger towns and cities.

Based in San Francisco? Most of the companies in and around San Francisco these days are internet based, biotechnology, or finance, though with a jump in state taxes, the HQs are one by one moving out of state. Most defense contractors are in Southern California these days. The soft on crime/defund the police city prosecutor has been turned out by the voters last June, but the city is still a bit lawless. The failed theory of restorative Justice has yet to be replaced. The big issues were formerly, anger of city residents at tech companies pushing up rents. Now it’s the current lawlessness, and the lack of sanitation. The population of the city is slowly shrinking, as people are moving to areas with lower taxes, and a working criminal Justice system. California proposition 79, reclassified many crimes as misdemeanors, and misdemeanors as nothing. This has resulted in organized groups of shoplifters and flash mob that empty store shelves with no fear of consequences, and the goods showing up to be sold on eBay, or on spread out blankets near Union Square. This has national chains closing most of their stores, and many Mom & Pop businesses. Can’t think of a place more needing someone to break a few limbs in the service of Justice.

A French project to build a Castle from scratch, has been proceeding now for 25 years. They estimate they have about 10 years to go for completion. Their concept was to start in 1229, and proceed year by year. They also estimate that it would have taken less time to have done it in the 1200s.

That soft cover is the one I did illos for. That was the original version. Before that was the xeroxed playtest rules. (Also by Steve Petersen). If the Hard back is the same interior as the soft cover, then it was probably a custom job, as I have never heard of a hardback version. However it was common at the time to take soft covers to binderies and have them rebound as hardbacks. This only cost about $60 bucks at the time. Now it is a lot more expensive.

This is your Grandfather’s Tacticool. Those Nydar sights work decently enough as long as you keep your shadow off the prism.

I remember him in Tron.

Speaking of Cops. My mother recommended "The Wire" (HBOMax), which I had not seen. COntemporary Cop and Criminal Drama, BUT there has been a big change in technology since then. "The Wire" was a court approved set of wire taps in pay phones in and around a set of Baltimore Projects. No one has cel phones and the computers they obtained from the Feds were all Win98 machines, if I remember the OS correctly. I've enjoyed it quite a bit. and we will probably wrap up the first season next Sunday.

Oh he was a notorious penny pincher, but he was also very much an American Patriot, and also talked a lot with Stan Lee, apparently. His choices for Movies for Marvel to make depended on the Character's popularity, and the Toy sales for his toy company, Playmates.

It's not, but it is close. But I see The Fantastic Four, as an Adventuring Family going up against cosmic unknows, more firmly Science Fiction that oh, say, Thor, or Dr. Strange. Yes they have Superpowers, but it's mostly about the places they go, and the gadgets they use (and the interpersonal friction that almost but not quite edges up along side family dysfunction). The Fantastic Four was my Second Comics love, after the DC War comics.

As for the demise of the Western.

There are many problems with Marvel films right no, and it all happened because Bob Eiger and Kevin Feige tossed Ike Permutter out the door, as Perlmutter was the number one Marvel Comics fan. They tossed him, because he would not greenlight a Black Panther Movie. Because of that Marvel became detached from it's comic past. Feige then made everything post Endgame more female centric, and Superhero comics, being primarily a celebration of Masculinity and Heroism, became problematic, so plots were either female sidekicks, or "The Girl Who is the key to everything" plots, and it lost it's momentum. https://screenrant.com/marvel-mcu-female-heroes/ While not as insulting to the original fans as Star Wars recent offerings, there is enough "woke" here and there to make the films less attractive to the original fans. Also, directors for Marvel films aren't hired, but "cast" to fit identity demographics, and they bring in a lot of "fresh talent", because they don't pay the directors enough for old hands to want to work with them, and they bristle at Feige's heavy hand. Now originally James Gunn was supposed to have helmed Phase 4 movies, "The Cosmic phase", but an ill timed pedophile joke had Disney's head of THeatrical production fire him. Guardians 3 will end Phase 4, with Gunn in charge, but after that he is going to Warners, r and possibly taking Jon Favreau with him. Marvel has an industrial process for making the films where once the script is approved THe Special Effects are detailed and assigned to the effects houses, first to previs, )Pre-Visualization), and the stunt teams are gathered, and the stunt coordinators bright in, and then finally a Director is assigned. This is why there is a homogeneity to the Marvel films of late. They gave up on "Comic accurate" long ago. These are some of the reason why Phase 4 has underperformed. I have no hope for the Fantastic Four. The Only acceptable version was Roger Corman's that he did for that German Rights holder, a film that never got wide release, but I have a bootleg of I picked up at Comic-con years ago, when bootlegs were available. The casting will probably be Trendy, and I expect the casting announcement for it this weekend as Comic-con is going on right now. It's not that Superhero movies are getting bad, but that superheroes are a poor fit for the current Hollywood culture, and trying to merge the two make for an ultimately unsatisfying blend.

I think it is interesting, and would work well for some special effects, like Lightning attacks, and some other natural phenomena. It would probably have to be bought, as an advantage, though depending on how it's implemented, I could see it as a limitation as well. But for the sake of argument, its classed as an advantage. A Graph that illustrates another reason for me to NOT adopt 6th Edition.

Oh please, please , oh please drop it on Los Angeles. 😁

Well every player I’ve known haaaates having their characters confined or captured. Champions GM always lament this, but the players don’t change. Mature plays s will acquiesce, but then will bitch. Less mature players will cause problems. So they would prefer to g out like Kamikazes. This brings the biggest difference between literature and games.

Classic Traveller, allowed a character to die in this phase, so you would have to roll up a new one. Mongoose rules did away with the death, but added more injuries and bad things to the character. In recent play, what the character wanted as a career in The Imperial Navy didn’t quite work out, but it still produced an interesting life from before the game.

Sounds like they never played Traveller. Having a ship was like having a leased Mercedes. You calculated very carefully if you would run, fight, or surrender. I remember a Vargr pirate captain who after emptying out the cargo hold of the player’s ship. He complimented the Good manners of the player Captain and told the player crew that if he killed the crew, it would cause a disruption in traffic, and if he killed too many, or wrecked too many ships, the authorities would come for them, and he knew what happened to the Red Vargr. (Almost extinct at this point). The players haaaaated this guy because he would zero their potential profits, and it caused them to move to a different sector, but they still had their ship and lives. They never did figure out that the port fuel handlers were the pirate spies.

He watches a lot of superhero cartoons, and comments on that. His observations on how Beast Boy is underrated are accurate.

Thats the mark of a well oiled team. Good skill mix and knowing how each other work, so yeah, I’ve seen that before. The other GM solution other than heavy artillery or nukes or eldritch horrors, is to split the party by selective kidnapping of members here and there. A very experienced team does get difficult to GM. The only other thing I can think of is to get the GM a copy of the second edition of Aaron Allston’s Strike Force. very deep reference. 😁

Amen!

Sounds like I do. Thanks for the idea.

The Response from the other thread of mine ... When I GMed, I would present it as an open ended problem for the players to solve through sound tactics, or even diplomacy, and because I got my entertainment as a GM watching the players figure out the problem, I was never put off by the Players One shotting a problem with an elegant solution, or a skillful application of violence. The limiting factor for KAs was, and is the points. How many points are you allowing for these KAs? Now I know 6e has inflated point totals into the unreasonable range, since I stick to 4th Edition, but with point totals into the 400s, a lot of shenanigans can be snuck in with the rest of the character. Also it keeps the fights from going on too long. I don't have the time I did in College, where I could spend 6-8 hours on a game, often time all combat. It was fun, but its nowadays unfeasible. This kind of talk leads to yet another edition of Champions to fix a problem that only effects a certa9in style of GMs.

Yes! Exactly!! The main reasons I never went for Narrative Based decisions in Games I played, or games I ran, because back then the thinking was (especially for Horror Movies), was that You didn't have a movie until someone did something stupid. When I GMed, I would present it as an open ended problem for the players to solve through sound tactics, or even diplomacy, and because I got my entertainment as a GM watching the players figure out the problem, I was never put off by the Players One shotting a problem with an elegant solution, or a skillful application of violence.

That would work well. Captain Nemo was a very specific sort of Pirate, preying mostly on shipping, and countries involved in the slave trade. If the game was set in a non-aligned sector, you could pick your targets, and have a place to retreat to, as long as you maintained a "good neighbor" policy. Nemo was a Charismatic leader. Yes the Zhodani have a thing about psychics, but if you are using most of your power on the plasma cutter held to the edge of your blade, then you would have to rely on good ol' Human factors, such as courtesy and respect, to engender that level of loyalty Nemo had with his crew. Also picking the crew, one would have to find ideological compatible crew, to maintain that edge of training and competence, when you may have few targets, or withdraw to a prudent level of distance or hiding when your ship kicks over the proverbial hornet's nest. Sounds like a game to me. Now conversely, this all works, in Traveller, if he's a Scion of the Consulate, moving forward to free appressed psychics within the Empire, leading his band of Black armored Space Marines in a war of liberation. Sounds like a game, there in both cases.

(Emphasis above added by me) This is precisely why, as a GM I preferred the figured statistics. This meant every character carried their own weight and in most cases avoided the glass cannon effect. Remember, I was/am a Wargamer type player, and not a "Storyteller", so it was expected that all characters were considered "dangerworthy", in Heroic, and Superheroic games. IT kept the characters within certain bands, and made GMing them easier in terms of actions, and made it easier for characters to act in a coordinated fashion as the speeds and DEX were close enough that held actions would execute without a lot of waiting. It made it a lot easier as a GM. I tended to take a dim view on character with low defenses, and stats, as a burden to the teams. When the supposed frail telepath has stats on par with Captain America there is something wrong. But a glass cannon becomes a problem for the team, and as a GM (and a former D&D player), the Opposition is going to hit the "casters" first, and hardest. Each conscious member of a team is an asset and a resource the leader can direct at their opposition. This goes in both directions. The goal is to drop as many of the opposite members as one can, while preserving your members as much as possible. This means using one or more of your members, playing "security" for the fragile members. Those that cannot be used putting down members of the opposing team. Sure that protected member can possibly hit above their weight, until they can't, and then they become a liability. It's best to have a character that can reliably defend themselves, against standard threats. Which is why we had DEF and CON minimums when building teams of Supers, and in Fantasy Hero anything les than 4rPD, was not advised. (am I the only GM here that was not upset by Players one shotting a villain?) Going back to the original question, if you get rid of figured characteristics, then one should really be using 6th Edition, rather than 5th.

Okay, more seriously, it would work. Just don’t blosr concentration when you are in a vacuum or a zero G environment. At least you can wear proper clothes and a stylish turban, and not be upstaged by a screenwriter’s self insert who is more competent than you as a blow against the patriarchy.