Scott Ruggels

What I saw, to the limited extent I paid any attention...
--horrible art.  First and foremost.  SO bad that it completely disrupted any attempt to tell a story, at least for me.
--Continuity disruptions.  I think the big one for me was the death of Superman...only to bring him back in so many bizarre ways.
--The storylines I saw got to be beyond ridiculous, MUCH of the time.  

So, people are really going back to clunky OD&D OSRs as their “go tos”?  The whole reason Champions was so attractive was that it wasn’t D&D, with its classes and random character generation and funny dice. 

Well, that's why this guy some people hate so much is in charge.  His job is to change those toxic business policies, stupid marketing approaches, and self-destructive philosophies.  Nobody should bail out DC with government funds (like has happened in the past with banks and car companies), but putting someone ruthless and efficient in charge to save the company means more jobs for the future and maybe saving some businesses that were too stupid to run themselves well in the past.

He takes a lot of time to say what he has to say, but his content is very interesting.
 
My understanding of this video basically boils down to: Kids are buying comics made for kids in numbers far, far larger than adults are buying comics at all.  Too bad Marvel and DC decided they don't care about kids.  A scholastic reader Miles Morales comic has 10x the sales of any of the Marvel Spiderman titles, which shows that they may well buy superhero comics but they aren't being given many reasons too.
 
The YouTuber pitches the theory that both Marvel and DC decided to "age up" with their readers starting in the 90s and abandoned the traditional kid market.  That worked for a while but now we are at a point where 30 years of kids have grown up on Manga (which has tons of adult stuff but *also* has tons of stuff for 8 year olds).  Scholastic has pulled way ahead of both DC and Marvel.  The "big two" traditional publishers don't appear in the top 5 comic book sellers in the big bookstores (which according to this video is where all the growth in comic sales is)
 
So it sounds like third party takes (Like from Scholastic) on traditional comics are the only places these characters are still showing up for actual children.  Kids in 2022 appear to be reading a lot more manga & not a lot of Spiderman.  I know my life-long comic book addiction started when I was 7 years old & if its true that kids haven't been getting into stuff like that for 20 years.. no wonder comic sales are down.  I've seen enough Manga that was pretty cool that I can easily understand how if you got into that when you were in 1st or 2nd grade you might not feel a deep need to keep up on Spiderman anymore.  My Hero Academia, Naruto, and Dragonball seem way more popular than Batman among middleschool kids I run into.

I think it was a PC trying something silly & his GM went along with it part of the way.  If we are assuming Iron Man 3 was a Champions Session, "House Party Protocol" was Stark's player being cute and trying to make an army out of his backup suits/extra foci and some inventor rolls.  His GM let him get away with it once but declared that they all came apart if they took any damage or failed a dex roll.  He was then informed he wasn't allowed to do that anymore.
 
In later movies, he actually bought the Iron Legion as followers but they were usurped by Ultron.  He then appeared to give up on armies of troopers and went nanotech, AKA he re-spent his points and rolled the followers (along with a bunch of XP) into buying off his Foci limits entirely.  It looked like he had OIHID during Infinity Wars (He had to activate his chest unit, which Endgame showed us was removable) but by Endgame he didn't seem to have any limits at all anymore on using his Nanites.

I think realistic armor would mostly be an all-or-nothing affair. Either you bypass/penetrate and do damage, or you bounce harmlessly off. Bludgeons might transmit some impact through the armor; truly armor piercing weapons would just have a greater penetration chance.
 
How to model it effectively, I don't know. Maybe D&D was on the right track with AC.

Sure, a Bodkin is going to go right through chain mail.  But against a plate breastplate or helm?  Unless its really crappy, that arrow bounces off without barely a dent.  Dozens of people have tested this over and over, you can find youtube videos all over about it.  Here's an example.  There are many others.
 
There has been a huge explosion of knowledge and study in medieval warfare in the last 20 years or so that has really changed a lot of what people understood or believed in the past.

After extensive study, including watching testing on shows like Forged in Fire, I have come to the conclusion that it is very likely that the armor (and weapon) stats used in pretty much every fantasy game published is just not right.
 
For example, I've long used armor piercing on bodkin arrow heads to represent all that force on a small point.  But watching real life archery and testing archery against various armors, either the bows aren't doing nearly the damage listed in games, or they aren't actually armor piercing.
 
Also, armor seems to have been much more protective in real medieval combat than in fantasy movies and games.  A fully plate wearing warrior was like a tank in combat; you had to disable it (get him on the ground) then stab at gaps to even harm someone in a suit.  Arrows just bounce off unless they hit a joint, and while the wearer feels some impact, its not especially significant.
 
It has to be remembered that most medieval combat was against very lightly (or no) armored foes, so weapons like axes and so on were a lot more effective.  Swords are deadly against someone like that, but if the target has decent armor, aren't going to do much.  Over time different, more ghastly weapons were developed to try to defeat armor (pole arms, weapons like the Estoc, etc) and swords were not the go-to weapon against armor.
 
This turns pretty much every trope and fantasy game theme on its head, and maybe that's not a good way to go but I'm currently working on weapons and armor builds for my Jolrhos Player Guide and the thoughts came up as I was working on it.  Should Plate be hardened armor?  Should it have higher defenses?  Should arrows do less damage?

And then decide that's the way to go with the next Superman movie.  "Hey, he's an alien, right?  Why not two heads?"

I download .stl files from Thingiverse or Hero Forge and print them on my Monoprice Select v2.  It's slow and the detail's only okay, but it's way cheaper than buying metal.

Yeah, but such ugly, mis-proportioned miniatures. I hate that particular, exaggerated, style. For me it’s less about the rules, and more about the ugly art, and depressing background.  
 
I am learning and practicing digital sculpting so at some point in the near future, I can produce my own miniatures. 

Nothing can be done until they get a new generation of writers and editors who understand the medium and the market though. Anyone who blames consumers for not buying their product should be "promoted" to a new industry with a rubberstamped exit interview.

Is this practical?  Yes, it might've worked with the later-stage MCU, but that level of success is HARD to achieve.  That level of movie also comes along only a couple times a year.  
 
And, if the books have to be subsidized, they're eating up the HARD to obtain movie profits.  Movies are an extremely expensive gamble to begin with...so suggesting they'd have to subsidize a possible secondary revenue stream seems like the accounting side is just going to *cringe.*  And so will the stock market, if the profits aren't up to snuff.  
 
Secondary concern:  this feels like a long-term strategy...years, even decades to pay off.  THAT doesn't work;  these days you've 1 or 2 quarters.  I'd also say that DC *can't* try this...their debt load is simply too high.  They need to funnel a major portion of their revenue streams into debt service;  subsidizing is just not practical.
 
 

One D&D to rule them all, One D&D to find them,
One D&D to bring them all and in the Dorkness bind them,
In the Land of WOTC where the Hasbros lie.

Since I'm in a 5e campaign, I've been following some online discussions about it and now "One" D&D (which is actually "Six" D&D but why be consistent?).  I note with ironic amusement that a segment of the player base has figured out that there is no way to balance effects, and that if they had something like that then it would solve a lot of balance and complexity problems.  In other words, they're looking for a points based system, though they are only gradually beginning to realize it.
 
Ditching races is one step.  Perhaps classes will go next, because players are complaining that on one hand you have to squint real close to see the difference between an Arcane Trickster, Bladesinger, or Hexblade Warlock, but on the other hand they often have to resort to multiclassing in order to stat out a particular character concept.  Couple that with a system to build spells, and you have the beginnings of a game that might not suck.

For a divine source, I think having a limitation expressed something like “must be in good standing with deity” would be a good limitation to replace the unspecified ones. This shows that they are getting their powers from a divine source.
 
For a RSR, I like what the Narosia campaign setting used, having a deity as a Contact instead of a skill roll, and that Contact roll functioned as the RSR. There were also Perks that added to the roll for being a favored servant. It gave it a nice flavor that you are drawing upon your patron/matron for magical support.

My parents liked to read comics, and we'd frequently go to a local newsstand to buy them when I was a little kid. It was also common for me to get a comic from the spinner rack at the local convenience store or supermarket. Comics seemed to be everywhere.
 
That changed, starting in the 80s, when the distribution model changed away from the rack jobbers, and into dedicated comic stores. Prices went up, and, in many cases for me, the appeal went down. I pretty much stopped picking up new comics in the mid- to late-80s, when special issues and variant covers all seemed to be the rage. A move toward more "adult" material also didn't keep my attention, and I'm pretty much burned out on the handful of stories that DC's movies seem to revolve around (I really don't need to see yet another version of Flashpoint). While I've picked up a few graphic novels and comic collections since then, I haven't really seen much to bring me back into the newer comics (with a few exceptions: I enjoyed the Wonder Woman '77 material, but it felt very much like a throwback to a vanished era).
 
So, it's not really surprising that the two majors have lost their way, nor is it surprising that Scholastic, flush with cash from the Harry Potter books, was able to take over so much of the market with material that was more kid-friendly. 

I went looking for the guy on YouTube that was mentioned in the article above, and found him. He backs his facts up with receipts. He has a different take on the decline of Marvel and D.C. and it's numbers based:
 
 

They actually seemed on average to be much less powerful.  Half of them were destroyed by running into things on the way to the fight.  One solid hit sent them flying into component pieces.

It was a very good start for a show I had no interest in.
 
 Watched "Carter" on Netflix.  Korean, over the top action movie, The Director borrowed a lot from From Hardcore Henry, but with an even  more unrestrained camera and drone footage. Huge bodycount, film rarely stops to catch it's breath.
 
Watched RRR on Netflix. Tallywood epic about two revolutionaries that meet each other in 1920s India. Very Lush and well staged. Same Director as the Epic Bahubali 1 & 2 (Also on Netflix).

Several months ago (perhaps even a year or two), I was on a Champions 3rd ed kick. I can see myself running that edition as long as I pay of my Pych Disadvantage: By the book. If I allow myself to add in or change Rules as needed (by me), I would gladly run that edition.

We've been watching The Orville. This is much better than I expected. I thought it was going to be a raunchy family guy style parody, but they are actually taking it pretty seriously. And the effects are as good as anything ST:TNG had. Of course, that was 36 years ago, they should be at least that good. 
 
So, yeah, I'm a little late to the party, but I'm on board for this. 

I love the hell out of that show. The style and focus shifts over the seasons. I think the first is the weakest and I still enjoyed the heck out of it. I like it better than what I've seen of the current Official Trek myself.
 
 

Actually that IS one  i need to check out. to be fair. I heard good things.
 
Part of me wonders if Orville's semi success didn't help speed up  the Green light on the more comedic lower decks, and the more true to the optimism angle of Strange New Worlds.
If Orville did shove things back to a more hopeful viewpoint, ST fans may owe Orville even if they never watched an episode
 

If you look over various Champions forums and Discords, the strict adherence to 70s-80s Silver Age, Comics Code, era tropes, and their antipathy to 90s era comics tropes, would be a good argument against a maturing world, or that Champions is an escape from a maturing world?
 
Even the propensity for people to play and run Teen Hero campaigns is perhaps a stronger argument against it.  🙃