Scott Ruggels

Honestly, I can think of a handful of justifications right off the top of the head for skeletons that take STUN and can be stunned just as I can for why they could not be stunned.
 
Equally honestly. I think the last couple of editions already have enough "have to" and "must" to keep me disinterested.  No real reason I can think of to add another have to on the pile.
 
 

1) Different culture: Not Occidental, now Mesoamerican. 
2) Not a superbeing in his own right but an avatar for a god
3) Different home with different name: Not the expected place of Atlantis (the Atlantic) but now in South America with a different name (Talocan, origin Aztec and Mayan legends). 
4) Different look
5) Different personality. 
 
So is this really Namor that is being brought to screen? For me, nope. It is a bait-and-switch. While some elements/tropes remain, there is more than enough for this to be declared a different character. Call it a homage, or a pastiche or just a rip off but the two are essentially different. The thing is, that marvel could double-down on the Occidental nature of Atlantis given by Plato in the Timaeus and Critias of an ancient battle that took place between Atlantis (imperialism) and Athens (nationalism). Add in other elements from Homer's Iliad (Greece vs Troy) and you'd draw on thousands of years of myth and ancestral memory. This would just add to the myth already in Black Panther with it utilising the Arthurian-Celtic Once And Future King archetype as well as the African-Egyptian-Osirian kingly resurrection. Shuri's role in becoming the new Black Panther would be her own hero quest to reassemble the Black Panther similar to Isis finding and resurrecting Osiris-- Shuri's pulling the sword-from-the-stone moment ietest of worthiness. 
 
There is more, but you get the jist. It feels like a vast missed opportunity on Marvel's part to create a Lucas-like mythology within the MCU. 

I always check this a few times a week, but the problem for me is there is less game discussion, and more RL Sports and Politics discussion. So there isn't a lot of new genre subjects being discussed, and since I don't use 6th edition, not a lot to discuss about rules mechanics.

I always check this a few times a week, but the problem for me is there is less game discussion, and more RL Sports and Politics discussion. So there isn't a lot of new genre subjects being discussed, and since I don't use 6th edition, not a lot to discuss about rules mechanics.

Eh...
 
Well, I popped back up.  Maybe I should have showered first.
 
 

The Turakian Age might be about right as it is a fairly standard Fantasy. 

I don't think I've ever hated an RPG.
 
There was a time that I sneered at D&D and its derivatives, but that was decades ago. I have fond memories of B/X D&D and (to a limited extent) AD&D 1e, but otherwise I'm only interested in D&D from an intellectual perspective (how it impacts the industry, the trends it's riding/influencing, etc.) and as a path people can take to the broader world of RPGs.
 
Over the decades there have been popular RPGs that, despite trying my best, haven't proven to be a good fit for me, such as Fudge/Fate/Fate Accelerated. That style was interesting to me for a brief time, but despite trying I haven't been able to maintain enough interest in any of them to learn to love playing and/or running them. Cortex Prime is the closest fit in this broad category, but it too isn't quite right for me.
 
And there have been popular RPGs that initially seemed like a good fit but didn't work out over the long haul: GURPS, BRP, Savage Worlds, D6 System. All four are *this close* to being great fits, but all have one or more serious flaws (from my perspective) that make me wish I was playing/running a different game.
 
These days, I know I'm highly unlikely to enjoy any RPG that uses a flat distribution curve. Same for games with specialty dice (like the FFG Star Wars system). Honestly, any RPG that uses dice other than bog standard six-siders is unlikely to be very interesting to me at this point. Might be worth a one-shot or as a curiosity, but not for anything serious or long-lasting.
 
So I mostly stick to HERO System, Classic Traveller (and Cepheus Engine/Sword of Cepheus/etc.), and Tunnels & Trolls (and Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes as well as Monster! Monster!).

Again, that depended on the scenario.  That sample dungeon level in the AD&D DM Guide sticks with me.  Level one characters exploring and one character cleverly figures out how to get up to the upper opening where there used to be steps and is rewarded by the GM by... a level 3 monster killing and eating him.  That's what Gygax thought adventures should be like.
 
I think initially, game designers did not realize how attached people would get to their characters so they were much more lethal in their scenario designs.
 
 
And in Warhammer, if you play perfectly and get really lucky, you might live most of the way through the scenario

Lookin' at _you_, Aftermath.....
 
 

The Turakian Age might be about right as it is a fairly standard Fantasy. 

The Turakian Age might be about right as it is a fairly standard Fantasy. 

I had characters get killed in Champions too.  In our case, the GM played with open dice, so there was no way he could fudge rolls, and he was relatively disinclined to send in the cavalry to save the PCs if the dice were against us.  But the point is that Champions is only somewhat less consequential than heroic Hero; if there's a perception to the contrary, that's on the GM, not the system.

Of all the weird misconceptions about Hero, this one is new.  The best thing about FH is how unforgiving it is.  I've lost a number of characters and participated in several TPKs using FH and it was glorious.  D&D is the system with no consequences for failure, where your paladin with sixty HP and loads of healing can wade into combat without fear, secure in the knowledge that it'll take at least five hits to bring him down.  Fights like that are boring.  In FH, every fight carries significant risk.  

I have an update.
 
First up, I asked the GM: I need an honest answer -- is the plan for the Bad Guys to "win" whenever we have our next session or does our party have any sort of chance?
 
His response
 
...so yeah.
 
So, I showed the GM's response to hubby.  Then we talked properly, him and I, about my concerns.  How I didn't liked the bait & switch when I was initially told the campaign was us supposed to be saving the day, not setting up things for what's now the "real" game.  How it frustrated me as a player and as a writer myself that I'm supposed to fulfill a predestined plot as opposed to playing a game.  How, even if I wanted to go out as a Big Damn Hero, it could all be rendered moot by a bad dice roll anyways.
 
And I told hubby how frustrated I felt with him pressuring me to keep playing anyway.  That it wouldn't be fun for me like that.  And I reminded him that we do still game together (Wednesdays with the plan for us GMing together towards the end of the year), so it's not like Fridays are the only thing.
 
...I think he finally got it.  And he'll accept my choice.  I did say that I would finish this campaign first and to see how I'm feeling if I will continue on Fridays.  And I told hubby that I'm totally fine if he chooses to keep playing even if I don't.

The other reason I’ve been looking into 3rd ed is to play Super Agents. I bought that book years ago I was always wanted to update that to 5th. And well here we are. The thing is I noticed that with bigger groups, Heroic level is easier to run and corral. So I plan to have a one shot ready with Super Agents and keep it on Third because Third is less complex than later editions. Or another Idea is that the Super Agents are Low-Powered Super Agents. I want the characters to be easier to he managed by the players and the GM.

@Duke Bushido, I also come to the conclusion that it isn’t the rules so much as players that can break the game.  

Pain Reduction, OIF: meth.
 
 

Oh I find languages and the construction of them quite interesting but difficult to master. Typical American, I don’t speak a foreign language well, but I made up a fake one for the fantasy campaign. I am just sorry I misplaced the big dictionary notebook in a move, but still have a chunk of it. It’s certainly, to me, a much more interesting subject, than real world events or sports on an RPG forum. 

Well that sounds like a GM thing more than a Hero Games thing to me, but its going to depend a lot on the adventure.  Champions Begins is super linear and on rails because its a tutorial, for instance.

World of Darkness games -- I just don't have fun in those sort of "edgy" settings

in Richard Corbin's Rowlf  Comic, the Orks speak Esperanto.

I think this is why I don’t “get” the OSR movement. Random die rolls and clunky mechanics, and low damage rolls. I don’t feel nostalgic for the game systems I played prior to my adoption of Hero, except Traveller (and maybe Bushido). Lots of annoyances, like ineptly crafted riddles, puzzles, and trap after trap after trap. This is why I gravitated to the political side of campaigns. Then there were the random encounters like clockwork. Inside the dungeon I understood, but outdoors? Many years of camping taught me that the animals of the forest took a wide detour around people, even bears, as long as you suspended your food storage and kept the campsite clean.  I like travelogue. I like being a tourist in someone else’s world. But the old games just have no attraction for me.

@Duke Bushido, I must say I have missed your commentary this past summer.  As to your game dislikes, I share a lot of them (Though Tri-Tac was most assuredly NOT a Tri-Stat system. It was of that complexity that came right after D&D in terms of stats and mechanics). I kind of share the same feelings about Paranoia and CoC.  I did read a lot of H.P. Lovecraft and other pulp writers in late high school.  Same thoughts shared about Feng Shui and Bushido.  But we watched a lot of Samurai films at a rep theater, while we were in high school as well. Basically I glided through High school by being able to ace tests, so I never did any homework, Just watched movies, gamed and drew things.)

My mistake. Sledge DOES have his 1/2 RED END listed. And I did get to battle Warboar against thugs which went better. I can see why 8D6 is considered minimal. Not sure if I would want to play  a character that wimpy. Still, its been a neat experience. 

One thing that caught my eye is that the claim of older characters had “cleaner” sheets-less clutter. Well, I looked at Sledge again and noticed that his END for using his sledge was off but it wasn’t. Sledge has RED EnD bought for his sledge but that’s not listed. Then I remember reading a blurb in Enemies III that they changed the format of the characters so that it was consistent and you could see how everything was bought. Anyways I thought it was it was interesting when the character debate pops up.