Scott Ruggels

Sad to report that George Perez has died, aged 67, from cancer.  Details:
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/george-perez-dead-wonder-woman-teen-titans-comics-1235261261/
 

Saw it today. Liked the heroes cameos, though probably shouldn't have given away the Professor X appearance.
Wasn't thrilled with the Witch vs the Illuminati, mainly because Black Bolt was instantly dealt with and Reed not far behind, but of course Captain Carter and Ms. Marvel - Rambeau this time, go toe to toe with her for a while. I realized that Marvel is one of if not the most powerful, especially as an energy semi being and Captain America is notorious for being last person standing, so is in genre, but just felt Woke again, and I don't normally think that. I had no problem with the cover shot of all the women in the battle in Endgame.

Sad to report that George Perez has died, aged 67, from cancer.  Details:
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/george-perez-dead-wonder-woman-teen-titans-comics-1235261261/
 

I used to play a lot of Traveller.  I think I played D&D for about a year, before the first Traveller books came out. We didn’t quite understand the rules, but had a lot of fun with it, and eventually worked out the kinks. Also, we tried a number of systems as well, until champions was released in the summer of 1981. We still occasionally play Traveller concurrently. I played in Matheson’s fairly vanilla campaign in the Spinward Marches, where we used High Guard to build ships. I also played briefly in Paul Gazis’ Eight Worlds campaign, which was ner total home brew (as he was a NASA engineer at NASA Ames), and had a very 16th Century feel, socially, after a collapse of the Star Empire. In College, even after abandoning most other game systems for Hero, I got an invite into L. Douglas Garrett’s Traveller campaign, which invoked a fair amount of an intrigue of noble house, and Small Unit, Special Operations. Even recently, in Roll20, our D&D group gave Mongoose 2nd Edition Traveller a year of play, before returning to D&D 5e. So I have experienced a lot of different flavors of Traveller in my 45 years of gaming experience. 
 
In the early days, the exploratory nature might have been overstated, depending on the group.  Sure, there was a good set of rules for generating sub sectors, and then the planetary ecology, but the enthusiasm for “frontier” style gaming was inversely proportional to the number of women in the group, and we had a few. The women would steer the play more towards social roleplay and interacting with the noble houses in the Spinward Marches, and would shy away from open conflicts and kinetic operations.  Heists and abductions became common as well.  On the other side of things, we also tried out the ship combat rules as a pure wargame for an afternoon, involving a few of us.  Back then we had an embarrassment of riches of gaming groups, and people would swap in and out. 

One of the things I learned was tha different groups has very different play styles. The rules then, and now supported all of them ( even my short lived, all Vargr ship and mercenary unit, that was probably proto-furry, even if there was a moderate body count.) Not everyone was enamored of frontier exploration, the recent campaign was pure trade and profit, with us taking minimal risk if we could help it.  Some campaigns were intricate ASOIAF political maneuvering. It all depended on the desires of the group, and those desires became clear usually by the second r third contract that the ship accepted.  It also generally helped when the players, and the GM, kind of discussed the campaign over the meal breaks, during other campaigns, so when the current champions campaign or D&D ended, there was some idea and agreement on what the Traveller campaign would look like. 
 
My tastes ran towards being a tourist rather than an explorer, enjoying the scenery of other civilizations, and settled planets, going to TL5 planets to buy hand made bespoke suits and shirts for bargain prices, watching the local air races, buying something for my lapel from the little Vargr flower seller, talking to the locals about the news,  and partaking of the local food. Either being a merchant or mercenary suited me just fine.  As such I like the published material. 
 
for those that want to explore uncharted space, there is plenty of blank map out there. Travellermap.com illustrates what has been documented, but also where the edges of the map are. Just use the various generation rules and such to fill in the sub sectors as you go along. It does take time to do it though.  
 
Running Traveller on a Hero I haven’t tried yet, myself, but Duke seems to have had a fair amount of success with it. I would definitely want to give it a try, but then how much of the regular system do you replace with Hero? I would probably not use Hero for ship combat. 

The idea of dropping the tech due to jump energies I thought was preposterous, until I remembered the modular electronic systems I had invented for a Hero based SolarSystem campaign. No WiFi and all programs hard wired in to the modules that would snap together like Legos or Technics, to prevent outside hacking, or failure due to cosmic Ray damage. So you would put the plastic nodes together to make the computer do the thing you wanted to do.  The more nodes, the higher the power consumption, and the more heat it put out, but the system was far more robust and easily repaired than Microchip based tech, that could be fried by a solar flare, or be hacked by malicious code from outside. Little nodes would then themselves become a commodity based on what function they could do and how rare or common they were. The computer room would then be these semi-random looking collections of Lego looking bricks, with fat cables coming out. However, with this system, functions could be distributed all over the ship, so that hits don’t disable all computer functions, and having spare bins of modules would allow for easy repair, or after hours tinkering to improve, or invent new programs.  The other idea was reverting to electromechanical fire control, but that didn’t go too far. I know how Battleships and Submarines did it, but not with too much detail, other than that they were analogue and relied on skilled machining to make the forms within the device, necessary for the ballistic calculations. 
 
I rambled, but then Traveller causes me to, due to my history with it. But part of my twitch about the change in the tech, was it felt like it pushed Traveller into a pulp paradigm. Traveller, to me now has become its own genre. Sure, in the beginning it was a first generation “universal system”, but due to publications, and a lot of cooperation between groups, it has become its own thing. Sure, enough of the universal mechanics are still there that you can homebrew one’s own background. But why pulp, or worse Sword & Planet? 😁 I’d much prefer seeing something more like The Expanse. But that’s just me.  Anyway, these are my thoughts on Traveller, and I kinda want to run a campaign of it sometime.  
 
No. Starships run on water or collected gaseous Hydrogen and Oxygen in RAW. I suppose you could invent your own system, though.  

Waiting on getting paid for an art commission, but yes still interested.  

I used to play a lot of Traveller.  I think I played D&D for about a year, before the first Traveller books came out. We didn’t quite understand the rules, but had a lot of fun with it, and eventually worked out the kinks. Also, we tried a number of systems as well, until champions was released in the summer of 1981. We still occasionally play Traveller concurrently. I played in Matheson’s fairly vanilla campaign in the Spinward Marches, where we used High Guard to build ships. I also played briefly in Paul Gazis’ Eight Worlds campaign, which was ner total home brew (as he was a NASA engineer at NASA Ames), and had a very 16th Century feel, socially, after a collapse of the Star Empire. In College, even after abandoning most other game systems for Hero, I got an invite into L. Douglas Garrett’s Traveller campaign, which invoked a fair amount of an intrigue of noble house, and Small Unit, Special Operations. Even recently, in Roll20, our D&D group gave Mongoose 2nd Edition Traveller a year of play, before returning to D&D 5e. So I have experienced a lot of different flavors of Traveller in my 45 years of gaming experience. 
 
In the early days, the exploratory nature might have been overstated, depending on the group.  Sure, there was a good set of rules for generating sub sectors, and then the planetary ecology, but the enthusiasm for “frontier” style gaming was inversely proportional to the number of women in the group, and we had a few. The women would steer the play more towards social roleplay and interacting with the noble houses in the Spinward Marches, and would shy away from open conflicts and kinetic operations.  Heists and abductions became common as well.  On the other side of things, we also tried out the ship combat rules as a pure wargame for an afternoon, involving a few of us.  Back then we had an embarrassment of riches of gaming groups, and people would swap in and out. 

One of the things I learned was tha different groups has very different play styles. The rules then, and now supported all of them ( even my short lived, all Vargr ship and mercenary unit, that was probably proto-furry, even if there was a moderate body count.) Not everyone was enamored of frontier exploration, the recent campaign was pure trade and profit, with us taking minimal risk if we could help it.  Some campaigns were intricate ASOIAF political maneuvering. It all depended on the desires of the group, and those desires became clear usually by the second r third contract that the ship accepted.  It also generally helped when the players, and the GM, kind of discussed the campaign over the meal breaks, during other campaigns, so when the current champions campaign or D&D ended, there was some idea and agreement on what the Traveller campaign would look like. 
 
My tastes ran towards being a tourist rather than an explorer, enjoying the scenery of other civilizations, and settled planets, going to TL5 planets to buy hand made bespoke suits and shirts for bargain prices, watching the local air races, buying something for my lapel from the little Vargr flower seller, talking to the locals about the news,  and partaking of the local food. Either being a merchant or mercenary suited me just fine.  As such I like the published material. 
 
for those that want to explore uncharted space, there is plenty of blank map out there. Travellermap.com illustrates what has been documented, but also where the edges of the map are. Just use the various generation rules and such to fill in the sub sectors as you go along. It does take time to do it though.  
 
Running Traveller on a Hero I haven’t tried yet, myself, but Duke seems to have had a fair amount of success with it. I would definitely want to give it a try, but then how much of the regular system do you replace with Hero? I would probably not use Hero for ship combat. 

The idea of dropping the tech due to jump energies I thought was preposterous, until I remembered the modular electronic systems I had invented for a Hero based SolarSystem campaign. No WiFi and all programs hard wired in to the modules that would snap together like Legos or Technics, to prevent outside hacking, or failure due to cosmic Ray damage. So you would put the plastic nodes together to make the computer do the thing you wanted to do.  The more nodes, the higher the power consumption, and the more heat it put out, but the system was far more robust and easily repaired than Microchip based tech, that could be fried by a solar flare, or be hacked by malicious code from outside. Little nodes would then themselves become a commodity based on what function they could do and how rare or common they were. The computer room would then be these semi-random looking collections of Lego looking bricks, with fat cables coming out. However, with this system, functions could be distributed all over the ship, so that hits don’t disable all computer functions, and having spare bins of modules would allow for easy repair, or after hours tinkering to improve, or invent new programs.  The other idea was reverting to electromechanical fire control, but that didn’t go too far. I know how Battleships and Submarines did it, but not with too much detail, other than that they were analogue and relied on skilled machining to make the forms within the device, necessary for the ballistic calculations. 
 
I rambled, but then Traveller causes me to, due to my history with it. But part of my twitch about the change in the tech, was it felt like it pushed Traveller into a pulp paradigm. Traveller, to me now has become its own genre. Sure, in the beginning it was a first generation “universal system”, but due to publications, and a lot of cooperation between groups, it has become its own thing. Sure, enough of the universal mechanics are still there that you can homebrew one’s own background. But why pulp, or worse Sword & Planet? 😁 I’d much prefer seeing something more like The Expanse. But that’s just me.  Anyway, these are my thoughts on Traveller, and I kinda want to run a campaign of it sometime.  
 
No. Starships run on water or collected gaseous Hydrogen and Oxygen in RAW. I suppose you could invent your own system, though.  

An an index at least as good as the one Stanley A. Mitchell produced in the early 90s!

Sad to report that George Perez has died, aged 67, from cancer.  Details:
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/george-perez-dead-wonder-woman-teen-titans-comics-1235261261/
 

Sad to report that George Perez has died, aged 67, from cancer.  Details:
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/george-perez-dead-wonder-woman-teen-titans-comics-1235261261/
 

Whatever floats the boat of consenting adults doesn't concern me. George and his wife Carol Flynn were together over forty years, so whatever was between them seemed to work for them.
 
It's also rather poetic that he died the day before May 7, Free Comic Book Day. That would have been a good way to celebrate his life.

Sad to report that George Perez has died, aged 67, from cancer.  Details:
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/george-perez-dead-wonder-woman-teen-titans-comics-1235261261/
 

Sad to report that George Perez has died, aged 67, from cancer.  Details:
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/george-perez-dead-wonder-woman-teen-titans-comics-1235261261/
 

He really was one of the all time hall of fame greats.  His art could turn a meh story into a page turner, and he made Teen Titans into a huge winner.

Sad to report that George Perez has died, aged 67, from cancer.  Details:
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/george-perez-dead-wonder-woman-teen-titans-comics-1235261261/
 

I always remember him for that cover. I'd forgotten that he also did this one.
 

George Perez passed away yesterday. It is time to mourn.
 

RIP
 
Top 5 comic book artist ever.

When I look at the body of Mr. Perez's work, I see no illustrator in the field today who can hold a candle to him as a graphic storyteller. His meticulous, detailed yet clean structuring of each panel; linking every panel in a smooth, clear but vivid narrative flow; his attention to and consistency with character faces, making each one distinctive and recognizable; these were skills that made every Perez comic book not just a work of art, but a collaboration with his writer to produce a coherent entertaining story that worked visually as well as narratively.
 
Almost everyone drawing comics today seems to have forgotten those skills, forgotten that their role is story-telling. All they know how to draw are big, loud, flashy splash panels that they can sell individually. No visual through line. Squiggly, blotchy, splattered with colors and lines and shadows and other "effects." I don't think we'll ever see another comic-book artist of George's stature.

Probably none. I would have continued with Bushido, and Traveller, and played other non Class, non D20 based systems.  The attraction was because Champions was a well designed "Game", which to me was far more attractive than Superheroes.

More importantly, without Champions, point buy systems would be a lot rarer, and/or stunted.  D&D would have had less competition. I may have picked up some of the Tri-Tac games a little sooner.  Cyberpunk, as written, would have been very different. 

Before I go into it I need to explain how government works in the Northwest Territories of Canada.  Federally we follow national politics, with parties and party lines etc.  But territorially (think Province but smaller population) we have what is called a Consensus Government.  We have an election and Members are chosen for the Legislative Assembly.  So who leads?  Well the members chose from among themselves who will be Premier (think Prime Minister) who will be minister of <<<<<<<, and minister of >>>>>>>.  Etc.
 
My idea is this, there is an election where people vote for a representative from that district.  When the  Assembly gathers, they chose the Head Mayor and the Second Mayor as well as all the various minister.  After four years, the mayors switch places, a ministerial shuffle takes place.  Four years after that, new elections!
 
This keeps the idea if the two mayors from history, but also gives a way that said mayors change positions and how Power is ultimately handed down!
 
 
Thoughts?
 
Suggestions?

Range Video.

Army felt the same way. But in Afghanistan they had a number of cases of insurgents using older, full-power rifles being able to engage US troops at ranges where AR-15 based weapons couldn't effectively reply. This was especially the case with troops issued the M4 Carbine, but it also happened with full-length variants.

Good point.  

It’s not bad and it moves along.  Good martial arts fights.