Scott Ruggels

it’s not a bad premise, however I am still running a PBP game, where there is no magic, but it is most assuredly a fantasy game. The fantasy is, fictional countries, A couple of nonhuman species, and occasionally odd weather. No magic though.
 

Well, the “no magic” fantasy game did include non-humans that the player specifically asked for. They’re quite happy with it.

I would suggest that a Pittsburg resident, walk, drive, or bicycle around town and take pictures of the important locations within the city, for the artists to trace for interior illustrations.  For maps, provide Google Maps Satellite images for tracing for maps and top down images.

it’s not a bad premise, however I am still running a PBP game, where there is no magic, but it is most assuredly a fantasy game. The fantasy is, fictional countries, A couple of nonhuman species, and occasionally odd weather. No magic though.
 

Well, the “no magic” fantasy game did include non-humans that the player specifically asked for. They’re quite happy with it.

Seven-year-old Chinese kids.

I'm so sad to hear that, of course for his friends and family, but also for the RPG community. Seeing his byline on a product told me that it was going to be great. What a loss for the community. Thankfully his RPG legacy will live on.  

Just as a closure on this thread....after I presented him w/ my proof his character is not only illegal, but messes up the campaign, he chose to stick with the character he settled on when we started the game.

I need to hire guys in the towns where my players live....so in case they pull shit like this, I give Bruno, Jimmy, etc., a call and he goes over with the "Whack" stick to readjust their shit and get them with the program.

Hmmm....I think I might just have a niche in that market...rent out RPG thugs that adjust remote/online players who don't conform to game rules....  😉

I’d say rather than “War” make it a god of wrath. One aspect is war, but do is logistics, and planning and decent and discipline. The god of wrath is much more chaotic, and would incorporate war, but also revenge anger, cruelty, and such and would be in opposition to the god of justice. 

I agree with that. He sounds like he's ruining the fun for everyone else. He conceded now, but if he acts up again, give him the boot. I know you said he's a friend, but is he showing any friendship with that kind of behavior?

I never actually liked Wheel of Time so I really didn't care one way or another. 
I am mostly referring to the current trend of changing things that literally have no sense of value for the story or that work directly against the story for other reason than fake virtual signalling. 
 
Lord of the Rings is a specific series of stories written by a man that was painfully precise who very clearly described things in both his published works and correspondence.  The changes are in direct opposition of it all.
 
Halo's Master Chief never had a ethnicity defined.  You never saw his face.  It is the only actual fully "inclusive" property on planet Earth.  And now they are #1 assigning a ethnic group and #2 sidelining the main character to a support role for the a made up token.  
 
Snow White is based on folklore from a specific culture and the characters description is literary in the text, "skin as white as snow".  There are thousands of tales in folklore that represent every group on the planet and yet they are creatively bankrupt or deliberately spiteful to the point they make themselves look like 5 year olds in a tantrum.
 
I am waiting for the remake of the saga of Shaka Zulu, 1816 to 1828.  IN order to ensure diversity and token'ism I look forward to Nandi's casting as a wise White Woman with red hair.  After all, that is how the world looks now  
 
There is nothing wrong with changing a character if it is done with some degree of intelligence and is plausible.  
 
Nick Fury in the Marvel Movies is a brilliant example of how to do it.
 
Jarl Haakon in Vikings Valhalla may have been completely unnecessary and a major stretch.  But!  They put together a plausible reason and found an actress that could pull it off, which made it work.  
 
For Cowboy Bebop I didn't think the casting or costuming was bad at all.  Real life is different than animation.  If the story had stayed on track and not inserted gratuitous sex scenes (of any kind) and other garbage it could have succeeded.  The first Captain America made many changes but stayed true to the story and was a hit.
 
If a property doesn't do what you want it to, find another property.  Don't turn out half a$$ flops and then cry that the world is an 'ist when the actual customers reject it because it was poorly written.
 
Next they will be trying to say that Black Panther was a success despite all the 'ists, rather than the truth that it was a damn good movie and pretty much everyone enjoyed it.
 
 

[Partial Repost from Facebook]
Just got the news Scott Bennie Passed away Yesterday. Hearing about this is kind of Crushing for me, because he was a friend and collaborator. We were both in Carl Rigney's immense Play By Mail/ Convention Champions game, and Scott was who I would run into at various conventions when we would game out the combats of Carl's game, but then I would see Scott in just about every other Convention Champions game, run by the "Good" GMs. We were both in the various 'zines. I think we even exchanged phone calls a few times. His villains could be very scary, not only because of their builds, but their convictions. His anti-smoking assassin was memorable. Scott had health problems that made him a rarer, and rarer presence over time, but he still continued his writing. I lost touch with him when I dropped out of gaming due to my move to Los Angeles in 2005. Very sad to hear of his passing, but now his suffering has ended.

I have decided that I am going to ignore that incident and never learn anything about it, as a direct expression of how little I care about show-biz personalities and the horses--t they can get away with because they are famous and charismatic.

Civilla: Ooh, I can summon crocodiles now.
Ayva: They’re a good aquatic option.
Civilla: But if I make them chthonic…
Rajira: A pair of eyes, not just above the waterline, but just above the grass…

Ayva: We’re running a (legitimate) printing press… we’re going to get so many orders. And signatures.
Civilla: Well, yes.
Ayva: You truly are an Alazario. I say this with all the love I can muster - you are a conniving bitch.
Civilla: I set out not to be my mother’s daughter - and I ended up my mothers daughter.

Ayva: We need to squeeze more money out of this rebellion thing.

With the help of our agents throughout the city, we ensure the Nox rumour thoroughly overtakes any whispers about the real rebellion.

Thrune: There is no rebellion, it’s clearly Nox! Either that or incompetence - PICK ONE.

Thrune releases a Tenth Proclamation.

POSSESSION OF POETRY OR PROSE WRITTEN BY THE FOLLOWING AUTHORS IS HEREBY FORBIDDEN AND PUNISHABLE BY A FINE OF 100 GOLD PIECES OR IMPRISONMENT: BOSWYTH THE BARD, TERZO PORCINUS, CHARLETTA D’VANEP, GHENRAIL OF VYRE, AND THE ANONYMOUS MISCREANT WHO CALLS THEMSELF THE “POISON PEN OF KINTARGO.” ALL DOCUMENTS BEARING THE WRITINGS OF THESE MISCREANTS MUST BE TURNED OVER TO THE DOTTARI FOR DESTRUCTION BY SUNDOWN.

Terzo: … I’m going to kill him.
Civilla: Terzo, we’re going to go to my library, and you’re going to pick a few select volumes - no more than four - that we’re not going to hand over.

Civilla: This is an opportunity to broaden your stylistic horizons, Terzo! You’ll have to choose a nom-de-plume, of course.
Ayva: I recommend a female name.
Civilla: And reduce the amount of caniphilia references.
Terzo: I note he hasn’t banned graffiti.

Civilla: I’m thinking we start planting books with Terzo’s name on the cover and Sepia Snake Sigil on the frontispiece.

Using a Bag of Holding, an excellent bluff, and her good looks, Civilla manages to save most of Terzo’s output, before handing over a stack of spare copies.

Civilla: I admit I had a fair amount of his work in my library, officer, but he was my tutor.

Civilla: We can also claim you didn’t have many copies of your own work because you keep foisting them off on people.
Terzo: *sigh* Unfortunately, that is quite believable.

Investigating the missing children is at least a good distraction from Terzo’s plans of revenge. Although the old woman at the tenement yells abuse at us apparently assuming we’re jobless layabouts, until we make it clear that we actually have jobs. And money. The twins were apparently nearly of age, and their family practically respectable, at least compared to some of the other residents, particularly one who is out all hours and comes home stinking of death. Probably just an abattoir worker.

The Parents: Strange that people of your station would take an interest in the likes of us.
Rajira: The situation in Kintargo is in flux - if we don’t look after each other, no-one else will.

Apparently the twins worked at the Lucky Bones, which was burnt to the ground by the Order of the Torrent just prior to them being outlawed. Which is suspicious, especially given the hellknights’ hatred of kidnappers, the age of the twins, and the subsequent disappearance of said teenagers. Fortunately, we find one of the kid’s diaries, with some intensely disturbing reports about the kind of things the kids overheard at what was apparently a secret drug den.

Civilla: Called it.

Prayers to Norgorber, the evil god of assassination, secrecy, and theft, are particularly worryig, since one of the precepts of the religion is murdering anybody that might have overheard your devotions.

Most of the neighbours didn’t see anything, or refuse to talk to us, but Varl Wex, the one that stinks of death, urine, cheese, and irregular work hours, may have actually seen something since there’s no predicting when he’ll be home.

Terzo OoC: Plus he’s an obvious red herring.

Rajira starts picking Wex’s lock.

Terzo: I didn’t see anything, I know nothing…
Civilla: Well if you keep acting like that it’s almost like you want to get noticed. We’re doing something entirely illegal here and the sooner you accept that the better.

Wex’s lock is considerably more difficult to pick than Rajira expected. And the room beyond stinks of Slurk grease, presumably the same appalling odour shared by the resident. He also has a number of books on alchemy. And a trail of bloodspots from the window to the bathroom. And a hidden crawlspace in what should be a load-bearing pillar. And a glowing kukri on a stand.

Civilla: *looks from the knife to Rajira* Moonlighting?
Rajira: It’s not mine.
Civilla: …. That’s the Temple Hill Slasher’s blade.
Ayva: Well, if we’re not touching it-
Rajira: Who said I’m not touching it?
Civilla: It’s an intelligent weapon!
Rajira: Yes, and I’m sure I can control it-
Civilla: That’s not my point, I’m concerned you want to try it out HERE.
Rajira: Ah, I’ll concede that.

Wex’s notes are disturbing, and obsessed with the serial killer and his magical weapon. It’s a relic of a very unpleasant cult, and Wex is convinced that he was put in the world to continue the monster’s work.

Ayva OoC: We did remember to lock the door behind us, yes?
Civilla OoC: We did not.
Ayva OoC: We don’t break into enough places, we need more practice.

That is probably why Wex, wearing a bloody apron and wielding a merely mundane dagger, is suddenly growling behind Terzo’s ear.

Wex: Give me the blade and no-one gets hurt.
Ayva: You’re getting quite good at those voices, Terzo.
Terzo: *knife at his throat* …
Rajira: Well, it looks like we get to do this somewhere private.
Ayva: Our good deed for the day.

Luckily for Terzo, Civilla has a Celestial Leopard and a few spells to keep the maniac busy even as he’s trying to keep his grip on Terzo. The rest of the stuff Rajira and Ayva bring to bear are just as ruthless.

Civilla OoC: Terzo is getting up-close-and-personal proof that the rest of us are not nice people.

Terzo is basically being swung around the room by the neck as Wex fends off attacks and spells from all sides, since the spell Deja Vu ensures he has to keep doing that rather than cut Terzo’s throat and drop the body. Eventually Wex succumbs to sudden disembowelment by Rajira, on top of all the other horrendous injuries.

GM: The magical kukri Balgorrah would probably be salivating about all of this if you hadn’t stuffed it into an extradimensional space.
Balgorrah: You cut-teasing b****!
Rajira: If I can control it, I’m keeping it.
Civilla: Why???
Rajira: It’s a kukri.
Civilla: We’ll make one just as good that won’t turn you evil.
Ayva: What are we doing with that one?
GM: The temples of Abadar or Shelyn will buy it off you.
Ayva OoC: To destroy it or redeem it, respectively
Rajira: We’ll take it to the Temple of Shelyn, I don’t want anything to do with those f***ing Abadarians.
Civilla: What?
Rajira: They’ve taken over my temples since the worship of Calistria was banned.
Civilla: They’ve taken over stewardship of the buildings.
Rajira: Yes, and that’s what we’re unhappy about!
Civilla: Yes, I can understand the anger, but it’s misdirected!
Ayva: Are we really having this conversation while we’re cleaning up all the blood?
Terzo: I’m more concerned whether the neighbours heard all the fighting.
Civilla: Probably - we’ll just spill some Slurk grease around the doorway - no-one will want to come in.
Ayva: *To the landlady of the tenement* Good news! We got rid of some of the smell, but there’s some things even Prestigitation won’t shift.

Terzo's player: Do we actually need the Niccolo Alazario standee anymore
Civilla's player: Probably, he’s an NPC now.
Ayva's player: And he’ll probably end up wandering into an overpowered encounter. Like the last two.

Rajira's player: Aw, you moved my line-dancers.
GM: Eh?
Rajira's player: The four Thug standees that were in front of me.
Ayva's player: Oh fine, I’ll move them back over there.
Civilla's player: Huh, they really do look like a line of dancers.
Terzo's player: ‘When you’re a Jet/You’re a Jet your whole life…’

But having accidentally dealt with a copycat serial killer, we still need to find out what happened to the missing twins, since apparently the aforementioned serial killer was smart enough to not kill anybody that lives in the same tenement. We send one of the Silver Raven to the Hellknights of the Torrent to ask exactly why they burned the Lucky Bones down. It might take a while to get a complete answer - the birds can only handle 25 words at a time.

GM: Are you sure the ravens aren’t blue?

Rajira OoC: OK, we’ll go meet Octavio and give the appropriate sign and countersign. And if it’s ‘show me your tits’ we’ll just kick him in the nuts afterward.
Terzo OoC: ‘Yes, those are the authentic tits’.

Octavio has snuck back into the city, but at least his current hiding place has fewer corpses lying around. Fewer, not none. Anyway, the Lucky Bones gambling and opium den that fronted for the slave ring known as the Grey Spiders, which were themselves an arm of the Cult of Norgorber. After the Knights of the Torrent started investigating, the Spiders assassinated the Torrent’s founder, and the rest of the hellknights brought the hammer down on their entire organisation - but never actually dealt with whatever was left under the Lucky Bones.

Civilla: Why do they always choose names that tell everybody what they do? If you ever hear of a group called The Rainbow Unicorns, know that I have gone into the slaving business.

At least the tunnels under the ruins of the Lucky Bones might make another hideout for the Rebellion. If we clear it out.

Rajira OoC: Hmm. I’ve got 40 HP now.
Terzo OoC: 43 here, but that’s mostly fat.

We’ll probably need those points, since we soon find a well-oiled hidden trapdoor in the ruins. But it’s very very stinky down there, and something is slithering. They’re Otyughs.

Terzo OoC: ‘I don’t care what you smell, get in there!

Terzo OoC: Why is it, whenever we find a new possible hideout for the rebellion, we have to clear out s*** like this?
Ayva OoC: It’s all cultist basements, what did you expect?
Rajira OoC: We’re the antagonists in a game of Cultist Simulator

Terzo: What do you brush your teeth with, stale urine and pig s***???? (it might even be true, I’m just hoping my tone of voice confuses them even if it doesn't make them burst into flame).

Before long the last of the things is cowering in a corner. Not that any of us have figured out what the hell they are.

Terzo: Er.. you know I don’t think this thing is a threat to us anymore? Maybe we can just leave it to do… whatever they do.
Rajira: I don’t want to spend any more time up here than we have to - it STINKS.
Ayva: We’re up to our ankles in literal s*** and you want to go lower down.

Unfortunately we’ve got even more poison to worry about before we can even go down another level.

Civilla: I don’t mean to sound like a heartless bitch, but as long as we can keep you from actually dying from it, there’s no reason why we can’t-
Rajira: Keep pressing on, I know.
Civilla: Don’t put words in my mouth. I was going to say ‘benefit from it’.

She wants to develop an antivenom from Rajira’s bad case of ‘poisoned’.

GM: I’m going to assume that by ‘milk’ you mean ‘drool into a cup because her saliva is poisonous’. Because I don’t want to think about the other options.

At least we find some interesting stuff amid the refuse, including a magical bead.

Rajira: Is it Venerable?
GM: Actually, when you look at it you wonder ‘how the F*** hasn’t that exploded yet?’
Rajira OoC: Ah. Necklace of Fireballs.
GM: Nope. Bead of Force.
Rajira OoC: Ah. That’s even worse.

Fireflash’s player: This is mostly for [Hardlight’s Player], but it's also a heads up for everyone else. Fireflash has had an idea. A wonderful, awful, terrible, great idea. The whole situation as regards the Moreaus is balanced on a legal knife-edge. (I've been chatting to [The GM] about this.) Particularly in terms of Property and Corporate law. Moreaus are classified as "wildlife"...and wildlife cannot own property or hold corporate office.
We know Moreaus who do both of those things.

Fireflash is going to talk to our friendly neighborhood corporate overlord about a possible way to kick over all the dominoes. If we find a WILLING Moreau who's in that position, we then sue them in court (or the corporation they work for) over that position. If we can get past initial standing issues, we should have a real shot at completely upending the current legal status of Moreaus. At the very least we should get some good publicity for their cause.

Hero Shrew’s player: Is 'part-time troubleshooter for the Justin Hammer-expy' a corporate position?
Fireflash’s player: Probably not a sufficiently high one. You're an employee, not a manager.
Hero Shrew’s player: true - plus putting Scooter anywhere near a courtroom is asking for the kind of chaos you don't want.
Flux's player: Plus I think Hardlight suing himself might not be appropriate.
Hardlight's player: I mean... I... COULD actually pull it off. I can technically be in both places at once - though if someone with even an inkling of special detection powers sits in the courtroom, the entire jig is up
GM: The issue would be Gareth Lowell suing Lowelltech.
Hardlight's player: yeah, probably not the best idea. I'm sure there's another poor dude who tried to get a job at Tyrell or something
Fireflash’s player: We need someone who actually has the position.
Flux's player: It just struck me that the keeping/sale of exotic wildlife is technically illegal in most states without a suitable permit. Please tell me that little hiccup was smoothed over ages ago Last thing we need is a wild VS domestic issue coming up. And now thanks to reading legal documentation I had to look up what a mayhaw is.

PENAL CODE - PEN
PART 1. OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS [25 - 680.4] ( Part 1 enacted 1872. )
TITLE 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF [594 - 625c] ( Title 14 enacted 1872. )
599b. In this title, the word “animal” includes every dumb creature; the words “torment,” “torture,” and “cruelty” include every act, omission, or neglect whereby unnecessary or unjustifiable physical pain or suffering is caused or permitted; and the words “owner” and “person” include corporations as well as individuals; and the knowledge and acts of any agent of, or person employed by, a corporation in regard to animals transported, owned, or employed by, or in the custody of, the corporation, must be held to be the act and knowledge of the corporation as well as the agent or employee.

Flux's player: ok, that's interesting. "dumb creature" “or any other dumb animal." Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Oh my god, you are allowed one potbellied pig per residence in addition to normal pets.
GM: A number of Supreme Court rulings have stated that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection do not apply to sentient aliens, extradimensional entities, artificial intelligences, and the undead, because they are not “persons” under the law. On the other hand, they do apply to mutants, mutates, clones, and genetic constructs based on human stock. Congress has, however, passed laws granting at least limited rights to all “independent, free-willed, sentient entities” in American territory.

Although the GM does point out that for the last fifteen years, the local courts have always reached whatever decision stopped the cases going to a higher court. Which is especially odd since quite a few of the people involved hate Moreaus, and some of these decisions found in the Moreaus’ favour. Everybody in Edge City seems to accept that as the norm, and only outsiders like The Magus have thought it worthy of comment. It might be because some of us have high enough Power Defenses, or because some of us have even left town for more than a day.

GM: Remember that character you had to play for a while because Flux had been kidnapped?
Flux's player: Sunnuvabitch.
GM: Remember that ritual? My arms were getting tired swinging the clue bat.

Madam Lil is rather surprised when Fireflash brings her idea to her - she’s noticed the weird lack of impetus on the problem too, and had given up trying to push the matter forward.

Madam Lil: So it suddenly changed for you? I’ve noticed that before - it’s like this city can turn on a dime.
The Magus: … I’ll be back in 20 minutes.

He hurries off to check the ends of the local leylines - he has a suspicion that something arcane has been affecting the city for over a decade. But if it is, it’s really well hidden. But then it’s quite likely that we keep missing the clues the GM keeps dropping.

GM: You guys are REALLY distractible.

GM: You’re not a superteam, you're a therapy circle!

The Magus has a moment of inspiration - somebody has been summoning Memes. In fact they’ve been summoning multiple Memes.

GM: And then you take one look at Edge City and think ‘well f***, that explains so much.’

Memes are essentially AIs that run on peoples’ brains and spread by argument. They’re not essentially antagonistic towards humans, but the odd behaviour of the Edge City population suggests they aren’t necessarily benign either.

We get a request for a meeting, apparently from somebody who’s appearance just screams ‘Gothic Vampire Chick’.

Flux: Oh, a zombie.
GM: Wait, what, you see THAT picture and think ‘Zombie’?
Hero Shrew: Well, she’s not doing much breathing with a corset that tight.

The Magus’ player: Vampires aren’t really that dangerous in Champions.
Flux's player: What with all the androids, energy beams, etc.
The Magus’ player: They’re expensive pointwise too. They could be a lot more dangerous but it’s a really inefficient build.
Hero Shrew’s player: Well there’s the Watsonian and Doylist explanations.
GM: They also have the Stoker problem - everybody knows their weaknesses now.

The vampire Laura is amiable enough when she appears, out of a cloud of mist.

Fireflash: Nice trick.
Laura: Thanks - you try long enough and you get the knack.

She’s concerned that we’ve been rounding up some of her ‘blood relatives’, but just as concerned that the aforementioned vampire thalls have been acting openly enough that they got caught. Laura has also recently killed her sire, who is the DoLs mistress, which may have been a factor in their increasingly incautious activity. On the other hand, the DoLs vampirism was a new method recently invented by them, possibly in an effort to fill the void in their minds.

Laura: I’m trying to be a socially responsible vampire.

Laura: Now, I’d like to leave before your associate explains to you why using my blood won’t work.
The Magus: I wasn’t going to bring it up.
Laura: I want them to know, I just don’t want them to know about it.

Laura: I sorry but I don’t swing that way - you HAVE read Camilla, haven't you?

Laura turns back into a cloud of mist, which rolls off avoiding the increasingly stiff wind.

GM: She’s not a very powerful vampire.
Fireflash: That’s just how she rolls.

Flux: We keep getting all these fliers for cheap henchmen.
The Magus: Well, there’s an idea, if you have the money - hire all the henchmen and use them for public works, and price the villains out of the market.
The Magus: ‘I haven’t been shot at in weeks, AND I get dental!’
GM: Hey, don’t underestimate the Goon-ion.

Eventually we find a corporation that’s willing to volunteer to be the target for the lawsuit, with a Moreau employee that’s willing to risk their job if the suit doesn’t play out as everybody plans. Apparently the corporation is puzzled that nobody has tried it before too.

Corporate-type: Finally pulling the trigger on that, are they? Have at it!
Hardlight: If he turns out to be a goat I’m out of here.
The Rep: Yeah, that would be bad optics.

On the other hand, even as the various lawyers and groups involved conspire to kick the case up to the Supreme Court, we still have to deal with the feral memes. Although how feral are they, if they’re so tightly constrained to Edge City? Are they short-lived in this reality, which would explain why Edge City is so prone to sudden reversals in public opinion? We’ll have to keep a close eye on the zeitgeist in Edge City, to try and locate whatever summoning circle our opponents are using to sabotage social progress. Since they only spread by word of mouth, we may be able to track the associated memetic rumours.

Flux: Part of me wants to warn the Spinnerets about this, and then the rest of me goes ‘stop, no, that’s a terrible idea!’ - we don’t want the Spinnerets to even know these things exist!

The Magus: F*** me, this is a bleak apocalypse - there’s probably nobody in Edge City that’s still the person they’re supposed to be.

The corporation we’re working with to advance Moreau right via lawsuit is Erikson-Gulsvig Logistics GmbH, and their subdivision E-G Employment, who have been doing a lot of social outreach, street clinics and charitable programs lately - Safe houses for domestic violence victims, Homeless shelters, Rehab counseling & a number of camps where troubled youths receive guidance.

Flux OoC: It’s depressing, in the superhero settings, how often charitable groups turn out to be Evil.
GM: That's because we never get to see what the Johnathan and Martha Kent Foundation actually do.

We start an investigation, just in case our choice of collaborator is going to bite us on the bum laer. Scooter pokes around at street level, and suspects some of the Greys are staying at the homeless shelters, but nothing that would count as a big end-of-episode reveal.

We should probably tell somebody about the meme problem, in case something happens to us.

Hero Shrew: Flux knows Witchcraft, doesn’t he?
Flux: No no, Witchcraft kindly refrained from killing me the last time we met.
Hero Shrew: Well, she’d probably take it seriously if you go to her for help

On the other hand The Rep is probably immune to the meme, since any meme trying to infect him would have to get past his worldclass bulls***ing skills.

Although calling the Greys over the secret underground phone line does go a little strangely - apparently the ones at the homeless shelters are there to help, because the Moreaus suddenly approached them for help. But everything is going fine despite the Greys suddenly meddling in surface affairs. But meeting them in person to discuss it further is a bad idea. Really bad. Absolutely not on the table.

Grey: I mean, even if we met at Lake Park at 3AM someone would see us.
Fireflash: I… see. Well, you’ve been very helpful.
Grey: Actually I’ve been no help at all.
Hero Shrew: I’ve clearly missed something there.
Fireflash: Things are far from normal and they want to meet at Lake Park at 3AM.
GM: Their cyberpathy might not be the strongest but they can absolutely tell when a phone line is tapped. And this is their secure line.

The Grey Commune is currently highly stressed because somebody contacted them, psychically, and helped them out with a few problems.But now the time has come to pay them back, with little bits of psychic manipulation around town. Nothing apparently major, but some of the Greys are worried about it - some of the alterations they’ve been asked to do are weird. And it’s very weird that the psi-boosting drug they are provided with works on the Grey’s genetically modified biology.

The Grey we’re talking to is keenly aware that they’re going to get exposed sooner or later, but is doubly sure no-one will trust them because they’ve been hiding behind the scenes manipulating stuff for the last 15 years. And any sort of mental manipulation counts as Assault.

Grey: But don’t let the fact you might expose us stop you from doing the necessary.

Either way we’re going to need some way to tell when somebody has had their mind altered recently.

Fireflash: So you two had better invent some aura-detecting glasses. Or better yet goggles - that way when you fail we can say ‘The Goggles Do Nothing!’

The Magus’ sneaking around reveals that some people in the clinics are getting mental work done on them without their consent. The people are certainly in need of help, but it shouldn't be secretly like this. And there’s at least one member of stuff here who starts getting very suspicious whenever Magus and Flux report their discoveries, which may indicate a powerful dangersense. Her build - Russian Factory Worker - and Mama Bear vibe make the Magus reluctant to get any closer.

Hero Shrew: OK, these people need help, but the people given the help are going to be in so much trouble when they get found out. How will they react if we tell them we know?
Flux: Have you ever been mauled by a bear, and not in a sexual way? Because that’s what is going to happen if we get any closer.

We decide that they need to turn all the work they’re doing to voluntary treatment only, or we’ll arrest them. It’s a clear abuse of superpowers, so we won’t even need a warrant.

Hero Shrew: And if they do try to kill us then obviously they WERE up to something evil and we get to stop them anyway.
The Magus: The quickest way to get a result is to walk into the ambush and punch them in the face if they start anything.

Hero Shrew’s player: What the hell is that noise in the background, Weldun? It sounds like a cricket on cocaine.
The Magus’ player: What have you been doing on the weekends that you know what a cricket on coke sounds like?
Fireflash’s player: Have you been doing unauthorized experiments? Again? Reminds me of those experiments on spiders.
Hero Shrew’s player: I’ve got the t-shirt.
Fireflash’s player: My favorite was LSD.
Hardlight's player: Why would you give a spider drugs?
The Magus’ player: It’s way easier to get funding for spiders than orphans.
Hero Shrew’s player: Now THAT sounds like something The Magus would say.

Although to be honest they all seemed pretty in-character.

The Magus and Fireflash head in while the others watch for trouble - the Russian greets them cautiously, and certainly recognises Fireflash.

The Russian-presumed-Super: Permission? Written permission? Do you need written permission to take person through guided meditation? We tell them we will change their minds.

They claim they did have permission, but won’t let Fireflash see the files. She warns them that she’ll probably have to report them if they won’t.

The Russian: Why, because we are telepaths? You are bigot! This no different to telling ‘we summon good feelings into you!’

The counselors might well be licensed to operate in California, but the Greys looking through two-way mirrors in each ‘counseling session’ certainly aren’t. At least as mutates based on human stock their personhood is beyond legal dispute, and they don’t have to be registered as medical devices.

GM: It becomes, legally speaking, a very grey area.
Hero Shrew: ha ha.

On the other hand there’s also the matter of the drug our Grey contact mentioned. We’ll avoid mentioning that until we’ve done some more staking out and legwork. And background research on this Russian dame. If the Karen Sholokhov we investigate is actually the same person, she’s known as ‘Perestroika’ - Russian for ‘reconstruction’. She’s a rather powerful mass telepath, who can make any nearby her willing slaves, if they’re weak-willed enough. Although the Magus didn’t notice her actually using her own powers. She left Russia about the time Putin came to power. Surprisingly, she’s not superhumanly strong - but her Combat Luck and Danger Sense have kept her alive so far.

It looks like the aromatherapy program the Greys are on includes a psychoenhansive inhalant And with some sneakiness we can get hold of the stuff.

GM: Continual surveillance on somebody with Danger Sense could count as cruel and unusual punishment.

And then coming up with something to counter her Danger Sense will just ramp up her paranoia - ‘why can’t I feel them watching me anymore???’

The drug turns out to be very odd indeed, with some similarities to drugs circulated by the Scarlatti drug family in Baltimore in the 1990s. One of their customers was the first iteration of PSI.

The Magus: I’m just looking up the entry for the current iteration of PSI, and it says they’ve never been defeated thanks to caution and careful planning. And then they got accidentally defeated by Quadrant.
GM: Just goes to show you where bad luck can get you.

Flux: Now I’m worrying that somebody will get hold of the PSI drug and dump a bunch in some city’s water reservoir.

GM: PSI is also one of the few supervillain groups that hasn’t been plagued by internal betrayals.
The Magus: It helps where you’re basically the top rung of a psychic powers pyramid scheme.

It also looks like all of the precursor chemicals are coming from a company tasked with destroying them. A company that has all the facilities to turn merely dangerous chemicals into extremely dangerous chemicals. In industrial volumes.

Hero Shrew: Looks like the city reservoir idea is back on the menu.

We could always get them on Improper Storage And Disposal violations, but it’s probably going to require sneaking around first. It’s just as well we do sneak, because everybody in the facility is armed. With blasters. And there’s something weirdly fuzzy about them, even on the Magus’ scrying.

Hero Shrew: What are laws about private ownership of energy weapons?
GM: Not that different from kinetic weapons, honestly.
Flux: So you can only own an Orbital Death Laser for educational purposes.

And Magus’ mental awareness power is going ‘ping!’ continuously. And also weird that the rest of us didn’t think the place was weird until now.

Hardlight: Are we going in lasers blazing?
Hero Shrew: I can think of a few reasons not to, and one of them is that scene from Robocop.

(next session started with a long discussion that by complete coincidence included Bhopal, the Tianjin city explosion, the Halifax disaster and the fertilizer explosion in Beirut.)

Hero Shrew OoC: Anyway, speaking of chemical factory explosions…
GM: I haven’t found a map for the chemical factory.
Hero Shrew OoC: Just find a crater, it’ll probably end up that way.
Hardlight: Let’s just watch our backstop shall we?

Flux: On the bright side, if we do f*** up on the scale of any of the above, we won’t be around to get in trouble for it.
Fireflash: That’s not as reassuring as you think it is, Flux.

Unfortunately the moment we march onto the premises to announce the raid, the guards react by transforming their uniforms into armour. At least one of them is superpowered, too.

Fireflash: Nice trick.

And then the other defenses go off, which include an alarming amount of electromagnetic radiation going well up into the ionising variety.

Fireflash: Ouch!
Hero Shrew: Well, aren’t they going to be embarrassed if we were just here to invite them to a charity event.

A second super shows up.

Fireflash: A scary black person?
GM: A LIVING SHADOW
The Magus: I thought it was Hardlight with Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Flux: The difference is he does it by accident.

Magus hits one of the supers with a very effective illusion of teleportation to an alien cliff, Hardlight hits a mook with a point-blank PHOTON WAVE CANNON, and Scooter goes after another.

Hero Shrew: What’s the move in Mortal Kombat where you tear somebody’s entire spine and skull out through their a**hole?
The Magus: … I think that may have been from another title.
Hardlight: I’m pretty sure he pulls the opponent’s spine *upward*.
Fireflash: Forward, Down, Forward, High Punch in close range with Sub-Zero.

The mook instead gets thrown at the next one.

Hero Shrew: He’s probably just relieved I didn’t tear out his entire spine etc.

At least the radiation field doesn’t interfere with one of Flux’s powers.

The Magus: ‘BWAHAHAHA, you will never escape my anti-teleportation trap hero- oh f*** he can walk.’

The Magus: That would have been a good thing to add to the illusion - a giant sandworm appearing in the distance.
Enemy Super #1: *shakes his head to get rid of the illusion* Well, aren’t you a tricky one *lightning bolts Magus*

The living shadow is swooping in, and appears to be giggling. And the mooks have Goop Rifles. And the first supervillain hits Scooter in the face with a ball of lightning (and an under-the-breath ‘Hadouken!’).

GM: You are also blind for a time, and your radio is all staticky.
Fireflash: Hey! That’s my trick!
Flux: Then maybe you should stop demonstrating it to the bad guys.

It’s just as well Hardlight is such a bombastic character that there’s no chance Scooter will attack him by accident.

GM: ‘Don’t worry old chum, I’ll help yo- oh, you’re getting up by yourself.’

Fortunately, whoever the shadow is, we never find out what he had planned because he’s entirely vulnerable to EGO attacks. The Magus suspects that somebody has the ability to let their dark side off the leash.

Losing his back-up, and having his point-blank attack on Fireflash have absolutely no effect, the lightning-wielding super thinks that this might be a good time to leave. He just doesn’t leave fast enough, and get sniped out of the air by Magus. We’ll have to disentangle him from the maze of pipes later. Hero Shrew blinks off his blindness, and goes to deal with a mook that’s still blinded by Hardlight’s earlier, otherwise ineffective attacks.

The Magus: Yes, you should probably take that gun off him before hurts someone.
Hardlight: *charging up another PHOTON WAVE CANNON* Third time’s the charm…
The Magus: Oh, you think you can handle him now he’s blind and disarmed?

Hardlight: Remember your backstop!
Hero Shrew: I am. That’s why I’m not throwing a concrete slab at those two.
GM: I reserve the right to make bad suggestions on occasion

Shortly thereafter Hardlight finds himself in a very unfortunate position as regards a familiar-looking robot dinosaur.

GM: It opens its mouth.
Hardlight: … am I about to be Godzilla’d?
GM: Well, Mechagodzilla’d

Hardlight: That blast is going to hit 3 of us!
Flux: But nothing explosive. I think.

The energy blast certainly takes Hardlight out of the fight, and even knocks Scooter out briefly. In fact, if there is somebody in that Tokusatsu suit he’s certainly confident if he’s standing in the middle of three heavy hitters. And smart enough to Gank The Wizard First.

The Magus: Bad luck for him that I've got the strongest defenses in the team.

And further bad luck that Hardlight had taken out his Lightning Horn, before it could blat us with atomic fire from range again. Of course Gareth is probably the only person on the team that would recognise the cultural inspirations of the suit and target accordingly.

Hardlight: AlI know is that I want one.

Of course if the Mechagodzilla was supposed to keep us busy while the bad guys were getting away, they have a problem, because a few lucky hits leave it dazed on the ground, and Hero Shrew is coming around.

GM: Scooter, you’re awake.
Hero Shrew: Gimme a minute, I’m looking around for the asteroid that hit me.

Scooter goes full HULK SMASH on the suit, and after that rounding up the rest of the bad guys is short work. As well as all their other rather advanced technology, which includes subdermal radios and colour-change armour, the mooks have guns with mental controls.

Hardlight: Shoot. SHOOT. Hmm, maybe I’m not thinking hard enough.
The Magus OoC: If I remember the EGO of the rest of this party, then yeah, not thinking hard enough is definitely the problem
Hero Shrew: Huh. Were the lights supposed to come on?
Hardlight: WHAT???
Hero Shrew: The lights on this gun. Look, they’ve all come on. *waves it around*
The Magus: Hmm. Well, many Moreaus are at least passively psychic, although I don’t believe that’s common knowledge.
Hardlight: PUT THAT DOWN
The Magus: Huh, it must simply take a powerful enough mind to activate it.
Flux: That’s just mean.

We might not find where the drug pipeline actually starts, but we’ve shut down the literal pipeline at least. Although the clinic we were investigating has been cleaned out by the time we get back there.

The Magus OoC: He wants to spend a point to put a trailer on the Quadraphibious Qruiser.
Flux: It’d make a good accessory.
GM: … He wants to turn the Qruiser into an articulated truck.
Hardlight: I’m gonna make some scans of the MechaGodzilla so The Rep can make action figures.
GM: Did you negotiate likeness rights?
Hardlight: err…
Flux: ‘We have made a legally distinct villain who might look very similar but is actually legally distinct.’

Of course, as the Magus points out, the psi-boosting drug really is a very minor problem compared to some of the other things going on in Edge City, like the Sentient Memes. Gareth Lowell agrees - one wonders if somebody threw the drug situation at us to distract us from the issue at hand!

I think a few of these first appeared in genre books such as Savage Lands by Aaron Allston, also Western Hero, Horror Hero, ect.  and then got consolidated into 4e, afterwards.
 

Was working up for a Solarsystem limited game, before the players decided for me, that I would be running Cyberpunk Red.
 
The ships in the game were varied, with most ships being a "Torch Ship", but some being "rack ships" which were basically radio tower structures with a reaction engine on one end, vacuum tight shipping containers all up and down it, and the living quarters and bridge on the other (though many of them were robot * radio driven). Rack ships were the slowest and cheapest way to get from point A to Point B. , Then there were landers, and those were everything from winged shuttles, and space planes, to Space-X style  up and down rockets. I didn't get too much further with this, but that was kid of the framework.  IT was influenced a lot by "The Expanse", though.
 
I also played a lot of Traveller, and Space Opera, and very briefly an FGU Offering called "Other Suns", which had incomprehensible mechanics so we dropped it. Other Suns was also the Genesis of the furry fandom.
 
 

Yeah it was a better portrayal of Superman and I thought Brendan Routh did a good job.  But the movie was kind of boring, had a really stupid villain plot, and was sort of creepy with Superman stalking Lois Lane with his powers.  Plus, the movie really felt like it was more about Lois than Superman.

I'll give a (rough) shot at describing what I consider to be a normal superhero campaign. @Christopher R Taylor
 
Note that I've only been in what was considered by the group as "normal". Nothing that we considered to be beginners, teen, or high-powered so be aware....
 
Base Points ?
Matching Complications: ?
Mismatching Complications: ?
 
Characteristics    10-65
SPD    4-7 (5 is "mode" average and damned close to being the average, 7 is vanishingly rare)
Combat Value    8-13 (including Skill Levels and maneuver bonuses)
Standard Damage    8-14 DC  (11 DC average)
Active Points    40-65
Skill Rolls    8-14
Def/rDef    ?

Characters with High speed and/or high Combat values should have lower attacks & defenses, conversely powerful attacks & defenses should be associated with lower speeds.
 
Everyman Skills are as follows:
Acting 8-
AK: Home Area 8-
Climbing 8-
Concealment 8-
Conversation 8-
Deduction 8-
Language: Native Idiomatic, Literate
Persuasion 8-
PS: Hobby
Shadowing 8-
TF: Common Motorized Ground Vehicles
Stealth 8-
Perk: Driver's License (unless the character doesn't want one)
 
Young teen heroes do not get TF: Common Motorized Ground Vehicles and can use one of those points for unlicensed, unpowered movement familiarity like TF: Skateboarding, Bicycle, Surfing, Skis, Equines, etc. as appropriate for the character concept. The other point will be spent by the GM on a skill 8- based on reading the character's backstory and complications as a "You're a weird, unique kid" point.
 
Also instead of PS: Hobby, the young teen gets KS: Hobby.
 
And the young teen doesn't get a driver's license perk but can have the Social Complication: Perky for zero points if desired.
 
====
 
Note that I didn't give a suggested defense level. That really depends on how long the GM and the group want combat to last. I don't know what players today would consider to be an appropriate length for combat. 
 
I also didn't give suggested point and complication totals. I haven't played or GM'ed 6e and don't have an instinctive feel for how much an average character would cost for it. Someone familiar with building in 6e could likely look at my suggested norms and figure out a suggested cost and complication totals more accurately than I could guess.
 
Likewise, no ECV because I don't have any feel at all for how 6e affected mentalists.
 
I would note that the origin for the discussion of this was in a 5th edition thread. I'm not sure what the publication policy is for HERO so that it's 6e only or if publishing new material in 5th is a possibility.
 
My personal feeling was that 6e was a mistake because it made using older material vastly more complicated for a GM who already had constraints how much time he could devote to his gaming. It's not like 6e was the last nail in the coffin for HERO. It wasn't the first either, just another. IMHO.
 
====
 
Please everyone feel free to compliment or complain. 
 
I'm throwing this out for consideration, not because I think I have the answer (particularly on my comment on 6e coffin nails).

The FH campaign that I've run for the last couple of decades had gunpowder. I had originally cribbed my notes from the Campaign Classics Pirates book, mixed with the spell colleges from the 4e FH books, and several fencing styles from UMA. Full plate was rare, but heavy fighters would sometimes have a plate cuirass and steel helmet. Most characters would have light armor, and a few would have magical enhancements, or Combat Luck. 
 
Magic added to the tactics, as one character had a spell that would keep his powder dry, and improve the reliability of his wheellocks, while another had a suppression spell defined as a penetrating mist that made powder too wet to use. 

I just steal ‘em.   Do you need an editor for a big city newspaper?  There’s the history’s for Perry White and J.J.J. on their comic company’s websites.  Not realistic enough?  Look up Ben Bradley on Wikipedia, he was the editor of the Washington Post during Watergate. 
      Do you need a soldier or a cop?  Comics, movies, TV and history are full of them.   I like to use obscure stuff and go whole hog.  I saw a bad movie that starred Tommy Lee Jones as the Commander of a squadron of Apache helicopters.  (Fire Birds)  Soon after my Star Wars campaign had a new Commander for its B-wing squadron.
     Check out the episode of Big Bang Theory where Wolowitz is the DM for their D&D game.  The actor is a very good mimic and breaks out celebrity voices for all the NPC’s.   You don’t have to go that far, but I find that casting a real person in the role gives me an immediate grasp of what they sound, look and behave like.
        Good luck.

It's a fine line and the studios have been coming down on the side of inclusiveness to the detriment of the source material. The original authors targeted a certain audience and made material with enough appeal to get adapted. Don't change their works to appeal to a different audience, make quality works for that audience worthy of adaptation. Case in point:
 
I love the Wheel of Time books and have reread the series  at least 3 times. I watched the first three episodes and almost stopped. I have no problems with the diversification of the Two Rivers. That was treated as a matter of course and not a point of emphasis. But I got 15 minutes of Egwene's coming of age, that is completely original material, Mat's family suddenly being poor(when they are famous horse breeders) and Perrin being married instead of an apprentice.  The coming of age thing is especially egregious because it has no bearing on any part of Egwene's later character arcs and did little to make Nynaeve relatable. It was there just to give women a bigger role when that isn't necessary as they'll get plenty of star turn later. It's almost as if the writer's haven't read the books beyond a cliff notes version.
 
Sometimes I wish I was given oversight on these projects. My first operating principle would be " You can change the source material when you show me your stack of 14 bestsellers that outsold the author's. If you can't go back and write the script so it matches the book. Or present your personal magnum opus to us and we'll see if it gets green-lit (and then we'll change it because we can, these are improvements)." 
 

I never look at the recommends, The recommends even on YouTube are getting worse and worse, so Instead I look at my Subscribed list to see what's new from people I actually want to hear from in a timely fashion. For HBO, it's a case of just digging by subject.  Oddly though, the Amazon Recommendations are actually not terrible, which was a surprise.

This is a free pdf on drivethrurpg. The author basically reversed engineered the books from the ODD (Little Brown Books), D&D B/X, BECMI and AD&D 1st. Margins, table strokes, layout, etc along with what fonts were originally used as well as alternatives. Included is the PDF of his findings as well as InDesign files setting up Master Pages for the different layouts.
 

Katla (Netflix) an Icelandic TV show with curiously high production values about a few families staying behind in a village slowly being buried by a volcanic eruption, and has lasted for a year. One day Duplicates of people, living or deadstart to show up in the village.  Strange and very interesting, the show builds up a very specific mood.