Pattern Ghost

The first thing to understand is that the state of Role Playing Games in general is awful.  People prefer video games, card games, miniature war games, board games, etc far more than role playing games.  Even D&D, the industry leader, is in rocky shape right now -- partly self induced but overall just a symptom of the times.  The biggest local gaming shop has only a small corner of the shop devoted to RPGs, the rest to miniatures, card games, and board games.
 
Super Hero RPGs, a small segment of the RPG industry is doing even worse.  Modern people have small attention spans, don't read much beyond texts, want flashy high definition moving imagery, and have starved and atrophied imaginations because all their entertainment is played out and spoon fed to them.
 
I hate to be the bearer of bad news like this.  I desperately wish it was not so.

Having the formerly-fragmented Mjolnir be able to separate into guided shrapnel is a pretty cool visual, though, and expands its tactical uses.

The Economist has of course run editorials urging Israel, Middle Eastern leaders, and American government to be reasonable and seek a long-term, peaceful solution that will make the Middle East better for everyone. Unfortunately, none of those parties are prone to be reasonable.
 
I could go on to discuss Israel's foundation, history, and exaltation of 3,000-year-old mythology at the expense of real, present people, but many people cannot distinguish between criticism of Zionism (a political program) and anti-Semitism (hatred of a people and religion). So I'll stop now\, and merely say that modern Israel's history has been a graphic demonstration that two wrongs still don't make a right.
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

I think that ideal solution requires a degree of rational detachment that simply doesn't exist in any of the parties involved. I also suspect that HAMAS and their allies intended their attack to provoke exactly this kind of response from Israel, to damage their standing on the global stage. I think this conflict is less about waging asymmetrical warfare in the military sense, so much as in the political sense, bolstered by the proven effectiveness of disinformation campaigns.
 
 
 

Oh, I get that. I started basically with 4th Edition, though I'd read 2e some time before that. (Or it may have been 3e, it had Marksman swinging across the cover.) 
 
I was primarily thinking about letting multiple Characteristics govern a Skill, depending on circumstance, as a way of adding granularity to character builds, especially for Heroic level games. This would let two characters with the same skill excel at different aspects of the skill, depending on their stats. Or maybe just be slightly stronger at those aspectss.

Increasing the cost of skills which this does is not going to improve the game.  In fact, it is likely to do the opposite.  Too many players don’t even bother with skills even though they are fairly cheap. Making them cost more is just going make players even less willing to purchase skills. 
 
Currently most scientist characters use the option to make their science skills INT based to get decent rolls when they purchase multiple sciences.  Knowledge based characters do the same thing.  By combining this with skill enhancers you can get a decent number of relevant skills for fairly cheap.
 
Under the current rules I can spend 41 points for a 23 INT, and a 14 or less on the following skills computer programing, inventor, security systems, electronic and mechanics, plus the skill enhancer scientist and 5 sciences skills all on 14 or less.  Under the proposed rule you have to spend 48 points to get those skills and that does not include the cost of raising the characters INT.  Once you factor in the INT the cost jumps up to 61 points.  That does not even factor in perception.  This is a very basic scientist build what is the justification for the extra cost?      
 
A Ninja or other martial arts concept is going to get equally hard.  All this system does is to penalize certain concepts.  This is not just a solution in search of a problem.  This is solution that creates a problem.   

I always liked round numbers, so that means a STUN ending in 5 or 0. So, I tend to buy up BODY to make the figured come up as something aesthetically pleasing, if I have the points. I could just round up by buying STUN directly, but usually don't. I also don't tend to split hairs on optimizing builds to the point I need to scrounge up the "wasted" points on the extra BODY.

Nice.  I'm not as familiar with 6th, thanks.
 
 
The complimentary roll being added in.
 
 
Me either. 😃 This whole thing is just a thought experiment.
 
 
LOL, thanks for your support. I don't really care if it gets discussed, just figured I'd toss it out there and see what folks think. It's more about just posting on the actual gaming side of the board more for me. I haven't played in a long time, and tend to hang out more in the NGD these days. I'm more of an RPG Reader than RPG Player these days.

Santos had cover from McCarthy for a long time. As soon as McCarthy was dismissed, a lot of the other people from NY posted up a resolution to expel Santos. They were trying to put it up so the new speaker would help get rid of him. And then he was indicted again but the crimes were fraud and theft.
CES 

We tracked down Mr. Santos in the NY Knicks locker room after he had just finished scoring 8 touchdowns and 3 home runs on NBA opening night.  When asked for comment, Mr. Santos replied "I'm actually a senator, not a congressman, so they cant expel me from the House."

Canada has three western "prairie provinces" stretching from the US border to the Canadian far north: west to east, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The first two each have pairs of major cities, one to the south closer to the border, the other in the north on the Saskatchewan River. Edmonton in Alberta is the northernmost city in North America with a population of 1 million+, while Saskatoon is Saskatchewan's largest city at over a quarter-million, and over 300 thousand in its metropolitan area (and growing fast). Both are at roughly the same latitude. The growth of those cities in the modern era has been spurred by development of natural resources in the north, namely oil and mining, to which they're both called "gateway" cities.
 
Manitoba has only one city in that class, Winnipeg in south of the very large and long Lake Winnipeg (around 750,000 population), a major rail and air hub. In the north on that same latitude the Saskatchewan River flows first into Cedar Lake in the west, then on to Lake Winnipeg. In between there's a three-mile stretch of rapids which in the past was a serious block to water travel. Today there's a major hydro-electric dam on the site. The town of Grand Rapids, on the shore of Lake Winnipeg, has a bridge crossing the Saskatchewan River for the province's main highway. There are also several Cree First Nations in the region.
 
I propose a couple of "what if" changes to the history of that region. First, a "smoothing out" of the Saskatchewan River between Cedar Lake and Lake Winnipeg, freeing up water transport and facilitating expanded construction where Grand Rapids is now. There would undoubtedly be considerable road, rail, and water traffic between a new city there, and Winnipeg. Second, the discovery of some valuable mining resource in the Canadian Shield to the north. I would suggest high-grade uranium, although in a "super" world you could substitute something more exotic. Uranium would spur the growth of high-tech industries in the city diversifying its economy, as well as provide excuse for all kinds of criminal hijinks.   A nuclear power plant could also replace the hydro-electric dam. I would think all of that would justify a city of at least half a million.
 
Besides science-related plots, the city can be the jumping-off point for wilderness adventures to compromised mines, hidden villain bases, and the like. The presence of First Nations can weave in native spiritual traditions, as well as conflicts over land development and aboriginal land rights. As the province was originally settled by France and still has a substantial Francophone minority, the city could also be functionally bilingual (both languages have official status in Manitoba), as well as having representation from the distinctive Metis community (descended from mixed French and native).
 
As this was jelling in my head, a name suggestion popped into it for the new city: Northgate.

The School Buzz
 
Saw this on Facebook and thought I'd pass this along. After all the grief we RPGers went through in the Eighties, it's always good to see stuff like this.

The player at the table mostly because their girlfriend/boyfriend wants to be is often problematic. Hopefully you can find and draw out another type of genuine player inside her.

I kind of liked FASERIP, it’s the only supers rule system I can stand that isn’t Hero. 
 
But I much prefer Hero. 

Just you. 

When you go against a psychological complication the strength of the complication is used to determine the level of mind control needed.  I would suggest that an enraged or berserk look at the recovery to determine the level of control needed.  The recovery chance is based on how easy it is for the character to overcome his rage.   A recovery of 14 or less might be an EGO +10, an 11 or less an EGO +20 and a 8 or less would be a EGO +30.   Straight EGO I feel is inappropriate because the character does have to excerpt some effort to calm down.  

It's a matter of campaign utility. If none of the other PC's have Enraged/Berserk, then just used the guidelines for Emotions only. If, however your group has one or more members that constantly go out of control, the utility greatly increases, and I'd knock -1/4 off the Limitation. It's still a Limited power but it's no longer niche. 

Well it could matter in this sense:
 
Is it a power just used to control a fellow player character?  Like Marvel Girl using her telepathy to calm Wolverine?  Because then the rarity is much, much lower and it isn't worth as much of a limitation.

As the guy who wrote the update I encourage you to pick up both of these.  🙂

I didn't see much journalistic rigor in that NPR article, TBH. All that's presented as evidence against the Israeli story is a Doppler shift analysis? We have video of the rocket, for example, that's publicly available and seems to support Israel's narrative, that a rocket burned out, and fell. The crater, burn patterns and exterior building damage also seem to support this. I'd like to see an expert analysis of the same evidence presented by Israel, to see if it holds up to independent analysis. So, we're left with weighing all of the visual evidence against a Doppler analysis by an unnamed source whose bias we can't research.
 
Israel also presented audio evidence from alleged audio transmissions between two Islamic Jihad (IIRC) who are discussing the failed rocket strike. That's something that could (and should) be analyzed for authenticity, though it's not from a "publicly available" source.
 
According to this CNN article analyzing the blast, the rocket was fired from the South. It's worth a read. 
 
Edit: Relevant quote from the linked article:
 
"A leading US acoustic expert, who did not have permission to speak publicly from their university, analyzed the sound waveform from the video and concluded that, while there were changes in the sound frequency, indicating that the object was in motion, there was no directional information that could be gleaned from it."
 
Sorry for the negative reply, but I think it's important to try to look at all of the information received on the key events in this conflict as objectively as possible, especially since objectivity in the matter has been historically difficult to come by.
 
 
 
 

Midjourney has some new tricks since the last time I tried it. /describe gives fun and unexpected results. (Mainly because the descriptions are way off base, but still find some cool prompts playing with it), and Vary (Region) is a godsend for fixing small blips in otherwise good outputs. I generated a new avatar and a background pic for my profile tonight, both Halloween-themed. Actually, this is the first time my profile page has had a background image (the "Cover Photo" thing at the top that's geometric shapes and a color by default).

Condolences.