39 minutes ago, Sociotard said:

They are, they just weren't built for invasion. All the problems they've had go away in a defensive war. Low morale/lack of motivation? Fixed in a snap if Russia is really defending itself. Can't extend supply lines? Not an issue fighting within Russia. Massive nuclear arsenal useless in this context? It's perfect for keeping the NATO bugaboo away.

Garry Kasperov put out something on social media a few days ago...

One Russian to another:

- What's the news?

- We're at war with NATO!

- How's it going?

- We've lost 15,000 soldiers, 100 aircraft, and 600 tanks.

- How about NATO?

- Oh, they haven't started fighting yet.

Two Ukrainian helicopters apparently had a good night blowing up a fuel depot in Belgorod, Russia. That's about 25 miles north of the Ukrainian border, maybe 75 miles from Kharkiv, Ukraine. 

Emergency services there report that 8 tanks with fuel are now burning, there is a threat of the fire spreading to 8 more.

4 hours ago, Pariah said:

The disintegration of Conference USA is proceeding ahead of schedule, with Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Mississippi moving to the Sun Belt at the end of the current academic year.

 

Conference USA allows three schools to leave after this spring season

 

Terms of the agreement weren't disclosed, but I imagine there was a hefty exit fee involved. 

 

This gives the Sun Belt 14 teams for the 2022 season, including James Madison, who just made the jump from FCS.

If all the teams but one leave Conference USA, doesn't that one team automatically win the conference?

Asking for a school which prefers to remain anonymous at this point in time....

1 hour ago, death tribble said:

Bruce Willis to quit acting due to brain disorder

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60934576

 

 

Verbal aphasia makes it very difficult to communicate effectively.

For me it isn't very predictable. 

Sometimes I say precisely the opposite of what I mean to say and don't notice. Sometimes I notice and correct myself.

Sometimes I use the wrong word (often a completely unrelated word) rather than the right word. Sometimes I notice and sometimes I don't.

If I tell a story about three different people, I'll use their names interchangeably throughout the course of the story which makes it almost impossible for anyone to figure out what happened.

Sometimes I forget a word that I'm going to say in the middle of a sentence and also forget every possible synonym for it. My record for forgetting words and synonyms was around 45 minutes when my niece's apartment burned and I was trying to tell my wife what happened. 

I forgot my niece's name, the word "niece", my brother's name, the word "brother", my sister-in-law's name, and the term "sister-in-law". That flustered me so much that I couldn't get out the word "fire" even though I remembered it. My wife ended up asking me if it was an emergency that she had to deal with right then and when I communicated it wasn't, she had me go sit down until I regained my command of the language enough to not be frustrated.

I can't imagine what kind of hell that must be for an actor who depends on his verbal communication skills to get paid appearance fees and land roles.

The NFL enacted diversity measures Monday, including a requirement that each team have a minority assistant coach in a significant role on its offensive staff.

The new minority offensive assistant requirement comes as part of an initiative that will be partially funded by the league. The coach must have at least three years of college or pro coaching experience and must work closely with the head coach and offensive coordinator.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/nfl-will-require-every-team-to-have-minority-coach-in-key-offensive-role/ar-AAVAgIN

23 hours ago, unclevlad said:

I don't mean this in a snide way, but archer, did you read the story? 

I read the story and I stand by my joke.

Some things Putin can spin. Other things are tougher.

From the "Weren't they already doing this" file:

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/599754-chick-fil-a-announces-plan-to-convert-its-used-cooking-oil-to

Chick-Fil-A announces plan to convert used biofuel into cooking oil

I think it's obvious their fanbase isn't aware that they'd be watching the Cleveland Indians.

20 hours ago, death tribble said:

The USA could always bring back Prohibition. I mean Coronavirus is replicating Spanish Flu and that was 100 years ago.

I saw a cartoon with a guy standing next to his girlfriend who's dressed like a flapper.

She says to him, "Considering the pandemic and the world war, I thought I'd get a jump on the Roaring Twenties."

4 hours ago, Pariah said:

Scientists are talking about different plans to try to find water on Mars. I've got the perfect solution: send me up there with a set of golf clubs.

"It's a trap!"

1 hour ago, Tjack said:

   While today isn’t too bad, tomorrow is going to suck rocks.  I have to go in for my bi-annual lung capacity tests.  This is where a sadist in a smock walks me around an indoor track monitoring my blood oxygen levels until I want to pass out.  Then they take you into a room with a little booth and a face mask and see how you do at different levels of air.

   The last one showed me at at only 48% lung capacity and it’s expected this one will show it’s even lower now.   Does anyone want to start a pool to guess the new number?

I may have to make plans to return to my home world.  This one bites.

I'll be optimistic and say 47.99%.

If it's any comfort when my wife was around 47 years old, she did such testing and was told that she had the lungs of someone who was in her late 80's. She's never smoked or done anything which would have deliberately been destructive of her lungs.

Anyway, she's still alive. Hasn't been able to work in years but she has hobbies which keep her busy. For example, she's learned to paint. 

Activation roll suck if you're perpetually unlucky and are great if the god of the dice smiles in your favor.

And I know all the math theory that there's no such thing as luck when rolling dice. But I've seen far too many die rolls to believe that.

Any science which is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=2401

====

Out of curiosity, would anyone know why this website now claims that every picture I want to post has too big of a file size, even pictures which I successfully posted in the past?

I've never run into such a problem before.

I'm on a Chrome browser if that makes any difference.

I'd be watching Daredevil but the new automatic child safety "feature" which Disney+ suddenly imposed has me baffled as to how to get around it.

With other child safety things I've seen, a parent has to deliberately set it and there were clear instructions on how to turn the feature off and on.

Disney+ apparently went the other direction, making it automatically on and no instructions on what to do to turn it off.

I'm not having a great "mental health" week from a mental health standpoint. I'm also having some fairly serious memory issues, beyond what I normally have.

I'm not up to dealing with Disney customer service when I'm dealing with a doctor's office refusing to write me refills on medications I've been on for 20+ years, another doctor's office that's being uncooperative, an uncooperative insurance company, a landline phone which decided to stop working, and about ten prescriptions whose refill authorizations expired a few days before the insurance company would authorize refilling them (that's from a different doctor than the office which is refusing to write refills on four other medications).

I'd really find Daredevil punching some bad guy's face into hamburger...very soothing right now.

I don't think this is as current as what I had earlier about the French-led carrier strike group but this was the planned deployment that was originally supposed to be from Feb 1st through April. It was scheduled to be conducting exercises with the Italian navy and the US's Truman carrier strike group before the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened...

Task Force 473 is built around aircraft carrier FS Charles de Gaulle (R 91) and includes European Union, NATO and French partner nations during the deployment. French Navy ships in the task group along with Charles de Gaulle are destroyer FS Forbin (D620), frigates FS Alsace (D656) and FS Normandie (D651), replenishment ship FS Marne (A630) and a nuclear attack submarine. Partner ships integrated into the group are U.S. Navy destroyer USS Ross (DDG-71), Spanish Navy frigate ESPS Juan de Borbon (F102), Hellenic Navy frigate HS Adrias (F459) and Royal Moroccan Navy corvette Sultan Moulay Ismail (614). A Hellenic Navy submarine will join the task force on Feb. 7.

The embarked air group aboard Charles De Gaulle includes 20 Rafale F3R fighters of Flottilles 12F and 17F, two E-2C Hawkeyes Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEWC) aircraft of Flottille 4F, 1 Dauphin helicopter and 1 Panther helicopter of Flottille 35F and 36F, respectively, and a NH90 NFH Caïman anti-submarine warfare helicopter of Flottille 31F. A Belgian Air Component NH90 helicopter is embarked on Forbin. Land-based fixed wing aircraft supporting the deployment are a French Navy Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft and a U.S Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.

https://news.usni.org/2022/02/01/french-carrier-charles-de-gaulle-leaves-for-2022-deployment

French President Macron announced he's worked out a deal with Greece and Turkey (two traditional enemies) to launch an "exceptional humanitarian operation" to rescue the people still trapped in Mariupol.

He said he was discussing it with (or notifying) Putin shortly.

60 

Some reports imply that he's notifying Putin that it's going to happen while others seem to say that it's something he's going to discuss with Putin. So take your pick. I don't speak French and I don't know whether the ambiguity is intentional or not.

The first round of the French presidential election is April 10th so it could just be a publicity stunt to make it look like he's trying. France has does less militarily to help Ukraine than many other NATO countries and Macron has caught heat from that decision.

But if it's real, that combination of countries suggest it could be a seaborn expedition. 

France has an aircraft carrier leading a NATO carrier group in the area around Cyprus at the moment. A couple of weeks ago I knew the number and kind of ships and names of the ships in that task force but that information has slipped away from me.

France several times has used its three Mistral class amphibious assault ships in relief missions, evacuations, and such. Those ships come with a 69 bed hospital, 16 helicopters, up to four landing barges, and can carry up to 70 vehicles (or 16 of the French main battle tanks). It can accommodate 400 passengers easily and up to 900 for a short period. 

If there's a relief mission by sea, I'd expect the Mistral class to be an essential part.

Of course there's supposed to be 100,000+ civilians still in Mariupol plus an unknown number of Ukrainian soldiers and resistance fighters.

And the seas around Mariupol have supposedly been heavily mined.

And a large part of the Russian navy is now in the Black Sea between any rescue mission resources and the city.

I'm reminded of the Chinese blessing: "May you live in interesting times."

What was that "forced-dancing" spell from the first editions of D&D called?

UAA - gives them PS: Ballroom Dancing and +2" Running (in case they have to do the Quickstep).

A defense against it might be Having Two Left Feet. You know, like a centaur.

Everyone knows centaurs can't dance because they have two left feet.

This was my response a couple of months ago for a town that was protected by a wizard's tower and which was at the edge of a forest.

Quote

Even though it's not on a major trading road, it's likely some trading company would have a major presence there. The locals have to produce something and need something else. And a business being able to ask favors from the wizard and point out your importance to the community as an inducement for her to grant it would be a powerful fringe benefit.

 

Banking since it sounds like the place is stable financially. Heck, any place that's not in danger of being raided and has law enforcement is practically heaven so I'd expect every occupation to be there if the tower has been around long enough.

 

There's likely a logging industry, particularly if there's a river to send the logs down. Though likely the wizard, the fae, or the local government limits the amount or types of trees which can be downed.

 

Fishing if there's a river or lake along with docks and perhaps a port facility. Boatmakers if there's a port. Ferrymen if there's a river. Makers of sails, rope, nets, anchors, etc.

 

Likely a monastery or large church presence if the place is as safe as you are telling us. Young monks need to learn their letters and numbers somewhere and better that it's somewhere safe. Perhaps a large scholastic presence if there's church-owned books which need to be transcribed from older languages to new. Winery for monks.

 

Granary and mills.

 

Glassworks if there's a beach for sand. Saltworks if there's an ocean. Saltery for preserving fish.

 

Weavers for making grain bags. Crockers for crockery. Coopers.

 

Tanners if there's good hunting in the forest. Bowyers/fletchers for the hunters. Cobblers and armor-makers if there's a steady supply of leather.  

 

Orchards. Chestnuts, walnuts, pecans, almonds, hazelnuts since those are easily stored and are found naturally in many forests. Also the more typical fruit trees.

 

Swineherding since pigs will eat acorns, leaves, and other forest debris.

 

Quarry and stonemasons. Miners. Blacksmith.

 

Apothecary

 

Surgeon/dentist/barber

 

Candlemaker

 

Wainwright, wheelwright, carpenter

 

Hostler, stableboy 

 

Innkeep, cook, maid, waitress

 

Clerk (accountant), scribe

 

Cockfights, dogfights, pit fights

 

Soapmaker, basket-weaver, spinster, baker, teamster

If the town is large enough, perhaps guildhalls for various guilds (comfortable meeting room, exclusive bar, maybe space for an out of town visitor, barkeep, guard, or storage for guild members who have inventory overflow).

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).

"Science is what the universe does when no one that matters is looking."

16 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

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.

13 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

I like TV Nynaeve better than book Nynaeve. The actress sells her personality better than it comes across in the books. She seems a lot less shrill and more just stubborn and protective of her people.

 

The show's not bad, as long as you've forgotten the plot of the books. 😁

 

I'll admit that I read the first and maybe second Wheel of Time books so long ago that I remember nothing other than the title and that there was an order of women called "Aes Sedai" but nothing about their beliefs or what they did.

Wasting 15 minutes on Egwene's coming of age is a criminal waste in a movie or limited series. But in an on-going series, not so much. And the secretive rite for women only did nicely set up the idea that "women have power of their own in this society" so that when the Aes Sedai were introduced as an independently powerful faction, it wasn't jarring for a viewer who might have otherwise been expecting a strictly medieval society.

Perrin being married instead of only an apprentice set him up for being more broken after they left the village. And helped explain why he wasn't stepping forward to being the leader of the group and the hero of the beginning of the story.

Mat being poor rather than rich helped him be a more sympathetic figure to the audience. He's wanting to get back to his crappy life in order to protect his siblings, not wanting to get back to his cushy lifestyle. So the audience feels sympathy when he's cursed and more understanding when he's not willing to walk into a 75% certain death.

The diversification of Two Rivers is no different than the diversification of most places when they go from book to a visual medium. Most authors don't have time to describe the race, sex, age, and appearance of each background character in the book. He describes the ones who are important to the story and relies on the readers to fill in the rest from their imagination.

I personally picture a small isolated village in fantasy settings to be all of one race. Because if you mix a Caucasian bunch, with groups of Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Asians, and blacks in the same village, after a ten generations, there's not going to be neatly divided racial groups existing in the small isolated village anymore.  

I know that's not appealing from a marketing standpoint because the primary goal of marketing a show isn't to show an audience how genetics works in real life. So I cut a fantasy show a lot of slack on casting choices and don't try to insist on realism.  

On the other hand, there's cowboys in westerns. A large percentage of cowboys in real life were blacks and Mexicans. For a western made today, I'd expect that realism to be reflected in casting choices (especially for background characters) rather than the entire cowboy cast being white.

57 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

 

Such messaging resonates well with far too many right-wingers at home (they seem to be operating on "She was asking for it." logic); then again, there hasn't been an invasion they didn't like.

I've seen all sorts of comments about, "Why is Biden worried about that invasion rather than the invasion through our own southern border?"

So they're somewhat selective in their likes and dislikes.

I've not used a location that gives a recurring bonus which the players have to travel to over and over. It tethers the players to one spot in the world. Or if it's extra-dimensional and they have easy access to it, they'll use it to avoid combat, random encounters, a work-around for only one person having Stealth as the stealthy person carries the portal by the guards as the rest of the party waits inside the pocket dimension, and all sorts of other potential abuses.  

It's just not something that I've cared to introduce into my games.

But I can see the appeal from a setting standpoint if the PC's are essentially agents of Prestor John, sort of like Charlie's Angels down through the centuries have been agents of the immortal and unseen Charlie.

I have however used the Fountain of Youth as a one-time use origin story for a Golden Age hero. He became immortal and was given a large amount of Luck and a few Luck-based powers (like Missile Deflection "It missed me by that much"). As the decades passed and he became an NPC, he gained a lot of skills, martial arts, fame, and fortune.

He also found out he was an avatar (chosen instrument) for one of the conceptual entities of his universe.

But he never had to revisit the small uncharted Pacific Island where he was shot down, drank from the pool which was the Fountain of Youth, and fortunately rescued in WWII.

He's not even sure at this point whether the island was an entirely real place since he never found it again and the charts and logs of the ship which rescued him are muddled and contradictory.