BoloOfEarth

I knew a guy who was Head of Corn in the Army. He was a Colonel.

Long ago I ran a Champions adventure involving Foxbat attempting to kidnap Adam West and Burt Ward from a mall opening (at which he had arranged for them to appear). Foxbat of course had various gadgets, including the Costumatron which "instant changed" West and Ward into their Batman costumes from the show. Adam West's first comment was, "Yep, it still chafes like hell."

As GM, I typically create most villains' powers with Half END, figuring that brings the END cost down enough that I don't have to worry about it. Because I don't track END for the villains unless one has gotten temporarily KO'd and wakes back up with END down below 10. (And even then I rarely track it, because the PCs are very likely to put that guy back down into GM-Discretion-Land pretty quickly.) The players in my game rarely create Drains, and haven't gone with END Drains at all.

Would "English" be "mangled Tennesean"? Or is Tennesean actually mangled English?

What do the three women in a man's life say? There's the prostitute, who says, "Are you through yet?" The mistress, who says, "Finished already?" And the wife, who says, "Beige. I think we'll paint the ceiling beige."

I'm thinking he meant at the beginning of a Segment. (Though Christopher can correct me if I'm wrong.) If you normally move on Segments 4, 8, and 12, and on 12 declare you're holding your action, then I think he's saying that he would be fine with you deciding you want to do a recovery at your DEX in 3, but not at the end.

The effective difference is that when recovering on Phase 4 rather than during a held action, then from Phase 4 until your next phase (which could be Phase 8 if you're SPD 3) you're at half DCV (with Placed Shots modifiers being halved as well) and any Constant powers that cost END (even if only to activate) are turned off while you're recovering, possibly making you a bit of a sitting duck. (Which, to be fair, you'd have instead been a sitting duck until Phase 4 if you recovered on the prior Phase rather than holding your action, doing a non-recovery action on Phase 3, and then recovering on Phase 4.) Whereas if you could use your held action to recover, you'd only be a sitting duck for that fraction of a second at the very end of Phase 3 when nobody can attack you. Hence, the rules not allowing you to do that.

These are the same people who wanted to make dihydrogen monoxide illegal, aren't they?

You're right there, NPCs (with rare exceptions) shouldn't outshine the PCs in special knowledge / skills the PCs have, unless they're being set up as a distinct rival. However, having NPCs who cover skills the PCs don't have, can be quite useful. For example, none of the PCs in my current campaign have any chemistry skills, so a quirky chemist could be useful if a particular plotline calls for it. But that sort of thing should just be a "guest shot" and not a constant presence, unless one or more of the players feel differently.* * I've introduced NPCs before with the intent of them just being background help or one-shots, but a player sought the NPC out afterward. For instance, a superheroine was dating the team's rich financier, and one time I had her work with his personal assistant, who was a bureucratics whiz who also acted a bit like the financier's surrogate mother. The superheroine ended up taking the assistant on a spa day (along with the team's other superheorine), got involved a bit in the assistant's personal life, and so on. She became a semi-regular in the game, but that was driven by the players so I figured it was fine.

Strange, I have the opposite. Of the 7 players in my current game: Four gave me family ranging from close relations (kids, spouse, parents, siblings) to extended (Escudar, above), along with some friends / acquaintances One gave me mostly friends / acquaintances Two didn't give me any NPCs

At the start of each of my Champions campaigns, I offer my players 5 free XP if they provide me with 5 NPCs (note: *not* DNPCs) to flesh out their personal world. They can be family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, acquaintances, what have you. I promise them that they won't be used as DNPCs, nor can they really be used as Contacts (unless the PC want to pay for them), though I've been known to use them to move the story along or help the PC in small ways. That doesn't mean that nothing bad ever happens to them - hey, life can get messy sometimes - it's just that it's stuff that doesn't involve the PC. (I don't kill any of them off, though they might have been witness to a bank robbery or get in a car accident or something similar.) But mostly, they're just there for day-to-day stuff. Without fail, one or two players go overboard - for example, the player of Eddy / Escudar (the PC martial artist in my current game) gave me a list of 20 people - most are family members, though some are neighbors and friends. In those cases, I generally concentrate on a handful of them, and maybe bring in other individuals at odd points along the way, or just mention them in passing. Last time I ran, Eddy's great-grandmother had her 93rd birthday, and Eddy's mom decided to throw a big party for her. A few individuals got mentioned in passing (one of Eddy's cousins was flirting with a friend / bandmate of Eddy's, and Eddy's sister was crushing on Escudar's teammate Jack Frost, who was at the party in secret ID playing in Eddy's band. I've found such NPCs can really add depth to the game world and be a lot of fun for the players. I do have a few players who take the 5 free XP bu fail to provide me with NPCs, or only give me one or two - out of laziness, rather than malice. In those cases, I create NPCs for them... and mine aren't always as easygoing as those the players come up with. These might be the nosy neighbor, or the obnoxious coworker, or the cop with an attitude who keeps pulling the PC over for piddly stuff. You'd think they'd learn...

This reminded me of a joke I told here back in November 2020: A woman finds an old brass oil lamp, rubs some grime off, and a genie pops out. "I'm required to grant you three wishes," he says, "but I'm rather irritable after being trapped in that lamp for hundreds of years, so whatever you wish for, I'm going to give double that to your ex-husband." "That jerk!" says the lady. "He cheated on me and left me for a younger woman! I don't want him to get anything!" The genie smiled. "Nonetheless, that is the deal. He gets double what you get." "Fine," huffs the woman. "For my first wish, I wish I had ten million dollars." "As you wish," says the genie, "And your ex now has twenty million dollars." "I wish I had a private island where I could live, with a mansion and dock for my yacht and all the amenities - electricity, clean water, satellite internet access, the works." "No problem, says the genie. "Your ex now has two private islands. And your last wish?" The woman smiles. "I wish you would scare me half to death."

A: My wife

My daughters (who are big hockey fans, particularly of the Carolina Hurricanes) say that the players are spending time in the "ice terrarium" to "think about their sports crimes."

But... what size would they be in Standard Giraffes?

George Santos will not serve on any committees. However, Anthony Devolder, Anthony Zabrovsky, and Kitara Ravache will.

People like that don't. Ever.

The Photonic Optical Waveform (POW) hologram generator, which makes visible sound effects for your next battle. Because who doesn't want "POW!" and "BLAM!" and "KER-SPLAT!" visible for miles as you battle your arch-enemies? NT: Unfortunate arch-enemies for your favorite heroes. (For example, the Flash's new enemy, the Flasher.)

Back in college, one of my classmates talked about wanting to get one of those powerful commercial aircraft lights and mounting it behind his car's front grille, with a switch inside to turn it on or off. There's been a time or two when I wished I could do that.

I disagree with 2/3 of this. IMO, all ducks are evil.

The latest news coverage.

Colored in the stripes on all those "thin blue line" flag stickers to turn them into LGBTQ+ flag stickers. NT: Inadvisable things to get your spouse / partner / significant other for Valentine's Day.

I'm generally... well, not comforted but at least feel a bit less collectively stupid when I see similar things in other countries. But not Canada. I look at our friendly neighbors to the north like a little, smarter brother who learns from big brother's occasional idiotic mistakes and is better for it.

So what you're saying is, it's a bad-luck day for your students, not for you.

So, is it possible there are alternate universes where all of the "Launch Asteroid" results actually happen? In other words, did I just create a bunch of extinction-level events on alternate Earths? (Still, it felt good to nuke Columbus, OH.)