austenandrews

I've got pinkeye right now. Talk about being a pariah. I'm embarrassed even to go out to the store. I pray for a sunny day, so I can wear sunglasses everywhere I go. Of course when I wore them to a nighttime showing of The Last Samurai, I still got stared at like I was a freak. Maybe I am a freak. -AA

Moon Knight struck me as not just a Batman knockoff, but more of a Batman parody. At least when I read it, during the Moench/Sienkiewicz days, he was a little more crazy and a lot more pathetic than Bats. Good series, though. Weird but good. -AA

Say no more! "Backman," eh? Eh? Know what I mean? Say no more! A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat! (See, this is why we can't have nice things anymore.) -AA

Yeah, somehow I doubt the movie ROTK will show the scene where Sam decides that he loves Frodo. It seems that romance novels are not concerned with plot (as in "protagonist accomplishes A and B to overcome obstacle C"), but really I think romance readers think of the flings, power shifts and wallowing -as- the plot. Where you and I are looking for "a hero defeats a villain," romance readers are looking for "a heroine hooks up with a hero." That's their plot. On a whim, I once ran a romance game for my wife and a female friend. I started out with my usual simultaneous plotlines, judging which subplots the players latched onto, progressing each one to some degree every session, etc. I soon realized that I was doing all that work for nothing. They didn't care one whit about my haunted-manor plotline or my handsome-lord's-dark-past plotline or my murder-on-the-moors plotline ... none of it interested them. What they wanted was for me to complicate the PCs' relationships with their respective love interests. That was it. When you boil it down, essentially I just set up scenarios for the PCs to argue with their lovers and eventually make up again. I didn't understand it but I ran it, and they loved it like no one's ever loved any game I've run. Strange. (Let me also say that running a romance game has advantages for the GM like no other game I've run, either. ) -AA

Yeah, it's a shame that the business aspect drives the genre so much. On the other hand, most fantasy fans I know don't seem to mind long series. I still don't get statements like "The first three books sucked, but then they got good." If the first book sucks, why do you read the second one? But they do, and the publishers know it. From a writer's perspective, though, I'm all for those multi-book contracts. -AA

For short stories, yes. For a fantasy novel, it's almost a requirement. Of course I don't read Robert Jordan or other notorious ramblers, so I've been spared the brunt of it (Tolkien being the exception, but he gets a pass). -AA

Not that I'm vastly well-read in the genre, but I've noticed that fantasy authors tend to include a lot of gratuitous material in general - loving descriptions of landscapes, detailed explanations of weapons and armor, intricate religious ceremonies, long histories that are ultimately irrelevant, etc. I've got to the point where I skim George R.R. Martin any time a character sits down to eat, because I'm not interested in any more lavishly-described meals. God forbid someone starts talking about his relatives, or I'm in for a catalog of names that I'll never see again. And he's regarded as one of the best in the field. My point is, I think readers of fantasy like details and events that further the mood and not just the plot. I know women who can read sex scenes all day, but could not care less about the use and maintenance of a suit of armor. For them, the sex is important and the fighting is skimworthy. Some people like a richly-detailed landscape. Others want the particulars of sailing ships or exotic smokes or unusual bits and bridles. Still others want to see the characters' unusual daily routines, regardless of whether it matters to the plot. Any of these details could be called gratuitous, but a fantasy book would be spare without such color. I'm not excusing juvenile writing, of course, just pointing out that there's a difference between not furthering the plot and being gratuitous. -AA

Slam away, Count Zero. That's what this thread is about. Nothing is sacred. If it is, all the better reason to slam it. -AA

I really like Wonder Man (in his old rocket-belt days, anyway) but this isn't much of a contest. Even if you allow that as a brick he's equal to Superman (which I'm not sure is clear) then you're still talking about (as I understand it) a normal man against the Flash. I'm not sure where it was said that Wonder Man has Captain America's fighting ability, but he never showed anything close to that back when I read the Avengers. Cap trained the various Avengers in fighting techniques, but that's a far cry from actually fighting like Cap. Besides, it's almost more fun to watch Wonder Man lose than to watch him win. He's sort of the Charlie Brown of world-class superheroes. -AA

I just eyeball power levels. Sometimes I'm way off, of course. My Hero geekiness manifests in character & power creation, not balancing issues. Personally I think numerical balancing is overrated. -AA

Oh, good Christ. Take it to NGD, please. -AA

Hey, come to think of it, that's about when I put down the book too! I was on a long plane flight at the time, too, so it's not like I had anything else to do. Though for me, I liked the fact that Covenant was self-absorbed and disbelieving of the situation. That worked for me, probably because it demystified a world that was shaping up to be pretty self-absorbed itself, except dull. It was when Covenant sat in a corner for what seemed like a hundred pages that I gave up. I thought I was getting a wierd spin on generic fantasy, then the spin vanished. -AA

I saw the extended version of FOTR in the theater today. I always thought it was cool that they included a couple of singing scenes. Not that Viggo Mortensen has anything like the singing voice I imagined for Aragorn, but at least he does show his Elven upbringing. More Elvish music, too, and of course the Hobbits singing is just golden. No musical Orcs, of course. "Down, down to Goblin Town, down, down ..." But I did like most of the songs in Tolkein's books (except when they went on for more than a page). -AA

You don't need Continuous. Just buy the power and use it as you will. For END/time limit concerns you might consider Continuing Charges and/or some kind of Limitations based on starting up & maintaining the flame. But EB, No Range, Focus Of Opportunity handles the basic attack ability. (Continuous would allow you to set enemies on fire, though, which could be fun.) I've used Damage Shield for a flaming sword, localized around the blade. That way you damage your attackers' weapons with a block, which is cool. But that drives up the Active Points, if AP is something you have to worry with. Also I wouldn't automatically Link it to the HKA. Leaving it separate allows you to burn things without striking them. -AA

There were two things I liked about Donaldson's Covenant -- the protagonist was unique and the prose style was wonderful. Unfortunately he promptly had Covenant do nothing for long stretches of time, and the boring fantasy world made the nice prose moot. I never actually made it to the end of the first book. For that matter the last third of the first Amber book was a load of tripe and turned me off of reading more of them. But I would consider neither of these in the category of Worst Fantasy. They're good quality but fatally flawed. For the worst fantasy novels published, as someone mentioned, I'm sure you have to plumb the depths of licensed fiction. -AA

I believe it was Yor, The Hunter From The Future. Topped my list of worst movies for a long time. I got a free pass to see Kull the Conquerer and got ripped off. Of course D&D was even worse. As for the written word, I give you the legendary Eye of Argon: http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/sf/eyeargon.htm There's also the Ultima: Technocrat War books by some guy in Austin. Talk about stinkeroos. -AA

Yeah, I have problems in general with a player making up convenience creatures whole cloth to Summon. (Which is why suggestions of buildings missiles with Summon are repellent to me.) In general a Summoned critter ought to have some sort of existence outside the battle he's Summoned for. But that's my own take on it, of course. -AA

Don't forget to subtract one for the center hex. -AA

Crystal Reports is a truly awful product. "Fang" would be a great name for a miniature Scotty dog. -AA

It also depends on how the GM and players define "winning." I've set up situations where the PCs are going to get captured, no two ways about it, because that's where I want the plot to go. Now I've had players who are fine with that, because they know that there's going to be a payoff down the road; and I've had players who utterly despise that, because (in their minds) I toyed with them before humiliating them. (Then again I've also had players who just hate losing period. I don't care for them much.) In any campaign I try to track which way the players lean, so I can tailor my scenarios appropriately. That's the important thing, since we're all collaborators on a collective storyline. (My own preference as a player is to match the genre at hand. In a standard fantasy or gritty modern game, I'll try to be creative and get out of a dangerous trap any way I can. In a Star Trek or a Golden Age Champs game, though, if I'm in a room and gas starts pouring in, I'll clutch my throat, burst into a coughing fit and collapse to the floor. I don't need prompting to know how the genre works. ) -AA

Now -that's- something I do as a matter of course, with willing players -- put them in situations where there are no right or wrong answers, just difficult decisions that explore their characters and stretch their characterizations. For me that's the most rewarding game of all. -AA

I've run and played in many short-runs with few or no survivors. Sometimes it's great to see who can die with the most style. -AA

I have run horror games, if that's what you mean. -AA

One phenomenon you're seeing is that Steve Long is obviously a "cat person," not a "dog person." The dog writeups in the Bestiary are way out of whack (and the cat one might be, too, though I didn't examine it very carefully). I plan to add 10-15 STR to the various dogs right off the bat, and possibly some other improvements. Then again this is Hero where agility is king, so it shouldn't be surprising that the cost of a cat would be relatively steep. Of course if you compare a house cat to a guard dog in combat, you'd think the more expensive animal would be obvious. The problem with subtracting Disads from the total is that it makes Summon the same cost as an animal Follower, except that with Summon the creatures can be killed with relative impunity, whereas a Follower is considerably harder to replace. You might be able tweak the numbers to make them equivalent, though. -AA

Just to point out, I did state that Enraged implies hatred unless some other backstory exists to explain an unusual case. The particulars of Enraged don't excuse double-dipping on what amounts to "hates orcs." Not in my game, anyway. -AA