IndianaJoe3

There is already a, "Roborace" that's in development as a Formula E support series. I don't think they've done much actual racing yet, just testing.

Another refreshing change with Diana is that so many of those other strong women are also emotionally damaged in some way. James Cameron's female protagonists, like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor, are notable examples -- filled with and driven by grief, anger, fear. In contrast Diana is positive, idealistic, hopeful. She wants the best for everyone and is relentlessly determined to make that happen. If innocent people need help, you help them, no question or doubt. In the movie you see that attitude and determination inspire the people around her, which is what makes it so inspiring for the audience. And when her beliefs are challenged and shaken, she comes through to an understanding that has matured and deepened, but is no less positive.

Two teams. The, "Shield" team is the public one, defenders of Russia. Team, "Sword" is covert ops.

It depends on the game you're running. Powers might not be available (or reliable). If characters in the game never need to use a skill, does it matter if they pay points for it or have it at all?

Q: What do you call a cow with no legs?
 
A:
 

"I guess if I had stopped to do the math, I would've realized I had ordered 42 pounds of Skittles. But there was no stopping and there was no math. There was only lime."

"Talk to the hand."

Lady Godiva and Jesse James Go To Neptune

Lady Godiva and Jesse James Go To Neptune

Now, socialism. Warning: long and a bit dry, but let us see what the Dictionary of Political Thought has to say in defining socialism, without trying to argue whether it’s good or bad.
 
As a purely economic doctrine, I’ve been told that socialism simply means that the state exerts some control over the means of production and distribution. One should probably add: For conscious pursuit of social or political goals. After all, in Medieval Europe the feudal aristocracy controlled the principle means of production — land — but this was not for some conscious program of social engineering, so I don’t think it would be fair to call manorialism “socialist.”
 
Scruton notes that, as with so many political terms, “socialism” is a wide term. He sees two principle, though related meanings:
 
First, “In Marxian theory and official communist language… the means of production are taken into social ownership, and the state persists as an administrative machine, upholding a new order of legality, and a new system of rights, in such a way as to permit the emergence of true common ownership, and the eventual abolition of the state.” I.e., the state owns everything in the name of the workers and peasants, with the promise that it will eventually become superfluous and the workers and peasants will own and control everything themselves — but in common, not individually.
 
(Scruton wrote his dictionary in 1982. Leaving aside the morality of socialism as practiced by the USSR and others, we may say this “hard-core socialism” has not fared well in experimental trials.)
 
In a second meaning, socialism is a philosophical and political doctrine that includes “a broad and comprehensive outlook on the human condition.” It’s also conceived as permanent, rather than a transitional stage to some future utopia. This broader interpretation of socialism is based on three postulates:
 
1) Equality: Equal opportunity as well as equal rights under law, with an eye toward equalizing outcomes for individuals. “The main consideration is that human beings have equal rights, since they are equal in every way relevant to those rights.”
 
2) The state as administrator: “The state is seen, not as the legal and ceremonial representation of civil society, but rather as a complex administrative device, designed to guarantee individual rights, and to distribute benefits among the citizens in accordance with those rights.” It must “provide and maintain the institutions which ensure that human goods — food, medicine, education, recreation — are made available to everybody on terms hat are as equal as possible.” But the state is not an end in itself; and it should not be used to propagate “religious doctrine, or nationalist ideology.” It is a powerful tool, but just a tool.
 
3) Elimination of systems of control. Class systems, hereditary privileges, and other means by which people control and compel each other violate the principle of equal rights, and so are unjust.
 
Private property receives special mention: “Private property is permissible, but only insofar as it does not amount to a system of control.” While “Type 2 Socialists” reject the hard-core Marxian condemnation of all private property as a means of privilege and control, and may believe that private property is a legitimate expectation of citizens in a well-ordered society, socialists do think that vast concentrations of wealth and property can harm the interests of society and the citizens. “Hence, the state must always be ready to nationalize major assets, and should curtail or forbid the transactions that lead to large-scale private accumulation — such as gifts and inheritance.”
 
As Scruton notes, socialism has a long and natural affiliation with labor movements, “for the obvious reason that, while it promises very little and threatens much to the class of property owners, it promises much and threatens little, or seems to threaten little, to the workers.”
 
He also notes that under Western parliamentary government, socialism has shown it can be implemented pragmatically, democratically and with compromise, without attempting to impose any of the three underlying principles in pure form. Some even say “this ‘parliamentary road to socialism’ is in fact a creature so different from the socialism of the communist state as to be only misleadingly called by the same name.”
 
Criticisms of “Type 2 socialism” reject one or more of its postulates, or see contradictions between them. For instance, some people insist that 1) is wrong and all people are not and should not be equal under law.
 
Some thinkers argue that the state must be treated as an end in itself in order to obtain the loyalty of the people: As a pure service-provider “it comes to seem arbitary and dispensable, and therefore holds increasing power with increasing instability.”
 
Other critics see a conflict between 2) and 3), arguing that the all-pervading power of the state merely creates another self-interested élite. It is also argued that the ideal of “social justice” that runs through 1) and 3) is “incompatible with the assertion of natural rights and freedoms.”
 
I don’t see anything monstrous in this “type 2 socialism.” Arguable, either in theory or practice, but nothing outside the normal bounds of rational discourse. In fact, I accept postulate 1) without reservation; and I agree with postulate 2) with reservations (I see the state as a rational machine for achieving practical goals, but accept to achieve those goals it may need to pretend to some greater majesty. One may also question the implicit assumption that the state is the *only* institution to fulfill this distributive and administrative function). 3) seems to be where the practical difficulties seem greatest, though I appreciate the goal. It’s a bad joke to talk of “rights” and “freedom” to people who are externally constrained by poverty, racism, etc. from being able to exercise them.
 
So that's Scruton. I don't claim any special authority for his dictionary, but it's the one I found for cheap at Goodwill so it's the one I use.
 
Dean Shomshak

Some days you play with the yarn, some days the yarn plays with you.

Long-ago AD&D campaign, we had a high-level female monk in the party.  Big Hulking Brute guarding/blocking the way we need to go, refusing to let us by.
 
Monk: "So what you're saying is, none may pass?"
 
Guard: "That's right.  None may pass."
 
Monk:  "That's okay, then.  I'm a nun."  and quickly stepped around him.  His face had the expression of someone who just KNEW he was going to get into trouble, but he couldn't quite figure out why...

"I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the PRE Attack that does Knockback! I am Darkwing Duck!"

"I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the PRE Attack that does Knockback! I am Darkwing Duck!"

"I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the PRE Attack that does Knockback! I am Darkwing Duck!"

I don't think that would be a good idea. It would let insurance companies operate out of states with weak customer protection regulations.

I don't think that would be a good idea. It would let insurance companies operate out of states with weak customer protection regulations.

There's a Photoshopped version of Paul Ryan's presentation that summarizes it accurately. 

IP issues aside, I'm not sure that I'd want something that was an exact clone of an existing fictional setting. I'd rather use the premise behind that setting ("secret magical school") and use it as inspiration for something original.

Right now, I'd like to see Hero publish anything on a regular basis. If you want specific product ideas...
Fantasy Hero Companion(s) - Full settings (including magic systems with grimoires, character archetypes/templates, world descriptions, and unique creatures) An alternate supers setting (avoiding the Champions IP). Let's put a new spin on superhero tropes. Recent origin? Powers are common? Something else? Hero System Almanac - A magazine-style anthology of various Hero-related material. Vorkosigan Hero - a license for Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga

Sherlock Holmes and YoYo: In this Steampunk comedy-drama, the world's first consulting detective joins forces
with an American "clockwork man" to solve bizzare and unusual crimes.
 
 
Major Tom 2009

I've used Environmental Movement for the same effect.

The Assassination of Elmer Fudd by the Coward Daffy Duck.

Guardians of the Ford Galaxie 500: No, there really aren't 500 of these, the, "Galaxie 500" is the name of the car.

Just to deal with this category for a moment, I think it would be helpful in developing such an agency, to identify why and what makes it "rogue." What's its motivation, its agenda? Is it just trying to grab power, maybe by subverting or overthrowing the current government? Has it identified and focused on a particular thing as a threat, which it believes requires extreme measures to counter? Does it have a laudable goal, but has become excessive in the pursuit of that goal?
 
Earlier on the thread I mentioned the CU American DoD's Department 17, which has long researched ways to safely and reliably create superhumans to serve the government, as well as methods to make them more controllable. It's an extremely secret project, and its funding sometimes falls short of its aspirations. Any of those facets of D17 is open to abuse by members who believe the end justifies the means. (It's also one of the more interesting potential character origins in the setting IMHO.)