FrankL

Re: Grodd's Mental attack
 
It makes perfect cinematic sense for Grodd to use a mind control attack and when he realize it doesn't work for him to overdo it. This overdoing of his MC is just the special effect of his Mental Blast. Why is that a difficult concept to grasp in a cinematic and champion's sense?
 
Grodd attempts a MC or Telepathy. When he sees he doesn't achieve his desired effects, he simply goes for a Mind Blast. There, it is now mechanically consistent with HERO system.
 
Option two: the Mental Defense is bought perhaps with "only versus Mind Control and Telepathy" and certainly a severe side effect "Mind Control and Telepathy DCs used on this subject are transferred into DCs of Mind Blast" or other such wording to produce a mentally damaging effect upon use of the Mental Defense power. There, it is now mechanically consistent with HERO system.
 
So, we can show that the cinematic experience we enjoyed is consistent with HERO system rules. This is true even though it was not developed with the intent of being consistent with the HERO system rules. It is like getting upset that The Flash isn't consistent with DnD or Vampire: The Masquerade. It has no need to be. It isn't part of those products. And if it just happens to be, that is a weird coincidence. What matters more is that it is internally consistent. For example, I do not care if HERO system is consistent with DnD, I only care that the rules of HERO system are compatible and consistent with the rules of HERO system.
 
Soar.

You don't need to apply RPG rules in order to achieve internal consistency . . . and you shouldn't. The earbuds work consistently, and there has been no making stuff up as you go along with them. They prevent mind control, but Grodd can still get the portion of his attack that triggers negative and painful memories through. The earbuds are simply not 100% effective.
 
Further, the way the earbuds are portrayed serves the story perfectly. First off, Grodd's mind control is a very credible threat He initially dominates (no pun intended) the heroes in early encounters. Then, Cisco makes the earbuds, and imperfect solution that's entirely consistent with his past solutions of being both a technology-based solution and an imperfect one. That quality of being imperfect is important, because it allows one of Grodd's signature powers to continue to be a threat. It's all internally consistent and allows for dramatic tension. I see no downsides to this approach.

My wife is doing a series at church on the founding of America, of course that means Pilgrims. As she's researching, she keeps finding new things related to what she's looking at and trying to figure out the why for that event.
 
"I can't believe this. I've just got to pick a time and stop. Did you know the Pilgrims spent time in Holland before coming to America?"
 
"Yes, I did."
 
"Do you know why they left?"
 
"No."
 
"This happened, and this happened. And Holland and Spain were coming to the end of their peace treaty. War might have broken out. Now, that war happened because of this and this. And that all happened because of the Spanish Inquisition!"
 
"What? Nobody could have expected that!"

10-14 years ago I worked for a place that had a policy of don't touch the VBA macro unless you wrote it. I was an editor there, but understood the policy. I finally heard how it came to be. Seems one department had a macro written by one of their employees. It ran once a week and did exactly what they needed it to do. Run time, 5-10 minutes. He left. A couple of times, he was called in as a consultant to fix it because someone had tried to improve the macro. Finally, he said, "This is the last time. I refuse to fix this macro anymore."
 
Sometime later, he gets a phone call. A new employee had tried to improve the macro again. It was now completely inoperable. The former coder stood by his promise and did not come back to fix it. The newbie had not made a backup of it nor had anyone else over the years.
 
The department had to hire two full-time employees to do what this macro did in 5 minutes once a week.

My wife is doing a series at church on the founding of America, of course that means Pilgrims. As she's researching, she keeps finding new things related to what she's looking at and trying to figure out the why for that event.
 
"I can't believe this. I've just got to pick a time and stop. Did you know the Pilgrims spent time in Holland before coming to America?"
 
"Yes, I did."
 
"Do you know why they left?"
 
"No."
 
"This happened, and this happened. And Holland and Spain were coming to the end of their peace treaty. War might have broken out. Now, that war happened because of this and this. And that all happened because of the Spanish Inquisition!"
 
"What? Nobody could have expected that!"

My wife is doing a series at church on the founding of America, of course that means Pilgrims. As she's researching, she keeps finding new things related to what she's looking at and trying to figure out the why for that event.
 
"I can't believe this. I've just got to pick a time and stop. Did you know the Pilgrims spent time in Holland before coming to America?"
 
"Yes, I did."
 
"Do you know why they left?"
 
"No."
 
"This happened, and this happened. And Holland and Spain were coming to the end of their peace treaty. War might have broken out. Now, that war happened because of this and this. And that all happened because of the Spanish Inquisition!"
 
"What? Nobody could have expected that!"

My wife is doing a series at church on the founding of America, of course that means Pilgrims. As she's researching, she keeps finding new things related to what she's looking at and trying to figure out the why for that event.
 
"I can't believe this. I've just got to pick a time and stop. Did you know the Pilgrims spent time in Holland before coming to America?"
 
"Yes, I did."
 
"Do you know why they left?"
 
"No."
 
"This happened, and this happened. And Holland and Spain were coming to the end of their peace treaty. War might have broken out. Now, that war happened because of this and this. And that all happened because of the Spanish Inquisition!"
 
"What? Nobody could have expected that!"

My wife is doing a series at church on the founding of America, of course that means Pilgrims. As she's researching, she keeps finding new things related to what she's looking at and trying to figure out the why for that event.
 
"I can't believe this. I've just got to pick a time and stop. Did you know the Pilgrims spent time in Holland before coming to America?"
 
"Yes, I did."
 
"Do you know why they left?"
 
"No."
 
"This happened, and this happened. And Holland and Spain were coming to the end of their peace treaty. War might have broken out. Now, that war happened because of this and this. And that all happened because of the Spanish Inquisition!"
 
"What? Nobody could have expected that!"

My wife is doing a series at church on the founding of America, of course that means Pilgrims. As she's researching, she keeps finding new things related to what she's looking at and trying to figure out the why for that event.
 
"I can't believe this. I've just got to pick a time and stop. Did you know the Pilgrims spent time in Holland before coming to America?"
 
"Yes, I did."
 
"Do you know why they left?"
 
"No."
 
"This happened, and this happened. And Holland and Spain were coming to the end of their peace treaty. War might have broken out. Now, that war happened because of this and this. And that all happened because of the Spanish Inquisition!"
 
"What? Nobody could have expected that!"

My wife is doing a series at church on the founding of America, of course that means Pilgrims. As she's researching, she keeps finding new things related to what she's looking at and trying to figure out the why for that event.
 
"I can't believe this. I've just got to pick a time and stop. Did you know the Pilgrims spent time in Holland before coming to America?"
 
"Yes, I did."
 
"Do you know why they left?"
 
"No."
 
"This happened, and this happened. And Holland and Spain were coming to the end of their peace treaty. War might have broken out. Now, that war happened because of this and this. And that all happened because of the Spanish Inquisition!"
 
"What? Nobody could have expected that!"

My wife is doing a series at church on the founding of America, of course that means Pilgrims. As she's researching, she keeps finding new things related to what she's looking at and trying to figure out the why for that event.
 
"I can't believe this. I've just got to pick a time and stop. Did you know the Pilgrims spent time in Holland before coming to America?"
 
"Yes, I did."
 
"Do you know why they left?"
 
"No."
 
"This happened, and this happened. And Holland and Spain were coming to the end of their peace treaty. War might have broken out. Now, that war happened because of this and this. And that all happened because of the Spanish Inquisition!"
 
"What? Nobody could have expected that!"

A friend's Facebook status today:
"At this point in our culture I'm very surprised there aren't people with nut allergies boycotting The Peanuts Movie."

Some people like to talk about "the war on Christmas".
If Christmas didn't want a war, it shouldn't have crossed the borders of Thanksgiving to attack Halloween.

Sounds like a standard felony traffic stop. The error wasn't with the officers, it was with the person who made the data entry error. We did the exact same thing when a plate came back as stolen when I was an MP, or when the driver had felony warrants.
 
From the article:
 
 
 
 
So, it only took ten minutes to sort out the error. No mention that the guy was handled roughly at all. No brutality here.

The Magnificent Seven Hundred Club

I was talking to a coworker today about a project that will simply things in our department once implemented. He said, "The biggest issue right now, but we aren't at the point where we can address it, is to find out who uses the data in these old tables. We know some people are using them, but not who."
 
I said, "Turn off the update routines and see who screams."
 
He glanced at me sideways. "That's always an option I consider."

God bless, BB! So glad to hear that.

That hurts. Sorry to hear that.
 
====
Must remember to not discuss anything serious before breakfast and don't take anything said personal at the same time. Really. It's probably not as snarky as I'm interpreting it. My brain isn't processing everything quite right in that situation.

Superman character to GM:  Yeah, ummm, can I switch to playing the green Martian guy?
GM:  What?  Why?
Character:  Fire seems much less common.

All I know is that if I were playing Superman at this point, I'd be telling the GM that I'm not getting enough points for my susceptibility and vulnerability complications

My wife and I were watching Flash tonight. Dr. Light performed some brilliance blast and burned Barry's retinas. I turned to my wife and said, "She blinded him with science!"
 
Stunned look. Said nothing. Ignored the pun.

My wife and I were watching Flash tonight. Dr. Light performed some brilliance blast and burned Barry's retinas. I turned to my wife and said, "She blinded him with science!"
 
Stunned look. Said nothing. Ignored the pun.

They should remember this is GIRL power not GRRL power (how I heard Batgirl in a recent animated described). Supergirl embraces the fact that she is a girl (after Cat Grant helped her with that). She owns it. She doesn't hate herself for not being male. Recognizing that there are differences is not feminism (in fact, it's rather the opposite of feminism).

My wife and I were watching Flash tonight. Dr. Light performed some brilliance blast and burned Barry's retinas. I turned to my wife and said, "She blinded him with science!"
 
Stunned look. Said nothing. Ignored the pun.

They should remember this is GIRL power not GRRL power (how I heard Batgirl in a recent animated described). Supergirl embraces the fact that she is a girl (after Cat Grant helped her with that). She owns it. She doesn't hate herself for not being male. Recognizing that there are differences is not feminism (in fact, it's rather the opposite of feminism).