unclevlad

And flip side...haven't lost a home game. Game 7 will also be the second straight this year, for both teams. So they're going to be notably more worn down than Tampa Bay. Game 7 is tomorrow night; I believe game 1 of the finals is Wednesday. (The WC finals start Tuesday, and the NHL generally does every other day.)

Whoa...freak play... Angels are warming up...pre-game. Pitcher bounces a curve ball. Ball bounces a bit funny... ...and hits catcher Kurt Suzuki squarely in the throat. He had to be helped off the field. No further word; the game's ongoing.

Good. I so hate coming across as stale.

Having had my share and more of burritos down here...and stuffed sopapillas and fajitas...there's a much simpler solution. Stop trying to put a bloody mountain's worth of filling in there.

You're assuming a rational evaluation. The counter argument: https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/q1-22-ratings-fox-news-remains-no-1-and-is-only-cable-news-network-to-post-year-over-year-gains/504105/ To their mind, it's more like this: Book banning...I don't want MY Suzie learning about those things!!! Ban em!! Helping needy Americans...lazy dirtbags who don't wanna work!!! damn libs are all about handouts Gerrymandering...just reversing the fake efforts of the libs!! School shootings...arm the teachers, hire more guards! Guns stop guns!!! 'Stacking the court'....<blank stare> Border roundups...illegals and thieves, get rid of em!!!

Sounds great, but that pressure will fade fast. Sandy Hook didn't last that long. MS Douglas lasted somewhat longer, but that was due to some of the survivors being active. There have been DOZENS of these. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States Many of em are tangential...they took place at a school, but weren't the same character as this. (One student pulling a gun on another and shooting is...obviously horrible...but not the incident class.) I'd bet MANY of these, you've never heard of...Jan. 14th, 2014, Roswell is a good one. No one died, so...much less coverage. The other thing about that list is how *insanely* frequent these are...and these all involve a school, school-age kids, or a bus...one I noted, started as a domestic incident, and shifted. A school bus ended up getting shot at. So, no, it's not strictly school shootings. And those are hideous, for sure...but the problem the GOP wilfully ignores, is this happens EVERYWHERE, and ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Someone used the spot-on correct term: desensitized. The GOP bloody well knows it too; they use it to simply stall, issuing platitudes. Nothing suggests their support is even *slightly* moving away from them.

Fire Powers Only is a supplied example. It's only -1/2. Part of this is...what's plausible under a Fire SFX? You have attack, defense, LS (cold), movement, and Change Environment, just off the top of my head. Possibly Flash, too. And that's without trying to get creative. But, why can't a magic pool do radiation? It's not a common association, maybe, but so what? And is it just gamma rays? What about X rays, or UV, or alpha radiation? What's a Disintegration spell? Why not a nasty gamma/x-ray plus kinetic combination where the radiation disturbs the structure, while the kinetic peels it away? Hey, maybe the mage doesn't have the physics background to accurately *describe* it...but who cares? But that's a subject to be discussed between the player and GM, cuz by and large, saying some SFX aren't allowed, isn't gonna be worth a limitation until you get into some pretty broad swathes of em. Remember: getting a combat-adjustable VPP carries a LOT of overhead. Yeah, they can also be exploited like crazy, too.

Lacrosse Final Four weekend. Semis today...Cornell vs. Rutgers, with Cornell up 8-3 at half. After that, Maryland vs. Princeton. Championship game is Monday Lacrosse is one of the coolest games to watch...like hockey in some ways, but the players can maneuver in more ways, the ball's much easier to control than a puck, and shots can be taken from any angle...high or low. Flip shots over the shoulder. Shots can be bounced. Tells ya something that elite goaltenders have save percentages in the 60s. EDIT: over a 3 hour delay for weather. The *second* semi should be over, but Cornell-Rutgers just started the second half.

You realize that forcing me to agree with Tweedledum and Tweededumber is a flogging offense....

But if a protester DOES do that, the best result is getting clubbed and cuffed. Unless you're not white, in which case "justifiable use of force" means you get shot multiple times.

I'd rather not use Regen as a basis for anything else. Its costing structure is terrible. The time chart also bombs here, IMO. Extra Phase --> 1 Turn is an additional -1/2...but the converse, going from 1 Turn --> Extra Phase, would be MUCH more valuable. Even at SPD 4, this would double the recovery rate. There is a Slow Recovery limitation, but on 6E1 206, I don't see a Fast Recovery option...largely, I suspect, for the reason I mention.

The names are stupid, but they're the names of the corporate sponsor....who sinks hundreds of thousands to millions into the bowl, and another chunk to ESPN because they promise to buy extensive ads for the game. So the Tampa Bay Bowl is a major revenue drop. It won't stay that way, if it can possibly be helped. Take a look at the sponsors of the other New Years Six. Rose Bowl's presenting sponsor is Honda...it's been changing year to year. Fiesta Bowl is PlayStation. Peach is Chick-fil-A. Sugar is Allstate. Cotton is Goodyear. Megacorps, one and all, and 2 of em (Chick-fil-A and Allstate) advertise *massively* throughout the season. They're behind, I suspect, only Capital One and Dr. Pepper.

First, because again, the VPP is NOT!!! an ability. If's a framework under which specific abilities are structured. And because for the VPP, that says "typically." It isn't a requirement, it's conventional. Many VPPs will have a limitation on the possible SFX. But "typically" is the critical word here. It is NOT "always." Go down to p. 123, under Common Configurations. Gadget Pool takes a "slightly limited class (-1/4)". Magic Pool takes the same. There is no limitation like that here. Look at Cosmic Power Pool. "Whatever the character wants, whenever the character wants." There's no extra cost for having whatever SFX you want. Limiting the SFX is a LIMITATION that can be worth points back on the control cost. Also, note that "gadgets" is NOT the SFX of a power. A hand taser is a gadget. The SFX is electricity. A gun that shoots strands of goo that entrap, surround and harden...Entangle Gun. SFX...probably chemical. The point is, they're all gadgets of some sort. Mentalism would also fit in this mold. A "mentalist" VPP can cover TK, telepathy, mind blast/illusion/scan/link/control, and clairsentience trivially; those are classical mentalist powers. Some other things like rPD or Deflection can fit it...the SFX would be TK. The SFX for telepathy and the Mind X powers may simply be Telepathy. The Entangle...has to be a Mental Entangle. Note the -1/2 limitations on p. 123...only fire powers. OK, that says everything has to have a Fire SFX. Worth a sizable limitation there. Only Powers the Target Has? Means you're copying the power, to me...including the SFX of the power. So...no, the powers you actualize don't have the same SFX. In 6E supers, I can define...oh, how about a 120 point pool size, 60 point control size, with 1/2 phase to change powers, and let's go with a common limitation of standard RSR...the skill being, of course, the same Power skill I use to manipulate the pool. Boom...I can have 3 separate 60 active point powers up at once. And there are no limits at this point about what they are, or what the SFX on them will be. That's a HUGE amount of freedom and one that many GMs won't like...it can also slow the game down immensely. This is WHY!!! the VPP gets the STOP sign.

One thing you'd want to avoid with that Temple is a building that's too historic; one nice thing with the mall notion is that no one will care about the buildings. But I agree that the layout's not very good, most of the time. EDIT: last apartment I rented was a bunch of small buildings; mine had 8 apartments on 2 floors. I believe there were about a dozen overall...mix of 1, 2, and 3 bedroom. Give some to the minions, use some as labs, excavate some tunnels between buildings.

One of the major supervillains in Drew Hayes' Forging Hephaestus is a HIGH end gadgeteer. He invents a lot of everyday tech...then spends time dumbing it down so it can actually be made by his company, and it'll work for normals. STILL works better than anything any normal R&D puts together. He's basically Microsoft and Sony rolled together. And in both of Hayes' universes (this, and the Super Powereds universe)...merchandising. In the SPU, supers first appeared in the late 50's. Since then, they've reshaped pop culture greatly. Heroes have to be licensed...which is a point I like...and get paid...not great, but they do get paid. They own all the NIL rights, tho. In Forging Hephaestus, on the heroes' side, there are all kinds of kickbacks and control things...in some ways, it's like The Boys and their corporate handlers in that regard. And supers are fawned over. On the villains' side, it's actually organized...it's a guild. They offer support services behind the scenes, and take a cut.

REC doesn't fit as well. REC on an END Reserve is once per turn. You want that gun up and usable faster...and longer, for that matter.

Dates for the New Years Six bowl games have been set. Dec 31 (Sat): Sugar Bowl (early start!), Fiesta and Peach Bowls that are semifinal games. Jan 2nd (Mon): Tampa Bay Bowl and Cotton Bowl early, then Rose Bowl in the afternoon. They have to get through them, cuz there's a MNF game that night.... The Tampa Bay Bowl used to be the Outback Bowl...but the sponsorship ended. A couple years ahead of schedule, I might add, but it could easily have been a cost saving move. Also note, no competition with the NFL, again. Jan 1st is week 17. Championship game is Jan. 9th...a Monday night. Probably playing on keeping the pattern going, as much as anything. Week 18 is all on Sunday this year. I *think* I saw this was getting changed next season.

My experience was the same. For a day, I didn't want to lift that arm even to shoulder height, much less higher. I could, but I definitely felt it. Stayed sore for a couple days beyond that, but it wasn't inhibiting in any meaningful way.

That would be awful, just due to timing... My soph year in HS, one of the seniors was killed by a drunk driver, the night before graduation. Almost no one knew about it beforehand; they found out *at* the ceremony. I wasn't there...but reporting was, it hit everyone pretty hard. Our classes weren't that big, and the guy was well known and quite popular.

That was my initial thought, and I almost wrote it that way. And it does say they don't have high confidence in him, by definition...they didn't accept the option. But thinking a bit deeper, it can still be read as "you still need to prove yourself." Which is...not a positive, to be sure, but not a condemnation. The contract probably has a drop-dead date: they have to decide to accept or decline the option by date D. What is D? Something between now and the start of training camp? Then it's "prove yourself." If it's after the season, then it's a clear vote of no confidence...and not something I'd expect them to do. Doing it now, before the season ever starts, would make him a lame duck.

Nope, I'm not. And a VPP is not a power, it's a framework. EDIT: It's a VPP. I'm going up against a flame guy. I define the VPP as 1d6 HA, vs. PD, SFX of water. Later on, I'm going up against a brick. I define it as HA, AVAD vs. Mental Defense. Every specific power I define in the VPP will have SFX...chosen in the moment. The VPP does not have SFX.

Not an issue. That's why it's an Aid to END Reserve. Say the power's a straightforward Blaster Rifle with a power setting that equates to dice of damage. So it's a (max) 10d6 ED Blast, with an END Reserve (call it 60 END, 0 REC...the power pack has to be swapped out and recharged elsewhere.) Fine; the character's power allows him to Aid...or maybe Heal, that might be better, come to think, as then there's no fade issues...applied to that END Reserve. The blaster rifle never draws from the user's END. EDIT: one could make an argument for Variable SFX on the Aid/Heal. I could go either way there. With Aid, it'd probably be good to put Constant on it too.

No, a VPP doesn't have an SFX in that sense...the "pool type" is simply a characterization. A VPP can have any SFX on a power...unless there are limits applied or by agreement. There are none here...not on that. The only limitation is on the type of powers. Cosmic Power Pool is simply the shorthand for Zero Phase, No Skill Roll...and it has those. Changing electrical to gamma via Variable SFX is NOT the same. It's still (let's presume) a normal attack versus ED. With the VPP, I can change it to AVAD vs. Power Def, Does Body...OR keep it as a standard attack vs. ED, if I want. Also note that Variable SFX is a damage enhancing advantage...so it affects net damage. If I'm just applying a special effect via the VPP, there is no drop in damage. If I'm making it an AVAD, then yes, the dice change.

Hockey players are nutjobs. Rangers playing Carolina. Rangers have the puck in the offensive end. One of the defensemen tries to knock the puck away, but, lunging, starts falling forward...as the player with the puck tries a shot on goal. The shooter's stick, on the follow-through, doesn't get up high or anything...but smacks the falling defenseman in the mouth. OWWWWWWWWWWWW.............................. The defenseman is down for...15, 20 seconds? while the play goes on around him, before the puck's held by the goalie. Short pause while the blood on the ice gets cleaned up. Cue the dentist on call....

Holy cow, this is a Really Terrible, Very Bad Day in the entertainment world.....