unclevlad

That's assuming the Psi Corps plotline even is included in the reboot. You're providing a great argument for why the plot lines WON'T be. And this is an even stronger argument. Mostly different characters and storylines should preclude any such debate from even arising.

I'd love it too, but the death rate won't be high enough. This isn't a single generation; the movement won't end, say, when Trump's gone. And it's getting worse, in that they now have a fairly sympathetic Supreme Court. It isn't clear that this Court will let them do everything they want...probably not...but the line has definitely shifted significantly to the right. Now combine this with their extensive propaganda machine, and the lies will perpetuate until they can be crushed. THAT would require a whole bunch of clear, direct evidence that, say, multiple Fox hosts, Murdoch, the indie hosts like Limbaugh, etc. have been conspiring and lying for decades. They have to be completely discredited at their core. And that...is probably impossible. Just look at how readily they deny, dismiss, or outright ignore the Covid death facts. If that can't move them, nothing can.

Babylon 5 was military sci fi, tho, so showing "normal life on the station" probably shouldn't be a big part. Plus, there were already a TON of storylines going on. And look at the social/military leels involved...ambassadors, their direct administrative assistants, station commander and his top people. Feels like trying to draw in the civilian life of the station would only dilute things. I do like JMS' reasoning for reworking the story. The series ended almost 25 years ago. Several of the original cast have died since; even those who are still around, couldn't step back into the roles they had, as they had them. And recasting is often where I think the reboots crash and burn. A new Londo would be judged against Jurasik's semi-manic portrayal; Katsulas' G'Kar was awesome. I'll prefer to be optimistic for now. Sounds like it's gonna be a while before it's out, in any case.

Yes, but there are limits to how long anyone can put up with their stupidity and the damage it does to *everyone*. Story emailed from NYT broke down rates at more local levels...the red/blue state split is sharp, but as one can expect, breaking it down to county level it's even more dramatic. I don't think any of us here feel that, without the anti-vax movement, we'd be mostly back to normal.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/babylon-5-reboot-cw-1235021237/?campaign_id=20&emc=edit_wg_20210927&instance_id=41442&nl=watching&regi_id=113845647&segment_id=70035&te=1&user_id=28eb1fcc2379276d2188e9c54459de83 Sounds like they'd go with Sheridan from the get-go, which probably is sensible, and there might be a different take on the conflict generally. Hope this comes about. Some of the best sci-fi ever put on TV.

Jets are 0-3. Giants are 0-3. Jags are 0-3. I'm seeing a pattern here.... That said, KC hasn't got their act together, too, so make hay while the sun shines.

Maybe not for "don't care anymore" but we just passed into fall, we've had several short bouts of pretty good rain, it's a lovely cool evening. Flat iron steak w/hash browns and a simple pumpkin soup. And a Sierra Nevada Octoberfest. Autumn for the win.

A turkey gets stuffed. This was diced, ground, shaped, stuffed, and slapped on the rotisserie. 19-9??? Wow. That's like someone winning a Formula 1 race by a full lap. Not as much of a blowout as Tiger's 12 shot US Open win, but nothing has ever compared to that, at least in a field-style sport. (Team sport, sure. Women's college basketball still has the occasional 100+ point wipeouts. But golf...and a US Open field...nope.)

I'll let the copyright continue for a while, for the author's heirs. And, is it so much the creator's lifetime, or simply a time span since release? Two examples: Purple Haze and Stairway to Heaven. Saying that Hendrix' catalog should have reverted to the public domain on his death is unfair. Flip side, saying that Stairway to Heaven is NOT in the public domain after a gazillion radio plays and *50* years is absurd. The other aspect is that copyright is intended to allow a creator to profit from his efforts. A social aspect of this is to encourage the good creator to continue to produce...but when "copyright is eternal" (^trademark applied for) and the creator continues to get paid, that becomes something of a deterrent to continue. Granted, it takes quite a bit of time to get to that point, where one can live on one's royalties, but it's poor design. To Hugh's point: NONE of Disney's profits goes to their pension obligations. Those are built into their overhead percentage. For every $1000 paid to the active creators at Disney, the billed amount is more like $2000...if not more. $150 for Social Security and Medicare employer contributions. Health and life insurance. Leave and holidays if they're salaried...the hourly rate is figured on a 2000 hour work year, but the actual billable hours probably dips below 1800. So there's another $100 or so. Facilities support. Supervision. Administrative support. Human services. Pension obligations...one motivation for me to retire when I did was that employee and employer pension deductions were going to rise a good bit...IIRC that was another 10%. And ALL of these are factored in before you ever get to profit percentages. What the corp wants is an ancillary, ongoing revenue stream that incurs 0 cost to them. Keeping the royalties forever is PURE profit; the only cut is the residuals.

Of course, we're talking D&D. From the beginning, good and evil weren't philosophical/moral/ethical concepts, they were Forces. Protection from Evil goes back at least to AD&D 1st Edition; IIRC, so does Holy Word. Not entirely sure about Protection from Good and Unholy Word but they go back quite a ways as well. And heck, there's Detect Evil...also, pretty sure, a 1E spell. I also remember debates about what could, or could not, be recognized with Detect Evil. OK, the 7th level evil priest, sure, but is every worshipper? And this got to be pretty spirited in 3E, and there was a fair bit of pushback when the Books of Exalted Deeds/Vile Darkness made the notion blatant. Altho, hey, good and evil as forces could be sensible with a better definition, whereby the individual's extra-natural abilities are evil-linked. What I never could *stand* was Vow of Poverty. Never saw ANY connection between "oh, I'll live a simple life and forsake wealth in all forms" and the *insane* bonuses you got. Others always argued, well, you could do a LOT better with items...but that was never my issue. OK, decades-old rant over.....

Yep. Ever decide, just for grins, to use a Myers-Briggs test to help flesh out a character personality? Quite a few of em out there and for role playing they're really not bad at all, but that ESTJ is nicely structured outline, nothing more. I also prefer doing something like this because good and evil are even more nebulous, as Hugh's disagreement about Jack Bauer points out.

I know I figured Clemson still had their playoff berth in place, but...... While the Georgia loss might not hurt that much, their ACC performance has been pathetic. NO offense at all, barring the SC State game (and they're FCS, and not top-drawer FCS at all). NC State's kicker missed a 39 yarder as the clock expired or this one would be over. It's in OT now, and the kicking woes (the kicker missed 2 long tries earlier, he's pulling them all left) suggest that Clemson may escape without the L, but they're not winning any style points. They dropped 3 slots despite winning last week, and this game's worse; it SHOULD HAVE BEEN a loss already. Clemson scored a TD to lead off the first OT...drat.... And unfortunately for the players involved, they're getting nailed by injuries too. And BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The sound you just heard is Clemson's playoff dream exploding. NC State 27, Clemson 21. YES!!!!!

SO MUCH of the right-wing media was in lockstep with every piece of the Trump agenda that it was hard to tell them apart. This was pointed out much earlier in his term. And it went both ways...how often did a Fox News "report" turn into a Trump move? On a variety of topics, both foreign and domestic. So this really is "same old, same old." Granted that we need to identify and expose as much of this as we can because what cannot happen is that we forget it, particularly in the face of the blatant attempt to rewrite the coup as just a little harmless get-together.

Bono, actually, as Ternaugh wrote. And his bill was life + 50. It was extended again in '98. And yes, it's obscene. I'm a big Dorothy Sayers fan...English mystery writer active principally in the 1920's and 30's. Most of them are STILL covered by copyright because it's year of publication + 95 (!!!!!!) years. It's ridiculous. Disney might've been the most visible proponent of the changes, but the publishing houses profit as well. Foundation. Dune. Childhood's End. Stranger in a Strange Land. Animal Farm. 1984. All are, I believe, still covered by copyright, and they're nowhere NEAR expiration. (I think Animal Farm was the first, and it was 1945...so the copyright is in place for almost another 20 years.) And...lessee...yeah. There's a Kindle version of it...the publisher's stuck a $10 price tag on it. Obscene.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a move by corporations to shift any planned events out of Ohio, or not schedule them there in the first place, for the next couple of years.

Story actually goes back a ways...but still... And should you want a reliable confirming source? https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ohio-man-charged-hate-crime-related-plot-conduct-mass-shooting-women-illegal-possession

As an odd aside...The Event in WtC happened in, IIRC, the mid 2000's...post-9/11 but there's a few years before Astra has her Breakthrough. So the world geopolitical basis is the high tension in the Middle East, and simmering tensions in several other parts of the world. I just decided to re-read Dan Willis' Arcane Casebook series. It's set in New York...starting in 1933. The depths of the Depression. And it kinda struck me that you could maybe set up a lower-level WtC-style game in *that* era, with the emergence of powers for the first time in *that* setting, in some interesting ways. At least to me. Or back it up a bit and tie it in chronologically with the 1929 market crash. According to the History Channel, it was really a several-day event. The usual day marked was Tuesday...but the first part of the collapse was actually the Thursday before. Banks tried to bolster so Friday was a rally, but Monday cracked the dam, and Tuesday's when it got swept downstream in the floodwaters. So hey, maybe the Event was that Thursday morning. The rise of superpowers and how to deal with them as everything else goes to hell in a handbasket could be interesting.

When I see a story like that...I *want*, like Dr. Mid-NITE, to feel remorse for wishing ill of these <BLEEP><BLEEP><BLEEP><BLEEP><BLEEP><BLEEP><BLEEP><BLEEP><BLEEP><BLEEP><BLEEP><BLEEP>....my attitude shifts. They don't deserve it. And the people who continue to push the narrative and the lies...I've said it before, but IMO they are committing crimes against humanity. And I take that statement very seriously...but there've been 70,000 deaths in the US from Covid in the last 2 months. 70,000 that did not have to, and should not have, died, and wouldn't had not the anti-science, anti-vax liars and profiteers driven the narrative. So ethically, far as I'm concerned, they're guilty of reckless endangerment, I think is probably the closest charge. But 70,000 times? That rises in my book to a crime against humanity. Gods.......I am occasionally hit with bouts of depression...usually mild. I think it cropped up again last weekend/first part of this week. News like this isn't the only factor, to be sure, but it serves as a form of condensation nucleus from which another episode can build. And this story is exactly the wrong type..... So, Doc...I hear ya. I hear ya big time. My advice: forgive yourself.

Figureds are MORE rigid, in that they're coupled. The areas where I'd agree that the earlier editions might be more flexible would be a) SFX were encouraged to mean more; if the SFX's seemed to clash, the earlier editions encouraged fudging the explicit rules more than 6E does. But that's a point of style, IMO; it's not in the rules. b) ECs. Specifically, what's allowed to constitute an EC. There's little stated, so an EC tended to devolve to "what can I get the GM to allow me?" OTOH, 6E's VPPs are massively more versatile than 5E's, since pool size and control cost are totally separate. But these are, by and large, secondary points. A system like FATE uses SFX vs. SFX *heavily* and results are largely open to interpretation; the GM makes more calls *during* play. With Hero, there's calls to be made during character creation but many fewer during play...the rules dictate.

Is it really a system issue, or one of interpretation? I'll grant that 6E specified particulars that 3E and 4E left open...but that generally means "required a house rule." So in some ways they're more flexible, but the overall structure is still fundamentally formulaic.

Chaotic has different connotations depending on the second part. Chaotic good: nothing wrong with following rules/orders, but NOT blindly or woodenly. Can't follow a bad order no matter who issues it. A bad rule is the same...break it. Batman's not a bad example, but for me the best one was Jack Bauer, from the first season of 24. It does not matter what you do to the bad guys when they're threatening to detonate a freakin' NUKE in a city. Chaotic evil: whatever the heck I feel like doing at the time. Consequences be damned. The only issue is my own self-interest. Between them...chaotic neutral is a WEIRD alignment to define, IMO. First thing that's coming to mind: -- I follow my personal values/beliefs regardless of social norms -- I believe my my values are superior -- Imposing/enforcing my values may...probably will...come with costs but they are worth it because my values are Right and Proper. -- I am NOT doing this for myself but for the greater good as I see it (otherwise, it's probably CE) The border between CN and CE, at least here, is pretty narrow. My definition of Evil is a general disregard for consequences. So, the common LE example is the tyrant. It's law without remorse...first offense for a theif, cut off a finger. Second offense, cut off a hand. NE might also be called "selfish but smart." Out for yourself but always recognize that someone you screw over is probably gonna stab you in the back when they get the chance. It's just fine to beat down someone; just make sure they can't retaliate, directly or indirectly. ("My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father.") A key factor to me is that these frame but don't universally control actions. CE doesn't always slaughter anyone who disagrees with them. It isn't a straitjacket. In any given situation, too, the 'common' responses available form sets...and there is often overlap.

I love the series so I bought the system. I agree that it's a little too rules-light, but that also means it handles different forms of interactions perhaps better than Hero's rigidity. From a settings standpoint, you'd need to probably tweak. Power levels are *expected* to be all over the board, and some of the major characters work a lot better in a descriptive system...Blackstone and Chakra, for example. And there's the plot devices like Dr. Cornelius' 3 Words. A significant issue, tho, is that in the books, with one exception (Astra, we know she lives; her future self is quoted/cited regularly in the chapter headings)...anyone can die at any time. In other cases, not die but take LONG term injuries (Blackstone, Megaton). Hero's central premise is the knockout, not the injury. All that said...one could define a Hero-style universe driven by the premise of The Event and breakthroughs. And define...maybe not point levels but DC and defense bounds for each class level. Point levels? Maybe but it's not clear to me that hard and fast points would be a good idea. Some ideas are just expensive...especially given that I'd strongly push for VERY limitations-light builds.

Makes me sad that people still have to have this discussion. I do like this response: Yeah, and I agree that this year will be harder at the holidays for people stuck with this conflict.

So, abortion providers in Texas are asking the Supreme Court for an expedited review of the new abortion law. From NYT: I think it's more plausible they'll take up the question on this basis. It may well be wishful thinking because if they decline, I'm very much afraid the consequences will be devastating.

I'll grant the ego factor sounds like probably a big chunk of this, but the conclusions are less clear-cut. And who's to say they won't work on their own nuclear power industry? I agree, tho, that their mission profiles probably don't *need* nuclear subs. Their needs are regional, you'd think...the Philippine Sea, the South China Sea. Those are relatively close. But hey, this is Australia. The leaders seem to be unstable in their own quirky ways....