Rich McGee

I have a fellow player in one of our games whose secret ID is a plucky female reporter (her heroic ID being a luck-manipulating street fighter vigilante type) but I can't think of any NPC versions.  A different campaign has a rookie police officer who's pretty much doing the whole "in over her head" thing Lois Lane tended towards back in the day, but she's not technically a reporter, of course.   
 
There's a pair of recurring news crews in the campaign I run, which are a mix of male and female and spend as much time competing with each other (they're from different stations) as they do actually filming, but I don't think I'd call any of them plucky.  My players' collective opinion of the whole lot of them as potential romantic interests is Hell, No!  There's also a sleazy tabloid reporter gal who shows up now and then, but she's more of a menace to the PCs' public images than anything else.

First episode I can recall was Man Trap, but I doubt it was first run.  I'm old enough for it to be possible, but I don't think the parents watched Trek at first and i had no TV control at that point.
 
My first clear memory (per-K, probably age 3 or 4) stems from accidentally dropping a toy stegosaur in a snowbank outside the parents' old apartment, and them refusing to believe me and go and grab it.  I found it in the parking lot three months later, much mangled by the snow plows but still in one piece.  I have never let them live that down, and every time they've dared to claim I was lying about something just saying "stegosaur" shut their yaps right quick.  Sadly, the poor thing died in the fire that cost me a big chunk of my game collection many years ago.  Survived the ice but the fire was too much for the poor thing.

I do. At 57, my earliest memories are of Lucy and Ricky, Star Trek, Mission Impossible, and Mannix. Especially Star Trek. I actually recall watching Turnabout Intruder the night it was broadcast, but that might be a false memory I created to cope with something. (Oldest verifiable memory is electrocuting myself in June of 1969. Verified it by describing our kitchen and my mom telling me when it was remodeled.)
 
That's something you probably didn't need to know. Cool. 

You guys rock. Together, we've converted a one-shot pun into a theme! Rep all around!! 
 
The DESILU, an acronym for Dimensional Environmental Suit - Integrated Logistics Utility, represents the pinnacle of multidimensional exploration and survival technology. This state-of-the-art suit is designed to ensure the utmost safety and efficiency for its users in a variety of hostile and unpredictable environments.
COPA: The DESILU is meticulously sealed against a vast array of diseases and poisons, featuring a sophisticated filtration system. This system, the Critical Oxygen Provision and Assimilation system is capable of identifying and neutralizing biological, chemical, and particulate threats, ensuring the wearer's safety in environments rife with airborne or contact hazards. Equipped with a cutting-edge dual-feed oxygen system, the DESILU provides a continuous and reliable air supply. Proton Labs, in cooperation with Burger King, provide pelletized Whoppers™, onion rings, and a variety of fizzy drinks.
FRED: The suit's exterior boasts a highly durable, yet flexible armored casing, the Fortified Resilient Exoskeletal Defense system. This armor is designed to withstand extreme physical impacts, thermal fluctuations, invective, sarcasm, fashion advice, bad grammar, and corrosive elements, offering unparalleled protection without sacrificing mobility. Comes in a variety of sporty colors and even that hue-shifting paint you’ve heard so much about.
LUCI: At the heart of the DESILU is the Logical Universal Computing Integration its advanced on-board computer. This system houses an extensive dimensional wiki, encompassing a wealth of information on various dimensions' characteristics, flora, fauna, and physics. It also includes comprehensive biological and physics databases, allowing for on-the-spot analysis and decision-making. The LUCI comes equipped with a high-precision calculator, rangefinder, and substantial data storage capabilities. These tools are essential for navigation, research, and tactical assessments in complex environments. As a precaution, the computer is not an AI. We do learn from our lessons here at Proton Labs.
MERTZ: A full spectrum sensor suite, the Multimodal Electromagnetic Radiation Transmission and Zone (detection) package integrates an inertial compass for navigation in environments where traditional compasses fail. This device offers accurate directional guidance irrespective of external magnetic fields, gravitational anomalies, or dimensional distortions. Can also be used as an external drink holder.
RICKY: The suit is integrated with a strength-enhancing feedback system; the Robotic Intensification Compression Kinesthetic Yielder. This feature amplifies the wearer's physical capabilities, allowing for the handling of heavy equipment, the execution of demanding physical tasks, and enhanced endurance. A lot of the suits provide +8 STR and +8 CON, but our example system provides +3 STR and +3 CON, known among Proton Labs personnel as “Little RICKY.”
ETHEL: Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the DESILU is its full-featured Reality Stabilizer, the Environmental Threat/Hazard Emergency Limiter. This technology maintains a stable environmental bubble around the wearer, counteracting the destabilizing effects of interdimensional travel and exposure to exotic physics. It ensures the wearer's safety amidst the unpredictability of cross-dimensional exploration. The last round of test subjects did not turn into rabbits as was expected.
In summary, the DESILU is not just a suit but a portable fortress, a mobile research lab, and a lifeline for those brave enough to venture into the unknown realms of multidimensional space. It stands as a testament to human ingenuity and the relentless pursuit of knowledge and exploration.

Considering that Desilu was responsible for the existence of Star Trek, Mission: Impossible and the Untouchables, I expect there's some young whippersnappers who know the name too. 

With me it's the commercials.  I can't get through anything on cable any more.  Grew up with commercials pre-cable like anyone my age, but these days it feels like there's less show than ad break in any given half-hour.  For all I know there might be something new I'm missing, but the cost is too high.  I'll stick to watching stuff online.

LUCY!!!!!!!!!!
YOU GOT SOME SPLAININ TO DO!!!!!!
 
I too watch the old shows (Mission Impossible, I Love Lucy, Star Trek. Bewitched, etc...) because I can't get into the new TV network shows.
 
I'm probably showing my age too!

Another old fogy here, and Ball and Arnaz's company was the first thing I thought of, too.
 
In fact, given the median age of this community, I think that will come to mind a lot. 👴👵

This may be a generational thing, but to me Desilu is Desilu Productions, Lucille Ball & husband Desi Arnaz's TV production company.  For the sake of us old folks, you might add some bits that come in from that association.

In WotC's case, sure, yuck.  Pure corporate greed at work.  
 
But there's nothing inherently wrong with a committee working on a game as long as it's composed of actual designers, or at least knowledgeable fans of the game/genre who are trying to create a good game instead of just maximizing profits.  Collaboration is good for creativity.  It's not even bad to have someone on the team who's looking at things from a marketing and manufacture POV, as long as they understand that profit is not the sole (or even primary) goal.  Doesn't do much good to write your perfect game and then discover you'll have to charge so much for it that it's practically unsellable and no retailer will ever carry it.  Monte Cook dances around the limits of that issue sometimes...  

Filing the numbers off the Abbasid Caliphate, the Mongols, or the Ottoman Turks can form the basis for an epic existential threat to one's European analogue. The Mongols work especially well for this, as their deliberate ruthless terror tactics in promotion of their conquests need little embellishment to make them appear as monsters to be defeated at all costs. That's certainly how Europeans viewed them at the time. The Mongols were in fact preparing to advance into western Europe when Genghis Khan died, causing their leaders to withdraw to meet for a kurultai to choose a new Khan.

I don't recall that particular one, but I've read at least a half-dozen similar stories over the years.  The Plague makes a good change point for alt-histories, as does fiddling around with when Europe and the Western hemisphere make contact (and who initiates it).  Authors seem to love putting Europe under the thumb of colonizing outside powers, which does make good irony if nothing else.
 
   

Great images.  We've still got a couple of local diners that reach back into the latter part of the Pulp Era.  One's been mostly refurnished but kept a corner largely as it was originally, and the other's almost vintage throughout - barring the modern kitchen and bathrooms. 
 
There's also a great little diner out in the boondocks where all the decor is vintage stuff from WW2 - postcards, GI training manuals, photos, kit, etc.  They even play period music.  There's usually an old half track or tank out front too, but whoever was loaning them hasn't had one on display in years so maybe that's done for good.  The food's not very good, but it's a history buff's dream.

Fantasy RPG have the town tavern.  Sci-Fi RPGs have the bar at the spaceport.  Western RPGs have the saloon.
 
For Pulp RPGs--it's the diner.






 

WOW!!!
 
Amazing miniatures pix you posted on your blog. The Gnome Conjurer and ‘pet’ dragon are exceptional.
 

Yeah there are tricks to make fights with agents/goblins/mooks faster and easier.
 
The classic is to assign each one a number of hits they can sustain before they drop: 1-2 for the regulars, 3 for the sergeant types.  No matter how hard the hit is, they take two hits, they drop. 
And don't let bad guys recover unless they are important or have a role to play.  Once they go down, they stay down.
Treat stuns as knockouts for all but important enemies.
No power pool changes unless you have the powers written up in advance.
If someone can't figure out what to do in 30 seconds, they hold and go to the next on the hit list until they figure out what to do.
 
Really familiarity with the system is the biggest key: if everyone knows their character and what they are doing, it goes smoother and quicker.

It Actually isn't, but it is a pretty solid one;  thanks!
 
 

In the 12th Century Venice, Genoa, and Pisa were all major naval and mercantile powers in the Mediterranean, and vied for control of important trade routes and strategic colonies. Intrigue between them could thus extend to other other parts of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

I remember reading a sci-fi novel years ago -- don't remember the author, apologies -- dealing with an alternate Earth time-line in which the bubonic plague had been much more lethal in effect than in our world, cutting European population by nearly three-quarters. Western Europe never recovered, and by the mid-Twentieth Century was under the dominion of the Turks, except for Russia which had expanded its empire into significant parts of the New World. But European contact with the New World came centuries later than on our Earth, and did not dominate the aboriginal populations to remotely the same extent. In fact the Meso-American civilizations had evolved to become among the strongest and most advanced in the world.

That gives me an idea, albeit a contrarian one.  Forget gender equality, make the starting state as awful as it was historically.  Then take the Black Plague and make it far more lethal to people with a Y-chromosome than others, so most of the deaths are male rather than female.  Then take my post-apocalyptic campaign above and run it as a less-comprehensively fatal Medieval Y the Last Man, with more men but much, much more social disruption as the previous order gets turned on its ugly head.
 
The historical bits are barely going to be recognizable, but it's an interesting scenario.  If it went over well you could run a sequel later on where the poor benighted Europeans are trying to fend off colonization from Africa, and maybe even from the Western Hemisphere if enough time has passed.  For added irony, the colonizing forces find themselves struggling to deal with native European diseases themselves, and the continent earns a lasting reputation as a backward pestiferous hellhole.   

Is this thread what you're thinking of?

Ideal!  : )
 
Even better, it provides an in for Key seekers who don't have on-tap divinations.  Even mystics in Champions tend to be brutes and blasters, possessing the sort of investigative acumen you'd expect from bully boys.  Oh, and Contacts; they tend to have skills rather than spells.  KS: Signs, Portents, and Omens (which Fortean phenomena are a modern manifestation of) looks like a good skill to have.
 
Besides Gumshoe, I'll have to see what works of Kenneth Hite I can get.  Have his articles from Pyramid been put back together yet?

I have two volumes of Hite's columns, called Suppressed Transmission: The First Broadcast and Suppressed Transmission: The Second Broadcast. I suppose I should see if further collections were published.
 
Well, yes, the key to a good investigative scenario is that the players can be rewarded for thinking, but don't actually need to do so. It's a good idea to have something ready if the player *does* make a great Deduction roll. It lets you skip the step where the NPC posts the snarky comment that, "I don't see Jesus. I see a road map to Eveleth, Minnesota. And I should know because I live nearby in Hibbing." Then add another Fortean event or two.
 
As GM, you have also primed the pump by describing how Fortean events, both loud and subtle, followed Dr. Macabre -- and that the heroes he fought used this to track him. 
 
It's still possible that the players won't trust you to supply clues to the Janus Key even though they said they wanted an adventure built around searching for the Janus Key. Or, yeah, that they won't realize you are trying to give them what they asked for. Then you'd probably go to your Plan B. Maybe go big and have Eveleth suddenly be replaced by a swath of long-devastated land patrolled by Martian war tripods. See, the new owner's latest experiment replaced the town with a section from an alternate history where the Martians won the War of the Worlds. (In the CU, it was the Orson Wells version that really happened, and the "Martians" were actually Sirians, but whatever.)
 
As always, know your players. But at least try to give them a chance to feel smart.
 
Dean Shomshak

It's more complicated than that. Time sold Sports illustrated to another media outfit several years ago, who recently sold it to an outfit that is not a media company. That outfit has been trying to leverage The Sports illustrated name into lifestyle branding, e.g., resorts, etc. they fired about half their employees 3 years ago or so, and have recently been hit with a scandal about many of their articles being written by artificial intelligence. At this point it looks like the new owners are ready to just burn it down and start over, or maybe just let it die.

Nice tench coat. Did you use HeroForge?