Chat about anything else!

Anything NOT Vanguard game related, chuck in here. Other games, films, books, general chit chat etc

I see some young punk in our group is having a birthday in a few days. May you live to one day be old enough to call most other folks "young punk"!

I already do! Unfortunately I have enough perspective to recognize 'young punkishness' in people my own age. And most people younger then me that I know are particularly bad for it..

However, thanks!

Smaug is turning 29 on the 28th - young punk!

Exactly!

Wait.. I'm only 24.. tomorrow.. if he's a young punk..


uh-oh.. That doesn't bode well for me..

Happy birthday to everyone! (that includes young and old punks)

Yep, bodes badly. Below young punk is Squirt and Kiddo!

Are those the new level titles?
Infant, toddler, squirt, kiddo, tweener, young punk, venerable, dust?

And happy birthday all! ^_^

If you guys want to make a comprehensive list of codenames, character types, team names, whatever, be my guest and I'll change them. Give some idea as to the post count too.

example:

Hero for hire (0-49 posts)
teen Titan (50-100 posts)
X men first class (101-250 posts)
up to Eternals, Justice Leaguer, Guardian of the Galaxy, New Gods etc?

Might give something to do (a challenge perhaps?) between my updates

Any of you guys hear of a manga and anime called "Tiger and Bunny"? I got the first volume of the manga a little bit ago and just got the first volume of the DVD yesterday.

Kind of an interesting premise though it starts out slow. I remember the Wild Cards books, the last couple of them had a reality Super Hero TV show where people with powers competed in simulated crimes and disasters to save folks. This is kind of like that. There are a small handful of folks called NEXT who gain superpowers, due to some kind of mutation that happened 45 years ago [according to the first issue and episode], no one knows why or how, when they are young or early adulthood.

These heroes are sponsored by various corporations and compete to fight crime and rescue people, while being filmed for a show called HERO TV, who have cameras all over the place and are in radio communication with the heroes. Being sponsored heroes, the company logos are included in their costumes - like racing cars are. Points are awarded for their various deeds and at the end of the season, one is declared the Hero of the City or something like that. Their companies make their costumes, teach them to do specific catch phrases and things like that.

If you can get your hands on the manga or DVD/Blu-Ray, would give it a chance. I'm finding the original Japanese version to be better than the English dubbed version of the DVD. One time I think VIZ fell down on the quality of their dubbing.

I'll take a look. Admittedly the only time I watched and enjoyed Japanese animation was way back in the day with 'Battle of the planets' (or whatever it was called elsewhere in the world) with G-Force (Mark, Jason, Princess, Tiny, Keop, Seven zark Seven and the menace of Spectra. Or something like that. It's been... *counting* uh, decades) Gatchaman, I think it was called?

yep, that's what it was called in Japan. Overseas is was called both Battle of the Planets and G-Force, with slightly different editing for each version.

DavidMcMahon wrote:yep, that's what it was called in Japan. Overseas is was called both Battle of the Planets and G-Force, with slightly different editing for each version.

I loved G force, but I have to admit that the cultural aspects of manga (big eyes, child like faces for instance, then their are cringy names like Tiger and Bunny and that its dubbed from Japanese) that just puts me right off the whole genre.

I've never been inspired enough by what I know (which is admittedly limited) to try and even look, I'm afraid.

Sj

isn't there a game called 'Big eyes small mouth' or some such that covers anime style adventures? No idea if it were any good, mind, or even if it's still in print *shrug*

yep, there is such a game. I bought the rules years ago but never played it.

So there is a new DC Universe RPG. This is all I know about it:

DC Adventures: Hero's Handbook Hardcover
(based on 2 ratings)
Green Ronin Publishing
Join the never-ending battle for truth and justice in the world's greatest super-hero universe, using the world's greatest super-hero roleplaying game! ... The DC ADVENTURES Hero's Handbook is a complete super-hero RPG, based on the award-winning Mutants & Masterminds system. Take on the roles of...

DC Adventures: Heroes & Villains—Vol. 2 Hardcover
Green Ronin Publishing
The DC Universe features a dazzling array of characters who have thrilled readers for generations. ... The two-volume Heroes & Villains set details hundreds of those characters for use in your DC Adventures games, all with character stats fully compatible with the award-winning Mutants &

DC Adventures: Heroes & Villains—Volume 1
Green Ronin Publishing
The DC Universe features a dazzling array of characters who have thrilled readers for generations. Now they come to life for tabletop gaming in DC ADVENTURES Heroes & Villains. Vol. I covers characters A K, from Abra Kadabra and Adam Strange through Kid Flash and Kobra. Each entry comes complete...

DC Adventures: Universe Hardcover
Green Ronin Publishing
From the streets of Metropolis and Gotham to the thousands of space sectors patrolled by the Green Lantern Corps; from a swirl of stars held in a vast and mysterious hand to the distant reaches of the 853rd century and beyond: the DC Universe covers vast stretches of time and space. Home to 75...


Looked over the Mutants and Masterminds books, bought the first set of rules and the D20 set of rules but never played it so I don't know if it is a good system or not.

I'm going to stop predicting when I'll actually get time to sit down and post without *someone* wanting me to do something else. *sigh* Other than to say I plan to update today, all posts. 

With regards the Mutants and Masterminds games, I own all of them, played 1st and 2nd edition. Both play the same but 1st edition seemed to be easier/faster to make characters for. 2nd adds crunch/options and you are literally poring over the books for hours it seems to squeeze best bang for buck out. The last few times I made characters for 2e I more or less gave up and modified one of the 10 template characters (usually paragons cause I'm lazy) to run.

3e uses a D20 as before, but borrows quite a bit from the DC heroes game (exponential ratings for weight, speed, time, distance etc, with 1 point being worth twice as much as the previous, which is twice as much as the point before that and so on). Agility is split into Dex and Agility which i thought was stupid at first but actually makes sense. One (Agility) is used to avoid blows, the other (Dex) to attack from range and perform manual tasks. I think the Fighting stat covers hitting in melee and parrying melee attacks. By splitting one stat up (Dex in DC heroes) into 3 you can far better model certain characters like the Thing (great at fighting, gets hit a lot) and Spiderman (pretty good at fighting, awesome at dodging) as opposed to those characters in other games (DC heroes for example) having a high Dex score.

If I were writing a retro/clone of DC heroes I'd have players buy Acting (used to hit) Opposing (to dodge) Effect (damage) resistance (to resist blows) separately for melee, missile, mental and mystical attacks, and have separate stats for non combat stuff. Sounds complex, but you can easily buy say (listed Acting/Opposing/Effect/Resistance)

Energy Blast: 7/0/15/0 Missile range 3

This means you use 7 (acting value) to attack with, use 15 (effect value) if you hit, it's a missile weapon and range is 3. 

A cop would look like: 3/2/3/2 melee, 4/2/5/2 missile (with a gun) and mystical/mental/non combat stats would be all 2

Looks crunchy but once you're used to the sequence (acting/opposing/effect/resistance) it'd be pretty easy and a one line description instead of stat blocks.

Spiderman might be: 8/15/10/5 (melee) and 13/15/special (webs)/5 (missile) with 0/9/0/10 (mental) and 0/7/0/8 (mystical)
non combat stats: super strength 10, wall crawling 5, jumping 4, web swinging 5, web shooters (special), danger sense 10 (with the weakness that should it ever fail or be turned off, his opposing value drops 10 points to 5) intelligence 9 (current Dr Octopus brain), Mind 10 (amazing willpower) Dexterity 9, influence 7, Spirit 8. Spiderman isn't bulletproof (the 5 resistance value covers that) but he's tough (9 body) and heals far faster than usual, including broken bones in days.

Off the top of my head. If anyone wants to chip in for a collaborative fan made game I'm game for a laugh

More later. Promise this time. No apologies, as I seem to apologise more than post these days. Nnngh.

Oh, with regards DC Adventures it's 3e Mutants/Masterminds with DC Characters. Have the first 3 books, waiting for the Universe book to come down in price, but have the PDF. Never played it but it *seems* to be faster character creation than 2e. Don't get me wrong - I wanted to love 2e, I really did, but character creation left me cold

Any of you care that they are making a Flash TV show coming out this Fall? Spin-off from the Arrow series.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=flash+tv+series+2014&qpvt=flash+tv+series+2014&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=FF8FE8278D1F330E766BFF8FE8278D1F330E766B



http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=flash+tv+series+2014&qpvt=flash+tv+series+2014&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=DDEC4096E0A494BAB8A2DDEC4096E0A494BAB8A2

Costumed hero. Costumed villains. Can't wait! Finally something to watch on regular network TV.   

DavidMcMahon wrote:Any of you care that they are making a Flash TV show coming out this Fall?  Spin-off from the Arrow series.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=flash+tv+series+2014&qpvt=flash+tv+series+2014&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=FF8FE8278D1F330E766BFF8FE8278D1F330E766B



http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=flash+tv+series+2014&qpvt=flash+tv+series+2014&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=DDEC4096E0A494BAB8A2DDEC4096E0A494BAB8A2

Costumed hero.  Costumed villains.  Can't wait!  Finally something to watch on regular network TV.      

I've watched a couple of episodes of arrow (don't have Sky so not watch the series proper) but love what I've seen so far, been following it on the interwebs. I believe the pilot episode 'leaked' on as well a week or so ago, and generally getting good reviews.

Sj

Well, crud! My hard drive failed! So I only have access to a computer at work, so I will be a bit sporadic replying this month. Next month, I will either see about buying a new hard drive or a new computer, money is really tight this month.

DavidMcMahon wrote:Well, crud!  My hard drive failed!  So I only have access to a computer at work, so I will be a bit sporadic replying this month.  Next month, I will either see about buying a new hard drive or a new computer, money is really tight this month.  

Oh mate so sorry to hear that, hope you get things fixed pronto. Sometimes getting a hard drive replacement will help a computer limp on and be functional for the time being, sometimes not.

All the best, in any case mate.

Sj

Hard drive failure. Bane of my life (well, relatively speaking). Lost plenty of stuff over the years from word docs to photos

No cheap option other than to say hard drives are at their lowest prices for years. Good luck with it, game will still be here, with single player threads it goes at your pace anyhow

Anyone play Star Wars the Old Republic MMO? Just started it last weekend. You can play two characters for free now. I'm on the Jedi Covenant server, though there are European Servers to choose from as well.

You can solo through many of the missions or you can team up, it appears. I'm liking the storylines. Each class has it's own storyline. Going to take me forever to get through the storylines, which is good since once that's done, not sure what else you can do with the game.

Here's a link if you want to try it. I think it gives you not just a free account but makes it as a paid subscription for seven days. Paid subscription gets you more stuff.

http://www.swtor.com/r/rqNG5Y

If you like the game, let me know. We can team up and maybe even form our own guild.

DavidMcMahon wrote:Anyone play Star Wars the Old Republic MMO?  Just started it last weekend.  You can play two characters for free now.  I'm on the Jedi Covenant server, though there are European Servers to choose from as well.

You can solo through many of the missions or you can team up, it appears.  I'm liking the storylines.  Each class has it's own storyline.  Going to take me forever to get through the storylines, which is good since once that's done, not sure what else you can do with the game.

Here's a link if you want to try it.  I think it gives you not just a free account but makes it as a paid subscription for seven days.  Paid subscription gets you more stuff.

http://www.swtor.com/r/rqNG5Y

If you like the game, let me know.  We can team up and maybe even form our own guild.

Sounds fun, however my schedule doesn't allow for regular times to meet up. I get up very early and therefore go to bed early as well. (it's late for me now and it 22.10). So in truth I do play MMO like Elite Dangerous, but never with anyone cause I just can't be consistent in terms of time to play. Family, work and life mean I just pick up and put down a game when I can. I'd be a terrible help mate for that reason.

Sj