Ironik

That's the problem with Smallville in a nutshell: good ideas, bad execution.

"I am the dog!"

I laughed.

That's what I said.

Naw, that doesn't work for me. Specifically, it doesn't work for some of my characters. Right now I'm playing my Native American mutant, Liberty Ace. His backstory is completely compatible with the game lore, so he's not going to have any problem with the Incarnate stuff. Some of my other characters, though aren't compatible.

The easiest way to solve this issue is for the Devs to add a word or two to each of the Origin of Power and Incarnate arcs. When we're told that "no mutants existed before 1939" that's annoying, but it could be readily fixed by saying, "the number of mutants radically increased after 1939." That allows for both the game lore *and* players to have characters who don't fit. Simple solution.

I actually said the opposite, but go ahead and think what you want. Just don't oversimplify my complex explanation.

To clarify: using a gun doesn't make you Tech. Wearing powered armor does. Using a mojo hand doesn't make you Magic, but increasing your abilities via the Well of Furies does.

NarfMann makes a very good point about the Natural/Magic aspect of Sam and Dean which underscores my larger argument. They both started out as Natural Scrappers, but then Sam got hopped up on demon blood and thus became Magic-based. In fact, now that I think on it, Sam may have been Magic-based from the start since he and others like him were chosen by the yellow-eyed demon to do his dirty work on Earth. Either way, Sam is definitely Magic-based in the current season, despite the fact that he only uses Natural means to accomplish his goals, whereas in Season 4 he was using innate magical abilities all the time.

I don't, but I have the right to be annoyed by it and express that displeasure. Free country and all that. Sorry if that annoys *you*, but feel free to complain about it. Free country for you, too.

I'm cool like that.

They need the equivalent of guys like T2's Liquid Terminator -- Clark can freeze him, melt him, blast him into a zillion pieces and he just reforms. There are a couple dozen other ideas along similar lines, but they tend to stick with the usual bad guy.

It sort of has to be, since Superman is stupidly powerful. The only reason people can even compete with him is because 1) there's kryptonite and 2) he holds back. He's the ultimate melee fighter because he can move almost as fast as the speed of light and he's the ultimate ranged fighter because he has a variety of powers that can work on you from a distance: frost breath, heat vision and a throwing arm that is unequaled in the galaxy.

Superman Returns would've been over in 9 minutes if Superman just carried around a bunch of pebbles. Throw a pebble at a guy from ten miles away and the target would explode into a blood-red mist. Problem solved.

I rather liked the original conceit of the show, namely that superhumans were being created because of the properties found in the meteor rock, with Superman's landing place being the epicenter of a superhero and supervillain outbreak. They never capitalized on it, focusing instead on "freak of the week" stories, and then did away with the idea in later seasons. But a lot of rock came down with Clark's rocket, so there's tons of kryptonite to go around.

Good point. I'd forgotten that Boomtown and Steel aren't actually next to each other. Okay, forget the Steel part and just put the spaceport in Boomtown. We *need* a spaceport so we can get to the moon.

lol

See? It's not hard at all.

I don't think lack of specificity needs to be also bland. Let me try to make up a couple.

"There are people screaming in terror in here. Time to make them scream louder."

There is not a single thing there that talks about your character but it's dripping with menace. You're a villain and you might be motivated for all sorts of reasons to make them suffer, but it says nothing about your motivation or even how to accomplish your goal. Are you going to kill a few to terrify the others, use your magical "Scare Stare" power or simply be menacing? It's all up to you.

"The bad guys are here already. They won't be staying... or ever coming back."

Same deal as above. Nothing about your hero is contained there, but it's hardly bland.

"Inside the door, the temperature is noticeably lower. Time to bring the heat."

How do you notice it? Are you a regular person so you're now chilly? A robot with an on-board thermometer? An alien who can tell just by how it looks that it's cold? Player's choice.

Shhh... don't give away plots to upcoming shows.

Generally speaking, a virus that kills its host quickly doesn't get to survive very long. It's in the virus' interest to keep the host alive as long as possible in order to act as both incubator and a vector. That's why some diseases have become less virulent over time. The common cold was probably a killer in its earlier incarnation but mutated into a non-lethal form that gets spread easily. During the last swine flu outbreak a few years ago, we saw it mutate quite quickly from a very deadly version to a less lethal version in just a few months.

Some of them you can. It's not as *easy* to transmit as the common cold, but some cancers are caused by a transmittable virus.

You have a hip made of stars? How do you sit?

The game used to be wide open, but they got infected with the "directed gameplay" meme at some point when designing CoV and it's been hanging around ever since. Just add the mechanics and let us decide how to roleplay them. Easy-peasy. Even better for the Devs because then they don't have to bend over backwards coming up with utter nonsense like Powerset Proliferation explanations. Frees up all kinds of time for them to write story arcs.

Have you ever rolled a robot character -- or, heck, just a BALD one -- and gone into a mission where the pop-up text reads, "You slick back your hair and get ready to fight." It simply doesn't fit your character at all. Origin of Power, Powerset Proliferation and Incarnates are exactly like that pop-up, writ large and affecting every single character in the game. And there isn't even a reason to do it.

What's insulting is the notion that being smart is *only* because of magical intervention. That limits our ability to tell other stories which are equally as interesting. Which is why I find OoPs so annoying: my Magic users can only exist because of *this* and my Mutants can only exist because of *that*.

Where's the fun of such a straitjacketed system?

Disagree.

That's EXACTLY the canon definition of magic, according to War Witch-NPC. If you were to postulate Jackie Chan not having his amazing physical gifts until the magical Well of Furies unleashed its mojo on the world, then you aren't talking about a Natural Scrapper but rather a Magical one, plain and simple. If Tony Stark couldn't come up with Iron Man until after being touched by the Well's "inspiration," then you're no longer talking a Tech hero but rather a Magic one. There's simply no getting around the fact that if the source of all inspiration is Magic, then everything it touches automatically becomes of Magic origin, too.

Her reaction was altogether normal, one of the things I love best about Supernatural. Ever watch an episode of Law & Order, any division? The dialogue is stilted, the characters serve no other purpose than to drive the plot and it is completely unbelievable as drama.

What she did wasn't gracious or grateful, but rather the reaction of someone who has been betrayed and traumatized by things she never even imagined might exist the day before. I say she behaved exactly as a real person might, not as a Highway to Heaven cardboard character would.

Um, that's actually how many cancers behave.