In the Buffy tabletop RPG, they had two basic character types: Heroes (Buffy, Faith, Riley, Angel, etc.) who had innate supernatural powers—or super-science-powers in Riley's case—and White Hats (Giles, Willow, Xander, Oz, Tara), the Muggle-types who helped them out. Although the latter start out fragile, with enough…

And more to the point, Willow's spell was too late anyway. And Buffy knew it when she looked Angel (not Angelus) right in the eye before running him through.

I might be remembering it poorly, but wasn't "kill Angel" still the right call? The spell didn't take effect until after the Hell portal had been opened, and only Angel's blood could close it.

I tend to agree. The kind of extreme Islamism represented by Al-Qaeda was already in decline right before the WTC attacks. That and the Iraq War might have prolonged the ideology's lifespan a few extra years, but the Arab Spring has already removed a lot of the dictators that were political Islamism's priority…

You Fail Logic Forever.

/golf clap

Other than the tiny handful of actual unique takes on exorcism movies—I can only think of The Last Exorcism and The Prophecy (where it was a subplot)—isn't every exorcism movie just a lame The Exorcist wannabe? Always the same dumb plot: some demon decides the best way to spread evil is to possess some middle-class…

I dislike Ratner's work as much as the next geek. But the reason he keeps getting work is because he makes tentpole movies cheap and fast. The main reason he ended up directing X3 is because after Matthew Vaughan left the production (which was already on a ridiculously short schedule), Ratner was one of the few…

I never use pre-published settings—although I borrow and steal small parts of them—because for me world-building is my favourite part of DMing. Even in the metaplot-heavy old World of Darkness, I often just used the

You're absolutely right. I'd only quibble that Dick Jones wasn't exactly up-and-coming, he was a high-level VP. Given what we saw of OCP corporate politics, Jones probably spent a couple years climbing the ladder over the (literal) bodies of his rivals. "The Old Man" was just the last rung on that ladder.

I think a better tact for D&D to take is to become the simpler, intro-level game for newer players, then those who want a lot more tactics and complexity and detailed options can graduate to Pathfinder. 5th ed might even do that.

Not everyone. Just people who criticized American government or society in any way. And had more than a handful of people who listened to them. Like writers, directors, artists, etc.

Every interprets "The Night Gwen Stacy Dies" that way. Me, I don't remember Gwen saying or doing a single thing from the moment Spider-man shows up at the bridge. She just lies there, unmoving. So I always assumed she was dead before Spidey even got there, and that anything Green Goblin said to the contrary was a lie.

I watched the fansubs around 98-99 (and they were probably 12-18 months behind Japanese broadcast), but I don't think the official North American releases were until the early 2000s.

Steve Trevor was rebooted into an older uncle-like figure post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. I don't know why, but the implication is that while it's perfectly fine for a non-super-powered woman like Lois Lane to date Superman (she should be grateful to be dating a god, dammit!), a non-super man is emasculated by dating…

It's sexist because Superman can apparently have non-super girlfriends (Lois or Lana), but Wonder Woman can't have a relationship with a non-super. The implication there is that a non-super woman should feel blessed and privileged to be dating a demigod, but a non-super man would be emasculated by a relationship with…

I'm calling this "troll marketing":

Exactly the argument I made elsewhere yesterday. Videodrome is a film about its particular zeitgeist. It doesn't work in a modern context. Just make a new film along similar lines for new media and give it a new name. Videodrome isn't a brand or a franchise or something that will sell video games, action figures or…

Well, look at it this way. If an author writes a political thriller, there are certain rules and common practices that govern how politics works in our world. If an author writes murder mysteries or crime procedurals, there are certain rules, laws and common procedures that govern how murders are defined,…

It's a constant danger in Conan stories. However, even without the intervention of muscular Cimmerians, it appears the practice of magic on Hyboria is so fraught with peril most wizards likely do themselves in before they can do too much damage.