seneschal

Hmmm, I got the English name wrong. It was "Starbirds." Released by Eastwest DVD, whose website apparently no longer exists. The pilots look somewhat familiar (fat guy, suave guy, shy guy) but the jets and the robots are different from and cruder than the much more polished pics I pulled up in Google images. My version doesn't refer to the "Hundred Demon Empire," but the plot involves an attempt to cripple the team's launch facility with swarms of explosive bats. Not a dinosaur (or dino robot) in sight.

Unfortunately, the giant robot series didn't get as much play in my neck of the woods as in Europe, so my exposure is primarily through secondary sources -- Robotech, Gatchaman, Ultraman, Giant Robo, Godzilla movies, Shogun Warriors toys, Gundam W -- and Americanized interpretations: Power Rangers, Might Orbots, etc. However, I did pick up a dollar DVD with the English title "Redbirds." It features a trio of pilots whose assorted aircraft combine to form a fighting robot. They work for some United Nations good guy organization headed by a kindly old professor. In the episodes I have, they're up against alien invaders, this time humanoids with one to three horns on their heads (bigger and more horns apparently grant greater status). One of the bad guys looks like a cross between Adolph Hitler and a Texas Longhorn steer. Any idea what the original Japanese TV show was? By the way, the brief 1960s era (I'd guess) Redbirds story -- despite its comparatively primitive animation -- is much more interesting than the glossier and more recent Gundam W episodes. The latter devolves into tiresome soap opera and pointless battles among the not-so-heroic space colony rebels, who are supposed to be fighting Earth forces for their freedom. It has to, because the Gundam 'bots are so superior the the Earth mecha that they wipe out whole cybernetic armies in seconds without getting their own paint scuffed.

Thanks for the update. And thanks for all the hard, creative work you guys have been doing!

"Bah! We still have the first two attache cases. Besides, I can't see Giant Robo from where I'm standing." Beware the Eye of Vogler!

I know continuity has changed among the various Masters of the Universe series, but according to the She-Ra Princess of Power pilot movie Skeletor was originally one of Hordak's henchmen. Hordak, an intergalactic pirate armed with lots of high-tech weaponry, attempted to conquer Eternia but was driven off. He returned via dimensional gate, accompanied by Skeletor, to kidnap the royal twins as revenge but was caught. He escaped with the infant princess, abandoning the boy baby and Skeletor. The latter escaped imprisonment and set up shop in his former boss's old headquarters, seeking to seize Eternia on his own account. Hordak, meanwhile, successfully took over the pastoral planet Etheria and settled down to rule with the aid of his assorted alien goons. He raised the captive girl and trained her to be one of his generals -- a role she was proficient at and content with until He-Man arrived in search of her.

Is it just me, or does that handshake between Mazinger and Devilman remind you of the one between Batman and Robin during the credits of the '60s TV show? Also, Godzilla movies had Jet Jaguar, and Ultraman had Godzilla (with a neck frill and another name).

There's currently a nice review at rpg.net. [url=http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15749.phtml] I tried to post the link, but am getting an error message, generated either here or by rpg.net.

While cyberpunk is definitely a valid sci-fi subgenre, you might check with the Chaosium guys to see if contest entries are still being accepted. The original deadline was August 30. 2012 BRP Adventure Contest Rules All Science Fiction theme: Mutants, Aliens, Star Ships, Meteor Impacts, etc. August 30 deadline, submit to dustin@chaosium.com 5,000 - 10,000 words (20-40 double-spaced pages), ASCII text files only Include name, e-mail address, shipping address at top of entry, one entry per person Art -- not required; only 300 dpi grayscale tiff files; illustrations must be numbered and an appropriate "insert here" note included in the adventure text for each illustration

Robbin’ Hoodlum Quote: “Take from the rich, give to poor old me!” I never did an origin story for Geoffrey Braun aka the Robbin’ Hoodlum. He’s sort of a Green Arrow (DC Comics) or Hawkeye (Marvel Comics) gone wrong, committing robberies with the aid of his crossbow and trick bolts. He’s got a bit of the Green Hornet in him, too, in that he uses non-lethal weaponry to commit his crimes. After all, it is much more satisfying to taunt an opponent while escaping with ill-gotten loot than to kill him. Success is the best revenge. The Robbin’ Hoodlum also refuses to endanger bystanders while perpetrating his outrages or while attempting to escape afterward. Early in his career, the Robbin’ Hoodlum performed his capers with the aid of associates he called his “Merrie Men.” These goons, each an expert in a particular type of crime, were costumed and nicknamed to parallel Robin Hood’s companions. Braun ultimately elected to work alone; his less-competent henchmen often wound up behind bars, and he found he really didn’t like sharing the proceeds of a successful job. The death of his “Maid Marian” while the gang was frantically eluding Federal authorities may have played a role in his decision as well. He’s a skilled actor, burglar, hand-to-hand combatant, marksman, and safe-cracker, but Braun’s unusual abilities derive from his equipment. His crossbow-like weapon fires projectiles that release knockout gas, impenetrable fog, or expanding, entangling nets. Robbin’ Hoodlum can also use it to fire mini-grapnel lines that allow him to swing almost 50 feet. His garish costume (pumpkin orange tunic and hose covered by Lincoln green jacket, topped by feathered shooter’s cap) is lightly armored. To date, Robbin’ Hoodlum has sometimes been thwarted but has never been captured. His identity, which he never revealed to his Merrie Men, is as yet unknown to the authorities. Since he is a master of disguise, the Robbin’ Hoodlum’s vaguely Errol Flynn-ish visage is probably not his true appearance. STR 15 CON 11 SIZ 12 INT 13 POW 12 DEX 12 APP 6 Move: 10 Hit Points: 23 (CON+SIZ) Damage Bonus: +1D4 Armor: 6 kinetic, 3 heat, 3 electric (costume) Attacks: Brawl 55%, 1D3+1D4; Grapple 55%, 1D3+1D4; Gas Bolt 55%, 4D6 POT vs. Target’s CON; Net Bolt 55%, Entangle Skills: Appraise 46%, Climb 55%, Disguise 48%, Dodge 55%, Drive 20%, Fast Talk 51%, Fine Manipulation 52%, Hide 51%, Jump 54%, Listen 35%, Martial Arts (Tae Kwon Do) 43%, Perform (Acting) 46%, Perform (Mimicry) 47%, Projection 55%, Research 35%, Sleight of Hand 46%, Spot 35%, Stealth 52% Powers: Gas Projection, 6 levels, 4D6 POT, 3 meter radius volume, 15 meter range, 12 energy per use (18); Darkness, 4 levels, 5 meter radius, 15 meter range, no energy cost (15); Snare Projection, 6 levels, 15 meter range, 1 energy per use (18); Armor (12); Leap (Swinging), +14 meters to Jump (7); Extra Energy, +170 (17) Failings: Hunted by the FBI +3, Code vs. killing +3 Notes: 81 power points plus 6 for Failings, total 87; 500 skill points plus 120 personal skill points, total 620. 20 skills = 31 points each The Darkness and Gas Projection powers are from the Worlds of Wonder version of Superworld. The powers in the Big Gold Book are fine as far as they go, but there are only so many of them. I had to get creative on Braum’s grapnel line power. Swinging is an ability featured in Hero System but not in BRP. The BRP version of Robbin’ Hoodlum is actually more competent than his Hero System (3rd edition) incarnation. He’s got a broader range of options with his crossbow, and a wider range of skills. The Champions version had an outrageously high DEX and the equivalent of BRP’s Super Speed. (Such elevated characteristics were common in the games I participated in at the time.) Since BRP encourages characters with more normal physical abilities, my Silver Age villain had more resources to become an effective thief.

Here it is, a prefab adventure ready for your hapless PCs to unravel:

At this point, I'm waiting on the outcomes of three contests: the 2011 adventure contest, the sci fi contest, and the children's adventure contest. One winning entry from the 2011 contest has been published as a monograph, but not the other winning entries. No word yet on the two most recent contests. Chaosium has been silent as the tomb since the successful conclusion of the Orient Express kickstarter. Presumably that means they're busily preparing the new boxed adventure, a good thing, but updates on previously announced projects and the contests would be nice, too.

In high school in the '70s, I reported bathroom drug sales to a teacher only to be ignored -- he didn't want to become involved. So much for moral and ethical education. While drugs are still an issue, thugs are a more immediate concern. My kids were unable to learn at a charter school because of non-stop bullying by other students. Report problem to designated counselor? Nothing useful happens. Respond in kind when you can't take it anymore? Get suspended (although the bully who incited the incident isn't punished).

Cursed, perhaps, by the spider god itself? Hmmm. What did you do with that white jade amulet you "found" in the Yucatan? Just teasing. I was impressed by Legend's portable small format and reasonable price when I saw it at my local game shop. On the other hand, it was so small and so plain it sort of got lost among the larger, more garish game books.

Hmmm, Dorothy was about 6 when she landed in Oz, so in your campaign she'd be 21. In your version, she was The Bad Seed, deserving of the sanitarium featured in Disney's Return to Oz. The Evil Empress. But what happened to Oz the Great and Terrible, Ozma (daughter of former King Pastoria, therefore the rightful heir), and the three other witches? Also, Oz doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are surrounding kingdoms such as Ev and the underground world of the Nome King. Are the PC heroes confronting the Trio in Oz or in Golden Gate Park? Or is it the rebels who arrive, asking help from investigating supers? Note: Oz and its associated territories -- unlike, say, Narnia -- is supposedly somewhere on the surface of our Earth, separated from Bangladesh or Ivory Coast or Canada, etc., only by the Deadly Desert. That's why a tornado or ocean squall can get you there, and why assorted other early-20th-century adventurers in addition to the Wizard and Dorothy kept showing up in the book series. Unless Dorothy has thought to cloak the region magically (as Glinda eventually did in the book series), the Emerald City could theoretically be spotted via satellite or by overflying jet fighters -- and PC superheroes could actually fly there if they could get accurate GPS directions. Or the PCs could go to the rescue of the passengers of a downed airliner -- and find themselves not in Kansas anymore. Oz being a "real" accessible place may seem limiting at first, but consider the possibilities. E.g., Iran breaks off its nuclear program, not because of UN sanctions but because it has discovered another, greater power in its neighbor: Oz!

Here's another source of Oz-ian inspiration: Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond The Yellow Brick Road by F. Douglas Wall (Paperback) - Lulu And it's on sale at Lulu.com for now.

The Iron Giant only got one feature-length film, but it was a good one. Only the movie was more about building relationships and self-control than unleashing mechanical wrath upon evildoers.

I notice he doesn't have a DEX stat. Is that because he uses the Pilot's DEX instead?

Good ideas all. Hope it works out and that all have fun. More grist for the mill: If you're recycling scenarios, consider the free "Murder in the Footlights" scenario at Chaosium's site. It's a brief setup for Call of Cthulhu that has great expansion potential for any genre.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this, since the discussion has devolved into a "Yes it is!" "No it isn't!" stage. Our energy apparently would be better spend statting out that Yamato vs. Godzilla battle. Note: At no time did I suggest that someone take a pair of scissors to folks' favorite anime series. I merely suggested that if English translators have a range of word choices when dubbing a scene, they might as well go with a milder version of an expression rather than choosing the nastiest, most vile one (as AD Vision seems wont to do). Also, for reference on my box office results statements, see Michael Medved's Hollywood vs. America. Amazon.com: Hollywood vs. America: The Explosive Bestseller that Shows How-and Why-the Entertainment Industry Has Broken Faith With Its Audience (9780060924355): Michael Medved: Books Have a Happy Thanksgiving. Since many people are thinking about turkey today, I recommend 1957's The Giant Claw. It's actually a well-plotted, well-acted example of the Fifties giant creature movies ... until you get to the creature itself. Ironically, Rodan was released the same year. They'd make entertaining back-to-back viewing -- and provide fuel for another BRP monster vs. monster slugfest.

That mindset is exactly the problem. Of course, my family watches old movies and old TV shows on DVD. But those shouldn't have to be our only alternatives. I can easily turn the argument around. Filth-lovers aren't forced to watch clean, wholesome material. But they don't have have the right to dump their garbage on everyone else. The truth is that some of the most profitable movies in recent decades have been the clean, family-oriented ones because audiences are starving for something decent to watch. When movie makers have gone all out to force their perverse visions on the public, their dream projects have often tanked at the box office. Making films and TV shows loaded with profanity, dirty jokes, and extreme violence is a producer's choice, a worldview. Some of them are pushing their views despite the product's lack of profitability, not because of it. Another irony, despite all the dread of "censorship," many of motion picture history's great films were made between 1930 and 1968, when the Hayes Code was in effect. Most of those films were adult-oriented, like Casablanca or the original 3:10 to Yuma. Decades of product demonstrate that you can tell an "adult" (Oscar-winning) story without loading it with profanity, gore, or gratuitous sex scenes. Adding the trash doesn't make a work more relevant, realistic, or "adult," it just makes it nastier. Fortunately, many of Hayao Miyazaki's animated works are clean, as well as being well-written and thoughtful.

Note that the moderate expletive in Gone with the Wind was used once, for emphatic effect at the climax of the movie. Rhett Butler (and the rest of the characters) didn't casually breathe out profanities every other word the way characters do in modern films. Despite the claims of cynical movie makers, most people don't really talk that way in real life, or they didn't until generations of teens from the '70s onward were specifically targeted by movies crammed with casual continuous cursing. But I don't want to derail the thread. I'd just like to be able to watch a foreign cartoon or Godzilla movie with my kids without having to wade through the sewer. (For that matter, I'd like to be able to watch an American cartoon or movie without having to wadie through the sewer.)

"Uh, sorry, that's not the dubbers fault, that has to do with differernt cultures. The Japeanese language can be remarkably vague and indirect. There are no actual curse words in Japanese. So you might not see them in a literal translation. THere are, however, wods and expressions that serve as curse words, and they might be more acctualtely translated as a curse word in English. For example, the term "Shimata" tranlate as "I made a mistake" or "this is wong" but depending on how it is used, it probably can be more accurately translated as "$h*t' or as "I f***ked up." Often, a literal translation won't make sense becuase it would be out of context. Talking about a girl's "teacup" in Japanese has nothing to do with tea." I'm not an expert on Japanese culture, but I still fault ADV. If a dubber has a choice between "I made a mistake" and a coarser alternative, there's little reason not to go with the politer version, especially when you're translating what was a childrens' program in the U.S. If Japanese is as vague and iffy a language as you say, with no built-in profanities, why not err on the side of clean language instead of foul? Electing to be "as dirty as you wanna be" is a translator choice that does a disservice to the English-speaking customers. It's the difference between the 1950s version of Oklahoma! where Aunt Eller says, "I'll be danged if I ain't just as good (as other people)" instead of "damned" as was said in a recent British revival starring Hugh Jackman. The meaning is the same, but the selection of coarser language (and racier dance moves and costuming during the ballet scene) was the British producer's choice. I can tell you as an Oklahoman that folks here talk more like the 1950s version. The bus scene in Ghost Hunters wasn't a cultural glitch. Based on the tone of the Japanese voices and the animated characters' experssions and body language, the American dubbers deliberately changed the dialogue, possibly with the intention of enlivening what they felt was a dull scene. It was one of several instances where quarrelsomeness was inserted in relations among the students which just wasn't there in the Japanese version. It's the equivalent of inserting an expletive-laced argument in the middle of a Japanese dub of a Scooby Doo, Where Are You? episode.

And in noir movies and fiction (and the story of Sampson) the guy often goes after the alluring woman despite the fact that he knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she's a foe. He failed his Will roll and did what he knew to be foolish, wrong, dangerous, etc.

AD Vision is particularly bad about this. For instance, I've watched old (not recent) Godzilla movies with my kids where the English dialogue's foul language made me cringe -- but when I switched to subtitles, all the cursing magically disappeared. It wasn't in the original Japanese but was added by the American dubbing company. Likewise, their re-dub of Gatchaman grows in profanity the further episodes you go along. Now, I realize Japanese morals don't necessarily match American ones, but this was a children's show made in the 1960s. Surely even in Japan, children's show characters don't talk like protagonists from R-rated American action movies. Another example, a show I think was called Ghost Hunters about school kids who fight monsters. There was a scene where the students were riding the bus together. In the English dub, the characters have a snarky argument that included some choice words and sass to the bus driver. In the original Japanese, there's no argument, no snark, no cursing, just casual conversation. A student asks a polite question of the bus driver and thanks him courteously for his reply. So the English dub totally changed the tone and meaning of the scene. That's inexcusable, in addition to being utterly unnecessary. Does ADV actually think I won't watch a movie or television program if it isn't stuffed with foul language?

The Oz heroes as villains could be funny. But the Oz-verse has plenty of regular villains -- the Nome King, assorted Wicked Witches, the ambitious Jinjur, Mombi, the Wheelers, Kiki Aru (a shape-shifter).