Tumgik
#I like seeing different suit iterations for the rangers
alaraxia · 6 months
Text
Tumblr media
My take on the Charge suit and Rangers logo
ik his powers don’t technically work this way but rule of cool baby
298 notes · View notes
bigshotautos · 2 years
Note
AAAAA the design you made for pre corruption jevil on that caravan palace post is so cute?? Do you have any other doodles of him. Do you have any commentaries about pre corruption jevil, actually?
this is one of my favorite asks ever im always looking for an excuse to pop off about jevil, going to talk a LOT about this under the cut along with images!
Tumblr media
this was my first iteration of the design done sometime in late 2021 (which hasn't changed significantly). the thought behind his design is a color palette similar to seam, since he and seam aren't aligned to a particular suit they'd be 'neutral'. being a member of card castle as an official part of the court, i think he'd typically cover his eyes to conform with the others (spade king who has his eyes concealed, rudinn rangers, hathys without eyes at all) and also to hide his more 'monstrous' features.
Tumblr media
really messy doodle above showing the difference between pre and post corruption jevil (his head is hollow and his eyes are like little magical lights that hang in the hollow space to reflect being toy-ified)
Tumblr media
and the unused sketch for the comic i did before changing the angle. his ruffles are much fatter and fluffier than post corruption, he has actual eyes in his head, his tail is a Y shape and flattens out later, and his color scheme is just overall much brighter. like i said prior, he usually has his hood over his eyes for the practical 'fitting in' purpose and with the thought that hiding his scarier features would make it easier make friends with other members of card castle. his post-corruption design reflects having flipped on his viewpoint from one binary side of his appearance to another, going from intentionally making himself nonthreatening to boosting and accentuating the parts of him that unnerve and scare people, all the while still very much playing a role in both regards. (as a side note, i draw a lot of susie jevil parallels and having his eyes obscured like she was in chapter 1 is a fun little thing to do)
i see pre-corruption jevil as inauthentic to himself, doing anything he can to try to make friends with others to play along with games with him. he's got the enthusiasm and is fine being manipulated and used as a doormat as long as it means he makes a connection with people, even if they're not genuine. he likes his position in the castle and leans into his role, kissing up to the kings as much as possible to drain as much validation from it as he can. in this time period he has seam as a friend and they're the closest that he has, but in my view it's not TOO close otherwise jevil wouldn't have been such an isolated target. seam is a good friend, but not enough to carry the fact that jevil (similar to spamton with the addisons) is an outsider in card castle despite his best efforts. i think of the way card castle darkners talk about lancer (who i think jevil is very similar to pre-corruption), despite being a kid, they seem to hold contempt for just for being 'strange'. i think it'd extend to jevil, who they'd see as ungenuine or overenthusiastic or scary (despite not intending to be).
this is an idea largely inspired by convos with tumblr user z funnywormz, when his mysterious someone comes into the picture and the truth of the world is revealed to him, it's an extreme shock to him to realize and see the degree to which he's been mistreated by others, used, and mocked, having his optimistic (and somewhat naive) view of the world shattered in an instant faced with the reality of it. he'd quickly grow disillusioned and lean into the corruption, doing anything he can do to detach himself from others, to become 'free'. the jester that was previously overly invested in his service to the kings would now see their rule as insignificant, their obsession with wealth pathetic, and their rituals in their fake world quaint and something to make a mockery of. the jester that was careful not to scare people on purpose now is openly becoming increasingly malicious, and seam, who has their time monopolized by their duties as court magician, can't understand the sudden change and the cryptic, bizarre things their friend is starting to say.
pre corruption jevil wanted to connect with people and in failing that decided the only option was to detach entirely. and for me, the worst part is thinking about how visible and sudden this change in his mentality would be but no one reaching out to help. he’s essentially confirmed all the rumors in the castle about his strangeness, and his new mentality has made it difficult for seam to meaningfully extract any real answers from him. it leaves jevil as an opposite to his pre corruption self, shunning his previous ignorance and behavior, despite just switching from one extreme set of beliefs to another.
WHEW. if you read all that, thanks! i think so much about pre corruption jevil, and especially how his experiences then would go onto shape his worldview in the future.
Tumblr media
AND another doodle of them just for kicks. why not!
163 notes · View notes
betabites · 3 years
Text
Five by five world-building
Just some noodling about the Thornlands, for which I have a setting brief and some 5E stats here.
The Thornlands are an attempt to craft a setting by strictly limiting my palette, on the thinking that restrictions can spark creativity. So let’s see what turns up.
Five Folk: There are five dominant peoples in the Thornlands. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other folk and cultures, but these are the five that are both common and closely linked into the setting. This is just a quick summary; the long form is in the setting brief.
1) Centaurs. Most common, dominant culture. Standard belligerent, fractious nobility, now with integrated horse. Not quite the half-horse, half-frat boy of Greek myth. Knightly modes of behavior, with star-gazing and associated divinations augmenting the Liberal Arts.
2) Fauxes. Talking foxes with magical and tricksy proclivities.
3) Huldrafolk. Backless emissaries of the Deep Woods, with a taste for the meat and souls of mortals.
4) Humans. The serfs of the centaurs. Notable for their weakness of bending at the knee and making pacts with all manner of beings.
5) Urds. Fallen angels, forced into pathetic bodies that still dream of the sky. Master artisans, but regarded with wariness by the masses.
Five Gods: It is disgustingly easy to build up a giant pantheon that most of your players will pay zero attention to. Again, these are not all the gods, but these are all the ones with major cultural impact, and the ones to whom every city will have a temple to, or at least a local cult. I accept that I am cheating by having two sets of two gods count as one.
1) Femta. Hearthmother, Forgemaster, Goddess of crafts, homes, protection, & families. Invoked for homely blessings, domestic doings, craftings, and protection from the unknown. As many rites as there are hearths.
2) Gilgadar. Fatebreaker, Seeker of the Unknown, God of thieves, outcasts, & foreigners. Invoked for luck, desperate hopes, disruption of the normal order. Femta’s ex-husband.
3) Push & Pull. Sea and Land, the Old Gods of agriculture, fishing, sailing, the wilds. Invoked for bountiful harvests, healthy animals, warding off the wilds. Uneasy relationship with the masses - plied with offerings to keep the monsters away.
4) Serra, the Queen of Graces & Glares. Goddess of the sky, celestial phenomena, healing, civilization. Invoked for healing, war, peace, civic purposes. Her church, like the kingdom, has been sundered.
5) Shift & Slide. Marshals of the Liminal. The Young Gods of mortality, beauty, youth, death, dreams. Invoked for pushing beyond the mundane and other esoterica. The most cultic of faiths, with many hidden rites and mysteries.
Five Banes: Sources of problems for the players to confront and resolve.
1) The Broken Chalice. This artifact of Serra is either the cause or the result of the fall of the kingdom. Theological arguments abound. But the results are unmistakable - both the mundane corruption of the old kingdom institutions and the mystical corruption of the sacred places of the old kingdom. The mystical corruption results in all manner of twisted creatures - half-living, chimerical, bifurcated... Mending the chalice will dispel these corruptions. Or perhaps removing the corrupted results will unbreak the chalice. Theological arguments, etc.
2) The Deep Forests. Even under the power of the Great King, the Deep Forests were never fully explored, and never have they been tamed. Ancient secrets and powers lurk within, and few take being roused well.
3) The Forgotten Songs. Creation was never completed. The fall of the Urds has left the angelic ranks thin, and in some places, the raw stuff of creation is still waiting to be molded.
4) The Unsleeping Elders. The blasphemies of humanity linger still. Their oaths were sworn beyond the grave, to the end of the world, and three days after. And their masters still lurk in the beyond, ever waiting...
5) The Whelmed Kingdom. When the great fall, the impact is felt for some time. Strife walks the lands, kin slay kin, friendships fracture.
Five Paths: This one really depends on what game you’re playing.
5E: Barbarians, Bards, Fighters, Paladins, Warlocks.
4E: Knights: Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Warlords.
Villains: Barbarians, Rogues.
Warlocks: Sorcerers, Swordmages, Warlocks.
The Wild: Shamans, Wardens.
The Wise: Artificers, Bards, Invokers.
Five Problems:
1) Literally all of my friends are going to play Fauxes. It will not be a post-Arthuria game, it will be several fauxes in a suit of plate armor. Which isn’t bad, it’s just not what I really wanted out of the setting.
2) Actually doing a 4E folk list would be... difficult. Centaurs. How do you do Centaurs in 4E? I know, they scaled Minotaurs down, and we have Goliaths, so there’s precedent, but it’s a puzzle I’d have to tackle.
3) Speaking of, keeping everything accessible for centaurs is non-trival. Tight spaces, ladders, too steep stairs... it’s pretty easy to just block out a centaur. Mind, they know that, but there are a lot of knock-on effects to world-building - how different do castles look, for instance?
4) That restricted class list is painful. Having ritual magic readily available will mitigate it, but still. Complicating the 4E one, again, is that I’d probably have to muck with power sources.
5) Urds do me a concern. Because I’ve iterated on them a few times, going from the AD&D ‘kobolds with wings’ to ‘dog-lizard-chickens with dreams of flying and possibly gliders’ to the ex-angelic crafters and Seekers of the Song here. But in this particular setting, they are 100% taking the role of Jews in Medieval Europe. ‘Your people in this setting are fallen angels stuffed into ugly lizard bodies’ is, as they say, bad. Like, unsalvagably bad. Probably going to have to loot the setting for parts and try again, honestly. I’ve got Pendragon if I want to play Arthuria. Maybe I need to just lean into the faux angle and start with a premise of ‘you’re all playing fauxes’ and go from there.
4 notes · View notes
lobselvith8 · 4 years
Text
Some random thoughts on Fallen Hero
“Fallen Hero” is an interactive text story where you can choose what type of character you play as, determining things like your appearance, your perceived ethnicity, gender (you can play as a trans character), and sexual orientation. It’s an interesting approach from some of the other stories where you’re slowly brought into the world (like in “Choice of the Deathless”, which is one of the first Choice of Games stories I played and one I really enjoyed, particularly given the narrative mixing legal and magical elements together). You’re in the middle of the story at the inception of the narrative, and you slowly find out things as the story unravels in “Fallen Hero”.
The story has different permutations so you can find out certain things if you follow a particular path (which adds to the replay value), and there were things I found out a year later when I replayed the game). It was a story I enjoyed as you slowly got to see why the main character was on a particular path, and you could decide certain things about how that was executed and some of their feelings on certain people and issues.
My own character (somewhat typical of some of my other protagonists, such as my Unplanned Variable from “The Outer Worlds” or my Courier” from “New Vegas” who are Latino, although my Puppetmaster is more an approximation) ends up following the Anti-hero path (he comforted the Rat King, his suit is a shadow with a mirror for a face and a cape on the insistence of Dr. Mortum, and he meets Mia Ochoa). And I tend to lean more towards using Puppetmaster rather than Sidestep (Malin Rydén’s Discord server and various posts on tumblr seems to lean more towards Sidestep as the general nomenclature).
Spoilers for the first look into Fallen Hero: Retribution.
A bit of a first look from Malin Rydén (which may deviate in the final version) allowed me to continue that story. I think it did a great job fleshing out some of the original characters from Book One, like Chen and Herald. I feel like Chen, in particular, is moved past simply being an somewhat antagonist to the main character and becomes a character you could easily sympathize with, which adds to the tension given the role your character plays as a clandestine opponent to the Rangers. Herald is also delved into quite a bit as a person. The encounter with Hallowed Ground is quite interesting given the potential ramifications it sets up with the protagonist.
Regarding my own protagonist’s story, where my Puppetmaster (having successfully defeated Lady Argent in Book One, albeit giving The Speech to Julia Ortega and hopefully leading her to reconsider her standing), did lead to some interesting (and highly unexpected) interactions. Helping Chen save some lives and forgoing capturing an important target (in a new iteration of the first look that serves as a prelude to the story) does make me wonder if he might start suspecting the true identity of Puppetmaster. A romance path was not something I had been expecting at all, but one my character fell into. Given that Ortega seemed to have encountered Hallowed Ground in the past, I’m curious what that means for Puppetmaster.
1 note · View note
popculturereport · 7 years
Text
Some Thoughts about Power Rangers Jungle Fury
Tumblr media
Blame it on Boom Studios.
So, like every child of the ‘90’s, I loved the Power Rangers growing up. Before Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network existed, I would religiously tune into Fox Kids every Saturday morning so I could watch X-Men: The Animated Series and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. While I remained an X-Men fan for life, I stopped following Power Rangers sometime after the movie. That was all well and good, but then Boom Studios had to go and launch a MMPR ongoing that ended being really good. That fired up the nostalgia machine, and the next thing I knew I was rewatching episodes of Mighty Morphin.
I didn’t rewatch the entirety of the series, because it’s over 150 episodes, and, I mean, I got shit to do, but on an impulse, I started watching the most recent series, Power Rangers Dino Charge, which was so good that I watched the whole thing. Now I’m interested in watching other iterations, so arrived at Jungle Fury through the incredibly scientific process of liking the name of the title and the concept of “Kung Fu Power Rangers.” Anyway, here’s some thoughts:
The Good:
The Characters: because I was raised on the one-note characters of MMPR, my expectations in this area are quite low, so I was pleasantly surprised by the cast of Jungle Fury. Not only is each of the principals well-defined, but they, especially Casey, also experience genuine growth over the course of the series. Further, every Ranger is likeable and easy to connect with. Granted, some fans find RJ annoying (otherwise known as people who hate fun), but he’s actually the best character in the show. Not only is David de Lautour the strongest actor in the cast (check out his interactions with his father in “One Master Too Many”), but the character is quite clever in the way that it plays with the audience’s expectations for a Kung Fu master and then turns it on its head (something that the show even jokes about when Casey, RJ, and Lily assume that the older Asian man is their new master in the first episode). The villains are also nicely developed with the primary antagonist undergoing a genuine arc. Jarrod’s “bad guy tempted to be good” is another clever inversion on a traditional storytelling trope. Even Camille, the villain’s sidekick, gets a kind of arc and development, owing to her love for Jarrod.
Tumblr media
The Plot (mostly): One of the best parts of Jungle Fury was in the way that the series really committed to its theme of Kung Fu. Many series have themes, but only make half-hearted use of them and end up pretty much just Power Rangers business as usual; however, Jungle Fury incorporated a lot tropes from kung fu and used them quite effectively for the story. For example, each of the rangers studies with a mentor to help them become more powerful (even better, these lessons also saw the Rangers develop further as characters, which, again, harkens back to the great characterization in this series). In a clever twist, the primary villain mirrors the Rangers’ development by training and studying under evil mentors himself. Further, this makes the overall overarching story feel like it’s building towards something grand and epic, rather than a series of monster-of-the-week episodes.
The Fights: Again, the show really demonstrates how committed it is to its theme, incorporating the kung fu aspects into the fight choreography as well. I’ll admit that I tend to zone out a bit during the Zord sequences, but Jungle Fury kept me considerably more engaged than some of the other series that I’ve watched. 
The Rinshi God, I love the Rinshi so much and their double-footed hop.
The Bad:
Tumblr media
The Costumes: Personally, I don’t hate them as much as some, but they’re definitely in the bottom half of the franchise as a whole. The original suits aren’t bad, but, for whatever reason, the white neck really bothers me. The Jungle Master suits are also a definite upgrade on the base suits; however, the Purple and White Ranger costumes are just godawful.
The Monsters: Here’s my incredibly basic criteria for good Power Rangers monsters: do I remember them when the episode is over? Now, obviously, I can’t name every monster from a season that I like, but I can picture several different monsters from both MMPR and Dino Charge (I smile a bit when I think about the one created by Swatt and Baboo out of a bunch of random sports equipment and a stoplight). When judged on those criteria, Jungle Fury falls short. Outside of Carnisoar, Jellica, and Grizzaka (and, of course, the incredible Rinshi), I can't recall a single monster. That's....not good.
The Finale: Remember how I raved about how great the plot was a couple of paragraphs ago? Yeah, a lot of that was undone by an anticlimactic final. So the entire series is basically one giant build, with the Rangers getting progressively stronger and gaining new powers and techniques while Jarrod simultaneously powered up. Then the Rangers manage to separate Jarrod from Dai Shi, convert Jarrod and Camille to their side, bring back the Spirit Rangers, and gather everyone together, but all they need to do to defeat Dai Shi’s dragon form is chant a few things. Jungle Fury doesn’t seem to get a lot of love from fans (although, for that matter, it doesn’t seem to get a lot of hate either), and I think the final episode is a big reason why people aren’t more passionate about the series.
…And the Accents?
Ever since Disney purchased the franchise, filming has taken place in New Zealand, meaning that the cast of each series is typically made up of Australians and Kiwis’. In fact, not a single American is in the main cast of Jungle Fury. Here’s my arbitrarily-assigned score for each character:
Casey (Jason Smith)–8.5/10: I actually thought Smith was Canadian until I looked him up on IMDB and found he’s actually Australian. His accent is pretty good, but the giveaway is how unnatural his voice sounds when he’s shouting his dialogue after transforming.
Theo (Aljin Abella)–7/10: Theo is another one who I was a bit surprised by; his voice sometimes comes across as stiff, which I initially assumed was a deliberate acting choice rather than because he was hiding an Australian accent.
Lily (Anna Hutchison)–5/10: Anna Hutchison loses points for inconsistency; more than half the time, but when it slips, it really slips. 
RJ (David de Lautour)–8/10: RJ might be the best of the bunch, but I also feel that David de Lautour had an easier job since he merely had to imitate a very specific accent–the stereotypical surfer–rather than a more general American accent like the others.
Dom (Nikolai Nikolaeff)–7/10: This is unrelated, but it was really hard for me to get over seeing one of the Russian mobsters from Daredevil playing the White Ranger.
Fran (Sarah Thomson)–8/10
Camille (Holly Shanahan)–7/10
Jarrod/Dai Shi (Bede Skinner)–3/10: At least he tried?
Power Rangers Power Rankings
Dino Charge
Jungle Fury
MMPR
7 notes · View notes
robertkstone · 6 years
Text
2019 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro First Drive: Shocking Development
Why the sudden fascination with pickups capable of driving really fast across a rocky, dusty desert? Nobody knew we needed any such thing until Ford introduced its wide-fendered, tall-enough-to-need-clearance-lights Raptor. Chevy eventually responded with the dimensionally tidier Colorado ZR2, and now Toyota is taking aim squarely at Chevy (and preemptively at Ford, should it decide to bring the Ranger Raptor here) by redesigning the suspension of its 2019 Tacoma TRD Pro for Baja racing.
FANCY SNORKEL Anybody can Sawzall a hole in the fender and bolt a snorkel to the A-pillar, but the TRD Pro snorkel is designed in. Its fender hole is stamped in the raw steel at the factory, and hence gets the full anti-corrosion paint treatment. It also attaches to a built-in roof-rack fastening point on the roof, so no new holes are created up there. The head can be swiveled backwards to prevent ingesting snow in blizzard driving, and the head is tethered to remain with the truck should a bird or debris knock it loose. Please don’t rely on this snorkel for fording 6-foot deep water, though, as there are water drain holes down low that will admit engine-killing external water.
Key to each of these trucks’ saguaro-slaloming capabilities is a sophisticated set of name-brand shock absorbers. Chevy made big headlines by utilizing Multimatic spool-valve shocks—a technology previously utilized primarily on cars that race on paved circuits. Toyota (and Ford) chose to go with a more typical supplier of off-road racing dampers—Fox Shox. What they all strive to do is provide comfy, cushy ride quality over the sorts of small bumps one finds on paved roads, while ramping up the damping rates as the speed and size of the bump events increases to keep the suspension from bottoming out harshly, which can cause serious damage. Fox does this using internal bypass passages that provide position-dependent damping-rate variability.
Here’s how the Fox Shox work on the Tacoma: As the 1.8-inch-diameter piston moves up and down through its range of travel (which is increased by 0.7 inch in front, 0.8 inch in back relative to base and TRD Off Road Tacomas) various different orifices are exposed for the oil to travel through. Each provides a different damping rate. The front shocks feature five jounce and three rebound zones; the rears provide seven jounce and four rebound rates. The lightest damping rate near the center of the shock’s travel promises noticeably smoother on-road ride relative to the previous model’s simpler Bilstein shocks and relative to the base Tacoma shocks. The rear shocks also feature 2-inch “piggyback” external reservoirs that serve to increase the volume of hydraulic oil and thereby keep all the oil cooler during prolonged desert running. One downside of the Fox design—its position-dependent nature means that adding aftermarket lift kits and so forth without replacing the shocks could drastically alter the truck’s driving dynamics.
Instead of tubes, orifices, and springy shim packs, Multimatic shocks send oil through spool valves that move inside sleeves, at a rate controlled by a spring. These valves and sleeves each have orifices laser-cut in them for oil to flow through, and by using computational fluid dynamics to precisely design the size and shape of these orifices, Multimatic claims that nearly any force/damping curve an engineer desires can be delivered with high accuracy and vastly less iterative development work than is typically required when developing shimmed-orifice shocks. Each Colorado shock uses three spool valves. This design tends to be pretty expensive.
Before we take the Tacoma for a spin, let’s run through the rest of its 2019 upgrades, which include new front springs that add 1 inch of ride height, a larger front anti-roll bar—1.2 versus 1.1 inch diameter (still hollow), progressive-rate off-road leaf springs out back that allow more jounce travel on rough terrain, and 16-inch TRD Pro wheels that add an inch of track width front and rear. (Note that the stiffer front bar is designed to make the truck more eager to rotate and hence more fun to drive on and off road at some tiny expense of its rock-crawling articulation.) There’s also a snortier cat-back exhaust with a black-chrome tip and a new Desert Air Intake that keeps the engine breathing cleaner, less dusty air from above the windshield. Neither the intake nor the exhaust alters the output of the 278-hp V-6. Rigid Industries LED foglamps brighten nighttime trail rides, and a TRD Pro–badged quarter-inch-thick front skidplate is strong enough to be used to jack up the vehicle. New standard equipment includes a moonroof and the Entune Premium JBL audio system. All these upgrades increase the price by just $940 (with the manual) or $1,645 (automatic).
To test out the new Tacoma TRD Pro, Toyota attempted to create a mini Baja in its backyard at a former limestone quarry known as Northwest OHV Park in Bridgeport, Texas, about 80 miles northwest of Dallas. The desert simulation was compromised by several inches of falling rain that added to what was already the wettest September in recorded Texas history.
My first few trails involve careful tiptoeing up and down some precipitous and slick rocky hills, which the truck’s Crawl Control system accomplishes with astonishing ease. I especially like being able to select among the system’s five speed settings using a dedicated rotary knob on the overhead console instead of toggling a cruise-control button or something. The knob lets me see at a glance what speed is selected when slowing back down to a crawl. The 265/70R16 Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure tires impress with their levels of grip despite tread blocks filled with greasy red clay.
Next I head down to the broad sand/mud pit where the trucks can reach higher speeds to really get those Fox Shox pumping. Maybe the rain and continued use by multiple journalists has made the course particularly rough, but the seat of my pants is recording a level of ride quality that ranks well short of plush. And plush is kind of what I was hoping for, having once ridden shotgun with Ironman Ivan Stewart in one of his SCORE Toyota off-road racing trucks. Sure it had 2-plus feet’s worth of suspension travel, external bypass shocks, and the like, but that rig swallowed bumps with a plushness that I was reminded of when I sampled a Colorado ZR2 in 2016. That drive involved jumping and bouncing off a bunch of large but man-made obstacles set up in a parking lot, though, and vastly different conditions experienced years apart do not a valid comparison make. Clearly the question of which shock technology reigns supreme can only be answered by a proper Head 2 Head comparison. Maybe in Baja?
What’s New with the Other TRD Pros
2019 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro
Fox Shox like the Tacoma’s, but with unique tuning and more bypass zones—seven jounce and four rebound in front, eight and four in back—and “piggyback” reservoirs on the front shocks
TRD-tuned front springs add 2.0 inches to the ride height
Wheel travel is increased 1.5 inches in front, 2.0 inches in the rear
18-inch forged five-spoke satin black hand-polished BBS wheels that each weigh 3.35 pounds less than previous cast wheels (tires are 275/65R18 Michelin LTX A/T2s)
Quarter-inch-thick aluminum skidplate with red “Toyota” lettering
Cat-back exhaust with black-chrome tip (adds sound not power)
Rigid Industries foglamps
New grille, hood scoop
Pickup bed outer quarter panels get “TRD Pro” stamped into the steel
2019 Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro
Fox Shox like the Tacoma’s, but with unique tuning and four jounce bypass zones and three rebound zones in front, seven and four in back. Rear shocks are inverted for tire clearance and feature “roost shields” that prevent rocks from striking the exposed piston rod
TRD-tuned front springs add 1.0 inch to the ride height
Wheel travel is increased 1.0 inch front and rear
17-inch matte-black TRD wheels with an offset that widens the track by nearly an inch front and rear
New 265/70R17 Nitto Terra Grappler All Terrain tires
Quarter-inch-thick aluminum skidplate with red “TRD” lettering
Unique roof rack for stowing dirty gear
LED foglamps
Blackout grille
Standard Entune Premium JBL audio system with navigation and app suite
2019 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro BASE PRICE $43,705 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, 4WD, 5-pass, 4-door truck ENGINE 3.5L/278-hp/265-lb-ft Atkinson-cycle DOHC 24-valve V-6 TRANSMISSIONS 6-speed manual, 6-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT 4,450 lb (mfr) WHEELBASE 127.4 in LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT 212.3 x 74.4 x 71.6 in 0-60 MPH 7.1-7.3 sec (MT est) EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON 17-18/20-23/18-20 mpg ENERGY CONSUMPTION, CITY/HWY 187-198/147-169 kW-hrs/100 miles CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB 0.97-1.06 lb/mile ON SALE IN U.S. Currently
The post 2019 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro First Drive: Shocking Development appeared first on Motor Trend.
from PerformanceJunk WP Feed 3 https://ift.tt/2y9byYR via IFTTT
0 notes
kayawagner · 6 years
Text
What Am I Playing Right Now?
Since my GM hiatus started back in June 2017, I used the opportunity to play in as many games as possible. For a very long time I was basically the go-to GM for many of my friends, but I didn’t get to play as often as I liked. Being the GM is fun, and it’s something very dear to me, BUT sometimes you just need to stay on the other side of the GM’s screen for a while. So, what games have I been playing during these almost 12 months?
Mutant Year Zero & Gen Lab Alpha If you’ve followed this blog for a while you know that I am a fan of post-apocalyptic settings in general and the Mutant games by Free League in particular. Mutant Year Zero is definitely one of the most exciting and immersive games I’ve played so far. Since I am playing one of the bosses in our Ark (which is a derelict aircraft carrier), the game is sometimes pretty political. My character, Washington,  is an idealist, trying to build a new civilization on the ruins of the past. He strongly believes in compassion, reason, and justice. In a way he sometimes feels like an anachronism. I have to admit that Washington shares a lot with myself, aside from the fact that I don’t have the Mind Terror mutation in real life.
MY0 has all the elements I love: drama, politics, intrigue, exploration. Matthias, our GM, is also doing an awesome job running the game. He even manages what usually fails spectacular: while he’s running the game, he also plays his own player character. This is usually a recipe for disaster, but in Matthias’ case it works great.
I’ve already wrote about our Genlab Alpha game in my review of the core rules, so I will skip it here.
Shadowrun 3rd Edition This is a game I’ve been playing for years now. And even though I think that the rules are a mess, the game itself can be a lot of fun. Planning runs, trying to get to our goals without even raising an alarm is a lot of fun, and sometimes we even managed to have some flawlessly executed heists. But usually things go terribly wrong and everything ends in a messy fight. Since we usually ignore some of the more tedious rules  (like bioware stress etc.), our characters got very powerful, very quickly. While some games might break down with characters that powerful, our GM just raises the stakes a bit. Our Shadowrun campaign is over-the-top and great fun, but all good things must end eventually, so we decided our current adventure will be the last. We’re dealing with dragons and their machinations this time, which is IMHO very fitting for our last bow.
Numenera Numenera is one of the games I enjoyed running the most. It perfectly suits my GMing style and improvising whole scenarios was perfectly possible. From a lazy GM’s perspective the Cypher System is just a joy to work with. But I also fell in love with the setting. It’s fantastical, wild, weird, and fun. When I first picked it up I hoped someone else would be willing to run it, so I could play it myself. So I was overjoyed when my Shadowrun GM invited me to his Numenera game which he has been running for a small group of friends for a while. After leafing through the Character Options 2 book, I quickly decided to play an Artificially-Intelligent Seeker Who Speaks to the Datasphere. Unfortunately scheduling has been a bit of an issue, so we haven’t played more than once since I joined, but I had a blast!
Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition When our Traveller GM told us that he wasn’t able to run as often in the future because of an increased workload at his job, one of the players stepped up and offered to run “Curse of Strahd” for us. So we decided to pause the Traveller campaign for a while, so that we can play some D&D 5th Edition in the coming months. Ravenloft is one of my favorite D&D setting and I think the latest iteration of D&D is probably its best. I had mixed results actually running it, but the prospect of actually playing it made me quite excited. I eventually decided to play a Moon Elf Warlock with a Celestial patron, with a custom background: Detective. Think of an Elven Sherlock Holmes. One of the other players even decided to play my sidekick, so in a way he’s the Watson to my Holmes. Together with a Human cleric and two Dwarves (one sorcerer and one ranger) we were sent out to investigate Wolf attacks in Daggerford, which turned out to be caused by Werewolves. While following the tracks we were suddenly engulfed in Mists which brought us to a different plane… While I was looking for inspiration for my character I noticed that a lot has happened since I last looked into D&D 5th Edition. There’s a lot of homebrew and 3rd party material available, which is usually of high quality. I got also quite interested in Matt Mercer’s campaign setting again, and currently I am tempted to buy a copy – just in case I want to run D&D 5th Edition again.
Star Wars Edge of the Empire The most regular game I currently play in is our Edge of the Empire campaign in which I play probably my most quirky character. Zid, or Captain Zid, as he usually calls himself, is a Gand Fringer who recently discovered that he has some connection to the force. After an exploration of the Jedi temple of Tython he started to follow the path of the Jedi, which sometimes comes in conflict with the realities of the hard life on the Outer Rim, and his naiveté. While I was pretty skeptical about the games’ mechanics at first, I quickly fell in love with it. It might not be as simple and straightforward as WEG’s Star Wars which still has a special place in my heart, but interpreting the dice rolls can lead to some pretty cool results sometimes. While we have dealt with some pretty grim and serious issues in the campaign so far, the mood at the game table is usually quite light-hearted and fun, sometimes bordering on the silly, especially when Zid is doing one of his weird dances again.
Jovian Chronicles Last but not least there’s the Jovian Chronicles game I recently joined. It seems I am not the only person out there who loves the hard-science mecha RPG by Dreampod 9. An old friend of mine introduced me to this GM who was dying to run this fine game, and I immediately took the opportunity. What I am not too fond off are the rules of the 2nd Edition (which is the one were using). While the basic dice mechanic is quite simple and easy to understand, the overall system feels a bit quirky and has a lot of fiddly bits to it. From what I remember (I haven’t read it in a while) the 1st Edition made more sense to me. But I can live with this as long as the game itself is fun. And so far it is! My character is basically the Jovian equivalent of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. At least that’s how I conceptualized the character, we’ll see how he turns out after playing him for a while. In our first session we ended up in the middle of a terror attack by unknown forces and my fellow player characters were “volunteered” for the Jovian intelligence services in order to help me investigate the incident. Unfortunately for my character this feels more like a job for a chaperone. I am currently extremely excited about what the GM will throw at us next.
Related posts:
First Look: Barebones Fantasy Role-playing Game
Savage Worlds, playing The Wild Hunt (and a long winded retrospective…)
Is Anyone Still Playing Alternity?
What Am I Playing Right Now? published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com
0 notes
techprolonged · 7 years
Text
Huawei launched Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro in October and sooner after the flagships were launched in Pakistan. Both of the smartphones target the high-end market with the price tag of PKR 70,000/- and PKR 88,000/- respectively. Huawei Pakistan launched a cheaper  model along with the two, dubbed as Mate 10 Lite.
Surprisingly, the Mate 10 Lite is priced way too low than the original flagship Mates. The Lite model costs even less than half as much as Mate 10, with the price tag of PKR. 30,000/- No wonder, getting launched with Mate 10 lineup gets some major points, hence it may have attracted the customers for the namesake. But now as it’s going under review, we want to tell you that with the Mate 10 Lite you won’t have anything similar to what you would have with the two flagships, but the FullView display.
So one thing that you should have in your mind, is that don’t take the the name “Mate 10” so seriously with the Lite variant. All you get as Huawei Mate 10 Lite, is a regular mid-range package with some bumped up RAM and internal storage, add some narrow bezels into it and the gimmicks of four cameras.
Technically, this phone is in no way related to the two big brothers but instead have been launched with several names in different regions. Honor 9i, Maimang 6 or even Nova 2i are the other names associated with the very smartphone. Huawei Pakistan chose to launch this smartphone with the name “Mate 10 Lite” and they actually did good when marketed along with the flagship Mate 10 lineup.
Well, until now, we just separated the phone’s existence from the two high-end flagships which we believe, a consumer must be aware of. Referring this phone to a “best mid-range smartphone” is solely linked to what this phone actually delivers in its class and for what it costs.
So where Huawei could have managed to sell a lot of this smartphone with the name “Mate 10 Lite” it shouldn’t harm a consumer in anyway. You will get what you pay for, even better in a lot with the brand trust. Checkout some key features of the phone below.
Huawei Mate 10 Lite – Key Features
Chipset: HiSilicon Kirin 659 Octa-core
CPU: ARM Eight Cores,
4x Cortex-A53 2.36GHz
4x Cortex-A53 1.7GHz,
GPU: ARM Mali-T830 MP2
Memory: 
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 64GB (microSD expandable up to 128GB)
Display: 5.9-inch 18:9 FullView IPS LCD.
FHD+ resolution of 2160×1080 pixels,
Pixel Density 407ppi
Software: Android 7.0 Nougat, EMUI 5.1
Camera:
Rear: dual 16MP + 2MP, LED flash, 1080p video
Front: dual 13MP + 2MP, LED flash, 1080p video
Connectivity: 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, 2.4GHz, Micro USB v2.0, Bluetooth 4.2 (BLE)
Sensors: Ambient Light, Proximity, Accelerometer
Build: Unibody Aluminium, 156.2 x 75.2 x 7.5 mm, 164 grams
Battery: 3340 mAh
PROS CONS
Decent Battery
LED notifications
Fast Fingerprint Scanner
Good Camera for the price
Micro-USB port (no USB C)
No Super/Fast Charging.
Unboxing and Retail Box Content
The box is simple in a white color with a pop-out style. The retail package brings along everything you’ll usually look for when you buy a new smartphone. In addition, Huawei feels good to ship an added plastic screen protector which is already applied on the screen in perfect order. A hard plastic semi transparent back cover is also added. The package includes following items.
The Device: Huawei Mate 10 Lite
5V/2A Fast Charger
microUSB cable for connectivity and charging
Earphones with 3.5mm pin
User Guide and Warranty Card
Add-on hard back cover.
Build, Design and Display
Huawei Mate 10 Lite is built with sturdy aluminium unibody. It sure does look more than a mid-ranger with rounded edges around the corners and flattened back. What’s appealing is the narrow bezels on the front. That’s what makes the Mate 10 Lite follow the limelight of the Mate 10 series. Huawei has did the right thing for this piece of smartphone in the affordable price range.
We have seen the Vivo V7+ though for some higher price and V7 for the similar price as Mate 10 Lite which also feature narrow bezels and have pretty much similar design but even the rounded corners around the display. Frankly, Mate 10 Lite has got metal, larger battery, and higher resolution as well.
On the front the Mate 10 Lite has a smooth 2.5D curved glass. Weighing only 164 grams, Huawei Mate 10 Lite is just 7.5mm thicker with curvy rounded frame around.
On the front, you can see that the lower bezel with the brand name “Huawei” while on the upper portion, there are standard components – an earpiece in the middle, and almost invisible proximity and ambient light sensors along with a soft LED flash.
There is a notification LED as well as the most prominent things on the upper bezel are the two cameras.
Components
Other common components include the micro USB port on the bottom side of the phone along with the speaker grill. The mouthpiece or the primary mic is also along side as well as 3.5mm audio jack is also placed on the bottom.
The top side of the phone only hosts a secondary mic for noise cancellation and stereo recording.
On the right side of the phone, you will have the power button and the volume rocker. The hybrid SIM slot is available on the left side of the phone. Like many now, Mate 10 Lite also has dual-SIM support but when used with a microSD card, only one SIM can be used.
On the upper portion of the back panel, we have a set of dual camera – 16 megapixels primary and a 2 megapixel depth camera. The LED flash is placed above the camera module right into the plastic antenna stripe.
Right below the camera module, we have the fingerprint scanner. Down there on the back we have standard branding and labeling on the phone.
FullView Display
The 5.9-inch screen features an IPS LCD display with full HD+ resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels which is quite attractive in this price range. Pixel density of 407ppi is way more than you need on a smartphone display. The screen size provides around 83% visual area of the front side – commonly referred as screen-to-body ratio, which is claimed by Huawei. 76.5% is what we calculated.
Mate 10 Lite has an impressive display for a mid-range device in this price range. the display is good its at its maximum brightness. It also performed better outdoors and sunlight readability is appreciable. Blacks are too great for this mid-ranger to provide an appealing contrast ratio.
Software and Performance
Huawei Mate 10 Lite runs Android 7.0 Nougat operating system with the proprietary EMUI 5.1 software layer on top. As already noted, the Mate 10 Lite only shares the name from the Mate 10 series, it doesn’t even carry the latest EMUI 8 with the Android Oreo as did the high-end Mate 10 and 10 Pro.
Although the EMUI 5.1 had many improvements which worth noting, it seems odd when it could have the latest software but left behind. Again, the phone had to have some distance from the flagship devices, for now at least. There, however, is no hint if and when any software update is coming for Mate 10 Lite. It’s worth worth noting that Android 7.1.1 has been much common among mid-rangers, Huawei must have to ship the software update through.
Talking about the user interface, there is no much difference than what we previously experienced with Huawei Y7 Prime. The default user interface of Huawei’s EMUI 5 is pretty much straight forward similar to previous iterations with absolutely no app launcher. Everything you install on it, appears on the home screen with its app icon. Multiple home screens, you can add. Organize apps into folders and add widgets to home screens. Huawei sticks to its own kind of interface out-of-the-box which most people have referred to as a clone Apple’s iOS on Android. But you can choose to have an app drawer interface if you want.
Software features like Eye Comfort with manual display temperature override has always been a plus point. Phone Manager is also good to have important things like system optimization, data and traffic management, harassment filter for restricting numbers to call you or send you text.
The software offers home screen customization and well managed notification system but now that we have experienced the EMUI 8’s very organised behavior of user experience, this deal is not acceptable. Huawei has to upgrade its recent mid-rangers to the latest software like they have planned for recent flagships devices.
Fingerprint Scanner
Huawei’s fingerprint scanner is a wow factor which has been much better than the competition. I haven’t tried all of the budget and mid-range devices from Huawei with a fingerprint scanner. But as many as I have tried, they were impressively fast with scanning fingerprints.
The one on the Mate 10 Lite is no different. On the back, below the camera, the fingerprint scanner is positioned to suit your index finger which is already a best place for the fingerprint scanner than on the front below the screen.
System Performance
Huawei Mate 10 Lite is powered by the proprietary mid-range system-on-chip HiSilicon Kirin 659. The phone is powered by an octa-core processor with four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 2.36GHz and four clocked at 1.7GHz. To handle graphics and gaming importantly on the phone, the chip features ARM Mali-T830 MP2 which is not any better than other mid-rangers. What’s good with Mate 10 Lite is that it keeps with other recent mid-range devices featuring 4GB of RAM and 64GB of extensive internal storage.
Considering regular usage, the performance was left no reservation for day to day use. Basic gaming and some mid-level 3D games were also good but don’t expect them to run fluently. You shouldn’t expect any thing better than other mid-range devices.
Benchmark scores can tell you where it stands among its class. Mate 10 Lite ran through Geekbench 4, AnTuTu 6, Vellamo, Basemark OS II and Basemark X. You can check the following scores in respective order.
Geekbench 4 – Single-core: 910, Multi-core 3532
  AnTuTu 6
AnTuTu, Vellamo, Basemark OS II, and Basemark X scores respectively
  Battery Performance
Mate 10 Lite isn’t like the power pack of Y7 Prime but still its 3340mAh is capable enough to give you a full day of moderate usage. Calling, texting, socializing, full day data/WiFi, some camera use and a little bit of gaming. Huawei has long been offering ultra power saving as well which is great feature of support in the middle of nowhere.
Camera
Long gone the single rear and single front camera. Dual camera setups have been there for quite a while now. Some brands have offered the dual setup on front with a single camera on the back while a dual-camera configuration has been most common on the back side of a smartphone. Huawei Mate 10 has now been labeled as world’s first smartphone to carry a quad-camera setup. Both the rear and front units with dual-camera configurations.
Notable factor is that the mid-range lineup of Huawei with dual-camera setups have some different configuration than its flagship lineup. Mate 10 Lite features a primary 16 megapixel camera on the back with a secondary 2MP depth camera mainly used for background isolation or blurred background (aka bokeh effect)
In addition, the Mate 10 Lite has similar dual-cam setup on the front as well for similar bokeh effect in selfies. A primary 13 megapixel camera on the front as well pairs with the same 2-megapixel depth camera.
Additionally, there’s a “Selfie toning flash” to support front camera. 2-level brightness automatically adjusts brightness according to environmental conditions. A 120-degree lighting angle offers wider lighting coverage. And the “butterfly lighting” portrait technology, enhances facial features like a professional portrait. This paragraph was stated by Huawei though.
On the picture quality, Huawei Mate 10 Lite seems a good performer with quite low noise and better image detail. Foliage have nice detail in good light but it’s equally poor in a little low-light conditions. Noise levels are increased indoors and in low light. Dynamic range is also average where HDR function could be of any use.
Colors were perfectly rendered as they appeared in real. Blurred background or the bokeh effect was appealing, though not real like other smartphones.
Outdoor Shots
[slickr-flickr search=”sets” set=”72157689183355821″]
Black & White shots
Unlike, the two flagships with dedicated monochrome sensor, these are just software based filters applied which are not the actual sensor based monochrome shots. That’s because, instead of the monochrome sensor, Mate 10 Lite has a 2MP depth sensor which used only for the bokeh effect.
[slickr-flickr search=”sets” set=”72157689183355791″]
Low Light Shots
Low light shots have some noise and very less detail as compared to the shots taken in good lighting condition.
[slickr-flickr search=”sets” set=”72157689183355851″]
Bokeh Effect
The depth camera works well to produce better bokeh effect with Mate 10 Lite.
[slickr-flickr search=”sets” set=”72157689183355841″]
Front Camera with Portrait/Bokeh Effect
Similarly, the front camera is also good at producing selfies with isolated background.
[slickr-flickr search=”sets” set=”72157689183355871″]
Panorama
[slickr-flickr search=”single” photo_id=”38819320391″]
Video Sample
[videojs mp4=”https://onedrive.live.com/download?cid=182152EEBD704766&resid=182152EEBD704766%2176841&authkey=%21ADs_rVKL2P00A84″ loop=”true” autoplay=”true” preload=”auto” controls=”false”]
  Wrap-up and Conclusion
Huawei Mate 10 Lite has been with us for over a week and it actually has many things to appreciate than some with objections. I can’t say as it’s something unique as we have recently seen the Huawei Y7 Prime and Vivo V7+ but it indeed as good with its narrow bezels. The FullView display looks good from its appearance with those narrow bezels but the 2:1 display aspect ratio still lacks support for various apps. The software however can tell the system to adjust a certain with the taller resolution but it mostly annoying when watching videos on the players which don’t adjust the frame to fit with height, hence you loose some frame-view at top and bottom. It’s mostly noticeable when you are having the subtitles enabled and the are cut half way through at bottom.
Other usability with the software and performance was also good but the EMUI 8 will be great updatewit for this mid-ranger. You must forget about some healthy gaming with smoother experience.
Four cameras on the other hand also play a part as a marketing gimmick. Bokeh on the selfies, however, is already being done without the secondary camera. Otherwise the camera result is not disappointing at this price tag.
Fast Charging could have been a plus point but unfortunately it’s not present, still Huawei claims a full charge in 150 minutes.  That’s around some less than 3 hours. For the price of PKR 30,000/- The Mate 10 Lite, with everything it has, is good deal.
  Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review Huawei launched Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro in October and sooner after the flagships were launched in Pakistan.
0 notes
movietvtechgeeks · 7 years
Photo
Tumblr media
Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/sentai-series-inspired-power-rangers/
The Sentai Series that Inspired Power Rangers
The new Power Rangers movie is currently earning modest returns and reception among its fans. The costumes, the action and the Zords were cool even though they were mostly seen in the film’s final act. Even the Megazord seemed nice despite the lack of distinction on how it was assembled. Hopefully, this version is some sort of prototype version, and we could see an improved one actually combining and forming in the sequel if it actually happens. In Japan, Power Rangers, and all its iterations are known as Super Sentai. The American TV show and therefore the latest film, owes its existence to the continued production of the Japanese Super Sentai series. Thanks to Haim Saban, whose name appears in the movie title, the concept of Super Sentai from Japan was brought to the States for American TV audiences to enjoy. It was the suits, the teams, the enemies, the giant robots and sometimes the over the top stories of Super Sentai that inspired Haim Saban to bring the Power Rangers to America. “1984, I was uh, laying on my bed in Tokyo, switching between three channels, and ll of a sudden these five kids in spandex appeared and kicking monsters that came to earth to eat everything all the food. And I thought, that sounds like an intelligent show… and I just uh, I can’t explain why but I fell in love with it.” -- Haim Saban The Power Rangers’ first season, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers is actually known in Japan as Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger. Most of the battle footage from the show was incorporated with scenes shot for American audiences thus bringing us Power Rangers. It was the sixteenth sentai series produced in Japan. The real series that inspired Haim Saban to bring Super Sentai into the US was actually Choudenshi Bioman or Super Electron Bioman. Haim Saban even made a pilot based on Bioman as his first pitch to US studio executives. If the series were picked up, Mark Dacascos would have been the first Red Ranger. The idea was considered too weird back then. Growing up, yours truly was first exposed to Super Sentai through Choudenshi Bioman. It was the first Super Sentai series that I saw and remains my favorite to this day because of several elements that are different from the Power Rangers and other sentai series shown today. Choudenshi Bioman was later followed on local networks by an equally good sentai series called Hikari Sentai Maskman or Light Squadron Maskman. It was billed as a sequel to Bioman but was completely unrelated. It was just the second sentai series the networks licensed. Choudenshi Bioman was the eighth super sentai series produced in Japan. It was about five young adults, not teenagers, who were chosen by the alien robot Peebo and his companion Bio-Robo to battle the evil Neo Empire Gear. Gear, led by Dr. Man sought to conquer the world to impose machine dominance over man. Peebo and Bio-Robo are from the ill-fated Bio Star and made it their mission to stop Dr. Man so that the Earth won’t meet the same fate. There is no Zordon-like entity here. The Biomen’s guide is the girlish robot Peebo who is very much like Alpha 5. The Bio-Robo is depicted as being sentient but silent throughout the show. The five chosen Biomen are descendants of five individuals who were showered with Bio-particles hundreds of years ago when Bio-Robo first arrived on Earth. The costumes of the Biomen are techno-inspired despite the title being Bioman. If there’s going to be any complaints, it would probably be due to the oversized helmets as they’re supposed to have individual super computers. LED lights can be seen in close-ups to depict processing whenever each member uses a special ability. The series has several Super Sentai firsts such as the numerical naming of each member; Red 1, Green 2, Blue 3, Yellow 4 and Pink 5. This series first featured two female team members and a prototype evil-to-good sixth ranger. It was one episode here, but the sixth ranger idea was carried over to other series. Unlike other Super Sentai, Bioman’s Bio-Robo fights a robotic monster in the end which is different from the featured monster of the week. I first saw the growing monster idea in Hikari Sentai Maskman, but I am not a fan of the idea as I considered it cheap. It does save on costumes for subsequent Sentai series. However, in Bioman, the monster-of-the-week idea only revolves around five monsters, and three generals and these monsters aren’t killed off after the episode but get to fight another day. Back to the robots, the battles are mostly practical effects, and the sound effects are amazing right down to the Bio-Robo’s walk and movements. The longer battles are impressive, unlike today where there’s plenty of CGI use. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" ids="45183,45184"] If Power Rangers had Putties to keep them busy, Bioman had Mecha clones, that looked soulless and menacing with their featured rhythmic strides and arm movements. As machines, they can be depicted as being destroyed which is fun instead of just being kicked around. One reason I am not impressed with the Putties and later Sentai or Power Rangers henchmen. The 2017 Power Rangers movie redefines the enemy troop idea nicely. Bioman starts off as violent but the tone winds down after the pilot. There are cheesy episodes, but they are expected in most super sentai or Power Rangers series. If you have time, you could look the series up on YouTube as you’d be fortunate to know that the series is dubbed in English. Check out what really started it all.
Movie TV Tech Geeks News
0 notes
kayawagner · 6 years
Text
What Am I Playing Right Now?
Since my GM hiatus started back in June 2017, I used the opportunity to play in as many games as possible. For a very long time I was basically the go-to GM for many of my friends, but I didn’t get to play as often as I liked. Being the GM is fun, and it’s something very dear to me, BUT sometimes you just need to stay on the other side of the GM’s screen for a while. So, what games have I been playing during these almost 12 months?
Mutant Year Zero & Gen Lab Alpha If you’ve followed this blog for a while you know that I am a fan of post-apocalyptic settings in general and the Mutant games by Free League in particular. Mutant Year Zero is definitely one of the most exciting and immersive games I’ve played so far. Since I am playing one of the bosses in our Ark (which is a derelict aircraft carrier), the game is sometimes pretty political. My character, Washington,  is an idealist, trying to build a new civilization on the ruins of the past. He strongly believes in compassion, reason, and justice. In a way he sometimes feels like an anachronism. I have to admit that Washington shares a lot with myself, aside from the fact that I don’t have the Mind Terror mutation in real life.
MY0 has all the elements I love: drama, politics, intrigue, exploration. Matthias, our GM, is also doing an awesome job running the game. He even manages what usually fails spectacular: while he’s running the game, he also plays his own player character. This is usually a recipe for disaster, but in Matthias’ case it works great.
I’ve already wrote about our Genlab Alpha game in my review of the core rules, so I will skip it here.
Shadowrun 3rd Edition This is a game I’ve been playing for years now. And even though I think that the rules are a mess, the game itself can be a lot of fun. Planning runs, trying to get to our goals without even raising an alarm is a lot of fun, and sometimes we even managed to have some flawlessly executed heists. But usually things go terribly wrong and everything ends in a messy fight. Since we usually ignore some of the more tedious rules  (like bioware stress etc.), our characters got very powerful, very quickly. While some games might break down with characters that powerful, our GM just raises the stakes a bit. Our Shadowrun campaign is over-the-top and great fun, but all good things must end eventually, so we decided our current adventure will be the last. We’re dealing with dragons and their machinations this time, which is IMHO very fitting for our last bow.
Numenera Numenera is one of the games I enjoyed running the most. It perfectly suits my GMing style and improvising whole scenarios was perfectly possible. From a lazy GM’s perspective the Cypher System is just a joy to work with. But I also fell in love with the setting. It’s fantastical, wild, weird, and fun. When I first picked it up I hoped someone else would be willing to run it, so I could play it myself. So I was overjoyed when my Shadowrun GM invited me to his Numenera game which he has been running for a small group of friends for a while. After leafing through the Character Options 2 book, I quickly decided to play an Artificially-Intelligent Seeker Who Speaks to the Datasphere. Unfortunately scheduling has been a bit of an issue, so we haven’t played more than once since I joined, but I had a blast!
Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition When our Traveller GM told us that he wasn’t able to run as often in the future because of an increased workload at his job, one of the players stepped up and offered to run “Curse of Strahd” for us. So we decided to pause the Traveller campaign for a while, so that we can play some D&D 5th Edition in the coming months. Ravenloft is one of my favorite D&D setting and I think the latest iteration of D&D is probably its best. I had mixed results actually running it, but the prospect of actually playing it made me quite excited. I eventually decided to play a Moon Elf Warlock with a Celestial patron, with a custom background: Detective. Think of an Elven Sherlock Holmes. One of the other players even decided to play my sidekick, so in a way he’s the Watson to my Holmes. Together with a Human cleric and two Dwarves (one sorcerer and one ranger) we were sent out to investigate Wolf attacks in Daggerford, which turned out to be caused by Werewolves. While following the tracks we were suddenly engulfed in Mists which brought us to a different plane… While I was looking for inspiration for my character I noticed that a lot has happened since I last looked into D&D 5th Edition. There’s a lot of homebrew and 3rd party material available, which is usually of high quality. I got also quite interested in Matt Mercer’s campaign setting again, and currently I am tempted to buy a copy – just in case I want to run D&D 5th Edition again.
Star Wars Edge of the Empire The most regular game I currently play in is our Edge of the Empire campaign in which I play probably my most quirky character. Zid, or Captain Zid, as he usually calls himself, is a Gand Fringer who recently discovered that he has some connection to the force. After an exploration of the Jedi temple of Tython he started to follow the path of the Jedi, which sometimes comes in conflict with the realities of the hard life on the Outer Rim, and his naiveté. While I was pretty skeptical about the games’ mechanics at first, I quickly fell in love with it. It might not be as simple and straightforward as WEG’s Star Wars which still has a special place in my heart, but interpreting the dice rolls can lead to some pretty cool results sometimes. While we have dealt with some pretty grim and serious issues in the campaign so far, the mood at the game table is usually quite light-hearted and fun, sometimes bordering on the silly, especially when Zid is doing one of his weird dances again.
Jovian Chronicles Last but not least there’s the Jovian Chronicles game I recently joined. It seems I am not the only person out there who loves the hard-science mecha RPG by Dreampod 9. An old friend of mine introduced me to this GM who was dying to run this fine game, and I immediately took the opportunity. What I am not too fond off are the rules of the 2nd Edition (which is the one were using). While the basic dice mechanic is quite simple and easy to understand, the overall system feels a bit quirky and has a lot of fiddly bits to it. From what I remember (I haven’t read it in a while) the 1st Edition made more sense to me. But I can live with this as long as the game itself is fun. And so far it is! My character is basically the Jovian equivalent of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. At least that’s how I conceptualized the character, we’ll see how he turns out after playing him for a while. In our first session we ended up in the middle of a terror attack by unknown forces and my fellow player characters were “volunteered” for the Jovian intelligence services in order to help me investigate the incident. Unfortunately for my character this feels more like a job for a chaperone. I am currently extremely excited about what the GM will throw at us next.
Related posts:
First Look: Barebones Fantasy Role-playing Game
Savage Worlds, playing The Wild Hunt (and a long winded retrospective…)
Is Anyone Still Playing Alternity?
What Am I Playing Right Now? published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com
0 notes