Grrl Power #402 – Montage attained!
During the future course of the comic, I imagine I will have other montages in order to move story forward, but before I get to those, I thought I would have a little fun with the trope.
People with ADD/ADHD don’t have bad memory, in fact most of us can recite the entire works of Monty Python by heart. The issue is when we’re not focusing on something, it never gets passed to long term memory before we’re wondering why Star Fleet didn’t use a replicator to make more Datas. Ok, arguably the transporter accident that made another Riker would be difficult and nebulously ethical to try and recreate, but Data is just parts. If they can replicate a phaser then they could replicate Data. Even if Data wasn’t copacetic with it, didn’t he have Lor in a bin in his room for like 3 seasons? Couldn’t Section 31 have snuck into his room and swapped out the parts with reasonable facsimiles while they made a master replica? Wait, what was I doing? Oh, re-reading a paragraph from this history textbook for the 6th time because I don’t remember a single thing from it.
Honestly I don’t know how I made it through school. Book learning is not how I roll, for the exact reason above.
There were all sorts of things I was considering putting in the classroom dialog bubbles, including an excerpt from “Lurking on Rooftops 101” about hiding in the shadows of gargoyles and bringing your own inflatable gargoyle in case you’re not lurking in Gotham, but I thought I’d keep it a little more vanilla as whoever is teaching the courses is probably not a prime motivator for humor.
I recently went to a gun range just to get the experience of actually firing a gun, plus it was something new to do with the wife. I’ve shot a shotgun before at skeet, but this was my first time with pistols. I definitely learned a few things. One, man those things kick. I mean, obviously they do, we’ve all seen videos of people whacking themselves in the face with the butt or barrel of their gun, I was just surprised at how much, even on the small caliber guns. I never lost control of any of the pistols I fired, but by the time the evening was done, my 1st dorsal interosseus was sore. That’s the meaty bit between the thumb and palm. Two, I has always wondered why in crime procedurals, bad guys didn’t always police their brass, assuming they’re not doing a drive by or something. Well it turns out when the case gets ejected, it goes fucking flying. It can wind up like 50 feet away if you’re on a smooth floor, and ladies, if you’re at a firing range, don’t wear a V-neck. There’s a better than zero chance it will bounce off the partition and you’ll wind up with hot brass down your top. It happened twice in the class I took. Three, I learned that after a very short class, I am pretty terrible shot. My problem comes from anticipating the kick so I squeeze down on the gun right before I fire to counteract it, so 2/3 of my shots wind up South West of where I was aiming, which is what’s happening to Sydney there on the range. Peggy will help her correct that eventually. Also the bit where she squeaks every time she fires.
I remember a long time ago reading some list written by Schwarzenegger about how to act tough. The only thing I remember from it was “don’t blink when you fire a gun.” That’s stuck with me ever since, and to this day I watch for it in TV shows and movies. Most people blink or flinch significantly, even people playing stone killers. It’s a tough reflex to fight, but I found at the firing range, when I tried to not flinch and keeping both eyes open, my aim improved considerably. Probably cause I was concentrating on that and not clamping down on the gun.
This page colored by Keith.
Patreon supporters can view this page at twice the size! (as soon as I wake up and post it then immediately go back to sleep since Patreon doesn’t have a way to schedule posts yet.) $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Recoil is negligible with 9mm automatic pistols, more pronounced with .38 wheel guns and downright surprising in a .380 automatic. The recoil of pistols firing .45, .50 and .357 and .44 Magnum rounds will definitely make you flinch when you fire them. I practice at indoor ranges. Outdoor ranges are too distracting IMO.
Practice outdoors if you find it distracting it will improve your skill set to work through it. Yes a 9mm is a pop gun no recoil to speak of, however she isn’t used to the shot yet and is more then likely expecting it. Which means she is jerking the trigger not squeezing it and bouncing the gun all over the target.
I don’t know guns that well, but gun design plays a huge part of it. Last time I went to a range, I fired two different guns: one cheap snub-nosed .38 and one fairly expensive .45. The .38 was far worse, because something about the balance prevented the recoil from going straight back into my arm and the damn thing jerked around. The .45 was wonderfully balanced – all recoil straight back, where any decent shooter’s stance can handle it down well.
Revolver vs automatic I suspect, revolvers will always have less control change up your stance and how you hold it a bit and it gets easier to control takes more wrist strength as well. Note I don’t shoot pistol never had a need to but I studied the grips and stance as part of basic training if I had to have one which I did as a driver only issued one a couple of times. Cheap 9mm the army had stopped using the 1911 a few years before I got in.
I suspect it’s not the revolver versus automatic issue so much as what the guns are designed to do. The .38 is designed to be a cheap and easy to conceal handgun used for extremely close range self defense. It’s not quite a purse pistol, but it’s meant to be used along the same lines. Therefore, it will not be accurate beyond a short range, and there is little to no need to make it well-balanced. On the other hand, you do need to make it reliable, and able to fire after not being cleaned or maintained for six to ten years. The .45 is almost universally meant to be used by a serious shooter, who has very real reason to believe that they’re going to be in a life-threatening situation and will need to be first person to land their shot. That’s why it’s more expensive–it’s worth the extra money to make sure that you’re the guy who walks away from the shootout.
9mm weapons, on the other hand, are generally intended for a high degree of accuracy, and to deliver a large dose of kinetic energy to a very small area. This is why most nations’ militaries use 9mm pistols as their sidearm–it’s very accurate, it has good penetration capability (for a pistol, anyway), and it’s low recoil makes it very easy to practice with. Honestly, while I prefer a .45, I can understand why the military made the decision to switch to the 9mm. For the record, though, while most of the military uses a 9mm pistol, most Special Forces units appear to use a .45–presumably, they put in the practice, and, let’s face it, they need to be able to put somebody down with the first shot, every time.
Interestingly, it was only within the last 10 years or so that the Glock and the Baretta began to replace the Browning 9mm. Yet more proof, I suppose, that John Browning may well have been the greatest gun designer to have ever lived.
The size of the gun has a lot to do with felt recoil. Small short barreled guns will always recoil harder than large long barreled guns. For people who carry a handgun, for whatever reason, there is always a compromise between the ability to easily carry the gun and how effective it will be. Larger guns are easier to shoot well and deliver more power, small guns are easier to carry, especially if the gun is to be concealed. Any handgun is a compromise. If you know you’re going into trouble, you want a rifle or shotgun. Supposedly a U.S. Marshall was once asked “Do you carry that pistol because you’re expecting trouble?” The Marshall replied “No. If I were expecting trouble, I’d have brought my rifle.”
“The size of the gun has a lot to do with felt recoil”.
I used to fire the Carl Gustav MAW. It has a lot otf kick for a supposedly recoilles weapon. Does that count? *smiles brightly*
I suppose I should have clarified that in different sized guns of the same caliber the larger, longer barreled gun will have less recoil. A large framed eight inch barreled S&W 500 Magnum revolver will have more felt recoil than a small framed two inch barreled revolver in .22 Short. The .22 Short is the weakest commonly available pistol cartridge with 44 ft lbs of muzzle energy. (It’s a small game cartridge, though still lethal) The 500 Magnum, by contrast, delivers 2866 ft lbs of muzzle energy, as much or more than many large .30 caliber rifles. It is the most powerful production handgun cartridge and is usually used for either large game handgun hunting or defending against large predators, like grizzly or polar bears.
Recoil is subjective as well. I honestly feel like 9mm actually kicks more than .45acp does, mostly because of the way it kicks. Proper technique is 90% of it though. I spent like six months just reading up on how to shoot the really big wheel guns before touching off my .454casull and honestly didn’t have any real issues with it.
Also a revolver has more recoil than an automatic. I have a friend with a Desert Eagle .357 and another with a .357 revolver. When we go to the range the difference between them is marked. Not only does the Desert Eagle have more mass, which helps with the recoil, but the slide is operated by bleeding some of the gasses and that also helps reduce the recoil. The Desert Eagle is controllable, while the revolver, for me, is not able to be fired accurately. Perhaps with time and practice I’d get better, but the expense of the ammunition is prohibitive when compared to a 9mm.
Someone oil Sydney!!! She squeaks! From the looks of it, Peggy should be ecstatic… five rounds in the black… another three on the paper. If they’re just starting, that’s great for a first timer who’s never touched a gun before… if they’ve been at it for awhile, Syd’s making progress… I’m thinking peggy’s facepalm is from the squeaking…
Though three of those rounds are shots to the arm, but then there’s that one to the neck…might not be in the rings, but I don’t really want to be shot in the neck.
Personally don’t want to be shot at all!
Troops are trained to shoot for the center of mass, not the neck, head, or arm. As far as the military is concerned, unless Sydney is a sniper or designated marksman, like Peggy, she has no business shooting for the head–it’s a harder target, and at longer ranges, it is more likely to be survivable, which can be a real problem.
How about having Halo and company sponsor needy children worldwide through World Vision and Children International.
This is an awesome idea!
Tried a rifle? I can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a pistol, but rifles make it easy to put bullets on target because of the much, much greater distance between the front sight and back sight. The recoil can be a lot lower, too, depending on caliber, because rifles weigh a lot more which reduces the impulse applied to your hands.
For me it’s the opposite, somehow…
Hah! True story – After a ton of rifle shooting in the Canadian Militia, I did some pistol shooting and I remember shooting a target at point blank (10 feet) range with the 9 mm Hi Power and while examining my grouping I thought ‘At this range in the prone position I could put all these bullets through the same hole…’
Add ‘with a rifle’ after ‘position’
Qualified with a bent front sight but then the Drill was upset that I had a damaged weapon that couldn’t get fixed in time. I suspect he wanted three guys going to sniper training not two. When I re-qualified on that range it was with a weapon that wasn’t zeroed to me. Lets say I like a challenge. I got really bored shooting when everything was working right though it was frustrating trying to figure out why I started missing shots I knew I should be hitting.
Pretty much the same story for me. In basic we were given 5 rounds before zeroing, and then no rounds before qualifying. I made sharpshooter but later qualified as expert with a proper amount of time to zero the weapon. And in basic there was a range Captain who would stand over people and tell them to skip even firing at the 300m pop-up silhouette. He was just telling me this when I knocked it down. Caused him to wander off and bother someone else at least.
A rifle is pretty much mechanical. Line everything up, and it’ll put the bullet where you want it. Pistols are pretty intuitive as far as left /right, but the vertical placement is where I’ve always had trouble. That’s where you have to practice regularly to improve. Any experienced shooters have any tips?
I tried my hand at a small arms range. Not much recoil and the shells didn’t fly far, but that’s probably because I used a .22. Pretty good accuracy, but again, the gun in question is said to be relatively accurate. And I kept my target pretty close, because in reality, I probably wouldn’t shoot at anything much farther away.
From experience – as an artist – if firing a small-caliber pistol at the range was giving you that much trouble with the kick, it might be worthwhile to work on strengthening your wrists, for your art if nothing else. Strong wrists make it easier to keep steady hands and make your pen/pencil control smoother/faster/easier, in my experience.
Any physical therapy grad/doc candidates out there? this seems like a good topic for research. :)
This sounds reasonable to me – and I would never have worked it out on my own. Thanks, Kal.
Firing a pistol with a slack wrist can lead to stove-piping, and jams in general. That being said, if you’ve never fired a gun before? 9mm is a little much to start on, and I could totally see someone preemptively expecting the recoil.
There was a guy from Starfleet who wanted to duplicate Data, problem is making a positronic brain is not an exact science apparently. According to Data’s “mother” the ratio of Soong’s successful androids to the failures is about 30/70, or in other words 7 out of 10 of them fail due to their positronic brain collapsing. This happened to Data himself as well when he tried to create his own child, Lal’s positronic brain failed despite Data’s best efforts. The admiral trying to help him said that Data’s hands moved faster than he could see but Data was unable to keep ahead of the synaptic failure. The only successful positronic androids known in Trek are all made by Soong himself, Data, Lore, B-4, Data’s mother, thats all there is in “canon”, though there is a trilogy of novels about Data’s resurrection which features Soong himself having survived as an android following Lore killing him.
Data’s resurrection? Didn’t he get blown to smithereens?
It’s implied at the end of Nemesis that Data might’ve pulled a Star Trek 2/3 with B-4 being the McCoy.
And after ST:P, we know Data was kind of resurrected (his backup was retrieved from B-4, who couldn’t handle the complexity of his program), and that Maddox managed to successfully use positronic neurons from B-4 imprinted with Data’s stable neural net protocols to create an entire colony of bioandroids (positronic brains, synthetic bodies 3-D printed with organic matter).
It was implied heavily at the end of Nemesis that Data could return through B-4. This was later used for the background of the 2009 reboot. They hired IDW to do the “Countdown” mini-series preceding the film coming out. This established the destruction of Romulus in the future, the backstory for Nero, etc. The TNG crew was heavily involved, Ambassador Picard was working alongside Spock, Geordi designed and built Spock’s ship the “Jellyfish” as it is nicknamed, Worf was nearly killed by Nero, and Data was shown to be Captain of the Enterprise E. This was later expanded upon in the Cold Equations trilogy from author David Mack.
https://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation_-_Cold_Equations
Why even bother with replicators? Go onto the Holodeck and just have the ship simulate him a few hundred times. It’s already cannon that it can simulate people to a level indistinguishable from “reality”.
Honestly, you don’t even need to give your ship an interior layout. Just holodeck the entire thing.
Except that stuff “made” in the Holodeck, as a general rule, cannot be removed from it.
Even ignoring this, well…. it all may be just fine until the holodeck goes wonky, as it inevitably does sooner or later.
There are Novels where it’s explained how Data could possibly be resurrected, outside of his “brother” B-4. Soong, brain transferred into a duplicate body, sacrifices his existence to re-body Data, since Data’s skull and brain are damn near invulnerable. The story goes on to also explain what Lal’s issue was…see, she, like Data, has a certain buried program to compensate for information overload…which is what was shutting down her brain. The Dreaming Program. And she needed a stressful situation bad enough to trigger it. Which of course happens. Imagine virtual Soong’s response when it clicks…”Wait a minute. You aren’t Data. When did he get boobs? O_O?” Anyhow, It’s seen as THE reason why so many of the androids fail. B-4 Lal, Lore, they managed to have the program in their brains, through shenanigans or downloading, so if the writers decide to have Data share it, there could EASILY be a lot more androids out there…although, according to said novels…there already ARE. >:D
The problem with using the Holodeck to make an army of Datas is already covered by A Fistful of Datas. Eventually you’re going to get saloon girl Datas again. And who’s going to clean after that mess? Not me.
I thought the canon was that the holodeck could not simulate people to a level indistinguishable from reality? That was a large part of the plot in the episode where Riker falls in love with a holodeck woman named Minuet but who was later shown to be just a shell of her former ‘self’ once the holodeck computer returned to its typical operating state.
I’m pretty sure Minuet from 11001001 was a fully functional software version of Sungian Level, but resetting the Binars scrubbed her program from Memory.
The writers never took the ‘person’ question to the final conclusion. If the ship could create sapient holograms like Minuet and Moriarty, then it would have to be smarter than they are, and therefore a sapient being itself.
The same goes for Voyager, If the Doctor was a crew member and had rights, then so should the ship.
It doesn’t come out much, but I have one of the old TNG tech manuals, and in it is mentioned that in the earliest skull sessions for TNG canon that they planned on the Enterprise-D herself being self-aware. It fell by the wayside for various reasons (mostly I think plot point duplication with Data), but some of the concepts and assumptions still poke through.
The ship being a sentient being with rights was used in the fellow Roddenberry series Andromeda which many believe was originally intended to be a Trek series when Gene first outlined the idea (hint Tyr’s people would have been descended from Khan), but after Nick Meyer’s TWOK, which Gene hated BTW, the idea was scrapped.
I was going to comment on Death By Powerpoint in the military, and then I was going to talk about .45 ACP vs .45LC, but now I’m stuck thinking about Lor in a bin…
When my brother and I were younger, my brother tried to use a gun on a gun range. He held it too close to his face because he was aiming in an exceedingly dumb way, and when the gun had kickback from firing it (and it wasnt even a particularly powerful gun) he wound up hitting himself in his face with his fist and the end of the gun and got a black eye.
I fared better :) … but I did have a little jumpscare feeling the first few times the gun was fired.
Basic mistake the first broken nose many have gotten was from the kick of a gun.
Also scope eye.
Sydney! Cock your elbows out more! You’ll stabilize a little better!
Geez louize I’ve seen stormtroopers with better aim… oh dear, I feel sorry whoever does janitorial services for the First Order :-(
That bit about not flinching is hard to fight. Jackie Chan recommends firing a couple rounds into the air, then shooting towards your target (for film purposes).
And what was up with Kung-fu Panda 3? Why was Jackie Chan the last one listed in the artsy credits? He should have at least been grouped with the rest of the Furious 5! Blargh!
Also, I vastly prefer revolvers to semiautomatic pistols. I prefer having more control over, well, everything.
Love this page.
I’ve run RPG’s for almost 30 years now, at least once a week and twice a week for a couple years (Gamer Tip – If you are the GM for more than one game a week, you will most likely run both of them badly UNLESS you have a life that has NOTHING else going on.). Players rarely learn from their mistakes, and have a very hard time thinking in terms of “If I were effectively a super-cop, how should I be thinking?” I’ve run the NPC’s giving the post-fight postmortem more than a few times and it is a very rare thing for the players to retain the lessons learned, regardless of the group (there have been exceptions, but they are *really* rare). I’ve run for PhDs and for the barely-high-school educated, the career military and the never-seen-a-gun-IRL, and the Uber-nerd and the never-read-a-science-fiction/fantasy-novel newb and learning from mistakes is pretty rare. Either that, or they ONLY learn the last mistake and plan for that alone, fighting the last battle over and over again.
And that’s me, too, when I’m a player, far more often than I would like. :)
I’m thinking Sydney’s genre-savvy power is getting in the way here, in addition to all the other strikes against her. Everything being shown is typical mundane-enforcement-offier stuff, and that’s not really a big part of the Supers genre. The expectation is to practice her powers, and the insistence on the basics that *everyone* has to learn wasn’t in the scenario in her head.
In my Supers campaign, the heroes are backed up by a support staff *very* much like what you’ve got going on here, DaveB (for the record, mine was set up in 1992 – you owe me five cents. :) ). I sat down and made a list of what skills each agent had to have in order to be an agent and then a secondary list of specialization field skills (combat/enforcement, technical, administrative, data-analyst, and so on). Both lists were longer than I had originally anticipated. In order to gain direct access to certain governmental databases, players had to complete agent training – and practically no-one built their characters with more than one or two of the skills at character creation. With a few notable exceptions, most players looked at the point cost to become agents and said “pass”.
-Erm- … I will take issue with your ‘gamer tip’ about quality/quantity of games.
I’ve run a continuing campaign since 1973 [most similar to AD&D 2nd ed, because when it came out, it was about 85% compliant to how I ref’d]. From 1977 thru 1982 I ran 1 campaign 4 nights a week, then did a different campaign/same world on Saturdays & a different campaign/different game on Sundays. _Most_ time, thru the years, I’ve ref’d different campaigns/different games on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, usually for groups between 5 and 9 members.
I’ve been told I’m an excellent ref and that all the games I ref’d have been great, with waiting lists of players wanting to game with me. [Since some players have chosen to drive 2 hours to get to my games when they moved, rather than drop out and let someone else take their place at the table.] Other than 2nd ed AD&D and some 3.5 D&D, I enjoyed ref-ing Champions/Fantasy Hero, Rifts, Space Opera, Shadowrun, Harn, Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Aftermath .. and a home-made system I draw up in 1980 that is now the ‘gets run 2x a month Sunday game’.
I have other things going on in my life, but will admit to be a bit fanatical about gaming. I find that possibly the most important thing that helps my games stay good is that I have OCD and that the game systems I run best are the ones that climb into my memor, taking up residence there. Some people learn languages or sports statistic trivia. I learn games [and am sadly mono-lingual].
I’ve been lucky in attracting a lot of smart, clever players over the years. [One of them married me, so he always gets a seat at a table I ref.] If you run a continuing campaign for the same players over years [one lot of players has been gaming with me since 1989], then even the ones who don’t learn from their mistakes .. eventually will get better. It also helps to remember that as a ref, I have unlimited chances through a game to ‘do in’ characters, so erring in their favor is not a sin.
My gamer tip will be that if you DO referee for a loved one, never show favoritism. I honestly would rather kill off my husband’s characters, but he is annoyingly clever and can come up with astounding ideas to foil my evil plans. [In the game I am currently running, I will frustrate him/them all a ton by having the fore-announced cowardly villain mastermind run away rather than do a Big Bad throwdown fight – like many villains will do – this next Saturday.]
And also, as a last point, I’m female, began gaming at 15 [in 1973] and had to referee from the very start just to get the games going. I’ve dragged in a lot of other gals into gaming [who were more willing to give gaming a try because I’m also a gal] .. and some of them kept playing even after they moved away. I’ve found gaming to be a fantastic way to socialize, albeit I was [*cough*] ‘slow’ to realize that guys could be something other than gamer table companions.
See, now I wanna play in your game – you must be the exception that proves the rule. :)
My experience is really consistent – if the GM has any kind of life outside the game (kids / family, career, other forms of entertainment or hobbies) and also runs two different games, at least one of the games is going to suffer. And I play and GM far too much.
I’m seriously organized (I’ve created multiple databases to take care of mundane tasks for me years before Hero Maker and other multi-genra gamer’s aid software were common), very rules conscious, and I’ve never felt like the “off game” ever measured up to the primary game. And that has been the consensus feedback from the members of the various groups who have had the “privilege” of being in both games being run consecutively. Similarly, for the GM’s in whose games I’ve been that were also running more than one session a week – one of the sessions was always a bit.. off.
I endorse and approve your gamer tip with no reservations.
Glad to meet another old-timer gamer.
Well, it helps that I don’t have kids – only a hubby and cat. ^_^ Plus, getting a chance to play does help keep the batteries charged [currently playing in a Friday Pathfinder game and I -adore- Hero Labs!].
But I come from an extremely ‘mental’ female lineage. the [erm] problems that have afflicted every female on the maternal side have not touched me. I still score in the weird brain chemical/hormones that say I -should- be having problems .. but I think I shunted -everyhting- into gaming and .. in a way .. my mental state helps keep me razor-focused on games, gaming and the activities related to that [conventions, fandom, reading]. Having a gamer mate is also a fun stimuli. Trying to find ways to foil my gamers is always a new challenge.
I consider myself a decent ref, nothing to sing praises to, but still a good veteran ref. My problem is that I would rather play than ref.
My advice is for a new ref that wants to run a campaign but never has before, find a genre you like. You can run games from practically anything, mideavel fantasy, urban fantasy, western, horror, western horror, sci-fi. There is no actual limits. Hell, you can even play erotic if you so wish. (Please, tell your players that’s what you’re going to do. Or at least, if you spring it on them by surprise, record it and put it on youtube.) You can play funny, one of the settings I really want to run is Cartoon Action Hour which is about what it sounds, saturday morning cartoons. So there is really no limitation to what you can run. So figure out the genre you really like. Ignore the lists saying if you run a game, these are the games you MUST RUN. No, there is no must runs. Run what sounds good to you.
Communicate with the players. I had a ref with no players that asked me to run him a chaotic evil character because he wanted to do a redemption story with the new players. When he said chaotic evil, we had our wires crossed. He thought he said CE as in Snidely Whiplash ineffectual evil. I thought he said CE as in WAR CRIMES CE and played accordingly. The other players were not really ready for my orc to start cooking and eating children.
Don’t get too fancy. I have used here and there music to go with special scenes, like if I wanted to introduce the big bad evil guy and the players were not in a place to attack him. But don’t let the gimmicks run over you. It’s easy to get overwhelmed.
Play some games before you run one if possible. You will learn what you like and what you don’t easier on the player end rather than running the game.
And mostly, have fun. If you aren’t having fun, your players aren’t and they won’t come back if they aren’t having fun.
Damn lack of edit function. My ref I mentioned had new players, not no players.
As a long-time referree (old school Traveller’ originally, ‘7th Sea’ these days), I’d say this is all sound advice. Especailly the fun part. RPGs are for the entertainment and enjoyment of all, and that should never be forgotten.
More pieces of advice I would add.
(1) When dealing with the Players in-game, the Ref MUST be flexible. The one thing you can be sure of is that Player-Characters can and will take things in unexpected directions. If you provide a map showing the ‘safe’ route out of the dungeon, accept that the PCs might just burn said map and then use their messkits to try and dig an escape tunnel or something. Usually, it is best to simply roll with this, and improvise as necessary.
(2) If the game gets REALLY out of whack, call a break. There is nothing worse than trying to ad-lib solutions on the fly. Take some time to visit the restroom, get a drink, hide in the closet and have a good cry, run away, etc.. It is amazing how helpful having just a little breathing space can be in this situation.
… And, if you are still stuck afer this break, just be honest – “Congratulations, guys. You’ve really gotten me with that one. NOW what do I do?” If the Players are truly worth your time, they should be quite helpful.
(3) Never ever give NPCs anything that you don’t want the Player-Characters to acquire. It really is that simple.
(4) Don’t put weapons of mass-destruction, or things that can become such, into the game unless you are prepared for them to be used, either accidentally or not.
(5) Zero-tolerance for dickish or disruptive behaviour. Firm warning, followed by expulsion if the message is not received. “I’m just role-playing my character” is NOIT an acceptable excuse.
(6) When the PCs try to figure something out, listen in. It is possible that their ideas might be better than whatever you have in mind. If so, you might consider ad-libbing this in.
(7) You can’t always please all of the party all of the time – but you need to listen.
Learning from previous mistakes is a skill, sadly, and it’s one that most of us don’t have the time or the opportunity to develop. This lack is one of the reasons why I strongly feel that pen and paper RPGs should be used a lot more widely in schools, summer camps, and so forth and so on–it’s a critical life skill, and I’ve never, ever, ever run into another way to develop it.
Regular eggs are healthy for you. They contain good protein, and the cholesterol that your body DOES need (referred as “the good cholesterol”). What backwards dietician did they get, give how much everything seems to be top rung?
They were never UNHEALTHY, never not once, not in the entire course of human evolution. Basically, they left no real nutrients or flavor in the eggs, so how is that healthy?
In point of fact, most soldier eat diets of AT LEAST 3000 calories a day… and LOSE weight. We burn an absurd number of calories, especially groups that are put up for front-line combat, such as ARC-SWAT. The little under two-thousand calorie a day diet is for people who aren’t trying to build up muscle (lean or otherwise).
We ESPECIALLY need protein, and for soldiers like Sydney, who are underweight (This is a thing), they are given special diets that are specifically laid out to bulk them up. No seriously, I’ve watched this happen.
As well, if they have even a single person who is trying to bulk up their strength, you’ve shot them in the foot by taking out one of the best proteins available for muscle-building. I can’t imagine how pissed some of those hardbodies must be at the fact that ARC is working directly against them. Seriously, do you really believe that Big E Langston or Ryback got that big eating egg whites?!
Crap, look at the diet of The Mountain that Walks, and he’s as close we’ve got to superhuman physical strength on Earth.
Amen – the issue isn’t so much what you eat, but how it figures into a larger diet plan and exercise levels. Well, okay, candy and pop are essentially crap, and drinking radiator fluid isn’t good for you no matter how you slice it, but…
The problem with eggs is that they are a (relatively) high source of cholesterol when the yolk is included, which is bad if you’re a lazy person and not usually a problem if you’re not a lazy person (there are exceptions to this, but exceptions validate the rule right? wait a minute… :) ). Some people have issues with cholesterol retention and they’re probably better off without the yolks; some people are allergic to the proteins in the yolks but not allergic to those in the whites (That’s me, so I *have* to limit my egg intake or spend inordinate amounts of time in the can). If, however, you’re eating a *lot* of eggs (4 or more a day), it’s probably a good idea to cut back on the yolks.
It does seem reasonable that all of Sydney’s medical issues would be known one way or the other as part of her mustering in. I’m assuming the system is geared towards heading off problems beforehand for the group and correcting for individuals.
So… they’ve got no peanut butter? Or anything that contains nuts, either? That allergy is far more common and prevalent than an egg allergy, and wasn’t given as the reason. The direct reason given was “health”, as in general health, which means that what she said was directly and provably wrong. God, if they’re going by allergies, that has gotta be the most boring cafeteria of any military ever, which isn’t precisely known for fanciful fare.
Needing to eat right means yolks in the eggs. Yeah, I can totally understand not having soda or candy, but that’s generally obvious.
A nut allergy is a big health assessment fail on trying to sign up. No soldier has a nut allergy. It might be different in foreign countries.
Not even to coconut? How much granola do soldiers eat, anyway?
(I can see severe reactions to peanuts, because peanuts…)
Egg allergies are probably an issue simply because of vaccines. Military isn’t going to want to get the REAL flu shots, as they’re expensive (State’s got them)
Sorry weather, you are making a very common mistake when talking about eggs as a “source of cholesterol”. They are a source of dietary cholesterol, which is absolutely necessary whether you are a “lazy” person or not. This is in contrast to blood cholesterol, which is 99.9% manufactured by your body… Almost no dietary cholesterol makes it into your blood(ergo the .1% remainder from the last figure), but it is necessary for all kinds of things. Cutting dietary cholesterol and saturated fat mean your body does not have the building blocks it needs to make all kinds of hormones(including anabolic ones like testosterone), and can significantly impact your sperm production(in men, of course).
Interesting. That’s something I’ve never heard before. Apparently I’ve not kept up with research on that issue.
Thanks!
Neurological tissue is also largely made from cholesterol. People start showing signs of dementia/ alzheimers and other maladies of nerve insulation (ms, md) in advanced age-after they’ve been on low cholesterol diets and avoided eggs. Correlation doesn’t prove causation, but it indicates where we need to take a closer look.
Plenty of vegans do just fine without cholesterol. You do need FAT, of course, and Protein, but saturated fat just plain isn’t good for you.
I have never met a health/fitness nut (and Peggy is a health/fitness nut) who didn’t have at least one provably incorrect dietary belief. And unfortunately, that statement does include at least one dietitian in the list. As long as she is mostly correct and stays away from actually dangerous dietary fads, there should be no significant harm.
Damn you 1990s! Egg Yolks aren’t bad for you! They aren’t!
Well there are still people who THINK they are…and our sniper/pilot appears to be one of them.
But…But…If you look at Sydney’s parking validation in her car https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60
And then compare the Nov 2005 date there with the fact that the rest of this comic is a few months prior to that…
…Then what we have at this point is not the 1990’s. It’s…It’s…NOSTALGIA!
ARRRRRGH!
Errr, unless Dave’s european, that’s not November 2005. That’s May 2011.
Also I think that’s supposed to be Vehicle Registration, not Parking Validation.
Dave, I must say I am disappointed in you. We had another scene in the ladies shower and we did not get to see anyone else in there. You are going to lose your pervy old man license if you keep up this sort of behavior.
Another thing that helps with aiming is holding your breath. I actually got that part out of the game Gothic 1 and I veryfied it with bow and spear once.
The miniscule movement of your torso affects your arms and thus your aim.
About why they did not replciate Mr. Data:
Replicators can not create life. This is a known, unavoidable limitation.
While Mr. Data is not alive in the conventional sense, presumably stuff like his neural structure is as complex/unreplicateable as a human brain.
Also Section 31 was not a “thing” back in TNG. It only appeared during DS9.
I was taught to fire just as you finished exhaling. Firing repeatedly until you pass out from holding your breath isn’t a great combat technique.
Its the same technique really except the exhale is taking advantage of the slight pause between finishing exhalation and starting inhalation….your firing in the “paused” window. Your not supposed to hold your breath for longer than a second or two with the first technique. One works for regular fire…one works for…less regular fire.
Why didn’t the Federation clone Data? For the same reason they outlawed serious genetic engineering to make “superior” humans. When you create a race like that, one of the first things they realize is they don’t need their creators.
Lor isn’t the Aberration, Data is.
When Soong created Lore (and I did check, that is the given spelling), he just gave him a blank template and loaded it with default human drives and emotions with no core directives. Lore decided on his own that humans were inferior and were just one more resource to utilize. Soong then created Data with built in inhibitions to prevent the same rebellion and in effect gave him the subconscious directive ‘to serve man’.
(Wait, that last part didn’t sound right.)
So, basically, Soong created Data to be a slave with nearly no will of his own, and, because he isn’t technically human, no problems with ethics keeping him a slave
More like Soong created Data to be “three laws safe”. Which is a problem we may someday have to face ourselves, if we ever develop a true AI. If we don’t put fetters on it, we may end up with CABAL (Command & Conquer 2), SHODAN (System Shock), or Skynet (Terminator). Fortunately, we’re not there yet (not for lack of trying).
First, they need to figure out how to programme that into humans!
Figured I’d better clarify: Nobody’s trying to make CABAL, SHODAN, Skynet, Durandal, or any other certifiably insane AI from science fiction. For those who don’t play video games and/or somehow have managed to never see any of the Terminator movies: Let’s just say that those AI’s don’t have humanity’s best interests in mind, and leave it at that.
However, there are people working on creating true AI. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), emulating a neural net as complex as the human brain is, for now, still beyond our capabilities.
Partly because a human brain is CONSTANTLY becoming even more complex as it receives new input (And it receives and stores everything,including the pressure on your butt from sitting in your chair) even if you never recall it. and assimilates it into it’s existing framework.
Self-modifying code does a damn good job of making a True AI.
We have AIs that pass the turning test.
The problem with AIs is that they think much much faster than their inputs, so they are constantly bored.
We have multiple true AIs, actually. Even a few that are… sentient.
The issue is when we’re no longer sure exactly where they’re housed in meatspace.
Data is NOT three laws safe. Dear God, he’s got a kill count people, that violates one of the three laws right there. He has refused to comply with orders, that’s another, and prizes his own survival on a personal level.
Basically, the problem is that you have a full adult consciousness that doesn’t have the decade and a half of life lessons that a normal human being would have. Attach that to things like supernatural physical strength, perfect recollection, and enhanced senses, and you’re pretty much asking for some megalomania. Putting a central set of tenets into his programming gave him the framework necessary to make his own choices, whatever he chose to do.
And that was the point of Soong’s run with Data, was to give him the ability to make proper moral and ethical choices, even at times when they were at odds with one another. For instance, Data has an inhibition against murder, but he’s killed before, both to defend his own life, and the lives of others. He CHOSE to join Starfleet, it wasn’t an assignment for him, and at one point, prepared to leave to Starfleet over the very matter that he refused to let someone disassemble him for study.
The only thing i can think about is in panel two, i dont know what shes holding, but it looks like a giant red super-blunt, like seriously, tongs? red chalupa? i dont get it, just looks like a doobie to me.
It’s a spoon. For serving yourself on the cafeteria line.
It’s a red napkin wrapped around eating utensils. There are a lot of restaurants that give you a fork/knife/spoon/etc wrapped in a napkin.
Thought it was a sausage at first, one of them ‘chipolata’ sausages
if Sydney forget her ADD meds,this is where Peggy spits out her drink…!
Oh, yeah… Hot brass.
That’s how I learned not to wear a t-shirt with a loose neck at the range. Other people on the firing line don’t take kindly to a maniac with a loaded M-1911 in his hand jumping up and down and screaming. :-)
I remember being on a range in the prone position with rifles and brass kept hitting me – it was exactly like a cigarette stubbed out on me…
Try being seated while loading a Black Powder revolver with an open container of powder, and a guy to your left is showering you with hot brass from rapid firing a 9 mm.
Ah, fun with ADD. As one motivational speaker once put it “It’s not that kids with ADD can’t concentrate. In fact, we can concentrate really really well. It’s just that we concentrate on the most interesting thing around, and the teacher is seldom the most interesting thing.”
*Hammers non-existent +1 button*
It’s family feud time again: Montages vs. Caplets.
So like I said, she successfully triggered a montage, only she has to take the long path through it. This is because she lacks the power of metafictional awareness. Currently, Deadpool is the most famous character with that power. Ironically (as far as I know), that power occurs twice as often in females than males. Namely the golden age heroine, The Blonde Phantom, and She-Hulk. Deadpool is out numbered 2 to 1 by girls with that ability.
The Blonde Phantom actually hired She-Hulk just so she could have a role in a comic again. I love her interactions with She-Hulk, because you’ve got two fourth wall breaking characters working together and playing off each other.
3) Squirrel girl also has it. Of course Squirrel girl and Deadpool get away with it more than She-hulk. No-one(well those three might) believes the Squirrel girl really thinks she’s in a comic book. And while they believe Deapool is certain he’s insane. Unfortunatley She-Hulk can’t get away with it so much, and broke a fourth wall once.
Saw an image the other day, of Shulkie breaking the 4th-wall with Deadpool’s face (after he caught her wearing only a small towel ;) )
Considering Squirrel-Girl beat Galactus once something has to be up with her.
to be fair, how would you fare if a thousand squirrels were going after your nuts?
Can you imagine if those three ever got together to compare ‘notes’? Now, imagine them slowly turn towards the ‘camera’ and even slowlier start to smile…
Please don’t propagate the myth that egg white is the healthy part of the egg. All the good stuff is in the yolk. If I ever throw away a part of the egg, it’s the egg white. The cholesterol myth has long since been debunked, and it was the only reason anyone could use to argue against the yolk.
The whites can be whipped into a nice foam, useful in many recipes. The yolk has all the fat and thus cannot be whipped up in the same manner.
But I’m not sure what ‘myth’ you are referring to. The yolk does indeed contain all of the cholesterol in the egg. The white has no cholesterol, and over half of the protein. So, no myth, fact.
The myth is that dietary cholesterol is actually unhealthy for you. It turns out that blood cholesterol content is more complex than that and mostly maintains an equilibrium regardless of how much you’re taking in through your diet.
Oh. I never avoided eggs, so I was never terribly concerned (or at all) about the cholesterol in them. The yolks are required for custards, including pumpkin pie, and so serve a fine purpose in my culinary excesses.
You can combine them, in fact, to make a wonderful version. The yolks go into the pumpkin mix, and the whites are whipped and mixed with whipped cream and sugar, and then you blend them together to make a delicious pumpkin chiffon pie, which is in my opinion much better than the leaden weight of a typical pumpkin pie, as much as I love them anyway.
You can juke the cholesterol number by going vegan, even for as little as a week.
Check out pubmed.
It’s saturated fat that’s doing the harm, though, not the dietary cholesterol.
Egg whites are an integral part of the ‘Pavlova’, a dessert found in Australia and New Zealand that is ALMOST as good as sex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlova_%28food%29
Can we get a close up of panel 6 and Peggy’s semi facepalm? :P
Picture Maxima conducting uniform inspection,she walks up to Achilles,who is just wearing his socks with his uniform…
Maxima:You’re out of uniform!
Achilles:I couldn’t find my shoes!
Then she comes up to ALL the Harems…The original is in uniform,while the others…made do!
Maxima:You four are DEFINITELY out of uniform!
Then she comes to Hiro,wearing a tacky look tie with his uniform.
Maxima:You’re out of uniform!
Hiro:I couldn’t find my army tie!
She looks at Sydney and is pleased that SOMEONE is in uniform!
Then comes upon the Archon mascot,a Golden Retriever, and says…
Maxima:Er…you’re in uniform!!!!
The book may not be real . . . yet, but the gargoyle certainly is. This particular one may be a little big for most rooftops, though.
Well at least now the local gadgeteeress now has an excuse to make Sydney an emergency ADD Medicine pouch built into her Pip Boy…
Speaking of Pip Boys, I’m surprised Sydney hasn’t asked either Dabbler or the tech crew to remake hers to look like a REAL Pip Boy!
High Fives DAVE!!! =) yeps, we ARE usually brilliant; but … CHICKEN!… huh? where was I? heheeheehe. kidding, but yes; rereading the same page in a text book over 100 times (or at least it felt so), can be irritating. Meds “can” help, but don’t forget to learn to do so over time WITHOUT them. YES it CAN be done. enough said… HUGS and LOVE the last frame with Sid’s evil baddie smile!
That counts as a montage in my books.
No, it is clearly a series of ‘cutscenes’, that she cut :p
I do understand what they are saying in panel three, where the instructor is talking about how they aren’t normal cops and so may not be able to deal with more “mundane” crimes, but I think it’s going to be a PR nightmare for them if they don’t try to do something.
Innocent victim: “That man just snatched my purse right in front of you and you’re not going to do anything about it?! I thought you Archon people were supposed to be heroes protecting the innocent!”
People can be awfully self centered and selfish and I’m not sure that even the fact that they were rushing off to face some supervillain would be enough to calm that sort of person down. Then, if the media got hold of the story and twisted it so that it looked like Archon was saying that the Innocent Victim just wasn’t important enough to matter, Sydney and her friends wouldn’t be so popular anymore.
And what if one of the bad guys they had to let get away turned up later as a murderer or something like in Spidey’s backstory!
News Reporter: “You mean you could have stopped the guy when he was just a purse snatcher?! Before he ever murdered that old man?! But you chose not to?!!”
I foresee trouble ahead.
Yup! People don’t care about the crimes and disasters that have been averted, no matter how severe, only the ones that weren’t.
Yup, people don’t care about what you have done, just what have you done for them personally and recently
Thanks for reminding me to take my meds.
Is it just me, or is Var’s eyes going cross-eyed due to boredom in panel seven? o_O
I’m with you on the ADD drugs. I couldn’t even hold a job for longer than a year until my diagnosis at the very late age of 30. Having ADD in the 70’s and 80’s when nobody even knew it was a thing? That’s a life of having every authority figure in your world calling you lazy, stupid and ungrateful; until you start to believe deep in your heart that it’s absolutely true, and you are stupid, lazy, and hateful.
A few Ritalins a day and I can (mostly) blend in with the norms and hold a job for years instead of months. Of course the irony is that I need to be diligent and organized in renewing the prescription and remembering the pills for a disorder that makes me forgetful and disorganized.
Sigh….
Sydney’s whole persona; the random swings between belligerent, eccentric, and cringing self-loathing made me certain you have this particular affliction yourself. Until now I never noticed you confirm it; it’s good to have company.
Egg yolks are a great source of vitamin A, which is good for skin, B vitamins for energy, and choline, which supports brain health and muscles. The saturated fat in yolks is also necessary for hormone production and the body’s absorption of vitamins and minerals. So eat your yolks and be happy.
It looks like Sydney finally passed the “Take it apart and put it back together” test to get bullets.
Now she’ll need to pass the “don’t go “Eek!” every time you shoot” test
Not necessarily: unless you expected her to learn how to shoot with an unloaded weapon, that “tiaapibta” test was simply for her to be issued a live weapon when not under strict supervision on the gun range
I wonder if she would be a better shot if she was holding the red orb while firing the gun. Like… the blue orb cancels out vertigo and helps with balance (apparently from what she was doing on the edge of the roof). Maybe the red orb helps with aiming as a secondary power?
Holy crap. Depending on how many shots Sydney fired, she either did absolutely amazingly, or merely really fucking well. A first time shooter (I’m assuming, of course) hitting eight on the paper, five in the black at that, is ridiculous. If it was all from one magazine, that’s prodigy level, if it was from a handful of magazines, that’s still wildly good.
I didn’t make it obvious anywhere on the page, but in my head the target is like 15 feet in front of her. She’s just getting the absolute basics underway for now.
” … The bullet comes out THIS end … “
I don’t know if you’ve talked or thought or anything about this before Dave, but is Peggy’s facial scarring supposed to resemble the astrological symbol for Jupiter? She sort of fits in a dominating beyond all sentient measurements sense. All that expertise and flexibile skillsets. Anyways I was wondering and also amused at the observation she sort of sits in that uh quadrant.
Personally I think Syndey has more ADHD not ADD.
Apparently, there isn’t actually a difference. This disturbs me in many ways, not least because I’d always been told that ADD and ADHD were very different while I was growing up, and that I had ADD, and not ADHD.
By the way, Dave, I recently found out that the Episcopalians run a support group for people with ADHD. Is there one in Sydney’s area, and does she know about it?
Family is the only Star Trek The Next Generation episode Data is’t in.It’s episode 2 of season 4.