R_Chance's page

I'd suggest either the Mongoose Publishing edition of Traveller or Stars Without Number from Sin Nomine. Traveller is the classic sci fi rpg originally created by Game Designers Workshop that has gone through multiple editions / publishers. Stars Without Number is an OSR sci fi rpg with plenty of support. Both can be found on Drivethrough RPG (and on Paizo's store) as well as in dead tree form. More crunch in Trvaeller less in SWN but both fall, imho, into the range you mentioned. SWN has great support for sandbox style play.

Mark Seifter wrote:

I've removed a series of posts. Please don't advocate piracy, make personal attacks, use analogies to trivialize spousal abuse, use autism or learning disabilities as an insult, or marginalize rape by joking about it.

Wow, just wow.

That's what I thought. In one thread over a fairly short period...

"Hob" in Welsh is hearth iirc. Putting hobgoblins in their with Brownies. And Puck was described as a hobgoblin. It's been awhile since I putzed around with the etymology of monster names though...

An M1 Abrams tank could be used for my daily commute (they get about 0.6 mpg). That doesn't mean it's the best choice.

In the event of traffic jams it might just be perfect... ahem. Just thinking of my last trip down to LA :)

We used to play Napoleonic and medieval miniatures in the early 70s. Added D&D in 74. "Grognard" has never been a negative term around here. Well, except when I have by British or Austro-Humgarian troops on the table...

1974. Summer. July. One of my friends picked up a copy of D&D. Described it as "like the Chainmail fantasy appendix" (which we were already playing in miniatures). Great I thought. Played it, and it was better than that. YOU were in the game. Hooked immediately. By August me and my brother had our own copy. *sigh* So much time to play with... I'm surprised I graduated from high school :)

Forgot, but you can get the Stars Without Number: Free Edition pdf on Drivethru RPG. For free, obviously. They have the free Mandate Archives PDFs as well, there are several of those. Another Sci Fi RPG, but not so simple, would be Mongoose version of Traveller. If you like older versions of Traveller, those are available as CDs, typically one per version (Classic, MegaTraveller, TNE, T4, T20 and the new Traveller 5) from Far Future Enterprises. Traveller, as much as I love it, is not simple. Especially T5. SWN has stayed fairly straight forward. Anyway, although SWN and Traveller have background settings they can be played without setting specific material. Other setting agnostic systems that I know / have are largely out of print.

Stars Without Number. It's OGL, class based (standard 3 classes) and sandbox. Think of an OGL Traveller. Starships, etc. There are a number of supplements, free material and another related game called Otherdust (think a gritty nanite based Gammaworld). It's very well done.

Greylurker wrote:

Season 2 seems to have gotten the go ahead only they are calling it a Sequel instead of a new season.

The distinction could leave them open to go a whole lot of different directions with it.

I came here to say that and post this.

Excellent! I, literally, just finished the last episode, logged on to check the boards before bed, and bingo, news that there's more to come. Life can surprise pleasantly on occasion.

Friend seen it. Says it is not. :( That makes Hama sad.

Too bad, that would have been symmetry. Any way, there's a new Star Trek RPG announced by Modiphius using their 2d20 system. Called Star trek Adventures, it covers everything but the new movies with a summer 2017 release. Should be interesting. I'll probably wait a week before seeing Beyond; it's opening weekend tomorrow and it'll probably be crowded. Well, no probably, it will be crowded...

I think a lot of people didn't notice the high barrier to entry for Pathfinder because they were already playing 3.5 and it was an easy transition. Unless you were new of course. It's easier to see looking back from 5E because of it's relative simplicity.

If you want a simple fast D&Desque science fiction RPG try Stars Without Number. It's an OGL (and OSR) game with great sandbox support and scratches that Traveller itch rather well. There are a number of supplements for it and a related (and compatible) Gamma World type game / setting called Otherdust. Mutation by nanites for that old school mutant feeling. They are both excellent and there are a number of free products (PDF) by the author that can add to your game. Really good stuff imho.

Several people up-thread have mentioned variations on "How do they know you're really a Paladin?". Probably because the real Paladins are going to cut you into little pieces if you're not... I doubt fake Paladins are going to get off easy. So, for awhile you fake it, word gets around and your head leaves your shoulders. And the next would be fake "paladin" considers a new scam.

I think what DigitalElf is saying is that in the old days you explored the setting, discovered the fantastical. Your character was relatively mundane, the anchor, your point of view and the really cool stuff was what you found / discovered. Now people want to *be* the cool / strange stuff (stranger than a wizard?) rather than finding it. It's like the game has moved from exploring the world to exploring your character. I still prefer exploring the world myself.

No. Personally, I believe NPC classes are contrary to the spirit of 5E. The game seems to take a conscious step back from that level of simulation (and imo is better for it).

I moved into D&D from miniature wargaming (Chainmail). For us, there was always a degree of "simulation" in the game world. NPC classes (and PC classes for that matter) were a convenient way to organize and rationalize this world.

I started in wargames (miniatures and board) and picked up playing D&D in 1974. I've said this before, as have others here, we didn't have backstories. The characters story was written in game. Partly it was a lack of information about the character. You had a vague idea about your fighter, he was a knight or a barbarian or a Viking or a hardened mercenary. You filled in the blanks while playing. Role playing came with knowledge of your character and his fellow adventurers. That took survival. Low level characters often had little detail to them. The character who made it to 4th or 6th level (or higher) became more "real". You had deeper story driven games with those higher level characters. My game, then and now, has a sandbox adventure area (dungeon, caverns, dark forest, etc.) where characters gain their first few levels. Players develop their characters ... character (as it were) on adventures and in town between them. As they go up in level (and have spent more time in the setting) they get more involved with the local NPCs, make friends and enemies, and do things beyond simple adventures. They wind up hip deep in a story driven game at that point. That's always worked for me (and my players).

This has always seemed fairly reasonable to me. I developed background generation systems DMing to give players a bit more information about their characters. They didn't do it, so I made up tables based on class and race. I still use them (players are free to roll or choose, always were. Nationality was also a table (or choose your own). You rolled characteristics, chose race, chose class, rolled / picked nationality and social background (tables based on class). I had to push this onto players who wouldn't have worried about how they fit into the setting. Not exactly a problem anymore :)

Personally I don't think it needs to get deeper than that for a new PC (although players are free to develop more). Fresh off the farm / manor house / squalid shanty / magical collegium characters probably don't have huge complex stories attached to them. Mostly anyway. They're beginners. Competent (hopefully), promising (maybe), inexperienced (definitely). They build that big story in game.

To me, that's old school. Ymmv, and I suspect does for pretty much everybody.

Well, I can't really say that's "equivalent". I mean, it's nice. But it's two books. The PFSRD is 60+ books plus all rules, feats, NPCs and monsters from every module and AP, all lavishly hyperlinked to each other, and the whole thing regularly updated by a devoted fanbase. This is not really in the same class.

Doug M.

There's not that much 5E material yet. The two basic books and the Unearthed Arcana free articles are a good start though. There have been a half dozen (? 7 now) or so UA articles.

WotC hasn't finalized a license for 5E, so no equivalent to the PFSRD or SRD yet. And you won't get that until (and if) they settle licensing issues and determine what (if anything) is "open content". A lot of the current 3PP material is produced using the existing OGL. Except the WotC hardbacks produced by partners...

Personally I'm fine with the lack of material. It's not difficult to create / adapt things for 5E and I enjoy doing it myself.

That's why you should have bought a PS4. ;)

You meant PC right? :)

Ogre is a great game. Just tell them to read Keith Laumer's Bolo books. In one the Bolo is referred to as a "troll" by post apocalyptic humans. Hence the game "Ogre".

A lot said about "old school" that I remember, some, not so much. Games differed. A couple of things I recall though and haven't seen too much on in this thread...

It wasn't about the PCs progression, it was about exploring a world. It could be a dungeon / nearby village or a massive city and huge setting but what was around the bend was important and unknown. And exciting. Exploration. And mapping it yourself :)

And character "story / backstory" really was written in game not pre game. What was important was what happened with your friends. That's where the stories were.

Campaigns weren't meant to go "1-20", they just went. Until they didn't.

Our games were sandbox, very little overarching save the world type stories. Possibly because getting to high level took forever without a "Monty Haul" DM :) Players set their goals in the world and the DM expanded his game to accommodate the players direction.

I run the same homebrew campaign today that I started with in original D&D. It's changed edition by edition (except 4th - I stuck with 3.5 and then PF). I'm not sure if it's really "old school" or "new". I'm immersed in it, it's built a history and mythology for itself. The adventures practically write themselves (and I have recycled material on occasion). And it saves me from spending a small fortune on adventure paths :D

It is representative of my deep and abiding love of kittens.

And how did you like them? Baked, fried, barbecued, kabobs... raw? Or was it in soup? Maybe as incense? :D

Bump. K6BD is on hiatus right now so it's a great time to catch up. White Chain is very good.

And I think I'll do just that...

Did I miss some postings or has anyone outside of DrDeth said anything about being an "OG"? I mean, I've seen people saying I've played since X years or Y box, but no one saying that they mowed Gygax's yard and was rewarded by him GMing a game for them, or having claimed to have written something for Chainmail.

I assumed "original gamer" was just another term for old timer myself. I started in 1974 but I wouldn't consider myself an "OG" in the sense of being in some kind of inner circle or being published, just an "old geezer" (I'm 56). OG in that sense would be a literal handful of people. We played Chainmail (both straight medieval and fantasy) and transitioned into D&D. No contact with GG and company other than buying the game from the FLGS...

I think generalization is a problem. About players. I've played D&D since 1974. Every version except 4E (I read it and decided to stick with 3.5), and, of course, Pathfinder. Among many other games. I manage to talk about it without, I think, being too annoying. There are grumpy, argumentative, dogmatic players of every age, play style and level of experience around here. Still not as many as on other sites I know.

Yeah, just level them up. Missing a session is punishment enough. No need to punish them further by making them struggle at below the average party level. Just level the playing field and everyone is happy. :-)

Some people actually want to play their characters through without being "boosted up". Check with the PC. If they don't want to start at the higher level look at the situation. If the difference is too great talk to the player and start them at a minimum level for survival. If their party has any brains they'll cover for them.

Of course I run a sandbox game (always have) and that makes a difference. I have adventure threads in the game, but if the players are careful they can manage a level difference. If you're running an AP that might be difficult. I can't say for sure (not running APs myself), but logically when you have an adventure requiring players be level "X" for threat "Y" that would seem to be the case...

Seen and enjoyed. The critics complaints that it's tied to other Terminator movies / scenes and is "derivative" is misplaced. That's the point. Seeing the familiar and then having it play out differently is part of the fun.

I download my files, unzip them, rename the PDFs, drop them into organizational folders and put a copy on an external hard drive in case my laptop hard drive crashes. It's simple and not that time consuming. In short the present system works fine for me. I have zero interest in using cloud storage for proprietary files of any type or for any files I need access to at will. On the other hand I have no problem with other people having that option as long as I do not have to use it.

Terquem wrote:

Now we get stuck with adds when all we want to do is read a decent on line magazine

Thanks, Drizzt!

I don't want to read online magazine.

Once you download it, it's not online. It's just not paper. I miss the old days too. I have every issue of The Dragon / Dragon from #3 on (before it went out of print and turned 4E) and most of it's predecessor the Strategic Review. I wasn't all that impressed with the first couple of TD issues although the last Strategic Review was great. I've seen a half dozen other masgazines come and go as well. And I currently collect dead tree and pdf versions of Gygax magazine. Print magazines with an audience as niche as RPGs are not really profitable. Dragon+ (may) work because once it's done the only cost is bandwidth and it's an advertising tool. Some content swapped for you being targeted by ads which, after all, are for a product you are interested in and may very well spend money on. It's a pretty good strategy.

LazarX wrote:

Unless you're trying to get brownie points with the Slashdot crowd, or get some use out of a computer that's a bit long in the tooth to run current Mac/Windows OS. there isn't a real compelling reason to run Linux as anything other than a dedicated server implementation such as a Plex media station for example.

I can think of at lea$t one very real compelling rea$on to run Linux in$stead of Mac/Window$ O$.

Depends on how much your time is worth. I used to build my own rigs too, but my last couple of gaming laptops (including the one I'm typing this on) have been Sager (or before that Alienware desktops). I don't know the current status of Linux, but it used to take a lot of putzing around with it. Or a dual boot. And then you find yourself spending most of your time in Windows. I know they were trying to reduce the amount of annoying that went with Linux. It was fun when I had the time though...

I'm running Linux. And Win7 at work.
I might be able to get it to run under wine, but I probably won't bother just to check it out.

When it would have been cheaper and easier to make it in some ebook format that anything can work with.

I haven't run Linux since before Win 7 myself. I skipped 8 / 8.1. Win 10 is looking very good however...

I think they are trying to reach as wide an audience as possible with Dragon+. They are starting with an app aimed at phones / tablets (ios or android). They are, apparently, planning on expanding to PC and Mac. They wanted to minimize their format issues (hence an app to present the content and make "subscriptions" possible. The subscription relieves people of the minimal effort required to otherwise find / download each issue. It ensures the maximum audience for Dragon+. Given that it is free, and essentially ad supported, they want to maximize their audience. The ads are essentially targeted at their audience as it is...

Kthulhu wrote:

R_Chance wrote:

So, you get free content and advertisement for other D&D related material that does cost.

So like any other magazine. Except free. And electronic.

You know, I'm pretty sure Dragon has always had ads. Even with that company with the golem logo was publishing it.

And, at least for the moment, only on the Iphone (or other I devices)

I can't comment on it because I can't read it.

You're giving it away for free. Put it up on the web where I can get at it.

It's up for ios now, soon for Android with PC coming later. Based on information about Win 10 it should be a simple port to it. Once you have the application it's dead simple to get the magazine. Just subscribe for free and you're good to go. There are a number of emulators that allow you to run Android apps on a Win PC for that matter (i.e. Bluestacks). I have an ASUS tablet I should update and dust off for that matter. I find phone screens too small for a good read.

Steve Geddes wrote:

It's probably on mine, somewhere. :)

What I meant is that I wonder if they now require you to advise "in app purchases", even if it's free. As I say - I subscribed and there was no mention of a cost.

Perhaps, being more cynical, there's going to be a period of no cost so people get in the habit of checking it and then they'll introduce a nominal charge per issue "to meet costs we've been covering up until now".

I would say that the subscribe option means you will receive the mags which you will then have to pay a fee to get full access to each issue.

According to them: "Dragon+ is indeed free, and our plan is to keep it that way... Yes, the content will be free but there are ads that point to our products and partner products."

So, you get free content and advertisement for other D&D related material that does cost.

The quote is off an article on EN World about Dragon+. From WotC.

Additionally (to ios and Android) there are plans for a PC / Windows version as well. Should be made simpler by Windows 10. It will apparently be dead simple for developers to port their code to Windows 10 from ios or Android. And anything that runs on Win 10 will run across the whole spectrum of Windows devices from phones to tablets to PCs. Good thing, I'm not a fan of reading on tiny screens...

The news on apps came out of Microsoft's Build developers conference btw. The long term plan for a Windows / PC version is from WotC.

Hmmm... I'm over 50 (56), started playing miniatures and board wargames in the 1960s (Napoleonics included), Chainmail in 1971, D&D from 1974 on, beard, ah d@mn it. My beard is silver, brown and red. Looks like a cat that was run over by a car. I shave as a result. And I'm not an @ssh@t who hates "new" games. *sigh* Grognard status was so close... I could grow the beard (even if it meant scaring animals and small children) but I'm not sure I can be grumpy enough and dismissive of other peoples gaming likes / dislikes... and I even like some new games. And some old games too. Oh well.

*edit* Cheetos and Mountain Dew, check. Well, Diet 7-Up now... still, the beard and the lack of attitude... *sigh*

RPGPundit is already frothing at the mouth from the news.

I doubt anybody who would play Blue Rose will care :) I liked the original game (and True 20); I'm not all that interested in AGE but it might be nice to see how they adapted the concepts of Blue Rose to that system.

R_Chance wrote:

I don't disagree that PDFs / e-book options are increasingly important in the niche market that is TTRPGs, but the degree is questionable. One problem / barrier that TTRPGs have in all their forms is "reading". Having to read them is a problem for many. If you want popular games look at video / computer games. Minimal time reading vs. playing...

You are absolutely correct: I can really only speak for myself. Lack of digital support in 5E is a deal-killer for me.

I also happen to believe that the way PDFs were handled in 2009 hurt 4E and generated a lot of ill-will, but I can't prove that. I can say with certainty that it pissed *me* off. :)

I have no doubt about you knowing yourself :) Personally I hope they have PDFs (or some reasonable alternative E-book solution) available. They are not a deal breaker for me, but they are a convenience that I'd like to have available. WotC has been quite adept at pissing off it's fans. Hopefully they give that a rest for awhile...

R_Chance wrote:

Without considering the whole consumer base and their buying habits (and we don't have access to that information) a discussion of marketing strategy / success is pretty much hypothetical...

This is not hypothetical. This is a sea change in how written content is marketed, sold, and consumed. Not having an e-book option in 2015 is foolish. In 2025, it will be a death sentence. I sincerely hope they wise up, but I've been saying that since the great PDF debacle of 2010.

I don't disagree that PDFs / e-book options are increasingly important in the niche market that is TTRPGs, but the degree is questionable. One problem / barrier that TTRPGs have in all their forms is "reading". Having to read them is a problem for many. If you want popular games look at video / computer games. Minimal time reading vs. playing...

bugleyman wrote:

On the two occasions that I've played it, I found D&D 5E to be a good -- no, great -- game. But until WotC sells PDFs and offers reasonable licensing (which is the gate-keeper for all kinds of support), the quality of the game itself is beside the point -- it simply isn't a realistic option for me.

Thankfully, though it will be personally painful to watch WotC torpedo ANOTHER edition of D&D, the industry will survive. The economics of e-books all but guarantees that much.

Do you think you're representative of the entire market, though?

I understand that "no PDF = no buy in" for you, but does that necessarily mean that they're doomed to fail (presuming their goal is purely to keep a foot in the door, not to dominate the TTRPG market)?

PDFs don't matter that much to me. They are a convenience and there are items that are PDF only but I like my dead tree copies. Adventures are another thing I can do without completely. I do my own. I am on the old side of gaming demographics (56) and I started playing early (1974). So I'm probably not typical of current gamers, but then neither are posters on message boards. I doubt more than a minority of gamers post on the boards anywhere. I suspect most people buy brick and mortar (hobby or book stores) or order through Amazon (or B&N etc.). Without considering the whole consumer base and their buying habits (and we don't have access to that information) a discussion of marketing strategy / success is pretty much hypothetical...

An interview at MMPRPG.com about the game. Again it's Dan Tudge for N Soft being interviewed. He draws close parallels to NWN... a lot of the same info as above, but for what it's worth:

Interview

Sounds good all in all.

The core design team is 8. In a recent post on EN World about 24 other people were named who are involved with D&D in other ways (art, R&D, layout, play testing, data etc.). While they may not be core designers they contribute as have a number of freelancers. So, not as small as some fear, not as large as some hoped for. We'll see how it goes. Myself, I don't buy adventures. Core books and some other material if it looks interesting. And free downloads with ideas are nice :)

D&D Team

Damnit, I want realism in my game where I can mumble jibberish, move my hands thus-ly, and throw bat poop at people until it turns into a ball of flame!

Let's see... why not have no rules? Or none that reflect reality even vaguely? This makes as much sense as the magic eliminates any grounding in reality argument.

Magic has always been allowed to trump reality. Much of the rest of the rules establish a reality that is somewhat... realistic. It's the grounding for verisimilitude in the game. Magic is allowed to be magical because we have no reality to base it on. The rest is based, to a greater or lesser extent, on reality. It also saves you having to figure out how everything works. It works like real life.

The question is how much realism you need vs. magic stuff. That varies with different people. So why don't you play nicely with each other? Neither will get the last word or be "right". And since you've all done this dance before you should know it :)

Class redesigns are all well and good, but what is known about this new action system? That is far and away the most exciting thing on the list.

I just scanned the thread and couldn't find much beyond a reference to "totally messing with the action economy".

So, is there anyone who's been following this closely that can drop some wisdom from a podcast or something? Or is everyone just blinded by the sexiness of class updates?

SKR posted an action point system they tried out in a Pathfinder session in information on his 5 Moons RPG. Maybe it's based on something similar. This is a link to the Blog post outlining the PF play test system he tried out in 2013. No clue if it's remotely similar btw, but it can't hurt to see what he was trying out...

Link to Five Moons RPG website

Hmm... I messed up the link, but the address is above. And I had to hunt through his blog posts on RPGs to find it. *sigh*

strayshift wrote:

All over version 5 is D&D Dumbed Down (AD&D,D,D.) and whilst fine for a one off game or players who just want to play a 'simple system' it will eventually have to become more sophisticated to appeal to a lot of older players in the long run (although I suspect it is aiming for a 'new crowd' which is fine).

Hmmm...I'm an "older player" (age 42, began playing D&D in 1981) and I prefer the simplicity of 5E to 3.X/PF. 5E is closer to B/X and 1E in terms of options and complexity which is what I prefer. It still has a LOT of "new" stuff I don't like (spammable cantrips and non-magical healing are two examples) but I still would actually be willing to play it. I will not play 3.X/PF/4E.

I'd be willing to bet that there is a large group of players like myself (late 30's and older) who prefer 5E's simpler game to the complex "building game" of 3.X/PF/4E.

Another older player here. I started playing D&D in 1974. I'm 56 :) 5E is looking pretty good. For me, it's about the world and the adventure, not the perfect character build.

Freehold DM wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

As far as SJWs are concerned, Asian people are just white people from a different part of the world.

Makes it easier to explain why they're totally not an inconsistency in their whole oppression narrative.

there are plenty of white people who prop up Asians as a model minority and put them into the spotlight as such, especially in tv. Green Hornet was possibly the best example.

Asians are not a minority, but multiple minorities. Asia does stretch from the Urals, Dardanelles, and Suez Canal in the West all the way to the Pacific Ocean and Bering Straight in the East. There are a lot of ethnicities and races in-between.

And you can say the same thing about Europeans / whites, Africans / blacks, etc. We all tend to be lumped into some larger grouping...

DM control is generally only a problem if your DM is an jerk. If he is, find another DM, because no matter what you can craft / acquire, the DM can always outgun you. If he's a jerk. If he's not, no problem. My 2 cp.

Digitalelf wrote:

Marroar Gellantara wrote:

But yeah, RAW. Spells have no rule making them the action of their type. Fireball isn't a fire action. Casting acid splash doesn't turn me into an ooze.

But those spells do not have [fire] or [ooze] tags associated with them, but Infernal Healing does have a tag associated with it.

Fireball does have the [fire] tag...

So how do you justify fireball not being a fire action when infernal healing is an evil action?

Because "Fire" is not an alignment? Some of the tags on spells are alignment related. Not all of them...

It was 1974. We were all new to the game, but then so was pretty much everybody else who didn't live in Lake Geneva :) We had been playing miniatures for years, including Chainmail and using the fantasy supplement in Chainmail. It was a natural transition.

bugleyman wrote:

lorenlord wrote:

But like many of you, I wish and hope that they get a bigger digital presence out there.

Unless and until they do, 5E is dead to me.

New drinking game - every time Bugleyman posts about this, take a shot!

:)

What distillery do you have stock in? :D

Tarantula wrote:

gamer-printer wrote:

Chengar Qordath wrote:

Truth. It's like people think this is supposed to be a fun game instead of "Realistic Fantasy Simulator 2015."

Why is it that "Realistic Fantasy Simulator 2015" = this would not be fun to play. I don't get this notion at all. Perhaps trying to make PF equivalent to that isn't the preferred game, but why would it be "unfun" if it were? I don't see standard PF as the only fun way to play it.

Realistic simulator wouldn't be fun because of the amount of houserules that would have to be applied to get rules for everything. Basically, pathfinder is not a "realistic" game, and so making it one changes the character of the game to a point of not being recognizable as pathfinder any more.

Yeah, I find the sheer amount of rules bloat involved in making the game "realistic" rapidly becomes problematic. Not to mention that in my (anecdotal and limited) experience, most people trying to make the game realistic do it through fairly arbitrary and slapdash rules that often don't actually make the game any more realistic anyway.

Rules bloat? Looking at a couple of shelves of 3.x and PF stuff... I wouldn't say anything added to that is "bloat". Rules "different" maybe... and that's OK. Given the variety of d20 based games variations that have branched off of the tree (including PF) I'm not sure why anyone worries about bloat. Game systems get stretched in different directions to accommodate different ideas and themes. If they get stretched too far from the base, "ding" new game. Not a problem really.

Chris Mortika wrote:

Lord Fyre, I presume that ** spoiler omitted **

It will be interesting to see how the bad guys align against Our Team.

Not only that, but you could clearly see that the handcuffs were put on very loosely, not tightened at all. Clearly the whole thing was planned to go down like that... but by whom? Coulson?

Ward cleared his mind and focused before slipping out of the cuffs. They were not especially loose. Cuffs are not supposed to cut off circulation, or be perfectly snug around a wrist. They are not form fitting (ties are better in some ways) nor are they torture devices intended to inflict injury or pain. They are supposed to be tight enough to prevent (normal) prisoners from slipping them off. They made the fatal error of assuming Ward was normal. Ward dislocated his thumbs to slip the cuffs. Muscular dislocation (and relocation) is difficult and painful. And a fairly esoteric skill. Ninja used it to escape bonds, slip through narrow spaces etc. by dislocating various joints and "popping" them back in afterwards. That appeared to be what Ward did.

Fabius Maximus wrote:

Laurefindel wrote:

That was the case with Firefly. The Train Job was a good episode but a poor pilot IMO.

'The Train Job' wasn't Firefly's pilot. It's the second episode. I agree that it would be a bad pilot. The real, feature length pilot is called 'Serenity' (like the movie) and sets up the characters nicely.

My point exactly; the actual pilot, serenity was aired after The Train Job which effectively acted as the "revised" pilot. Something about the network people thinking serenity was too slow paced or something, and so The Train Job was commissioned instead.

The episodes of Firefly were played out of order by Fox. Whedon moved Buffy off Fox (which was moving it around to support other shows) and bad things happened to Firefly. A lot of people suspected malicious intent. Myself, I don't ascribe malicious intent to what can be more simply explained by stupidity. But that's just me...

Luke may be "the best bush pilot in the outer rim territories," but a lot of that is because of The Force. Wedge is raw, natural talent. Best pilot in the galaxy, hands down.

I'd bet on Han Solo myself :)