Champions: New Millennium

[sachmo]

First post...and I hope it isn't a stupid one. :D

I'm a relative newbie to the Champions universe. I played a few times (twice, actually) many moons ago and enjoyed the game. Recently, I decided to buy the 5th Edition rulebook and see if I could get my band of geeks into some superhero roleplaying. So i bought the 5th Edition Hero rules, and the Champions sourcebook. Today at lunch, I wander into a Wizards of the Coast store and noticed that all non-wizard products are 70% off! Squealing with delight, I peruse the Champions section and I see the Resource Kit and Champions: New Millennium. I page through the New Millennium book, and notice that it is compatable with 5th Edition rules, and so I choose it.

Reading the background story has me thirsty for more. The book tells me that this book is the first in a series of 5. The next books will add to the history of the universe, and I get the impression that this book is a compilation of a number of old Champions Universe tales. I decide to follow a link to www.herogames.com/fuzion/fuzion.html mentioned in the book to see how much the other books will cost for me to follow this interesting story. Well, it seems I can't find any mention of any follow up books, nor even the one that I own.

Does anyone know anything about this book? Do they exist for sale anywhere in the universe (well, besides Ebay?) Are they worth the trouble to track down, or is there a better place to find the history of the Champions Universe?

Thanks for the help.

[Killer Shrike]

Oops...should have bought the Resource Kit instead -- C: NM is an artifact of previous paradigm.

In fact IIRC, the '5th ed' compatibility of that product was founded on a different intended '5th ed' -- one that never materialized.

Read Chapter 7 of the big black 5th edition rules I hope you have; its the final chapter before the Index and is comprised of 3 pages only. It gives a fairly succint history of the HERO legacy including the near fatal lapse into obscurity from which Steve Long and the DOJ saved it....

[TheEmerged]

/* rolls a "9" for his Enraged check

You just got away with one :D

[sachmo]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
Oops...should have bought the Resource Kit instead -- C: NM is an artifact of previous paradigm.

In fact IIRC, the '5th ed' compatibility of that product was founded on a different intended '5th ed' -- one that never materialized.

Read Chapter 7 of the big black 5th edition rules I hope you have; its the final chapter before the Index and is comprised of 3 pages only. It gives a fairly succint history of the HERO legacy including the near fatal lapse into obscurity from which Steve Long and the DOJ saved it....

Thank you so very much. Since everything is 70% off, I may just go back and buy the resource kit, too! I can always use this book for source material.

[Syberdwarf2]

Originally posted by sachmo
Thank you so very much. Since everything is 70% off, I may just go back and buy the resource kit, too! I can always use this book for source material.

I would suggest buying up as much of the new line (anything marked "DOJHERO###" on the spine) as possible, especially considering it's at 70% off (((drooling with envy)))))....
That way, even if you want to go back and get the early stuff (assuming they have any of it besides C:NM, even if it's bought at "full price" it's still gonna be a bargain.
Old stuff makes for great source material.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by TheEmerged
/* rolls a "9" for his Enraged check

You just got away with one :D ?

[lemming]

Eh, there's some interesting stuff out of the New Millenium stuff. However, it's less compatable than 3rd & 4th edition hero.

At 70%, buy all the DOJ stuff. Well worth it. If you don't think so, you could always ebay it at a slight markup. :D

hmm, I think there's a WC store in town....

[ChaosDrgn]

Personally I use Bay City :P Any City book can be generic enough to use and Fuzion isn't THAT hard to bring over to 5th if you have an idea of the rules.

Just because something (or someone) isn't popular doesn't mean it can't be a good source.

[JmOz]

I like the NM stuff personaly (But will refraim from commenting on that which is known as Fuzion)

IIRC that is the only book of the series that got printed, while two others were printed using soley Fuzion

at 30% all are probably worth picking up to mine for story ideas

Happy gaming

[Tom McCarthy]

sachmo,

Champions: New Millennium was built, I believe, as a bridge between R Talsorian's Interlock system and HERO 4th edition. The characters and setting are interesting, the art is a very different style than HERO 4th edition (and not to everyone's taste), and thankfully, conversion to HERO 4th or 5th edition is easy.

If your local WOTC doesn't have Bay City and Alliances, they usually can be found inexpensively on places like eBay. As is typical on eBay, watch for a week or two and look at the price of closed auctions before deciding what to bid on them.

Still, Champions, Champions Universe, and Conquerors, Killers & Crooks deliver just as much bang for the buck,

[sachmo]

Thanks for all of the input, folks! I'll probably keep the book for source material. I really like the story, and I'm going back to the Wizards store to check out what they have left. I think it's just the resource kit, but for 70%, who's counting? Well, besides my wife? :P

BTW, I'm not sure if all WOTC stores are having the same sale, but the store manager did tell me that they were getting rid of all non-WOTC games and were no longer going to carry them. If that is a chain-wide decision, your local store should have the same deal.

[Killer Shrike]

It is chain wide. They are also getting rid of Warhammer.

[tiger]

Wish there was a WOTC store near me :)

[TheEmerged]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
?

Bit of a board in-joke, I once posted a writeup of myself. One of my disadvantages is Enraged (go 8-, recover 11-) when certain subjects are mentioned. C:NM is one of those subjects; by rolling a "9" I didn't go into EMERGED SMASH! mode :D

The source of this joke is that once, on the old boards, I made a complete jerk of myself on this subject.

[sachmo]

Dumb question...and I haven't read the book yet so I don't know, but here goes...

Why does C:NM make you ENRAGED? Is it the Fuzion rules? That it wasn't finished? Something else?

[TheEmerged]

The very concept, especially the setting (I disagree with the above statement that it was "interesting" by a wide margin), the Image-style presentation, the in-my-opinion horrible timing of what I consider to be a weak release...

/* rolls a "10"

...and a large number of other issues, but I'd better stop while I'm ahead :D I'm too close to this issue (and it's not the only one that can set me off) and people are certainly welcome to their opinion.

[JmOz]

The facts as I understand them follows:

Fuzion was to be Hero 5th edition, but not only did they scrap the story, they scraped the system then refered to the rules from 4th edition as being essentialy required, it was a huge mistake

they took the art and tried to imitate the "hot" comics of the day, namely Image

so anyways, in essence they ticked off almost everyone SOMEHOW,

so now people have taken there hatred over a part of it (Be it art, story, or the one I loath rules) and extend it to all parts of the project

[TheEmerged]

...and some of us hated almost every aspect of it to begin with ;)

[Space Cadet]

Wasn't there supposed to be an adventure sourcebook for C:TNM called
Champions Worldwide released sometime in the near future,
or was that project dropped? I seem to recall seeing an ad for it
in one of last year's game magazines.

Space Cadet :confused:

[lemming]

Originally posted by Space Cadet
Wasn't there supposed to be an adventure sourcebook for C:TNM called
Champions Worldwide released sometime in the near future,or was that project dropped?
Hmm, I think anything about New Millenium can be considered not to be a going concern. I think you can find elements of New Millenium in the current products which is only natural, since some of the authors worked on both.

[Steve Long]

Fuzion was to be Hero 5th edition

That's absolutely incorrect. While I suspect that the former owners would have changed my 5E manuscript to make it a lot more like Fuzion, and I know for a fact they were going to put a conversion notes section in the book, the two systems are distinct and would have remained that way.


Wasn't there supposed to be an adventure sourcebook for C:TNM called Champions Worldwide released sometime in the near future, or was that project dropped?

There was such a book. In fact, it was written; I wrote two parts of it, Tomas Skucas wrote a part, Doug Tabb wrote a part, I forget who else was involved (there were five or six parts, IIRC). But as the company slipped into general malaise and found itself unable to actually get anything published, it fell by the wayside, where it has remained. I may eventually mine my own parts of it for use in something else, but the book as a whole certainly isn't applicable to the CU.

[JmOz]

Steve has corrected my statement,

HOWEVER, I know that many gaming stores BELEIVED it was to be 5th edition (note I am refering to the 1st edition of C:NM here, not the second), now this might have been just bad communication, but at the time the internet was in it's infancy and accurate gaming information was far and inbetween for the consummer. Steve as a designer at the time would have had a better "inside track" than what I knew at the time.

To be honest, while I disagree with some things done sense DOJ has taken over, I have to say that I am impressed with the way they have kept communications high.

[lemming]

Grrr. Just checked out the WotC store in Portland. Barely anything in the Roleplaying section. All D20. blek.

[Jerry A!]

Originally posted by lemming
Grrr. Just checked out the WotC store in Portland. Barely anything in the Roleplaying section. All D20. blek.

WoTC stores are now only carrying WoTC and select D20 stuff. That's why non-WoTC stuff has been on clearance for the past few months.

[lemming]

Originally posted by Jerry A!
WoTC stores are now only carrying WoTC and select D20 stuff. That's why non-WoTC stuff has been on clearance for the past few months.
That's why I was checking it out to see if there was anything still there on sale. Still some stuff, but nothing to make a trip for.

[ChaosDrgn]

Originally posted by JmOz
HOWEVER, I know that many gaming stores BELEIVED it was to be 5th edition (note I am refering to the 1st edition of C:NM here, not the second), now this might have been just bad communication, but at the time the internet was in it's infancy and accurate gaming information was far and in between for the consummer.

Although not an insider I was on the site at that time and kept a small ear to what was going on. From people I talked to (online and real life) that was the big thing about Fuzion. The former owners said "We're coming out with 5th," Fuzion came out with a big "vol 5 #1" on it's cover and people went "This is 5th? It's not what we were promised!" and therefore raised a stink about it. This was at a time that not only was this board around but so were 2-3 Hero/Champion's egroups, an irc channel for Hero, and a good numbered websites. The problem was there wasn't all that many internet uses at the time. Out of 8 gamers only 4 of us had net access. And even then I belive me and one other person checked the site/forums ever few days to see what was going on.

I honestly think that's why Fuzion got the bad rap it did. A lot of people looked at it as a replacement for 5th and not on it's own. It's a good lesson in how not to market something. IMHO if it had come out as a core book called HeroLite, then a supplement called Champion's:NM it would've gone over a lot more with people. Also if it had been made plain in the book that it wasn't ment to be Hero 5 it would've gone better.

As I've said before. I read the rules, I own the books. To me it's a "what if champion's were written by Image?" but I'm a lil biased at that. If you look back when they were printed Image was still on top and Marvel had signed Liefield and Lee to do Heroes Reborn.