First ever Champs session is in the bag

[Tae Kwon Dan]

We came, we saw, we most likely mangled the rules, but a champs session was had this last Friday night at the casa de TKD. In an effort to get more familiar with the combat system specifically and the overall feel of the game in general I got together a majority of my group for a night of fun filled beatings on bad guys. I ended up just using the Return of the Destroyer "adventure" in the back of CU so that there could be at least a little storyline, and excuse to make skill rolls, for the evening. I had most everyone just play an NPC super for the evening since nobody has completed characters yet.

Onto the group:

Henry - My long time best friend and regular gaming buddy for close to 10 years now. He was Nighthawk for the evening since he plans on having an investigative PC. Though his PC does have actual powers.

Jesse - A friend of mine from Tae Kwon Do who has gotten to be a pretty good friend since joining our regular D&D group a little over a year ago. A big time gamer he was looking forward to a new genre\system to try out. He was given Witchcraft, who was renamed Warlock, since he's looking into maybe being a mystic or martial mystic in the future.

Bill - Friend of Jesse's that also joined our D&D group to get in on some regular gaming. Interested in HERO for the same reasons as Jesse. He played Kinetik though his actual character is going to be totally different.

Rob - My first DM and a friend from my hometown. Rob is actually an experienced HERO\Champs player via 4E so he was able to play Brutus his actual PC from a 4E game that he upgraded to 5E for my game. (Though he is considering playing a different character.)

Steve - Absent due to business travel, but a co-worker of mine that has turned into a very good friend and pretty dedicated gamer.

Since there's no point in breaking down the story too much, I'll just go to my review of the evening.

GOOD
- We got to play Champs!
- Things went fairly smoothly in combat with no real hiccups or confusion. I'm falling more and more in love with the HERO system as I play it. It really is only intimidating at first, but truly simple once you start getting it down.
- Both Bill and Henry realized that their characters needed a bit of work. Bill realized his Dex was too low for a Weapon Master type character and Henry realized his DEX, SPD, and lack of truly offensive abilities (he's creating an Entangle based character called Quagmire) were going to land him in the KO department every combat.
-A good time was had by all.

BAD
-Nothing really for a group of HERO newbies I think we did pretty well. I should have played around with the "Destroyer Droids" variable attacks some more, but live and learn.

UGLY
-Nighthawk not aborting to Dodge when the Type A droid (which is Pulsar for those that haven't flipped through the adventure) decided to quit fooling around and bring the 12d6 EB to bear. 7" of KB later he learned his lesson.
-Brutus knocking a droid through TWO walls with a 10" KB.

[Blue]

Sounds like a good time. Congratulations!

Keeping the opposition simple the first time out is the best thing to do. Next time you tweak them and the heroes perceive it as the villains "upgrading" or learning from their mistakes. Next time the villains show up with more varied attacks or some tactics specific to handling the heroes. (Assuming they heroes are similar enough next time).

[phydaux]

Once you get used to rolling for knockback, you'll wonder how you ever played RPGs without it.

[WonderStuff]

""UGLY
-Nighthawk not aborting to Dodge when the Type A droid "

Hey! This is what Experience is all about. When you give him his EXP points remind (inform) him that now his hero has learned something important will be more effective next time 'round. This can be a hard lesson to learn when you're in "GM Option Land", but the end result is probably won't make the same mistake twice.

(Always looking for the rainbow over the pot o' gold)

Sounds like your players (and you) had a good time...congratulations...not always easy to do.

WS