I thought I'd like to start a discussion thread on the sixth edition Champions Universe, to match the "what do we want" thread for the Sixth Edition HERO thread. What we'd like to see in the next edition.
My main thought is to avoid having all of the HERO products shoved into a single timeline. It's a cute idea on some levels, but it doesn't make any sense on so many other levels. I don't think there's going to many GMs who will stop all superhero origins in time for Cyber HERO. It's much better to have multiple timelines where you have a much more smoother and logical progression for the universes.
My main concept is that the CU needs to be split into two timelines, a superhero timeline and an SF timeline. The superhero timeline, ultimately would be along the lines of:
Fantasy Champions
Pulp Champions
Golden Age Champions
Silver Age Champions
[Bronze/Iron Age] Champions + Dark/Street Champions
Reneagde Champions*
Galactic Champions
Renegade Champions is desgined to cover a dystopian Champions era, along the lines of Kingdom Come, Nightmares of Future's Past, all those cyberpunkish futures where heroes are often underground or working in a brutally repressive regieme or perhaps even both. It's essentailly the superhero counterpart to Cyber HERO. In time the brutal dictatorship is overthrown and things are opened up for Galactic Champions as everyone rebuilds and humans move out into space.
Fantasy Champions covers the age of magic, from the ancient eras perhaps even back to pre-human eras all the way down to the low power age of medieval times. In practice it might be broken up into multiple sourcebooks (yeah, dream on) or might be a simple list of races and magic systems for various eras and an overall timeline. Pulp Champions would cover everything from post-medieval times up to the Golden Age. Victorian heroes (ala the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and heroes of previous eras (Zorro, the Scarlet Pimpernel, etc.).
Incidentally, this frees up the Champions universe to have a nigh infinite range of alien races instead of having to have a fairly logical list of alien races like you find in SF universes. You don't have to cover the sudden arrival and dissappearance of superheroes. The Champions universe has a long tradition of costumed heroes, at least from the Pulp Champions era on. It's easier to have the Champions universe melt down into a dystopian dictatorship and for GMs to keep their characters intact from the current campaign on, if they so choose.
Then there is the more hard SF timeline which starts out with modern espionage and proceeds along naturally through cyberpunk. Various organizations can be set up in the Danger International book which morph evolve into more sinister organizations in the cyberpunk universe and might continue evolving through the various books. Heroic rules, psionics would be the main addition, no magic. There would also be rules on tech levels and what happens when weapons from one era hit armor from another era. And there can even be a timeline to cover what tech gets introduced when so GMs can have a smooth progression between eras, or start their campaign at any point they like.
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