Guardians of the Galaxy: Champions or Star Hero?

[Michael Hopcroft]

A quick question -- if you wanted to run a campaign based on, or inspired by, the film version of Guardians of the Galaxy, which genre set would be a better fit -- Champions or Star Hero?

 

Points for Champions: the core group of the Guardians have some pretty impressive abilities physically, mentally, or technologically. If you're building characters like them, you might want to build them as supers.

 

Points for Star Hero: the Guardians live in an expansive universe. The technology, though impressive, is about par for the civilized part of their galaxy (though it's supertech by earth standards, it would hardly raise an eyebrow in Nova Prime). The characters who are not technologically augmented, while powerful, are about as powerful as someone of their species would be expected to be if they were experienced adventurers or had trained extensively.

 

It's not so much a question of building characters in that setting -- it's pretty clear that these characters would be built using the Supers rules and pay character points for their main equipment and cybernetics. The question, rather, is one of tone. Do you necessarily want to center your game on dealing with powerful people like Ronan the Accuser, or would you rather deal with a charming-but-deadly scoundrel like Yondu as your antagonist? Would you set out to protect civilization, or would you rather stumble into heroism while simply trying to make a buck? Would you prefer your game cosmic or comical?

[csyphrett]

Either would fit, Mike, but the tone of the game doesn't depend on the rules. It depends on the players and gm. No matter what rule set you use, if the players take the game into dealing with crazy threats with what they have, then that's what happens.

CES  

[Lord Liaden]

I think you pretty much laid it out, Michael -- Guardians is neither pure space-opera nor pure four-color supers. Thankfully, if you play HERO you don't have to choose.

[zslane]

If you ignore the fact that the Guardians began as a comic book from a superhero comic book company, it is clear they are straight up space opera. Even the movie was meant to be experienced as space opera rather than as an extension of The Avengers stuff. And if you keep supers with tights out of a Guardians campaign, it can remain space opera through and through. If you marry the core Hero system rules with (space opera) genre advice from Star Hero, you should be good to go. I don't see any particular need to pull out Champions.

[Christopher]

I would say they are clearly on ther superheroic point level. Together they were powerfull enough to beat an infinity stone. Like the Tessaract and the Eether. A clear Superhero level threath.

They did tone it down a bit, like making the Nova-Corp a lot less green-laterny (not an army of supers).

But the sheer amounts of mooks they overcame on a regular basis puts the main characters clearly in the superheroic level.

 

In the same breath they are clearly not 4 color superheroes. The final scene is designed to remind us of that fact.

 

So a space opera with superheroic point levels and freedom of character design (3/5 were one of a kind or the last of thier kind).

[WistfulD]

My rule for such situations is this: The PCs are sneaking behind enemy lines (whatever that means), and find out about a big going-down (Infinity stone is going to destroy the galaxy, death star id going to blow up the rebels). The PCs are powerful, but don't really have any way of going toe-to-toe with the problem, so they hijack an enemy spaceship. If the first thing they do is find out what the ship's stats and capabilites are, it's Star Hero. If the first thing they decide whether to go for help or to do some reckless gambit, then it is Champion. Star hero cares what type of spaceship it is. Chapion cares that it is a spaceship and can get the heroes to where the action is.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I think it falls more under space opera category, but either would work.

[TheQuestionMan]

Groot and Drax both resisted Space Weapons.

[QuietusEmissary]

I'm actually currently running a campaign based on Guardians and I went for Heroic but with higher starting points--225, in this case, but if I were to do it again I'd probably go for 275 or maybe even 300. The players even decided they wanted to start in space-prison. I like Heroic for it partly because it makes the stuff they find in space valuable to them. They'll come upon a new weapon or gizmo and it's nice for them to be able to just pick it up and use it. That's a big part of space opera to me, and I don't think they'd be as happy if I charged them points for it. And they definitely follow WistfulD's guideline of caring (quite a lot) about what their ship can do, which is part of the fun of space opera, at least for my group. So in that respect, I think the genre is far better served by the Heroic rules.

 

The characters who seem to fit best in space opera campaigns also don't seem very Superheroic; although most of them have powers to represent alien biology and/or technological augmentation, that isn't generally the focus of the characters, and definitely isn't in my group. One of my players is running a psion (to use the D&D term for psychic wizard) and one has natural weapons due to his species, but the rest mostly use weapons and skills with the powers more for flavorful or situational abilities, which is a hallmark of Heroic campaigns, according to the book (6E1 29). Another way of looking at it is that the players are defining their characters more based on who they are than what they are. The natural weapons-user is an escaped gladiatorial pit fighter with extensive combat training, the fish-man is a thief, the cyborg is an ex-military pilot turned smuggler, the unaugmented humans are a hacker with mild telepathic abilities and an escaped slave from an alien empire. In all cases except for the slave (she's the psion), the players devoted most of their points to the skills and talents that represent their previous jobs: the cyborg, for instance, spent his points mostly on Transport Familiarities and the skills he would need to be a good pilot and smuggler. The stuff that represents his augmentations--a voice modulator, enhanced strength and durability, and wireless connectivity through his braaaaaaaaaaaain--are all fairly minor in comparison, in terms of both game impact and points cost.

 

This is also a group that enjoys the "grittier" rules of Heroic-tier games: hit locations, blood loss, disabling wounds, that kind of thing. So while that part may not be as universal as wanting phat lootz without paying points, I feel it bears mentioning.

[WistfulD]

Implying what, exactly? That sounds like something that could happen in either Superman or in Lensman

 

Groot and Drax both resisted Space Weapons.

[bubba smith]

space opera

[Agent X]

Starlin had a thing for Super Space Opera. Might check out Dreadstar and DC's alien Starman. Could also look at the old Micronauts Comics for ideas. I wouldn't worry about a label. Build the characters the way they need to be built and design commensurate challenges.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Micronauts!

 

Those were my favorite toys as a kid. they were so aesome...

[zslane]

Implying what, exactly? That sounds like something that could happen in either Superman or in Lensman

My thoughts exactly.

[BlueCloud2k2]

Don't you know that GotG is just a Star HERO game played by the Avengers?