Will Dark Champions and Pulp Hero be updated for 6e?

[Joe Walsh]

I agree.

 

Dark Champions for 4th Edition was clearly (at least to me) about The Punisher and that type of vigilante comic book hero, which was gaining popularity in comics at the time. I believe it was only with 5th edition that the general action hero stuff was added.

[Burrito Boy]

Sure, we're all just having fun with "What if..." when we know it's highly unlikely any of this will come to pass.

 

You're right, it would be cool to go back to those old names for the genre books. A little less descriptive for sure, but I'm a sucker for nostalgic stuff like that.

 

May as well bring back the original art, too.

If we're playing What If...

 

What if a Pulp Hero kickstarter had decoder rings, pulp magazines, and old-time radio shows as stretch goals?

 

What if Post-Apocalyptic Hero was revised too and expanded to the same length as Pulp Hero? (It bugs me that the Tobacco Road section is only a few pages long. I want more.)

 

What if Dark Champions was renamed Off-White Champions or even Beige Champion?

[zslane]

I would probably continue to call it Dork Champions. After Vampire: the Masquerade ushered in the era of "dark roleplaying", the backlash turned to calling it "dork roleplaying," and for good reason I think.

[Checkmate]

I would probably continue to call it Dork Champions. After Vampire: the Masquerade ushered in the era of "dark roleplaying", the backlash turned to calling it "dork roleplaying," and for good reason I think.

Wow has nerd persecution been going on so long now that we feel the need to persecute nerds who aren't nerdy like us?

[Spence]

Wow has nerd persecution been going on so long now that we feel the need to persecute nerds who aren't nerdy like us?

 

I like to think of it more as the whole "dark brooding whats'it" has gone the way of zombies, vampires and werewolves.  Washed out beaten to death tropes desperately wringing out the last drops of profit by appealing to the 14 to 16 year old girl romance crowd.  

 

Dark Champions covers the grittier dark side of vigilantism, spies and crime very well, not to mention a pretty good side into mercenaries.  Lacks professional military but you can't have everything.   The title isn't bad and fits the book content if you forget current anti-hero theme associated with word "dark" right now. 

 

For me I'm used to it so I'll go with the flow.  But I understand the dislike of the angst'ty feeling that comes to mind for some.

[Lord Liaden]

Dark Champions...a truly dumb name if there ever was one

 

To be fair, at the time the Dark Champions line was first introduced, in the early 1990s, it was very much a supplement for Champions. It focused on the "street-level superhero" subgenre which was so popular at the time: Batman, Punisher, Daredevil, Spider-Man at times, and all the "heroes" of that era with "dark," "death," or "blood" in their names. Some of the heroes and villains in that line had true super-powers, but they tended to be lower-powered and lethal, as well as more real-world grim and gritty. So the name itself wasn't a bad choice for how it started. Steve Long carrying it forward to the modern-day-action genre as a whole with Fifth Edition might have been intended to preserve brand-name recognition; but a lot of us fans at the time questioned whether it was more confusing than it was worth.