Champions Abroad

[steriaca]

3 hours ago, Sailboat said:

How about Champions of the Pacific Rim?  You could consider Japan in or out of that definition depending on the amount of material you have.  But pick up Indonesia, Micronesia, Polynesian culture, New Zealand, New Guinea, Sumatra-Borneo, Java, Krakatoa, sharks, garbage patch (ok that's in the middle), maybe China, Singapore, those sorts of things.  All sorts of thing for heroes t concern themselves with -- storms, smuggling, piracy, human trafficking, poaching, Easter Island, maybe a Space X splashdown gone wrong, and so on.  It's underused as a locale, despite being the biggest one on Earth.

I proposed Champions of the Rising Sun  for the pure Japanese based book. It is a natural choice, considering Japan's comic book (manga) industry. Just like Champions of the North celebrate Canadian comic books (and United States comic books with Canadian origins *cough* Alpha Flight *cough*) and Kingdom of Champions  celebrates the comic book culture of the United Kingdom and Great Britain. 

 

What comic book culture does the Pacific Rim has, beyond Japan itself? Really. I'm serious here. Japan deserves more than a few pages in an aisan water area book because they have a rich comic book culture. China has a "we have a few we copy from Japan with our own style of writing we are use to", same as South Korea. But do they have enough material to form a book?

[Grailknight]

On 5/3/2021 at 5:29 PM, steriaca said:

I proposed Champions of the Rising Sun  for the pure Japanese based book. It is a natural choice, considering Japan's comic book (manga) industry. Just like Champions of the North celebrate Canadian comic books (and United States comic books with Canadian origins *cough* Alpha Flight *cough*) and Kingdom of Champions  celebrates the comic book culture of the United Kingdom and Great Britain. 

 

What comic book culture does the Pacific Rim has, beyond Japan itself? Really. I'm serious here. Japan deserves more than a few pages in an aisan water area book because they have a rich comic book culture. China has a "we have a few we copy from Japan with our own style of writing we are use to", same as South Korea. But do they have enough material to form a book?

 

The Philippines have a rich comic dating back almost a century. And there are plenty of locations and cultures in the area. so maybe 50% of the book is Japan, 30% is Australia/New Zealand, 10% is the rest of the Pacific and another 10% is given over to purely fictional projects in Antarctica. Mainland East Asia is what needs a separate book.

[steriaca]

1 hour ago, Grailknight said:

 

The Philippines have a rich comic dating back almost a century. And there are plenty of locations and cultures in the area. so maybe 50% of the book is Japan, 30% is Australia/New Zealand, 10% is the rest of the Pacific and another 10% is given over to purely fictional projects in Antarctica. Mainland East Asia is what needs a separate book.

I understand where your coming from, but I believe there is enough information, both real life and in the Champions Universe, for Japan to have the entire book to itself. Champions of the Pacific Rim needs to get along without Japan.

 

We have a rich history to tell.

Talks about the business world, the entertainment world, the fashion world, the school world, the martial world, the mystical world, etc.

The superheroes of Japan.

The notable supervillains of Japan.

 

And that is just book 1. Book 2 is an Enimies book detailing villains who only got a quick mention in book 1.

[Hermit]

On 4/2/2021 at 4:25 PM, death tribble said:

Champions Texas

Champions Yorkshire

 

Neither place considers themselves part of the whole of the mother country and indeed consider themselves the only true representation of the country

 

Honestly, love it or hate it, Texas is so bleeping huge (The state is so large that El Paso, Texas is closer to San Diego, California than it is to Houston, Texas), with plenty of big cities  and diverse terrain that a Lonestar Champions (Champions of Texas) book would work just fine with lot of material. Major financial centers, NASA in Houston for alien hooks, crime going both ways across the border, and yes, the old west clichés that could be adapted ("What do you mean VIPER is robbing a train???") for fun.

 

On the other hand, it has no James Herriot.. so a win for Yorkshire

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Online regional Champions books certainly have a place, I mean you could do Welsh Champions if you wanted to.  Steve Long has been rolling out fictional regions like this for the Champions Universe a while now.

[LordNightmare]

Peach State Champions could be fun thanks to Atlanta being the hub of the Southeast and one of the busiest cities in the US. VIPER would definitely want to control it, Trismegistus Council needs some form of control since there's a major ley line that runs directly through Atlanta and Savannah, Little Five Points is basically a perfect space for some crazy adventures to start thanks to the hodgepodge of various nicknack shops that can hold memorabilia from old villains, the High Museum of Art gets an exhibit from the Turakian Age, ANN Building gets taken over by a mentalist who's found out how to enslave people with the mere sound of his voice, Foxbat decides to hold the Fox Theater hostage until the actors inside produce and perform a play modeled after his life!

[archer]

7 hours ago, Hermit said:

 

Honestly, love it or hate it, Texas is so bleeping huge (The state is so large that El Paso, Texas is closer to San Diego, California than it is to Houston, Texas), with plenty of big cities  and diverse terrain that a Lonestar Champions (Champions of Texas) book would work just fine with lot of material. Major financial centers, NASA in Houston for alien hooks, crime going both ways across the border, and yes, the old west clichés that could be adapted ("What do you mean VIPER is robbing a train???") for fun.

 

 

I had a friend a couple of decades back who lived in the Netherlands and couldn't understand why someone who lived in, say, the Dallas area couldn't easily get to the Houston area since it was in the same state.

 

Of course he was used to tiny Europe and being able to get to anywhere in Europe with a Eurail pass.

 

So I measured the longest end to end section of the Netherlands and started using that as my standard unit of measurement which I called "The Netherlands".

 

Dallas is many "The Netherlands" distant from Houston. 

 

After I did that, he was annoyed but had a more instinctive understanding of the distances involved.

 

And in discussions of "why doesn't the US have an equivalent to Eurail so that you can go anywhere in the country on the train", I started pointing out that Amsterdam is closer to Baghdad than Miami is to Seattle. 

[LordNightmare]

1 hour ago, archer said:

 

And in discussions of "why doesn't the US have an equivalent to Eurail so that you can go anywhere in the country on the train", I started pointing out that Amsterdam is closer to Baghdad than Miami is to Seattle. 

 

The answer to this, of course, is that it's a good idea. And we can't have too many of those!

[assault]

8 hours ago, Hermit said:

 

Honestly, love it or hate it, Texas is so bleeping huge

 

 

Points at Texas, and snickers.

 

---

In area, Texas is smaller than Western Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales. It's only bigger than Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

Alaska is smaller than Western Australia and Queensland.

[Hermit]

26 minutes ago, assault said:

 

Points at Texas, and snickers.

 

---

In area, Texas is smaller than Western Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales. It's only bigger than Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

Alaska is smaller than Western Australia and Queensland.

 

All true. Doesn't mean Texas isn't flipping huge though. Just that there are other states, and provinces elsewhere that are as huge, or as you point out, bigger still. 

I'm just suggesting one could easily* make a rich sourcebook based on Texas with a lot more to offer than some might thing. Large diverse land, some of the US's biggest cities, and plenty of hooks for super heroic action. Then I gave the win to Yorkshire anyway because I'm a James Herriot fan

 

That said, a Champions supplement for Australia would be tops on my list of 'Abroad' preferences. I've got a player who actually had the pleasure of visiting your fine country for a few weeks and she loved a great deal of it even though she barely scratched the surface.  I've got my supplements for Canada and the UK already. And I might be one of the only folks in the gaming community not that interested in Japan.

 

I think my second preference abroad might be a kind of 'robin hood champions' based in Russia.

 

 

(* Okay, not EASILY, you'd still have to research and do the work)

 

 

[assault]

The biggest issue with writing such books is: what is important?

 

It wouldn't be all that hard to pad out a bunch of pages with Wikipedia-grade fluff, and then stick a bunch of characters at the back. (If I was feeling uncharitable, I could say something unkind about the Champions International chapters here.)

 

Writing about culture, what visiting PCs might notice as different, and how not to create offensive stereotypes is the hard part.

 

And then, if you want to incorporate the book into the Champions Universe setting, you have to navigate the already existing material, some of which is likely to be a bit off. But that's part of the point of the book.

---
Specific glitches in the existing material about Australia:
Walkabout's name.

Brigade having been deputized by the Mayor of Sydney, which gives him the authority to issue parking tickets in a few inner city suburbs. (Watch out, Foxbat!)

[Greywind]

59 minutes ago, assault said:

 

Points at Texas, and snickers.

 

---

In area, Texas is smaller than Western Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales. It's only bigger than Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

Alaska is smaller than Western Australia and Queensland.

 

But Texas is easier to inhabit and there aren't as many things trying to kill you.

[assault]

12 minutes ago, Greywind said:

 

But Texas is easier to inhabit and there aren't as many things trying to kill you.

 

Aside from Texans.

[Greywind]

Never had a Texan try to kill me.

[assault]

Never had a snake try to kill me either, but I still wouldn't poke one with a stick.

[Greywind]

I married a Texan.

[assault]

Hasn't tried to kill you... yet.

[Lord Liaden]

4 hours ago, assault said:

 

Points at Texas, and snickers.

 

---

In area, Texas is smaller than Western Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales. It's only bigger than Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

Alaska is smaller than Western Australia and Queensland.

 

Not fair. You have a whole continent to yourselves. USA shares with Canada and Mexico. But the USA is still the third-largest country in the world. Australia is sixth. Also, New South Wales has a little over eight million population, the most of all your states. Texas is over 29 million, more than all of Australia.

 

When you want to brag about your size, it depends on what you measure.

 

3 hours ago, assault said:

Specific glitches in the existing material about Australia:
Walkabout's name.

 

 

I was just thinking the other day that Walkabout would be a perfect character for whom to revive the name, "Seeker."

[steriaca]

So, how would you lay out such a book? Pick up the current Champions of the North , cut and paste with the related information, and leave it like that? Maybe...

Or maybe not. Depends.

[Opal]

4 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

When you want to brag about your size, it depends on what you measure.

[assault]

1 hour ago, steriaca said:

So, how would you lay out such a book? Pick up the current Champions of the North , cut and paste with the related information, and leave it like that? Maybe...

Or maybe not. Depends.

 

One thing Champions of the North has for it is a clear underlying concept. It's not always easy to come up with that.

 

For Australia, the disparity between its large area and highly concentrated, urbanized population could be a key factor. The cities are pretty Brand X modern, "western", English speaking places, but the Outback is a big nowhere.

 

The local heroes could probably take care of urban super crime, but the stuff in the weird places is likely to be weirder.

 

Then again, writers who aren't Scott Bennie might be better served not trying to be Scott Bennie and just do their own thing.

 

One thing that is consistent across all the international books, regardless of edition, is that most of their page count is character sheets. It's that bit at the front which is challenging.

[Greywind]

9 hours ago, assault said:

Hasn't tried to kill you... yet.

 

Don't expect her to. The divorce was bad enough.

[IndianaJoe3]

14 hours ago, assault said:

Brigade having been deputized by the Mayor of Sydney, which gives him the authority to issue parking tickets in a few inner city suburbs. (Watch out, Foxbat!)

 

The difficulties in parking the Centipedemobile have been documented in-canon.

[archer]

52 minutes ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

The difficulties in parking the Centipedemobile have been documented in-canon.

 

I've never seen him try to park it in a cannon.

[steriaca]

1 hour ago, archer said:

 

I've never seen him try to park it in a cannon.

Leroy had to rush between various parking meters to plug nickles in them cause it takes up multiple parking spaces. 

 

Also...WTF Freddy? Your a supervillain and your afraid of getting a parking ticket?