Champions Icons

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, archer said:

I've considered Lady Arcane and Flare to both be iconic for Champions. But I don't pay a lot of attention to edition changes and whether a character was introduced in 1e or in the comics when thinking of "iconic".

 

I can't really think of a female villain who I consider iconic. There's a lot of them that as a player I'm like "oh, crap" when they show up. But not any that really show off the brand or which automatically come to mind when you say Champions like Superman and Batman do when you mention DC.

 

Again, it comes back to the criteria you use. Flare got some mentions and cover appearances in old Champions RPG books, but she was only written up for Hero System in the Champions comic adaptation. Lady Arcane is extrapolated from a character in The Coriolis Effect, but has never been in an RPG publication as Lady Arcane.

 

As for female villains who show off the brand, Istvatha V'han has to be at the top of that list. The Empress of a Billion Dimensions is one of the biggest bads ever written for Champions in magnitude of threat, and has a 240-page source book devoted to her.

[steriaca]

 

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

As for female villains who show off the brand, Istvatha V'han has to be at the top of that list. The Empress of a Billion Dimensions is one of the biggest bads ever written for Champions in magnitude of threat, and has a 240-page source book devoted to her.

Agreed. Othoe she is a relative newcomer, she demands respect. 

 

No. Really.  She demands it. You want to deny respect from someone whose army outnumbered VIPER in it's prime, let alone the entire armed forces of the planet?

[Jhamin]

Part of the problem with all of this is that Hero basically rebooted it's universe between 4th and 5th edition.  From 1-4 pretty much everything that was published was still "in continuity", but lots of fundamentals were replaced in the move to 5th edition.  If you read it in a 5th edition book it probably still applies in 6th edition books.  As I understand it this was partly because when the new owners of Hero bought the IP before releasing 5th they discovered that they didn't own all the old school characters, the original authors did.  The rebooted 5th/6th edition universe was in part an exercise in only using stuff Hero Owned.

Seeker is an in-universe comic character now.  Solitaire, Jaguar, Obsidian, Crusader, Starburst don't exist and are likely not coming back.

So as many warm memories as people have for some of these characters, many of them haven't been official Champions characters for over 20 years.

If you want to go Iconic in a way that is useful for the future, you need to stick to 5th & 6th edition.

Also, how does Champions Online fit into all this?  I'm willing to bet more people have played that in the last 10 years than have played Tabletop Champions.

[steriaca]

6 minutes ago, Jhamin said:

 

So as many warm memories as people have for some of these characters, many of them haven't been official Champions characters for over 20 years.

If you want to go Iconic in a way that is useful for the future, you need to stick to 5th & 6th edition.

Also, how does Champions Online fit into all this?  I'm willing to bet more people have played that in the last 10 years than have played Tabletop Champions.

True. But I'm looking at the entire history of published stuff for Champions anyways.

 

And the more people playing the Champions Online game than the Champions Tabletop game is the problem.  What was once thought to be the savior of the Hero System turns out to be it's hinderous. The being owned by Cryptic does us nothing in return if there customers are not looking at the tabletop game also.

[Jhamin]

13 minutes ago, steriaca said:

But I'm looking at the entire history of published stuff for Champions anyways.

 

That is where it gets complicated.  Champions has been a long running RPG & which characters get love has shifted several times.  I get that many of the mentioned characters were important when people got into Champions, but lots of these characters haven't seen print since the Reagan Administration.

I've been playing Champions for 30 years, but I started with 4th edition.  So Seeker is my jam & I never owned most of the 3rd edition stuff until long after the fact so Strike Force characters, Marksman, Gargoyle, etc don't really mean anything too me.  The Circle & Mete, Blood & Dr. McQuark, etc were all out of print & hard to track down when I was getting into Champions in the 90s.  The Big Blue Book and Classic Enemies were what formed my impression of Champions.

If we are looking at the whole history I think we eliminate everyone who only saw print in 1st-3rd, and most everyone who didn't survive the cutover from 4th to 5th.  I would argue that even if you were on the cover of a book in 1987, if you haven't seen print since then you probably aren't Iconic.

[Opal]

14 minutes ago, Jhamin said:

If we are looking at the whole history I think we eliminate everyone who only saw print in 1st-3rd, and most everyone who didn't survive the cutover from 4th to 5th.  I would argue that even if you were on the cover of a book in 1987, if you haven't seen print since then you probably aren't Iconic.

Fair 'nuff.  By the same token, newcomers are also out of the running. Anything added in the 4th to 5th crossover or later can't be iconic.  To really be iconic,  character would have to both date back to the early flurry that established the game in the first three editions, and still be prominent, today.

 

So, does that narrow the field to nothing?  For Heroes it may well, there were  never that many heroes published - the players are supposed to provide those.  

 

For villains, is Mechanon still around?  Sounds like Dr. Destroyer is.  

 

 

[Jhamin]

1 hour ago, Opal said:

So, does that narrow the field to nothing?  For Heroes it may well, there were  never that many heroes published - the players are supposed to provide those.  

 

For villains, is Mechanon still around?  Sounds like Dr. Destroyer is. 

 

I don't think that is unreasonable & actually still leaves us with a decent chunk of characters as possibilities.

Mechanon & Doctor Destroyer are both central to Champions & I can't imagine a list of iconic Champions villains that doesn't include both of them.

 

As for others who go back at least to 3rd edition, and still exist (with a write-up!) in 6th how about:

Ankylosaur

Black Paladin

Bulldozer
Dark Seraph

Eurostar

Firewing

Foxbat

Green Dragon

Grond

Howler

Leech
Ogre

Shrinker

Sunburst

The Ultimates (mostly)

Utility
Viper (as a legion of Agents in Green, none of the "Viper Supers" or the various leaders over the years qualify)

I'm sure I'm missing a few who qualify, and I'm not sure *I'd* put all of these on my Iconic list, but they all have the longevity.  If we include characters that started in 4th and still exist in 6th there are another couple dozen that could be added, but I'm not sure all of them were that prominent in earlier editions.  (The Devil's Advocates & Joseph Otanga showed up in "Creatures of the Night" back in 1993 for example, but I don't know that many folks took notice of them until they were given a bigger spotlight in later Enemies books and I don't know that they are that big a deal now)

 

I think you might be able to argue Defender as a Hero even though he originated in 4th.  I'm not sure where I'd file the Harbinger of Justice.  He is *the* Iconic character for Dark Champions and dates back to 4th edition but how much that subline "counts" has changed over the years.

As organizations, PRIMUS and UNTIL are both good guy Agencies and have had long enough runs, but I'm not sure if either are as big a deal as Viper in terms of "IP".

[steriaca]

Cobra/King Cobra and his organizations Cobra/CoIL (Cobra Imperial Legion) and his supers The Oborous. He appeared in 3rd edition, was renamed King Cobra in 4th, got his supers in 4th (late 4th is still 4th), and many of them are still around in the 5th and 6th edition.

 

I would say Professor Murtie/Murtie and his agents if Terror Incorporated. Ok, officially ge is as dead as  a doornail. But there are so many fans of him that we had to bring a shovel and a lightning rod and give him a Jason Lives treatment. And not only that, but Gigante, and the other classic members and brand new guys.

 

I probably misspelled his name. That is to be expected. 

[Jhamin]

9 minutes ago, steriaca said:

Cobra/King Cobra and his organizations Cobra/CoIL (Cobra Imperial Legion) and his supers The Oborous. He appeared in 3rd edition, was renamed King Cobra in 4th, got his supers in 4th (late 4th is still 4th), and many of them are still around in the 5th and 6th edition.

 

I would say Professor Murtie/Murtie and his agents if Terror Incorporated. Ok, officially ge is as dead as  a doornail. But there are so many fans of him that we had to bring a shovel and a lightning rod and give him a Jason Lives treatment. And not only that, but Gigante, and the other classic members and brand new guys.

 

I probably misspelled his name. That is to be expected. 

King Cobra is a good add, but Professor Muerte fails the "Made it to 5th/6th edition" test.  I loved him too, but he hasn't been in a book in over 20 years.

[Lord Liaden]

That's a very reasonable criterion, Opal, and a thorough list, Jhamin, although as you say, not complete. There are some things that would be judgement calls. DEMON still exists in name, but in its current form is nearly unrecognizable compared to its earlier incarnation. The Institute for Human Advancement has replaced Genocide, but it still uses Minuteman robots. Hornet isn't Stinger from Deathstroke, but his origin is practically identical.

 

As steriaca points out, some of the classic characters, like Professor Muerte, several members of Deathstroke, the Fox of Crime, and Bora from old-school Eurostar, are part of the "past history" of the current official setting, but are officially dead or retired. That includes the only hero from the old days that I can think of, Starburst, who was a member of the Justice Squadron during the 1970s.

 

13 minutes ago, Jhamin said:

King Cobra is a good add, but Professor Muerte fails the "Made it to 5th/6th edition" test.  I loved him too, but he hasn't been in a book in over 20 years.

 

As far as "books" go, that's true. However, https://www.herogames.com/store/product/350-digital-hero-44/

 

 

Updated for 5E continuity. (By, ahem! yours truly.)

[Jhamin]

6 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

That's a very reasonable criterion, Opal, and a thorough list, Jhamin, although as you say, not complete. There are some things that would be judgement calls. DEMON still exists in name, but in its current form is nearly unrecognizable compared to its earlier incarnation. The Institute for Human Advancement has replaced Genocide, but it still uses Minuteman robots. Hornet isn't Stinger from Deathstroke, but his origin is practically identical.

 

As steriaca points out, some of the classic characters, like Professor Muerte, several members of Deathstroke, the Fox of Crime, and Bora from old-school Eurostar, are part of the "past history" of the current official setting, but are officially dead or retired. That includes the only hero from the old days that I can think of, Starburst, who was a member of the Justice Squadron during the 1970s.

 

As far as "books" go, that's true. However, https://www.herogames.com/store/product/350-digital-hero-44/

 

I think that the IHA and Genocide exist in the same "niche" of Superpowered antagonists but are different enough from each other to be different.  Demon might be a contender, but the totally different ways it is portrayed over time work against it IMHO.

I think characters that are referred too but don't have write ups in more recent editions have slipped too far into obscurity to count as Iconic.

I also tend to discount Digital Hero.  I have a complete run myself, but it was a e-publication back when that was a thing only the truly hardcore paid for.  I think that appearing there & nowhere else doesn't make you prominent enough to "count" as having shown up in an official publication.  Its like a Star Wars movie vs Mandalorian vs the Clone Wars cartoons.  All are "cannon" but your average viewer knows Luke Skywalker, maybe knows the "Sliver Bobafett Looking guy" from Disney+ and likely doesn't know who "The Bad Batch" are

[Lord Liaden]

I quite concur. Steve Long wrote on more than one occasion that one shouldn't consider anything in DH to be "official" until it appears in a book. A few characters did eventually make that jump, such as Leviathan, Syzygy, and the Millennium City Eight.

[steriaca]

While not published by Hero or official...

 

The guy with the skull mask and orange gloves looks familiar...

[death tribble]

I always considered Ankylosaur iconic. He appeared in the first Enemies book, got revised in later versions but also appeared in one of the rulebooks in a cartoon 

 

But I agree with Jhamin in choices such as Black Paladin, Bulldozer and Firewing. The latter inspired the creation of The Protectors in the To Serve and Protect book.

I keep Eurostar with the original lineup, Fiacho, Bora, Durak, le Sone and Pantera But that is just me.

 

I do have Voice of Doom and enjoyed the twists in it.

[Terminax]

I have pretty much everything Champions and it's all welcome. Regardless if I use it or not. The modern takes of Doctor Destroyer and Mechanon are pretty decent and livened up the original takes considerably. Modern VIPER... it's okay but it's not my VIPER. Similarly COIL and King Cobra modern take isn't bad but I'll never use it. I preferred both their 4th Edition incarnations but I've extensively reworked them for my own campaigns so it's not like it's gone. I'm more mixed over DEMON... the original take was okay with 4th Edition's definitely interesting but the changes in 5th Edition weren't bad either, but given the organization as written then should be gutted presently and I don't know how to feel about that.

 

Out of the groups that never made the cut, RAVEN (or Raven...) and it's relationship with VIPER was always a cornerstone at my table. The VIPER-RAVEN war where RAVEN loses, is taken over by VIPER only to be reborn as Raven, a Bond-esque criminal conspiracy was a great arc. Terror Inc being murdered so two of it's members could be transferred over to Eurostar kind of sucked but it made sense. I know Professor Muerte was reborn in one of the 3rd party updates and I appreciate that was done, but it's one of those stories I'll never use and would do it another way. How Crusader went from his roots to a dark Vigilante was another great arc. Funny how Dark Champs had some of the best comic feeling stories but by 5th, descended into either edgy realism for edgy realism sake or edgy cartoon for edgy cartoon sake and didn't maintain the balance that made Dark Champs special.

 

I'm honestly very glad VOICE and the Geodesics did not make it into the modern game. VOICE isn't the worst of concepts but that team wasn't all that great for how deadly their reputation was. Geodesics had Dr Kirby Loo in the background and both him and the VOICE's leader were yellow peril menaces and I'd like to think we could get better these days.

[Lord Liaden]

15 minutes ago, Terminax said:

I'm more mixed over DEMON... the original take was okay with 4th Edition's definitely interesting but the changes in 5th Edition weren't bad either, but given the organization as written then should be gutted presently and I don't know how to feel about that.

 

Easiest way I found to deal with 5E DEMON is to move Luther Black's 100th birthday a few Leap Years later. 2024 or later is just as good as 2012, excepting that whole Mayan calendar apocalypse business.

[Terminax]

1 minute ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Easiest way I found to deal with 5E DEMON is to move Luther Black's 100th birthday a few Leap Years later. 2024 or later is just as good as 2012, excepting that whole Mayan calendar apocalypse business.

 

I dunno. I like plots to have consequences and Luther Black being destroyed/DEMON devastated is the likeliest outcome to me. DEMON should be able to renew itself into a new direction and style, remaking itself in the process. I also liked the 4th version. Baba Yaga and the Rose will always have special places in my heart. Even if it's cut out on a table...  

[Lord Liaden]

Sure, there are lots of ways you could take DEMON after Black's scheme (presumably) fails. It's just that if someone wants to use DEMON as written in their games, including the buildup to Black's apotheosis gambit, changing his birthday is the only conceptual modification needed.

 

As I mentioned before, I've liberally adapted 4E characters to the new continuity for my own games. For example, the Rose from 4E DEMON works just fine for me as one of the lieutenants for Takofanes. Ditto Mordeki the Unspeakable, whom I retconned as one of the Archlich's followers from the Turakian Age who endured to the present day. There are other members of that earlier incarnation of DEMON whom I worked into the structure of the 5E group.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think its a mistake to put absolute locked-in dates on comic book stuff the way Champions Universe etc does.  Use "years ago" not "this happened in 1996."  That way in 10 years or 30 years, things don't look so fixed in time and GMs have control over what they do.  Its standard in comic books, these days.  Iron Man got his armor made in the Korean War, originally.  Which would put him in his 90s now.  

 

Explain This Comics Guys does a great job going over this concept of Floating Time and why comics use it now.

[Terminax]

Sliding time scale vs dates is just a preference. It's pretty easy to adjust dates if needs be. I'm not focused on DEMON's probable decimation because of a date, but because if the events of Luther Black proceed as expected that's going to be the end result. If we get a new product with DEMON, surely it'll be after Luther Black fails his apotheosis because otherwise what's the point?

[Lord Liaden]

Iron Man debuted in 1963, and his origin was based in the Vietnam war, not Korean. So you can shave off around a decade from Tony Stark's age FWIW.

 

The purpose of Champions Universe: News Of The World was to update the setting with ongoing events in the world in general, and the Superhuman World sub-culture in particular. It was all but stated that that book would be the first in a series, to keep the setting fresh by rotating retiring characters out and new characters in, changing the dynamics of organizations, etc. Unfortunately the downsizing of Hero Games curtailed those plans. I've mentioned elsewhere on the forums that IMO it's past time for another such official update to be released.

[steriaca]

 

6 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

The purpose of Champions Universe: News Of The World was to update the setting with ongoing events in the world in general, and the Superhuman World sub-culture in particular. It was all but stated that that book would be the first in a series, to keep the setting fresh by rotating retiring characters out and new characters in, changing the dynamics of organizations, etc. Unfortunately the downsizing of Hero Games curtailed those plans. I've mentioned elsewhere on the forums that IMO it's past time for another such official update to be released.

I second this. The problem is, do they have to get together with whoever owns Champions Online this week and get approval for each plot point in what would be included in the book? And how many times they would have to get approval for each fact, as it would be subject to 'we changed our mind', and 'that was the old owner's decision, this is our decision over that'?

[Opal]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Iron Man debuted in 1963, and his origin was based in the Vietnam war, not Korean. So you can shave off around a decade from Tony Stark's age FWIW.

I think it just said something ambiguous like "behind the bamboo curtain" maybe?  Unless he was meant to be a teen at debut (I got the impression more like 30s), he'd've been Silent Generation, and now in his 80s, most likely.   Either that or he just put his brain, or even 'engrams' or whatever, in an android version of the armor.   Transhumanism FTW.

 

Personally, I dislike 'floating time.'  For my own campaign's history, I used the conceit that major superbeing characters from the comics appeared around the time they hit print, but had relatively short careers, the comics just kept fictionalizing them as long as they would sell.  Thus Golden Age heroes appeared in the 30s and 40s, preceded by pulp-era men of mystery, and there actually was a lull in the 50s when there were no active supers left. Then the silver age sorts started appearing, had 20-year or less careers, in time for a new crop of supers - the PCs - to appear in the 80s.  

When I ran again in the 90s, /those/ heroes were history, and a new low-power batch had come to light, with all super-being activity ceasing around the turn of the millennium. 

My last campaign ran from 2004 to 2010, and started with the 20th century being remembered as 'the age of heroes' none of whom remained, but, post-9/11, old heroes were dug up out of retirement, and new ones promoted in spite of having little or no power to speak of.  The PC started out in that class, low-grade powered and un-powered pretenders, only to be powered up in a new wave of mutant/tech & magical powers, each, perhaps ironically, touched off by a supervillainess.  

[DShomshak]

'Floating time' is a tool for publishers, not GMs at the table. (Though they can do it too, if they feel like it.) But it assumes the publisher is supplying bits of setting for GMs to assemble into their own world, not a chronicle of a world that is presumed to have any existence separate from particular GMs -- or that GMs are expected to adopt in entirety.

 

As someone who has done both, I prefer to see setting material published straight-up as a toolkit for GMs. That means keeping things loose, so it's easier for GMs to customize.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Jhamin]

2 hours ago, DShomshak said:

'Floating time' is a tool for publishers, not GMs at the table. (Though they can do it too, if they feel like it.) But it assumes the publisher is supplying bits of setting for GMs to assemble into their own world, not a chronicle of a world that is presumed to have any existence separate from particular GMs -- or that GMs are expected to adopt in entirety.

 

I tend to agree with this.  I used to actually run White Wolf games back when their meta plot started dictating that certain PCs were either no longer "canon" or were the last of their kind because of what happened in this book or that book.  I ended up having to ignore more and more of their world building as it was interfering with the games I was running.  Then they ended their setting in a choose your own apocalypse... while my PCs were still playing every week.

 

I really like the cohesiveness of the Champions Universe, and I would *love* an update that said who was doing what where, but at this point with all the dates given in the various 6e books it would start to be a list of everyone who retired and on what date.  The part where Amnesia from Cirque Sinister was born in 1982 means she is Pushing 40 and may not feel the thrill of matching wits with the police anymore, and the fact that Howler was already an archaeologist working in the field in 1991 when she got her powers means she would be in her 50s at minimum and may be at least 60 by now.  (I'm still not sure what timeline Red Winter makes sense in?)

A floating timeline in the published material would have made a lot of stuff like this easier to handwave.  When Stalker shows up in your game for the first time he is a Vampire who rose from his long slumber 8-9 years ago instead of having gotten out in 2001 and been around for over 20.  He can always have defeated and almost killed the Black Mask 4-5 years ago instead of in 2005 (and because the Black Mask's age is also on a slide, he will always have defeated Black Mask X (Jennifer Ward) instead of Black Mask XI (Amy Woods) who really should have taken over by now or Jennifer Ward's son  Benjamin who logically should already be Amy Wood's teen sidekick assuming he isn't in college yet.