Earlier vs. Current Editions of Champions

[IndianaJoe3]

23 minutes ago, Opal said:

Original Champions had a handful of super-hero-appropriate skills at 5 or 10 points, and if you took em all and 3 or so overall levels, you were incredibly skilled. That's the direction Hero should have stuck with, a manageable, *finite* list of broad skills covering everything

Optionally, you could break out  open-ended specialized little ones, if you wanted, (I don't want "Detective," I just want "extensive study of tobacco ash" in my back pocket).

 

I agree that skill bloat is one of the less-discussed drivers of character cost. Many skills have been split into multiple separate skills, and the list of Knowledge Skills keeps getting longer. However, one thing that GMs (and writers) need to keep in mind is that different genres need different levels of detail. Reed Richards and Hans Zarkov both have extensive knowledge of many scientific disciplines, but they aren't used much past, "analyze weird phenomenon of the week." The M:I team members are fluent in multiple languages, but lack of fluency never comes up (and everything is portrayed in English). On the other hand, in a police procedural, everyone will know the basics of Criminology or Forensic Medicine, but they will have different areas of expertise.

[Scott Ruggels]

43 minutes ago, Opal said:

Original Champions had a handful of super-hero-appropriate skills at 5 or 10 points, and if you took em all and 3 or so overall levels, you were incredibly skilled. That's the direction Hero should have stuck with, a manageable, *finite* list of broad skills covering everything

Optionally, you could break out  open-ended specialized little ones, if you wanted, (I don't want "Detective," I just want "extensive study of tobacco ash" in my back pocket).

I complained about the huge skills granularity, as well, and it made me a bif fearful about how one does Star Hero, unless one simplifies like Traveller hero. But your idea of breaking out  tiny skills from 5,8, or 10 point skills is fascinating and would kind of help.

[Opal]

Lol, really radical idea:

 

"Skills" don't exist, instead "Cannot make ______ checks" is a limitation on the stat. Or a disadvantage like "Ignorant" or "low animal cunning," maybe, "Im a doctor, dammit, not a circus accrobat"

 

No limitation on INT, you can roll full INT for any "INT skill."  No Disadvantage limiting you to a profession,  you can make any sort of check.

 

"Training in a skill" could be  levels, of course....

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I think compressing the skill list is a good idea for genre book.  Its okay for the generic "hero system" book to have everything, but Fantasy Hero doesn't need them all even if it kinda sorta makes sense if you squint hard enough.  Making an official book I didn't feel like I could just scrap a lot of skills but I did compress it some for Western Hero -- some skills make no sense in the setting, and I just pretended all those sub-lists for stuff like Survival didn't exist and nobody seemed to notice.

[Hugh Neilson]

17 hours ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

I agree that skill bloat is one of the less-discussed drivers of character cost. Many skills have been split into multiple separate skills, and the list of Knowledge Skills keeps getting longer. However, one thing that GMs (and writers) need to keep in mind is that different genres need different levels of detail. Reed Richards and Hans Zarkov both have extensive knowledge of many scientific disciplines, but they aren't used much past, "analyze weird phenomenon of the week." The M:I team members are fluent in multiple languages, but lack of fluency never comes up (and everything is portrayed in English). On the other hand, in a police procedural, everyone will know the basics of Criminology or Forensic Medicine, but they will have different areas of expertise.

 

I think this is an area where the toolkit could be expanded based on relative granularity for the game.

 

It's super-central and a major conflict resolution mechanism?  Make a super-granular, action-by-action system.  Presently, this is combat.  A "social combat" system would be an example for genres focused on resolving issues through social skills, and physical combat might be resolved by opposed rolls in "Fisticuffs" or "Swordplay".  Perhaps our game centers around courtroom drama, so we create an "in-court" combat mechanism for the opposing lawyers, using a "Social Combat" system.

 

The skill is important, but not central.  Courtroom drama will feature heavily, but it won't be the center of the conflict. Still, we don't want everyone looking the same, so our legal backdrop Supers game will have specialties of law as knowledge and professional skills.

 

The skill is largely tangential?  Then "Science", "Detective Work" or "Brawling" is good enough.  Skill checks, or opposed skill checks, will do the trick.  In a typical Supers game, Daredevil can get by with KS: Law and PS: Lawyer.

 

ALTERNATIVE

 

I recall a game some years back with a very free-flowing character design model.  Pick some number of abilities that define your character (for good or ill), a few of which are specialties (higher rolls/more dice).  Those are your rolls.  However, if someone else has a narrower skill, your broader skill takes a penalty.  So if I took "science", Jenny took "biology" and Fred took "botany", Jenny takes a penalty to botany-based skill rolls, and I take a bigger penalty.  But I get to roll for Chemistry and they don't. 

 

A similar model for Hero might provide that PS: Scientist or KS: Science provides its base roll.  But if another character has PS: Physicist, and a third takes PS: AstroPhysicist, an Astrophysics roll would be at base for the third PC, -3 for the second and -6 for the "Scientist".

[Jhamin]

I think some of this is fallout from Hero being a Universal Tool Kit system that grew out of some specific genres.

 

We are all mostly OK with guns costing points in Supers but being equipment you can have as long as you can justify it in most other Genres.  We are OK with powers being a thing you expect most people to have in some Genres, but are wildly inappropriate for others.  We are even OK with spells being made with the powers rules but PCs actually paying 1/5 or 1/2 cost for them for world-specific reasons.

 

I think the issue with some of this is that we try to shoehorn the same skills system, the same END rules, the same cost structures into all these different Genres.  As Christopher R Taylor says above, he ignored as much of the survival skill system as he could in an official product because he didn't need it for the Genre.

 

I've long argued that the difference between "Cop: 12-" and buying 6 different skills to reflect Law Enforcement training was less of a Hero System change and more of a campaign guidelines change.  I'm starting to wonder if that's wrong.  I'm starting to wonder if just like every game decides if equipment costs points or not, if Hero needs a few more "dials" like this.

• Does being a scientist cost 3 points for a science skill keyed to your INT or does it require a dozen different skills? 
• Is End used?  is it 1/20 AP, 1/10AP, 1/5AP, etc.  
• Can characters buy "super skill" powers like Stealth bought as the invisibility power with mods, or are they limited to the skill rules?
• etc

If Hero were to hypothetically go down this road, I'd love to see a choice between lots of cheap skills, broad ranging cheap skills, or in a world where lots of people can buy SS: Chemistry for 3 points there is also a "Super Science" skill/power that guys like Mr Fantastic and MCU Stark and Banner have.  It would all be campaign choices, because I don't think one size fits all (the current approach) is working well for Western Hero, Justice International and Champions.

[Scott Ruggels]

I am unreasonably hostile to social combat focused games. I understand the appeal to some folk, especially after a player in a game left the table, never to return, after finding a flute in the lair of a young dragon’s lair. She still games, but it’s all about romance and social status. Not. My. Thing. 
 

That being said, two games I know that had developed social systems were both from the same designer, Paul ( now Pauli) Kidd. The first, Albedo, based on a comic by Steve Galacci, had a Ties and Antipathies system that was used to see how you fit into your organization, or how easily you made friends, or instantly disliked someone. The system was changed in subsequent editions, and I think a different company is publishing is now. 

 

  The other game, Lace & Steel had a much more advanced system, but the game was based more in the 1640s. Combat was a custom card based system where each card was a sword move, ( parry, riposte, stop thrust, ect. ).  You were dealt a hand of cards, the GM or you opponent had a hand as well. You would pick a card from your hand an place it face up. The opponent would do the same simultaneously. The results determined. For every successful hit, the victim would have to discard a card of their choice and their hand would be reduced by each hit. When you were out of cards, you were out of hit points. What was interesting is the same system was used for social combat at the ball. When out of cards, Lady Delvigne would have to flee the dance floor, or Lord Montrose would challenge you to a duel. The Magic system used a different deck of cards. Quite innovative at the time, and playing the sword fights with the cards was something we did in line waiting for a movie. 

 

The problem I have with social focused games, is I cannot think on my feet verbally, and I had an awful time socially in highschool, retreating games about killing things and war, so I did not end up blowing up the school. Games like En Garde really made me grit my teeth. 
 

A lesser concern, but still significant, is, do systems for social combat step on roleplay?

 

This is just my own damage, and I am not a fan of that sort of game. Not at all sure what a Hero System approach would be, mechanically for a game focused on social combat would be, more than just opposed skill rolls. 
 

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

29 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

This is just my own damage, and I am not a fan of that sort of game. Not at all sure what a Hero System approach would be, mechanically for a game focused on social combat would be, more than just opposed skill rolls.

 

If you were to pick up a copy of the 6E Advanced Player's Guide II, you would find out. 😉  That offers three optional social combat systems: one Skills-based, using opposed Interaction Skill rolls with some additional modifiers and mechanics; one Combat Maneuvers-based, introducing a sizeable new set of "maneuvers" and Characteristics; and one Talent-based, with new Talents built to degrade or protect a character's Presence to make them more vulnerable to Presence Attacks.

[Scott Ruggels]

…But the APG is for 6e? I don’t play 6e😁😁😁

[Christopher R Taylor]

I don't enjoy super heavy role play campaigns.  You know the ones that are "here's the setup, now go act it out", it just feels... look I get that role playing is basically geeky and wierd to begin with but there are lines between dorky and REALLY dorky and that just feels like its over that line, like furries and LARPing

[death tribble]

The templates with several different poses for men and women were better in 1st edition than in later was one of the things that was better than in later ones.

[SCUBA Hero]

I recently bought a pdf of Honor + Intrigue (swashbuckling rpg).

 

No Skills - you have Careers.  If a relevant career would help in performing a (non-combat) task, you add it in.

 

It does have a Social Combat method that I enjoy.  A bit long to present here, but it looks to me (haven't played it yet) like it works well.

[Lord Liaden]

3 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

…But the APG is for 6e? I don’t play 6e😁😁😁

 

You don't play social combat either, so it's a moot point.

[Opal]

I think if you use the label "social combat," for a system focused more on interaction and less on combat, you've already lost. 😏

 

But,  if you do think about scenes in genre fiction that you might consider a "social check" or "social contest," chances are pretty good they're character development, exposition,  forseshadowing, or some sort of drama/suspense based on the viewer knowing something one or more of the characters involved doesn't (or vice versa).

[DShomshak]

4 hours ago, SCUBA Hero said:

I recently bought a pdf of Honor + Intrigue (swashbuckling rpg).

 

No Skills - you have Careers.  If a relevant career would help in performing a (non-combat) task, you add it in.

 

Barbarians of Lemuria does the same thing. It works well for what the game is.

 

/

4 hours ago, SCUBA Hero said:

It does have a Social Combat method that I enjoy.  A bit long to present here, but it looks to me (haven't played it yet) like it works well.

Not sure what you mean by "post it here," but in case it needs to be said... Don't post blocks of rules from games. Ever. Respect the copyright and the effort for which writers and developers were paid. If they wanted it given away for free, it'd be Open Games License.

 

Sorry, sore spot. I've been in the biz.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Christopher R Taylor]

Aces And Eights has a system for professions and building up your life story, its not a game I'd care to play but its a game you can play within the setting.

[Scott Ruggels]

3 hours ago, Opal said:

 

But,  if you do think about scenes in genre fiction that you might consider a "social check" or "social contest," chances are pretty good they're character development, exposition,  forseshadowing, or some sort of drama/suspense based on the viewer knowing something one or more of the characters involved doesn't (or vice versa).

For example? 

[Doc Democracy]

On 6/24/2022 at 6:04 AM, Lord Liaden said:

 

Honestly, I would not. I have zero interest in a new iteration of Hero System. At this point the rules have been reviewed, deconstructed, balanced, optimized, optionized, clarified, and hair-split to within an inch of their lives. There are no more pressing issues to deal with. Any further changes would just be an editor imposing his/her particular view of a "better" way to do something, which many Herophiles would disagree with, while most of those who would agree already just house-rule it like that for their own games anyway.

 

I almost agree with you.  But it is character creation that has been reviewed, deconstructed, balanced etc etc etc.  The game system itself is pretty much the same skeleton it was way back in the 1980s.

 

I love HERO, I think in these terms but I am seduced by the clever ways other games have of emulating comics in ways poor old 20th century HERO cannot.  There are dimensions that it does not address.

 

I am in the games powered by HERO camp, so I think each and every one of these games could innovate with the game system to achieve desirable genre emulation.  As long as every game had a designers booklet (freely available online or sold as a Designer's Insight booklet) to show how the toolbox was used, bent and added to, it fits with the HERO philosophy and folk like us could open up the bonnet, rip out a few bits, bend a few more, IF WE WANTED TO, to achieve good games at the table.

[Lord Liaden]

4 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I almost agree with you.  But it is character creation that has been reviewed, deconstructed, balanced etc etc etc.  The game system itself is pretty much the same skeleton it was way back in the 1980s.

 

I love HERO, I think in these terms but I am seduced by the clever ways other games have of emulating comics in ways poor old 20th century HERO cannot.  There are dimensions that it does not address.

 

 

I take your point, although personally, I believe the genre-emulating advice and optional rules presented in the Champions genre book (the 6E version collates all such advice from 5E books) makes "poor old HERO" pretty robust in that regard. But that's me.

 

4 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I am in the games powered by HERO camp, so I think each and every one of these games could innovate with the game system to achieve desirable genre emulation.  As long as every game had a designers booklet (freely available online or sold as a Designer's Insight booklet) to show how the toolbox was used, bent and added to, it fits with the HERO philosophy and folk like us could open up the bonnet, rip out a few bits, bend a few more, IF WE WANTED TO, to achieve good games at the table.

 

Again, I believe the genre books and Advanced Player's Guide(s) go a long way in that regard, but I can see the benefit and appeal of the format you describe.

[fdw3773]

On 6/25/2022 at 9:11 PM, BNakagawa said:

6e disappointed me. They made some sweeping changes and failed to playtest or stress test them adequately.

 

Everyone just shrugs and says it's the GMs responsibility to ban/limit these problems at their tables, but that just worsens one of the most persistent complaints about Champions, is that it puts too much of a load on the GM.

You've clearly articulated what I was thinking...thank you! I remember putting a lot of effort into simplifying 5th or 6th Edition to make it more player-friendly for the conventions, and over time it was more like 3rd or 4th Edition with some 5th or 6th Edition mechanics like Unified Power, MegaScale, and Resistant Protection. Based on my previous experience, introducing 5th or 6th Edition to brand-new players was difficult; the textbook-like presentation of the rules made it more so.

 

If I were to introduce brand-new players to Champions or Hero System in general in the future, it would probably be with 3rd Edition game materials. In terms of style and presentation, they read like game books and not textbooks...and the touch of nostalgia always helps. 🙂

[Scott Ruggels]

1 hour ago, fdw3773 said:

You've clearly articulated what I was thinking...thank you! I remember putting a lot of effort into simplifying 5th or 6th Edition to make it more player-friendly for the conventions, and over time it was more like 3rd or 4th Edition with some 5th or 6th Edition mechanics like Unified Power, MegaScale, and Resistant Protection. Based on my previous experience, introducing 5th or 6th Edition to brand-new players was difficult; the textbook-like presentation of the rules made it more so.

 

If I were to introduce brand-new players to Champions or Hero System in general in the future, it would probably be with 3rd Edition game materials. In terms of style and presentation, they read like game books and not textbooks...and the touch of nostalgia always helps. 🙂

Bryce Nakagawa is insightful about things like that. He’s someone you want around to take apart and examine a game. 
 

Looking at what you said, basically, you have te-created what Duke has done for his youth group, except he used second edition Champions (though he might use third for his Traveller game. )

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I love HERO, I think in these terms but I am seduced by the clever ways other games have of emulating comics in ways poor old 20th century HERO cannot.  There are dimensions that it does not address.

 

I am curious to discover what those dimensions would be and how Hero does not emulate comics.

[Doc Democracy]

5 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

I am curious to discover what those dimensions would be and how Hero does not emulate comics.

 

Well, there is the soap opera element of comics, a team book is often focussed on the personal dynamics of the team with each other and organisations.  I think HERO was ahead of its time with this stuff but games like Masks and other narrative systems bake it into the system rather than the added on complications HERO uses.

 

I also like the RYG system of Sentinels that mean some of the more potent powers don't become available until health is low.  It shows how comic book characters don't often reach for the big guns first thing in a fight.

 

Spectaculars leans heavily into the flavour of the powers rather than the nuts and bolts.  It sets up scenes with different objectives rather than focussing on taking the opponent STUN to below zero.

 

Lots of gameplay stuff that bake in genre emulation.  Doesn't mean you cannot do that stuff in HERO but the game doesn't push you into them.

 

I find, in HERO, players often fall into playing the numbers rather than playing their powers.  These games incentivise players to think about their powers, to engage with the broader NPC cast and to think more broadly than just fighting the villains.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I also like the RYG system of Sentinels that mean some of the more potent powers don't become available until health is low.  It shows how comic book characters don't often reach for the big guns first thing in a fight. 

 

I mean, this is a valid point (easily remedied with a house rule) but the others are just "you can do it but the rules don't tell you to".  I think you've suffered from bland campaigns more than Hero being weak at these points.  Just because you had GMs who only had games where you were just in fights does not mean there were not other games where more happened.

 

I mean you say complications are "added on" but they were a groundbreaking part of the original rules that gave mechanics for roleplaying and character design that no other game before had considered.  Mechanics encouraging role playing and interaction based on the character's personality.  That's hardly an "add on".

[unclevlad]

On 6/27/2022 at 10:09 AM, Jhamin said:

I think some of this is fallout from Hero being a Universal Tool Kit system that grew out of some specific genres.

 

 

That's my take as well.  The core is for supers, but there's a lot from Fantasy Hero.  Damage Over Time is for drugs/poisons, which suggests pulp/ninja/noir.  

 

Languages is another area.  Saying strictly in 6E, the only major issue I have would be, do we really need 5 levels, and 5 points to avoid all proficiency checks?  When we get into HD, the *extreme* proliferation is crazy.  There are ~70 languages in the 6E1 similarity map;  there are over 600, IIRC, in HD.  2 dozen aboriginal.  Close to 40 in the Algonquin-Wakashan family.  40ish in the Hamito-Semitic...4 different modern Arabic.  The Indo-European is massive...sure, tons are common, but there's several dozen fringe languages.  It covers seemingly every local, identified variant.

 

It's symptomatic of the issue:  the level of detail is far too fine for a game.

 

I'm perhaps less critical about the KS and PS groups than some.  They're probably a bit too expensive, I'll grant...I'd consider making them 2 points each, flat cost, for the characteristic roll.  (We *don't* need 11-, 10-, and 8-.)  Then make the skill enhancers give +1 to ALL of em, and make further levels cheaper.  Recognize that character points are a precious, precious commodity...the cost of these skills in particular can be onerous, when much of what they offer is character depth, not power.