Western Champions. How Would You Run It?

[steriaca]

Simply as the question asks. Well, maybe a few more information. 

 

Western Champions would be a low powered Champions campaign set in the Western Hero setting. A bit more wierd wierd west then wild wild west. Generally speaking western comics with a superhero gimmick (the original non-supernatural Ghost Rider, Bat Lash, Johna Hex, Firehair, Two Gun Kid, etc.etc.etc.).

[Christopher R Taylor]

I would think that the best way to handle it would be to let them have like one power, or a small group of minor, related powers.  Like: Lash Larue has a whip he can use telekinesis on with 5 STR and fine control.  Or Mongo is really, really strong (30 STR).  Or Sun Eagle can fly.  Or El Corazon can make people like him.  Then the rest would be unusually high stats and skills.  A character with 17- fast draw and +6 OCV with pistols would be superpowered: he never misses and is almost always first to the draw.

[Khymeria]

Being ready and familiar with a whole lot of gun, knife, bow, tomahawk, etc. tricks would give a lot of avenues for individuality and growth. A martial arts style with a Native American flavor, perhaps an excellent flying tackle and weapon elements could add flavor. What's in the medicine bag?  Is it herbalism or magic is a possibility. Sorry if I am all over the map here, this is a really exciting idea. What about a mount or a companion, are they just well trained or perhaps something even more potent that works in tandem with a player to do extraordinary feats. Some Steampunk style crazy haired, goggle covered eye inventor with a VPP of small effects. A character from the Orient who is walking the Earth, like "Kung-Fu" style would be a direction for a player as would a Zorro type mysterious individual with power both in and out of costume. 

Edited April 19, 2023 by Khymeria

[steriaca]

Seeker is just screaming to be recreated as a Western Champions character. Instead of being a white Australian raised by a ninja, he is a white American raised by an old shaman/warrior of a lost first nation tribe (and last surviving member of it).

[Khymeria]

I can see a character like Jaguar easily getting the same treatment but maybe as something like Coyote. 

[dmjalund]

2 hours ago, steriaca said:

Seeker is just screaming to be recreated as a Western Champions character. Instead of being a white Australian raised by a ninja, he is a white American raised by an old shaman/warrior of a lost first nation tribe (and last surviving member of it).

unless you go the Kung Fu route and actually be a martial artist in the old west

[assault]

Ninja or not, there's nothing unlikely about him having come from the Australian colonies.

He might have travelled to California in pursuit of a bushranger. There were several cases of similar characters fleeing or being exiled from the Australian and New Zealand colonies. And once they are in California...

Australian Golden Age characters would sometimes move to the US too.

[steriaca]

Intresting. 

 

I would probably allow the purchase of normal equipment without paying points for. So heroes don't have to worry about buying their guns and knives with character points. But if you want to do special things with them ("unlimited ammo" for example) you have to pay for it.

[Christopher R Taylor]

yeah a guy with the superpower of never running out of bullets would be pretty useful in a campaign where you keep track.  You could have them not get hungry or sleepy, either, maybe buy STR and movement to 0 END.  Minor, but very useful, related powers (stuff I would love to have in real life).  Bill Whittle always stands guard, he never gets tired.

Edited April 22, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[LoneWolf]

You probably want to keep the defenses low enough that ordinary guns are a threat.  The characters can have some resistant defense, but not enough to bounce bullets.  DCV and combat luck should be the main defensive powers.   This means you will probably need to scale back your attacks a bit.  Unusual attacks are fine and should be encouraged.  

 

In a lot of ways this is going to resemble a high powered Fantasy Hero game more than a champions.   Ranged martial arts and skill levels will probably be fairly common.  Normal martial arts are probably also going to useful.  Martial arts don’t need to be eastern; there are lots of western martial arts like boxing and wrestling. 
 

[Khymeria]

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

You probably want to keep the defenses low enough that ordinary guns are a threat.  The characters can have some resistant defense, but not enough to bounce bullets.  DCV and combat luck should be the main defensive powers.   This means you will probably need to scale back your attacks a bit.  Unusual attacks are fine and should be encouraged.  

 

 

This is an excellent point. You will need to find that sweet spot in the damage the average attack could do and the resistant defense level to threaten but not outright flatten. Especially with ranged martial arts on the table possibly, hit locations, and other factors. Dodge is looking real good. 

 

You might also want to give a little thought about healing up from attacks that have done BODY. It can take a substantial amount of time to heal up a few points and can also take a character out of the story for that time. I don't think a cleric walking around healing people is the fit, but an herbal remedy that promotes healing from a medicine man or a really good doctor with a strange European accent that it is almost unnatural how good his abilities are, like he could raise the dead almost are viable options. On a basic note, you might just want to look at all the different options for healing in the game and see where you want to land.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think its okay to have ONE character who is largely bullet resistant, but you don't want someone who totally ignores firearms.  Luke Cage from the comics is a good example: bullets hurt but won't kill him: he'd rather not get shot but he can survive it.

[LoneWolf]

Having a single bullet proof hero should be ok, as long as the character has some sort of weakness that can be used against him.  Maybe he is gullible or physically slow.  If his defenses are high enough that he can handle the BODY of the attack but still takes stun that would be better. 

 

One thing to keep in mind that is if a characters main defense is not getting hit combat tends to be all or nothing.  This seems  to bother a lot of Gm’s.  A lot of GM’s seem to feel if the characters don’t take damage every fight they need to make the opponents tougher so that they are a challenge.  When the character is taken out by an average hit, getting hit needs to be rare. Usually when the character gets hit it is because they messed up.  It could be they failed a perception roll so did not notice an opponent and so took went all out offensive instead of maintaining their defense.  When the character can easily be taken out not getting hit for multiple sessions is ok. 

 

If there are a lot of characters are relying on DCV the need for healing is not going to be that big of a deal.   For other characters that are not quite so hard to hit, they should be buying up their body.  Most characters should consider buying up their body from the default 10.  Having easy healing does not really fit the idea of a western.  Life is supposed to be dangerous. 

[Khymeria]

19 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

If there are a lot of characters are relying on DCV the need for healing is not going to be that big of a deal.   For other characters that are not quite so hard to hit, they should be buying up their body.  Most characters should consider buying up their body from the default 10.  Having easy healing does not really fit the idea of a western.  Life is supposed to be dangerous. 

It's true that life is supposed to be dangerous especially in a western. But, in most western comics, heroes aren't laid up for months from injury. Often as you pointed out, that is because they flat out avoid it. It was also a great point that many GMs feel that if they aren't damaging characters, they aren't challenging characters. When I learned to GM from the standpoint of in a heroic level game, one often has nothing to do with the other because the players usually know the stakes if they mess up. I agree wholeheartedly that it has to have a real feeling of danger, but I would definitely keep an ace up my sleeve in case a player messes up and especially if I have an inexperienced player or two. 

 

On a side note, a character who is an explosives expert, like Glycerin Max or the Dynamite Kid could be really fun and get wild. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

The challenging part is coming up with adventures.  A dinosaur discovered in a valley with great water and grazing?  Alien invasion?  Superpowered Navajo tribe?  Free Texas from Santa Ana single handedly?

[GDShore]

Actually finding adventures is not that hard. There were the penny dreadful's , and westerns by such as Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour and many many others. The great myth of the lone hero standing against insurmountable odds and by virtue of his virtue defeats them. Add to those the movie western in all it's various heroes and story lines. The noble frontiersman, the lone Sherriff/deputy, the wagon train crossing the endless plain, the mining town gone wild, cavalry - native wars (I always root for the natives), the righting of an ancient wrong, ect. ect. ect. In fact most of the same tropes that you use in a champions campaign.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Oh its easy to come up with western frontier adventures, but ones that challenge cowpokes and braves with superpowers?  That's another story.  Either you scattered the west with lots of powerful people, or its a weird place with monsters and crazy stuff around that requires the heroes.

[Khymeria]

A lot of Fallout stuff easily reskins as Weird West. Death claw ranchers are a thing maybe? 

[Duke Bushido]

On 4/19/2023 at 12:05 AM, steriaca said:

Seeker is just screaming to be recreated 

 

 

That's it.

 

Back in the box.  

 

If you can behave and fight off the crazy, maybe we will let you out again next year....,

 

 

 

[steriaca]

9 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Oh its easy to come up with western frontier adventures, but ones that challenge cowpokes and braves with superpowers?  That's another story.  Either you scattered the west with lots of powerful people, or its a weird place with monsters and crazy stuff around that requires the heroes.

Maybe a little bit of both.

[Mark Rand]

The local doctor is a woman who, unknown to the townspeople, was exiled from a dictatorship 600 years in the future for being a kind soul.  Her pet cat, Tabitha, is a tame cougar.

[LoneWolf]

If my suggestions on defenses and damage are followed you don’t need all that many powerful people or monsters.  Ordinary gunslingers are still a threat.  Not so much individually, but in numbers.  An outlaw gang or Indian tribes are still threats to supers with low defenses.  You will still have powerful individual and monsters, but they will be the boss fights instead of the ordinary encounters.  

 

Most of the characters mentioned in the original post do not have superpowers.  For the most part they are exceptionally well trained normal humans.  To keep the western feel I would avoid using mutants so the typical four-color Champions character does not seem appropriate.  I do see lots of magic and technology being more common.   The technology is probably going to be more steampunk than modern technology.  I also see lots of highly skilled characters.  
 

[Khymeria]

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

If my suggestions on defenses and damage are followed you don’t need all that many powerful people or monsters.  Ordinary gunslingers are still a threat.  Not so much individually, but in numbers.  An outlaw gang or Indian tribes are still threats to supers with low defenses.  You will still have powerful individual and monsters, but they will be the boss fights instead of the ordinary encounters.  

 

This is a solid point. Even the OX or BULL type who might be a bit more resistant, will likely get nickeled and dimed by a few points of STUN dished out by a barrage of not really "damaging" attacks.

[GDShore]

A gunfight is really fast, IIRC ranging between 1.8 to 2.3 seconds from go to hit target. I have experience with pistols,, I was never that fast, my father was, I prefer a rifle. If the max range in stats, and powers both level and type are limited it could work. This could be a lot of fun, let us know how it goes.

[Khymeria]

1 hour ago, GDShore said:

A gunfight is really fast, IIRC ranging between 1.8 to 2.3 seconds from go to hit target. I have experience with pistols

How much experience do you have with a zombie gunfighter and a lone wander, with eyes like a predator, and pistols that shoot hellfire? I don't have any experience with that or much with pistols actually but yeah, actual Old West gunfights always seem quick in the videos. That seems like something to consider so that you manage to get a good threat level for the campaign. I guess you have to make sure the quick draw expert doesn't have the capability to end things instantly. I would be more worried as the GM that I might create something that seems cool in my mind's eye, but wasn't fun for my players.