Handouts for Players

[GrooveD70]

Hi all!

I am probably going to be running a Champs game again soon for some people that are new to both Hero and Champions. I have had difficulty in the past helping players with Char gen because of the immense flexibility of the system. I have just gotten the Champions Genre book and have the Until Superpowers Data Base, which I think will help a great deal. My topic is this. A friend of mine has done a great job of creating handouts for new players for his Fantasy Hero game and I was wondering if any other seasoned GM's had any examples of what info they give to their players to make their transitions to Hero and Champions or any given genre as easy as possible.

 

Thanx!

[Redmenace]

This isn't exactly a handout but in my first champs game, the GM mage a 8 1/2 by 11 replica of a newspaper's front page. The banner screamed about some recent ultimatum from a master villain and the sub stories each had a reference to unusual events that needed to be investigated, some lead to the adventure at hand while others were over arcing plot details that would develop later.

 

He would write a "late edition" whose banner was about the heroes success, sometimes, of defeating whatever menace the first page was about. Players really like to read about their characters successes and adventures.

 

Actual handouts:

 

1.) A chunk of some mineral in a heavy wooden box painted to look metallic, when the box was opened Alex, the GM, would click the switch on a blacklight bulb in a nearby lamp. The mineral fluoresced in a pleasantly lurid greenish yellow. The ingame use was that it was a strange radioactive isotope that gave rare individuals siper powers.

 

2.) Article clippings from newspapers, and phenomena magazines. Theyd be xeroxed then the copies themselves xeroxed to roughen them up before being clipped out. These could be anything but strange real world phenomena, ufo sightings, recent crime stories etc were used as plot hooks.

[Blue]

Are you looking for "Mechanics" handouts (Explanations of the system, combat, powers, etc.) or for "settings" handouts (Bits of information about the world and the adventures)?

 

If you're looking for mechanics, I recommend some of the stuff in the Hero System Tool Kit.

 

For campaign handouts I've done a Magazine Article (about heroes being hired to work in the campaign city). I also think it helps if you give a timeline of the world they live in (for commonly known events). Maps (City, Superhero base, etc.) and pictures of known NPCs.

 

I did a tabloid article after the first game that was a panic article about aliens invading, accompanied by a blurry picture of the Alien Player Character. Funny stuff.

[freakboy6117]

though not actually super hero stuff this is a very useful resource mmm marshmellow myth O's there blasphamously delicious

[Count Zero]

I do a website for my game mainly... here is the URL

 

http://worldobserver.rpgmainframe.com/

 

It is for my world that I created which has concepts from Champions I liked. The World Observer is the website for a newspaper in the world. I give hints about upcoming adventures and NPC's. I also modify real news stories from MSNBC and the Guardian as news stories for my world.

 

Also, I do maps and other necessary hand outs per adventure. It all depends on my adventure. A friend of mine has a rule of one prop per scene or hour of game time. It makes it real interesting, but I it hard to keep up with some of the stuff.

 

Jonathan

[Eyendasky80]

I did a pretty detailed hand out for my latest campaign. I was playing with all new people, none of whom were familar with HERO. So I started with the front page to the local newspaper. With plot leads a cover story about a new crop of heroes starting to pop up around town. Then I put in a Map of the city with descriptions of all the neighborhoods so the place would feel real. I put in character generation rules and the PDF intro to the Hero System. I think I may have gone a little overboard, one of my friends said it looked like homework. I got the chance to playtest the Sidekick book and I fully intend to purchase it and use it as a teaching tool for new gamers.

[GrooveD70]

Originally posted by Blue

Are you looking for "Mechanics" handouts (Explanations of the system, combat, powers, etc.) or for "settings" handouts (Bits of information about the world and the adventures)?

 

Both. I guess I was a little vague. My primary concern is helping them with Charector Gen, both mechanically and creatively. But I like the setting ideas as well.

[Eyendasky80]

Then the PDF is a good thing for you, it's like five pages or something with a brief over view of the system. And when Sidekick comes out, grab it.

[TheEmerged]

Originally posted by GrooveD70

Both. I guess I was a little vague. My primary concern is helping them with Charector Gen, both mechanically and creatively. But I like the setting ideas as well.

 

Here are two handouts I gave to all the players when our current campaign began.

 

First, the "rule" handout. My players are HERO veterans however, so this one might be a little heavy for HERO newcomers.

 

Second, the "campaign world" handout. Note that the PC's in this campaign are villains, which does change the tone

[Killer Shrike]

Try handing out the "FREE Stuff" summary of what the HERO System is. It gives a quick heads up to the player, and plus any gamer unwilling to take the time to read the handful of pages is not going have the patience for character creation either, so its a heads up for you too.

[Killer Shrike]

heres the link:

 

http://www.herogames.com/FreeStuff/freedocs/HRO_int.pdf

[Korvar]

I have put together a little 3-page handout which illustrates the standard Combat Maneuvers (apart from Strike, which I thought was fairly obvious )... I should scan it in & put it on the web...

[Guest Celebrin]

I just started a new Champs game with all-new Champs players.

 

What I did with my current game was to ask the players to give me a writeup of their character - physical, personality, history, interests, etc. from that, I created their characters

 

This is probably my favorite way of doing it so far - especially when you're dealing with a game such as Champions/Hero. If they can tell tyou what they'd like their powers to do, and you can do your best to imitate it - then go over the result with the player to see what alterations need made.

 

I've done it myself, and my last Champs GM did a similar thing with his game, as a couple of the other players had never played Champs before.

 

It save the effort of teaching them character creation (which is probably going to take a long time if they have no experience with the game, and will be more effective in getting them the character they want.

 

Rules and specifics of the game are great stuff for a handout - combat rules, how skills work, what the stats are and do, etc. Leave out Character Generation if you can, as it really isn't important to playing the game at the start...they can learn stuff as they gain experience and decide to spend it on things.

 

Darren

[zornwil]

I just put out the basic info on the world and rules on my site; I haven't had to deal with bringing someone into the genre who wasn't reasonably acquainted.

 

For my current campaign, that info would be at http://www.asterick.com/realschluss/x-champions/x-champions_setting/index.html, it is mostly unchanged since the beginning aside from me occassionally fleshing out the history. Oh, I added the sections "Mutant Taxonomy", "Magic in X-Champions", and "Robotics/Cybernetics in X-Champions" later on, these were given as responses to player questions.