RAVE: The joy of 1st time Champions players and power ideas

[Guest Celebrin]

I'm really enjoying my new game - especially the fact that none of my players have ever really played Champions before. It has become even more enjoyable now that they've played a few sessions and are starting to spend some experience and come up with ideas for changing their characters powers down the road.

 

What I did was let them come up with Normal characters, who after the first session, were transformed from latent mutants to mutants in all their glory - with no particular idea exacctly what they could do, though some were more evident than others.

 

Over the last few sessions they have learned about their powers and what they can do. Now that they are really starting to get the hang of what they can do, and have started making use of them in more tactical ways, some of them have expressed some great ideas of how they want to progress their characters.

 

Since none of them really know a whole lot about the rules of the game and how character creation is handled *, this has been really neat. I've avoided discussing the actual mechanics of the power creations, but just encourage them to tell me what they want to try and do, or slowly develop their powers into. I find it encourages more creativity, and since with Champions you can create any power you want, it also flexes my mind into figuring out exactly how I want to do it for my game. Makes me kinda glad that they don't necessarily know the exact way everything works because I'd rather not have them thinking mechanically for as long as possible.

 

For the most part, they've been not worrying about the mechanics quite so much and just trusting me to tell them how many dice to roll and my descriptions of what has happened. Now they're getting the hang of how things work, which makes it enjoyable as well, as I can see them picking up the rules better with every session based on what they're character is capable of doing. Next session, I'm going to tackle Combat Maneuvers before we play so they can make more use out of some of their capabilities.

 

Darren

[RDU Neil]

Congrats Darren..

 

You've just discovered one of the true joys of Hero/Champions... taking willing newbies and teaching them (and yourself) the game.

 

I'd always loved Champions, because back in '81 we all learned the system together, and then in college I taught my friends how to play. This allowed them to say "I want to do X" and then I could guide them in how I thought it should be built. No arguments... all of us "on the same page."

 

Then, in the early '90s, I started gaming with Storn and others. These guys had already learned Hero/Champions... and already had their own ideas about how the game worked. While there was never an issue of quality role playing, for the first time I was getting challenges and arguments all the time on the system and the interpretation.

 

Obviously we still game together, years later, but it was NOT easy at the beginning. The beauty of Hero is that there is so many ways to do something. That is it's horror, as well. Interpretation is not wrong... but one interpretation can differ greatly from another... expectations can be very different, and the system doesn't really clear this up. It's been 12 years of constant "metagame" discussions to get to the point of being "on the same page" that was natural and easy back in high school and college.

 

Enjoy it while you can. Enjoy their open minded and cooperative mindsets. It will probably last, until they move on to another Champions game, or a new player joins who learned the system else where. Then get ready for the headaches.

 

(I should not that I have had at least two new players who didn't know the system at all, and they integrated well. They had no preconceived notions, and did just what you are describing. "I want to try X or Y" and then just go along with my suggestion of the way that would fit the campaign the best. It is possible for this congeniality... but players and GM both have to be open to new ideas... and that can be tough when differences flare up unexpectedly in the middle of a game.)

[Guest Celebrin]

I've actually played champions since 2nd edition boxed set, so learning the rules mayself isn't so much the issue as relearning and picking up all the little things I hadn't always payed attention to.

 

But yes, the enjoyment of helping new players manage their characters and come up with ideas is great. I've seen the flaws with the "ease" of coming up with different routes to the almost identical powers as well. Fortunately I've gotten used to that way of thinking so hopefully it'll eventually aid me when those situations eventually come up.

 

Though my session yesterday wasn't one of my best moments in GMing (it was kinda slow and suited basically to just add another player to the group - which is good as well, it just went kinda slow), but the realization that the group was really starting to understand how things worked enough to be coming up with very solid ideas that worked with their characters as well as the campaign for their characters down the road. I'm really glad I have such great players.

 

Darren