Zeropoint Posted February 16, 2004 Report Share Posted February 16, 2004 I had been thinking about using San Angelo as the basis for a campaign, but setting it in the Champions universe. However, the more I look at the two settings, the more I feel that they just wouldn't work together. It would be easy enough to adjust the point levels in San Angelo to the new 350 point standard, but the real difference is the feel of the universes--SA presents a much more "realistic" and low powered world, whereas the CU is a very four-color place with near-cosmic powers at work. As far as I can tell, simply stating that the city of San Angelo exists within the Champions universe will remove most of the differences that make it unique and attractive as a setting, leaving me with nothing but a place where super/normal relations are a little closer than elsewhere. Now, that could be interesting in its own right--a city where supers mingle with normal society regularly, where you might find yourself standing behind a super in line at the coffe shop, or a super stops at a little Mom & Pop grocery for the best home-home made burritos in town. But it wouldn't be San Angelo, as described in the book. Anyone out there have experience integrating the two? Or better thought-out reasons why it shouldn't be done? Zeropoint Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monolith Posted February 16, 2004 Report Share Posted February 16, 2004 Personally, I just gave Millennium City more of a San Angelo/Freedom City feel. What always interested me about SA was its Astro City feel. It was a place where seeing superhumans was common. I think you have that in MC. You have a city built upon the idea that heroes and heroism cannot be stopped. MC is a city that likes and respects its heroes. Sapphire has a radio talk show, for example, and Dr. Silverback is always seen out-about town. You have publicty supers such as Binary Man and Cavalier. The only thing in MC that were missing, IMO, was a greater "feeling" about how the people of MC interact with the heroes. The book could have used a little more cream along those lines. So do I think SA can be used in the CU? Yes, quite easily. SA is not a special city, it's just a city that has a humanistic regard for heroes. I think MC is also supposed to have that feel, so having the two cities co-exist is quite simple (outside of the power-level differences and basic origins of superpowers). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnOSpencer Posted February 17, 2004 Report Share Posted February 17, 2004 Yep, San Angelo can be used in CU. It just takes some minor tweaks(like is their a VIPER nest, tc). I've been running one(San Angelo in CU) for about a year. John Spencer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobCRogers Posted February 20, 2004 Report Share Posted February 20, 2004 It's pretty compatible. You mostly have to decide how to integrate SA-specific groups with CU-specific groups (like how does PART interact with PRIMUS). The main point of incompatibility I found is that the San Angelo universe mostly avoids dealing with aliens and the Champions Universe uses them quite a bit. (Atlantis is a similar point of difference.) You just have to decide which aspects of which universe you want to use. I came up with an article (posted on the San Angelo Yahoo Groups board) launching my own SA/CU campaign a few years back. I tried unsuccessfully to post a direct link to it, but you can go to the group site, click Files, and then select Where's the Justice. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SACoH/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monolith Posted February 20, 2004 Report Share Posted February 20, 2004 Originally posted by RobCRogers (like how does PART interact with PRIMUS) I think PART operate in the same way as the MARS units in Millennium City. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobCRogers Posted February 20, 2004 Report Share Posted February 20, 2004 Originally posted by Monolith That link did not work for me. Sorry. I'm not sure how else to tell you to get there. You probably have to be a member of Yahoo Groups. Anyway, it was more like a profile piece about the city with its main protectors missing (the Justice Foundation had disappeared), which incorporated aspects of both the San Angelo universe and the Champions Universe (4th Edition, since this was a few years ago). At any rate, the campaign's been running pretty successfully for nearly four years now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanguard00 Posted February 20, 2004 Report Share Posted February 20, 2004 Like just about any other game supplement, I think with some modifications SA would work very well in the CU. I'm awaiting the newer version of SA to be released, but I'm using the old one to put a campaign together. I live in Sacramento, California, and San Angelo could drop down right on top and no one would know the difference (including a few people who live here now). I'm tweaking SA to take the place of Sacramento, and replacing certain elements of SA with CU counterparts. It should drop in as easily as MC did in place of Detroit. Of course, time will tell. But, to answer the original question, my vote is "Yeah, it works." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RPMiller Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Is the CU compatible with San Angelo? SA absolutely can work with the CU universe ro any universe for that matter. I understand that the current developer for SA is a standup guy that would be happy to address any questions that you might have so you might want to ask him about it. One of the comments above, and that I've seen mentioned several times, is the issue of aliens. No where in the SA book will you find that aliens don't exist. The truth of the matter is that they in fact do, and there is a rumor, based on fact, that they are scheduled to show up in the new SA book. Of course, we have to wait until that new developer guy gets off his duff, and actually writes it. However, I heard that he is currently not being given the green light on the project because of business reasons... Oh well, we can always hope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MitchellS Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Is the CU compatible with San Angelo? Thread necromancy. As was mentioned above, the only real problem with using San Angelo is the slight power-level disparity between the two settings. It seems that San Angelo uses characters who fall within the level of "normal" or heroic in characteristics. There are several characters with a 4 speed or a dexterity below 18. The CU seems to use characteristic values slightly higher than that. If you're willing to make some slight adjustments along those lines then San Angelo will work just fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RPMiller Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Is the CU compatible with San Angelo? This is true as SA was written back in 98 using pre-4th edition rules so there is a fair amount of tweaking that needs to be done to power them up. I understand that the developer actually has all the SA characters from every book in HD format thus fixing all the math errors, and making it easier for ramping up for SA 2e whenever that happens. I know in my own SA campaign there have been a lot of changes, and I'll be curious to see how they mesh with the changes in 2e. Something tells me they'll be pretty close as I've invested a lot of time and energy into reading the SA books, and think I have a pretty good handle on the universe as a whole. Plus I'm real good friends with the GRG staff. A couple years ago, when I first started an SA campaign I actually meshed a lot of the CU into it, but that was old 4th CU that predated all the new books, in any event my players had no complaints and felt the same level of "realism" regardless of what the source material was. I feel that really is the GM's responsibility to breathe life into his game. I've played a couple where it felt like we were just pushing around a dead horse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MitchellS Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Is the CU compatible with San Angelo? Someone should tell that designer to hurry up and win the lottery so that he can publish the books himself via license from Gold Rush Games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RPMiller Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Is the CU compatible with San Angelo? I'm not sure, but I think he probably wants the same thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Raven Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Is the CU compatible with San Angelo? Yes San Angelo is compatable with the Champions Universe. I have recently run a 350 pt game set in San Angelo. Any city can be placed in the Champions Universe, some more easily than others. In my own Heroverse I have combined 4th ed Champins Universe with the 5th ed champions universe along with Bay City from New Millennium and San Angelo. So I have San Angelo, Bay City in place of San Fransico, Millennium City in place of Detrot. I chose the San Angelo orgin of super powers over the CU 5th ed. orgin. I also ignored certain CU 5th ed timeline entries as I have used my universe since 3rd edition and my time line has the Champions banding together in the early 1980's. Anyway San Angelos is easily adaptable for your game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RPMiller Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Is the CU compatible with San Angelo? Good to hear!! I'm glad you were able to get it to all gel, and it sounds like you've done a good job. Kudos! I've repped you for taking on the challenge! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobCRogers Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Is the CU compatible with San Angelo? One of the comments above' date=' and that I've seen mentioned several times, is the issue of aliens. No where in the SA book will you find that aliens don't exist. The truth of the matter is that they in fact do...[/quote'] No, I understood that from the books (If you'll revisit my post, you'll see that I didn't suggest that SA said that aliens didn't exist; I said that SA mostly avoids dealing with them). The big difference is that in the San Angelo books, as written, it's generally believed that aliens don't exist. In the Champions Universe, on the other hand, Earth has fought off alien invaders, several major heroes and villains are known aliens, etc. It's a disparity that a GM combining the source material has to decide what to do with, that's all. In my campaign, I initially decided to go with the "aliens are considered not to be real" angle, but eventually regretted having done that. While I've introduced aliens, I wasn't really prepared to focus much time on the world coming to grips with the idea that alien life exists. The Champions Universe's way of dealing with that (people know irrefutably that aliens exist) is a little simpler to work with if you intend to use aliens at all, unless you want to focus on a "world comes to grip with alien life" storyline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RPMiller Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Is the CU compatible with San Angelo? Got it. Plus there is Atlantis to deal with. Oh and the East Coast City that will hopefully one day make it's appearance (that was what Freedom City was originally for BTW). Yes there is lots of great stuff, and I sit weeping that the developer can't do anything with it... yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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