Dream Teams - Champions Style

[Kevin]

Most super hero fans have a favorite team configuration - you know, The Avengers group they like the best, the Justice League they like the best, etc.

 

For Champions players and GMs...what configuration was your alltime favorite/best group of Champions?

 

When for awhile everything clicked, the stories were good, the players never seemed to make a wrong move.

 

Before a player quit so a character got dropped, or a new player came and while they were OK it still wasn't the same.

 

Share your Champions war stories!

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

For my Vanguard game, the "golden" team was:

 

Triton: aquatic brick

 

Dragonfist: Iron-fist type martial artist, slowly turning into a dragon.

 

La Pied: think Jean-Claude vandamme as a Canadian w/superpowers. Never really cared for the character, but he was part of the golden team.

 

Shadowstar: trick-shuriken throwing ninja.

 

Prismcat: extra-dimensional tiger-sized cat with light powers

 

That was the most effective group. There were tons of other players and characters that got involved, and each of the players of the above characters brought in other characters from time to time, but the other combinations never had quite the same magic as these five. Another hero would come in, and while could be effective on their own, threw off the rythym of the team as a whole. When I think of "Vanguard", these are the ones who immediately come to mind, and who were played the longest and most consistently.

[Bengal]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

Wow, I had not ever considered a Champions dream team. Maybe because we've always had one munchkiny or feeble or boring or dsruptive or overpowered or just annoying character in the group? Our favorite stories are the ones where half the team has been captured (or whatever, since their players didn't show up that session) and the other half had to overcome even greater-than-normal odds to triumph.

 

 

Our teams have also been plagued by the most bizarre cast of villains ever, including Meester Easter (master of hide and seek) the Brass Monkey, Baron Ames von Orskel (Dr Doom minus magic), communist bears, disco-dancing metrosexuals with vertigo powers, mutant fungus, grey goo, our own evil twins, NPC team members gone horribly bad, local newscasters, the dastardly duo of Payne Glass and Captain Quicksand, the Spheremaster, Eartha Quake, random Marvel and DC bad guys, the DC Sniper ("dammit, why don't any of us have Mind Scan?")- not the real world one, but rather a version of Scourge that killed good guys... More VIPER, DEMON, GENOCIDE, and CLOWNs than you can shake a stick at, and an all-new and improved version of Plant-Man.

 

 

So maybe if we had a truly interesting rogue's gallery? But what cha gonna do.

[levi]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

The best time I ever had playing a Champions game was the original Chicago Defenders campaign. I am usually the GM in my group, but John "Flashburn" Baxter stepped up and crafted the absolute best run I have ever had as a player. When we started the campaign there were really only two devoted players...myself and Jason Strong (his real name), so we each played 2 characters and John threw in some DNPCs to fill our ranks.

 

The PCs...

Slider - Magnetic manipulator & Former Gov't assassin atoning for past sins

Brawl - Street tough turned superhero, continuous healing meant you couldn't keep this big man down

Maked Marvel - Third generation mutant with many different powers, none of them many active points

Syphon - Biotechnician turned superhero, brick/energy projector who drained your resistances

 

The DNPCs...

Doc Wilkinson - Team founder and financier, middle-aged super scientist

Nightshade - Reformed super-villainess, martial arts/poison powers

Lead Boy - Young mutant with the ability to TK Lead (later became AlcheMax and could transmute metals)

Scatterbrain - Captured/Rescued from Deathstroke this troubled psychic struggled to contain/control her massive mental abilities

 

Several guest stars floated in and out of the roster over the campaign's three years, but the core of the team was always Slider and Brawl. Slider gave the orders and Brawl enforced them. There seemed to be nothing these guys couldn't handle. From Mechnon to Terror Inc., we beat 'em all.

 

Beyond the combat though were hours of role-playing and character development...from the constant ribbing of our young mutant ward Lead Boy (affectionately known as "Toothpick" cause he was so scrawny) to the espionage history between Nightshade and Slider to Doc Wilkinson's absent-mindedness to Mamma Brantonelli's home cooking (Brawl's Mom). This team was a family and as rich as any I have ever read about in the comics.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

Probably the most fun I ever had was in a mini-campaign pitting an ad-hoc collection of the world's greatest heroes against a combined invasion by Lovecraftian aliens and their extra-dimensional kin. We got to play with really powerful characters for very high stakes, and everyone was stoked. We decided to choose established characters from 4E Champions books; I got to play my personal fave, Nuada of the Silver Hand from Kingdom of Champions. Other names that Champs afficionados might remember would be Vincent Dimitrios from Mystic Masters; Peacekeeper from Classic Organizations; Mind Titan from first edition Champions Universe; Captain Australia from HERO System Almanac I; and Jade Tiger from Watchers of the Dragon.

 

From a roleplaying perspective it was interesting to work out a team dynamic for heroes who had primarily worked solo in their careers, but were forced by circumstances to cooperate. By the time we launched our assault on the aliens' mothership we had built up a bond of trust and teamwork.

 

My personal highlight was the effort to delay the opening of the gateway to the monsters' home dimension until other of our comrades could crash the mothership into it to destroy it. I had to duel War and Death of the Seven Horsemen alone for several Turns.

[Ghost Archer]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

Since you are talking ‘Dream Team’ I am going with the team I’d love to play and run. This group of PCs never did play as a group. The first, Icehawk, is my own character and one I would love to play with the other four. Each of the players of those four has an extremely refined sense of their character and brings an incredible sense of fun to the game. As Icehawk I have teamed with Bill’s Titan and for a few hours we battled back to back in a way I’ve always imagined a true team would work. Jodie’s CNJ has always been the benchmark for “Overconfidence†and his single-handed demand for the surrender of the entire Zodiac team is still a classic. Randy’s Chameleon combined a snobbish aristocrat with an inveterate coward and produced an endless array of classic comedic bits we all still talk about. Mark’s Sarge . . . I include him, not for the character but for the player. Never have I met someone that can get so mad in the game and yet laugh about it as soon as it is over.

 

The PCs . . .

Icehawk – Happy-go-lucky rich kid turned thief turned hero.

Titan – Genius kid turned Brick via a magic ring.

Captain New Jersey – Teleporting martial artist with no sense.

Chameleon – The cowardly shape shifter.

Sarge – The super powerful, super bigot.

 

For NPC, Domma’s Pam is prefect as the ultimate DNPC for my Icehawk. She brings tragedy and drama to the flighty personality of my hero. She gives him a strong grounding in the ‘reality’ of the world, something many a spoiled brat needs. Brit Stanton began as the infant daughter of Bill’s Daimon and for years she languished in Limbo until I began a Teen Champions game. She exploded fully formed in my mind and has become my favorite NPC of all time.

Nick, he’s another story. He began over 20 years ago as an all powerful Entity and developed into a multifaceted being woven into the fabric of nearly every plot thread I have. Bane to my own Ghost Archer, protector of Domma’s Raven and enigmatic figure to nearly every other character, Nick remains the Rock of my NPCs.

 

The NPCs . . .

Pam Hawkins – Wife of Icehawk.

Brittany Stanton – Teenage daughter of the fastest MAN alive.

Nick – Master of Balance and all around pain in the ass.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

The Sentinels, my superteam, haven't been around in-game long enough to have a dream team. I mean, it looks like we are going to have two roster changes in the first 72 hours of our existence. . .

[Blue]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

I've got 14 heroes on the current team roster of The New Sentinels, and about 3 from an old 5-man team of Protectors I ran years ago (the other 2 being my NPC characters). From this set of 17 player PCs, here is the team I'd go with...

 

Geoff Gardener (No Hero Name yet; Steampunk Gadgeteer)

Rift (Time manipulator)

Duplicity (Energy Projector with Pos & Neg powers, who splits into two)

Quasar (Brick/swordswoman)

Thok (Alien Mentalist)

Billy Ray (Martial Artist, quasi-speedster)

Orland (Gun-fu practicioner)

Anthem (Low-level Martial Artist and general sidekick)

 

That's a brick, mentalist, martial artist, ranged weaponeer, time manipulator, energy projector and gadgeteer. They could use another EP, frankly. But if I were running a game with my choice of heroes, that would be them. Not necessarily the "A" team, but certainly the most fun and well-rounded.

[Kevin]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

My dream team is from the group I played with in the 80's...so nostalgia factor big time!

 

Mr. Terrific - Brick; The only thing too big for him to lift was his own EGO!

 

Microman - Shrinker, "Hey...no cracks about "things" being small..."

 

Icestorm - Energy Projector, "I spend more time cooling off my teammates than the bad guys."

 

Wraith - Telepath, "I think you should change your mind. Wait. I'll change it for you."

[animemun001]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

well currently in the golden age champions game i'm running the players include,

Brickman- the deductive skills and hand to hand skills of batman with the physical appearance of concrete

 

shadowman- half asian/half african-american darkness energy projector

 

Captain U.S.A- a superman version of captain america

 

Wonder Bunny-Alien life form with bunny features (ears & feet) with high technology and her power to open random gates within 10KM. who wears a playboy bunny costume (man those alien microforcefields do alot don't they?)

 

Combo- (the idiot er..mascott of the team) beast boy type.

 

Lanca- Cyborg Woman experimented on by the german army.

 

this group in game so far as had a great deal of luck or unluck as the case may be that the US government has named this pet hero group the 'expendables'

[Tamashii2000]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

Never had a 'perfect team' as most of them had one or more players that basicly screwed it up. But my best team was ...

 

Dove: Flying Martial Artist with Pet Bird.

Metalon: Mentalist/Teleporter

Omullus: Wanna be Ironman in incompleate armor (almost looked like he was

wearing shorts...)

 

 

Next closest would be the teenage superhero group I had

 

Panthro (Gm Controled) Martial Artist/Detective

Magic Girl: Small VVP no other skills

Swift: Speedster

There was also a Energy projector who seemed to always betray the group (Horror stories about that player later) and a shrinking/density increasing brick. both of whom where so forgettable...that I don't remember thier names.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

You stole our groups name and now we are going to have to go to your house and trash your hero base.

 

We were Vanguard!

 

Anyway our Vanguard team was totally great, we went through roster changes left and right, but the players all stayed. The best group was

 

The Z-Man: (my PC) Alien empowered Superhero (Flying/MA/MiniBrick/Energy Projector) who was also a Soap star and a Canadian! :grin:

 

The Atom Smasher: Shrinking Brick with a Rocket Pack and a AP Punch

 

The Priest: Zen Buddist/Catholic Pacificist preist with Aikido and Mind "influencing" powers

 

The Demon: Pharmeacopic Speedster; Running and SPD in a Pill [10c continuing]

 

Vanguard: Team founder and the only person I ever knew to just throw a 'naked' VPP at some villian and say to the GM "I roll a 9 to hit! Vanguard is channelling the pure force of his power cosmic, what does it do?"

 

Hawksmoor

 

Goodtimes :grin:

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

For my Vanguard game, the "golden" team was:

 

Triton: aquatic brick

 

Dragonfist: Iron-fist type martial artist, slowly turning into a dragon.

 

La Pied: think Jean-Claude vandamme as a Canadian w/superpowers. Never really cared for the character, but he was part of the golden team.

 

Shadowstar: trick-shuriken throwing ninja.

 

Prismcat: extra-dimensional tiger-sized cat with light powers

 

That was the most effective group. There were tons of other players and characters that got involved, and each of the players of the above characters brought in other characters from time to time, but the other combinations never had quite the same magic as these five. Another hero would come in, and while could be effective on their own, threw off the rythym of the team as a whole. When I think of "Vanguard", these are the ones who immediately come to mind, and who were played the longest and most consistently.

 

And to give you an idea of how many other characters passed through the team over the years:

 

Thoughtwave

Gladiate/Cat's Paw/Gladiate (changed name/costume, then changed back)

Colorshock

Black Magic

Shockwave

Stingray

Blue Bolt

Monolith

Bengal

Angel

Spikor/Tasor

Flashpoint

Radiance

Atlas

Firefly

Void

Cheshire

Alleycat

4 Winds

Photon

(from what I can remember at the moment)

 

And the Vanguard 2000 crew: (same campaign, picked up a few years later)

Huntress

MegaMan

Flex

Spectrum

Hachiman

Waverider

Changeling

Hardhat

Olympian

Grolm

Uncle Ivan

Scarlet Scorpion

[st barbara]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

I suppose we all get a little nostalgic for the "First" team that we played in in our various "Champions" campaigns. Ours "Team Zenith 3" consisted of a rather eclectic international collection. They were : "St Barbara" , Danish flying energy projector. "Knight", American brick in an armoured suit, "Ravenscroft", British Magician. "Animato", Italian telekinetic. "Dragon's Claw" Japanese/ Australian (I think) martial artist with a samurai sword and "Widget", New Zealand gadgeteer who could cobble together useful devices out of available materials. Since then things have changed and only "St Barbara" (now a lot more versatile) is still around. Sigh ! I miss those guys (and girls).

[zornwil]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

Oddly, I don't have any sort of preference for the most part (post-High SChool, that is), except I'll say that the 2 gaming groups I was in was better than the first solely due to # of players, only like 3 of us regularly played way back. Oh, y'know, I should add that actually during that first post-HS group of gamers, well, there was one guy, a reliable 4th for a time, and he was fun to play with but became intolerable out of play, so that did muddy those waters and we ended up avoiding playing with him.

 

What would be a dream scenario fo rme would be the last group I was in playing with the current group in the campaign I'm running. The Outsiders versus the Justice Squad. I think the Justice Squad would win - the players are stronger tactically - but then again I let the Outsiders fudge more, so I suppose I'd go ahead and let the Outsiders be the more versatile and somewhat higher-powered group they were and that would help balance it out. It would be fun if it were one of those silly "misunderstanding" ones, with the initial fight and the "oh we're on the same side, let's go kick some ass!" thing.

 

The Outsiders (the core team, the regulars) -

Dr. Time (master of time naturally - makes things and people younger and older, and can travel in time, including being in 2 places at once (duplicatoin))

Necromancer (obviously, a necromancer - but this one is the son of the early presence of Death and her union with Dr. Strange!)

Nightshade (unofficial leader; dark elemental force similar to cloak with shapeshifting abilities and a nasty vampiric life-sucking power - yet he was the more straightforward good guy of the group)

Desperado (looked like Eddie Maiden from the Iron Maiden covers, an uber-gunfighter/detective)

 

the Justice Squad

Nexus, Master of Dimensions (dimensional-traveling (in a Lovecraft way) mage who was born a hyper-intelligetn troll-like mutant but has shed most of his troll abilities)

Spectrum (mentalist who recently has merged supernatural powers triggered from mental controls - from her friendship with Willow of BtVS)

Laughton AKA Rodin (alien who takes on many super-elemental "sorts" of forms (fire, cloud, stone, etc.), now expanding into more complex forms, also transforms others into elements - also hyperINT)

Sammy the Slime (Odo-like character, and like him a weird, seemingly unnatural lifeform)

not so regular - Neumann (which he pronounces "Newman", a robot built by a mad scientist but 50 years ago, a clunky but weirdly advanced robot built "to help")

 

Of course it would take a little work as I have reused the Outsiders as NPCs in my current world and I broke continuity as this campaign world is in fact different from the last one. In fact in this universe Nightshade is going out with Spectrum. (Which is sort of funny as the player who did Nightshade had a girlfriend (now wife) whom, while quite nice, when we hung out with them, tended to be EXTREMELY jealous - to the point where back then she couldn't have dealt with his PC having a girlfriend - but from what it sounds like (we're still in touch a bit) she lightened up a lot, particularly as by now they're married and all that, there's more security)

[Magmarock]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

V.A.L.O.R. (Vigilant Avengers for Law, Order and Retribution):

 

Strobe: Teleporting Imortal w/ Dimension Travel

Surge: Ground-pounder Electical Blaster

Storm Knight: Weather-controlling Wizard

Magmarok: Female Walking-Lava Brick (toughest of team)

Randamn: Random Power Effects on thrown items ala Gambit

Puma: Move-Thru Specialist Brick (strongest of team)

Ally: Alien/Symbiot Martial Artist

Tasor: Will-o-wisp stuffed into a tiny, man-shaped suit. Tiny Zapper EB

Backlash: Mentalist, who reflected Mental Attacks back to opponants

NPC: Ballistic: Female High DEX and Guns (any and all)

 

This team just gelled. We worked so well together and had so much fun roleplaying.

 

Low point: Randamn and Ballistic's love child was kidnapped and raised by a demon in an alien dimension (where the time flowed incredibly fast) only to return to destroy the team as the villain Ricochet, in conjunction with Deathbringer, the teams arch-adversary.

 

Highlight: When Ricochet was killed, Ally was transported into the past where, his host body died, having been mortally wounded by Deathbringer. The symbiot had to acquire a new body which turned out to be the French woman who was Strobe's wife in the past. It was this female 'Ally' who convinced Strobe that he must assemble V.A.L.O.R., and also told him where to find the various team members. It all came around full circle, with a full explanation for the team and some of our origins were altered by the revelations involved. I love time Travel!

 

 

Super-cool factor: We had MATCHING COSTUMES! White and blue. How cool is that?

 

 

Mags

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

 

My dream team was The Ultimates(we took the name after pulverizing Binder and friends). The group was:

 

Lightmaster-Energy projector capable of turning himself into pure energy and traveling at the speed of...you guessed it...light. " You WILL see the light....or by my light, you won't see at all."

 

Orca-Immensely strong(100 STR) Brick. " For the last time, I DON'T have a blowhole! "

 

Guardian-Super intelligent power armored type- " Never before seen extra dimensional transport technology? Better give me TWO minutes then. "

 

Ninja-Martial Artist. " Wyvern again? He's like the annoying dog that follows you home and won't go away."

 

The Living EGO(played by yours truly)- Telepath/telekinetic....and with a big mouth. " Look...you can either surrender...or be defeated. The choice is y---...hmmm....come to think of it...it's actually mine, isn't it? "

 

This group, the longest running group I was ever part of, was just great. We took on all comers. The highlight of our career was fending off an attack on Washington DC by a force of almost 20 supervillians! The battle was four sessions long, but we finally prevailed. We had a great balance of humor and seriousness and we were great as a combat force. Never seen the likes since.

 

Rob