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[SleepyDrug]

I'm fooling around with updating my Champions Universe campaign. (right now i'm running a mixed marvel/dc world). Some thoughts bouncing around I wanted opinions on.

 

1) We've seen...four (?) official versions of the Champions (the original, 4th ed team, fuzion team, current), which group do you like/use or a mix?

 

2) Do you use npc hero guest stars much?

 

3) If so, who?

 

4) Are these converted from comic books, original creations, or the Champions?

[Hermit]

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1) I use the 5th Edition version. Someone has to like them

 

2) Yes. I tend towards a super heavy world. I try to make sure they don't steal any PC's thunder though.

 

3) Some of my own creation, and some from the official setting.

 

4) See above

[Jarekk]

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I've never played in an "official" setting. (GM's tend to like inventing their own...)

 

I do like to "import" (rip-off) characters from comics, jsut to see if I can do them accurately. Usually, no, I can't. But, it's fun trying.

 

Hey--incidently, I have no memory of Hero pre-4th ed. What were the "original" champions like?

 

(I kinda prefer the 4th ed guys to the 5th. Not that I don't like the new guys, I just like Solitaire...)

[Enforcer84]

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I like the official setting, I use it. I have alot of 4th Ed CU stuff too, plan on eventually updating it all and using it like the old JSA/JLA teamups.

 

As can be seen by my "Hero A Day thread" I really like to make characters, I love to write backstory (and since I rarely get to play let alone gm anymore, its about all I do) and I like varying powerlevels.

[Sketchpad]

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1) I use a tricked-out version of the FRED Champs ... along with a few faces from from 4th. For the most part, the 4th & C:NM Champs I made into the "Teen Champions" ... just took some changes here and there Oddly enough ... I think I've changed almost all of their outfits and backstories also.

2 & 3) I have several heroes in my universe ... some from 4th, FRED, 3rd, C:NM ... but most from the twisted maze that is my mind

4) Some are loosely based off comic/media characters ... but they're altered so much by the time I'm done that they have only some simularities to their father character.

[steriaca]

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Hey--incidently, I have no memory of Hero pre-4th ed. What were the "original" champions like?

 

 

Acualy, there WAS none. Useing the name Champions for the sample group of heros was a 4th edition thing. Before that, I beleve there was a series of sample charaters with a hero option/villian option paragraph. Basicly it was just a paragraph for an orgin, then the hero/villian option, and that was that. Most charaters only took up a half a page then (with Dr. Destroyer being an exeception of being a full page in The Island Of Dr. Destroyer adventure).

 

So, to recap, Champions 1st edition was mostly the rules in rougth forme. The examples in the paragraphs pointed to a super team named The Gardians (The Marksman, Rose, Icestar, ect, ect, ect,) but it would be untill Denes Mahonie's comic book series when we ever get the stats for them.

 

Champions 2 was not truly a "Champions 2nd edition" more than "we reprinted the rules of Champions 1 and added a few more. Same with Champions 3.

[winterhawk]

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I like the official setting' date=' I use it. I have alot of 4th Ed CU stuff too, plan on eventually updating it all and using it like the old JSA/JLA teamups. [/quote']

 

I just got done doing one of these and it was a real blast. The 4th Edition campaign has become 'Earth 4' and the 5th Edition campaign is 'Earth 5'.

 

On topic:

 

1) I haven't used the Champions much, save some appearances by Ironclad because I have a player with an alien armor suit. In my 4th edition campaing, which was set in Los Angeles, I tended to use the Protectors since they were based in San Fran and I liked them way better.

 

2) Like many have mentioned, I like making characters and have a ton of NPC heroes, but I mostly use them as plot points or flavor, and never steal the players thunder.

 

3) See above.

 

4) I have a long standing rule that I won't let published comic characters into my campaings, unless they have never had their own title. This comes from a player trying to play Daredevil and becomming upset when he wasn't treated the same as the Marvel DD. On the other hand, one of the great heroes of my 4th campaign is a little known Marvel villain who switched sides. We have incorporated his team into the universe and a few other villains, such as the Constrictor.

[TheEmerged]

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1> I use a mix of the 5th & 4th Edition teams -- Ironclad and Sapphire from 5th, Defender from both, Solitaire & Seeker & Jaguar from 4th. All have been tricked out to about 650 points; the PC's are closign in on 400 points. Of course the PC's are supervillains...

 

Ironclad just works for me better than Obsidian. Sapphire made the cut over Quantum primarily because one of the players HATES the real-world celebrity she is clearly a one-off of Jaguar was added primarily as a foil for one of the PC's (*somebody* has to be able to sense Oamen through his darkness field). Witchcraft might be an okay character but she just isn't enough to warrant using her over Solitaire. As for NightDuck versus Seeker? I named my dog Seeker, so it should be obvious who wins that slot.

 

2>...so naturally I have a fair number of superheroic NPC's running around. The PC's have to fight somebody other than their fellow black masks

 

3> Given the dearth of published heroic NPC INSERT SUBTLE HINT HERE I've been developing my own -- the Capital Gang in Wash DC (Avengers knock-offs), the Justice Battalion in Cincinnati (JLA knock-offs), the Moderators in Texas (X-Men knockoffs). I've also snared Team Tomorrow from the Aberrant game and the Defiants from "Brave New World".

 

Of course I've got my own, majorly beefed up Protectors out on the left coast with Victrix and Jo-Tan from 4th Edition's Freedom Patrol on the roster. They're built to reflect a team that's been together for 20 years and is one of the most powerful nova teams on the planet...

 

...and the Champions are about to make their second appearance in the campaign Sunday (6/20). Should be interesting.

[JJR]

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1) We've seen...four (?) official versions of the Champions (the original' date=' 4th ed team, fuzion team, current), which group do you like/use or a mix?[/quote']

The first group from 1st through 3rd edition were called The Guardians, not the Champions. We use the current team with the Guardians having been an old and now mostly retired group. 4th edition and fuzion never existed in our game.

 

2) Do you use npc hero guest stars much?

Our GM uses a different npc hero as his player character almost every session.

 

3) If so, who?

It varies. Our GM has used almost everyone given a write up so far.

 

4) Are these converted from comic books, original creations, or the Champions?

All of our npcs have come from the champions universe so far.

[Chuckg]

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My own thoughts if I was running a campaign...

 

1) Depends. If the PCs are supposed to be spend lots of time interacting w/ the Champions as equals, then I have to drop Nightduck and insert Seeker, or else most of the people I know and would be recruiting asp layers would keep interrupting the game to beat the crap out of him. Idiot duck boy isn't exactly popular in my neighborhood.

 

Outside of that, I like the 5e editions of Defender, Ironclad, and Sapphire, and Witchcraft's power writeup is quite serviceable, she just needs to have her origin story tweaked a bit so it looks more like Solitaire's and less like a rejected Buffy script.

 

2) Depends on if the team has any gaps in their lineup that need plugging. My usual policy is to have NPC guest stars show up if their absence would be 'unreasonable', given established game canon and areas of interest.

 

(i.e. -- if you're involved in a case majorly vital to US national security and it goes anywhere near PRIMUS' notice, you're at least talking to a Silver Avenger, if not DJ himself, 'caue explaining their total absence of interest would require straining. Likewise, if you're circulating in Kinetik's neighborhood for any great length of time, he'll stop on by to check in. Etc, etc.)

 

3) See 2). Basically, it would depend on where the players went.

 

4) Oh, you're asking if any NPC guest stars of my own exist?

 

Yup. John Fox, loosely adapted from PLANETARY's John Stone, in my game worlds the President's personal intel troubleshooter and investigator-into-weird-stuff. (Fills the same role that Mortimer(?), that investigator into weird happenings for the British Foreign Office in _Kingdom of Champions_ fills, only cleanly shaven, wearing a much better suit, and with more seniority.)

 

When John Fox shows up, worry. His time is so overbooked that his attention is only focused on the really important cases.

 

Also, in games where the party hasn't provided an intel analyst or computer hacker, I have my own little Oracle homage -- Chloe Watson, INT 23 graduate student in Information and Library Science at Millenium City University. Trekkie, otaku ("Ahem! I am an otaqueen, thank you!"), eidetic memory specialist, speed reader, and insatiable information junkie, she knows more about the Superhuman World than anybody except the most senior of UNTIL's intelligence staff.

 

She *doesn't* have an uber-mainframe Cray in a clocktower (although she does have a superuser account on the university mainframe, being an assistant sysadmin), doesn't have independent wealth (her dad's a plumber), and doesn't have a mysterious acquaintance who lurks in a cave -- but even with just an ordinary desktop PC and a broadband connection, she can do your research, hack your files, and spot your patterns of suspicious data better than anyone.

 

If somebody has taken a DNPC in the right age/social range, I generally stick Chloe in there. Otherwise, she's a friend of a friend, or the best-qualified applicant for the job of the team's receptionist (if they do the 'official HQ' route), or however else she can plausibly fit into their lives.

 

Yes, her main role is 'information conduit from the DM to the party'. Hey, pretty much every game has one anyway, I just formalized the process.