What is it about Champions?

[Pendaran]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

hi, the player of Horus Re from the New Sentinels game that gets mentioned here.

 

Horus is bar none one of the brightly shiniest characters I have ever played, you can apparently see various quotes from him in certain threads and the like. He lacks angst, he's noble, he's heroic in a campaign that skews Bronze to Silver Age, with mostly Silver. I love playing him, it's some of the most fun I have ever had.

 

Vampire is about one of my all time favourite rpgs. My favourite pc I've ever had is a vamp.

 

I've had fun long lasting campaigns in it. Dark as hell to be sure, but fun.

 

I'm 24, the other people I've gamed with, in their 20s to 30s.

 

I go out regularly on the weekends with large groups of people to hang out, go to theaters, go to sports bars (before I got Crohn's disease and alcohol became verboten) and the like. All the people in the campaign did that too.

 

So, your view of vampire? narrow minded and innacurate. At least I guess you openly gave it that caveat.

[paigeoliver]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

The funny thing about the antisocial vampire children is that they are truly just a social as anyone else, they just want to have their own little society because for whatever reasons they don't feel like they fit in with the one we already have. The sheer fact that they are playing RPGs in mixed groups shows they they aren't anti-social.

 

As far as D&D 3.5 goes. The game itself is fine. I wish it did not bear the D&D name. I do agree they fixed alot of the broken rules. But this whole business of feats, positive armor class, new core classes, and other stuff was just enough to break the previous 25 years worth of material.

 

I would be 100 times happier if they had named the darn game "Wizards" or something, and just let the D&D name die.

 

Someone else commented that they saw the difference between 2nd edition and 3.5 as smaller than that between basic D&D and AD&D. I don't see that at all. Basic D&D and AD&D have vast differences but the important thing is that all the stats are compatible. You can take a Basic D&D module and run it for Advanced, or second edition and not have to change a single number. The same goes for running AD&D modules in D&D campaigns. Worst case scenario is that an NPC will have a spell memorized that isn't in the basic D&D book. Some people might mention Bards as a problem, but that is simple, as bards in modules USUALLY tend to be located inside taverns and cities and don't tend to get into fights with the pcs. If they do then just use the stats for them that are printed.

 

We have personally been playing basic D&D as it allows us to use the vast amount of pre d20 source material without having to use the more arcane and convoluted AD&D 2nd rules.

[CBikle]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

The two potential obstacles with new players to Champions are:

 

1 The character creation process- some old-school players prefer randomly designing characters and some people just don't work well with point-allocation systems. Hero has fixed this with this with the random character generator in the Champions book plus the design sourcebooks like USDB and Gadgets And Gear make it even easier to assemble characters. And HeroDesigner makes it even easier.

 

2 The Speed Chart: How your players react to this will pretty much determine their feelings on Hero overall.

[MitchellS]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

2 The Speed Chart: How your players react to this will pretty much determine their feelings on Hero overall.

We discovered that if you start telling new players that a Turn is the same as a Round in d20 and that each Phase is the number of times you can attack per round that it makes more sense to them.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

When it comes to bad games' date=' I have to jump on the Anti-Vampire bandwagon. I don't particularly dislike the story heavy system, it's just the fact that only teenagers who think they are dark, moody, and philisophical (and are actually just whiny, and anti-social) want to play the game. Then again, my viewpoint is limited to my experience.[/quote']

 

Which is why most of the folks I know preferred playing the Garou -- die in a cloud of gore, Count Gothula!

 

But seriously, the Vampire (and to a lesser extent the rest of the Storyteller outfit) crowd, writers and all, always gave such obnoxious attitude I went from 'love it' to 'never support these assclowns again' after about two days at their forums...

[Chuckg]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

... ohhh, you went to their /forums/?

 

I understand your rage then.

 

I must say, however, that in all fairness, not *ALL* VtM players are like that.

[Brandi]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

There used to be a column in the old SPACE GAMER magazine that featured rules that made no sense, and it was common for early-editions CHAMPIONS rules to be featured there. For example, the way the concept of pushing STR used to work, any supposed normal could easily kick a car to pieces in fairly short order.

 

Yeah, but Murphy's Rules tended to inspire more humor than "Geez, I wouldn't play THAT!" reaction to games (there were a LOT of D&D ones there, after all!).

 

I think the fact that HERO is, by modern game design standards, still quite rules-heavy/dense, and that there is a lot of math, or at least a lot of fraction multiplying, tends to intimidate the new folks.

 

As for rpg.net's reactions... well, to be honest one of the main HERO detractors over there does his research about as well as Bob Larsen did his research on the satanic nature of D&D. Nuf sed.

[arcady]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

Same can't be said for D&D 3.5. It is so different than the older versions that you are going to have to spend hours subbing monster stats' date=' redoing the npcs to have feats and crap. Forget it.[/quote']I know plenty of people who use old AD&D material in their 3.x games. It takes very little work to do it. Often you can do it on the fly 'real time' in play.

 

After 3.x came out, I along with many other people started buying up older material so we could use it in 3.x games - the conversion is so easy that you can quickly bring a fresh new light to all those books sitting in the local half priced bookstore.

 

 

 

As for Champions; I've been on both sides of this fence, so here's what I have to offer from my understand of the detractors. Take it that way, as me trying to show how they think, and try not to take offense.

 

 

For a long time it was the only industry option for supers - but it did not meet the tastes of many people who got stuck playing it anyway.

 

After all, you can't really call Heroes [un]limited a playable option... and Marvel FASERIP had serious issues as well for many of us...

 

That gave you a crowd of people who not only did not like the system, but could tell you in educated terms why.

 

The slow play and complex character generation turned off a lot of other people as well - and from those two they began looking for more faults. I will admit to being in this camp myself - though I do like Hero it took me a while to realize I could be comfortable liking Hero and still not really like Champions.

 

I want to like Champions, but in 20 years of running it it has always had the same exact problems for me - and I keep hearing those same problems from other people thus leading me to feel the issue is neither me nor the players I've had over the years.

 

There is also, frankly, still a crowd of people out there PO'd over Fuzion. Largely because the Hero people who did that manuever were very flippant and dismissive of those in the community who questioned it. VERY BAD customer service will win you near permanent enemies. Such people will then start looking for faults elsewhere in order to gain ammunition against you.

 

Hero is no longer the same people, but a bitter taste takes time to wash out of the mouth. In time more of those people will end over like myself - able to seperate Fuzion from Hero in their minds and thus only be bitter about Fuzion and not about Steve Long, Hero system, or Hero games.

 

Finally you get people who get sort of curmudgeony over their distaste. One of my players for example, everytime social skills comes up in either the MnM game, the DnD game, or our Fantasy Hero preparation talk... she flies off the handle attacking the number of social skills in Hero - saying there are so many that it gets too diluted and you cannot make a viable social character on Heroic power level. Now I've sat down and counted out the number of social skills in d20/OGL v Hero - and it comes up about the same save that in d20 you have to rely on some knowledge skills to assist you in some of the carry-over. I should do that comparrision for tri-stat or GURPS as well - I suspect it would be the same.

 

Her real issue is that RPGs in general have more skills than they should (to her). I suspect she wants one of those lighter systems were you just have something like 'intimidate' and 'befriend' - Good cop, bad cop as the entire gamut of interaction skills...

 

But she focuses the hostility at Hero, even though I point out my comparrison to her every time and she admits my point. The next time it comes up we're back at it.

 

She has a bone to pick with Hero somewhere, but probably hasn't articulated it out yet, so she links it to this other issue she has that really fits many different RPGs...

 

Honestly, that kind of logic gap works both ways - I see fanboyz do the same thing in reverse all the time. Not just for Hero - every system gets its fanboyz.

 

 

So there you have my thoughts on it. I'm one of those people who believe a short reply is rude, so I've tried to break it down and explain it fully.

[David Blue]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

In response to the original question:

 

First, there's a lot of what I call Hackmaster Champions out there. A whole lot. Unless you get over it and laugh in retrospect, or unless you like playing with your friends so much that quality of play is genuinely optional (yes, and yes) that can turn people off before they ever learn the game.

 

Second, the learning curve for Champions used to be way too steep, especially in games where the expert and gamemaster is the first guy to buy the books, and if he's confused and making odd calls, effectively everyone else is confused too.

 

I say "used to be" too steep, because I think Sidekick and character design software largely solve the problem. Hero should have come out with Sidekick long before. Now that they have, I think negative reactions to Champions will gradually fade out.

 

I also think the sooner the Fuzion fisaco is forgotten the better.

 

The Speed Chart is an issue, but I think not that big of a one. What I've seen a lot of is new players with underpowered characters (not just me) getting referee's discretion-ed at the start of long, long combats. Easing people through the learning curve can help with that. Another thing, is, to get a character that can stay awake a while, players who haven't developed much confidence often go for some kind of brick with their second characters. It can be a long, long wait between actions for a four or even three speed brick in a fast party - punctuated by no-joy rolling if the character lacks sufficient movement and/or offensive combat value. But easing people smoothly and quickly through the learning curve can help with that too. So I'm really very optimistic that present and future generations of Champions players will have good early experiences and good things to say about the game.

[Victim]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

If I have a system hatred it would have to be D&D 3.5 (and 3rd edition). Sorry you just can't up and change the worlds most popular system to the point where the 1000s of previously published material is no longer even remotely compatible.

 

Hero is in its 5ed revised now, and yet the old material STILL WORKS for it. Sure the nitty gritty stuff might not be the same, but I can take a 1984 era module and run it with no problems at all.

 

Same can't be said for D&D 3.5. It is so different than the older versions that you are going to have to spend hours subbing monster stats, redoing the npcs to have feats and crap. Forget it.

 

I also dislike 1st edition shadowrun, which had really convoluted rules (in my opinion).

 

I'd rather have a higher degree of mechanical integrity than backwards compatability. Sure, you can use lots of old stuff with HERO 5 with no problems. But that means it also doesn't address certain areas, for example, the cost of STR, etc. If you overconstrain the revision process with lots of compatability requirements, then there's not much point to revising at all.

 

But I agree that 3.5 didn't wait long enough after the release of 3.0. That and it and broke about as much stuff as it fixed.

 

One game I hate is WUSHU. It's supposed to be rules light, over the top action, ala Wuxia and the Matrix. What it seems to come down to is overly long descriptions, k3wl one-up-manship, which resolution based on who rolls fewer 6s on 6d6. Even though my brother has some cool stories from playing with the guy who invented the game, I can still see shadows of the same problems we experienced in our group.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

 

(*) For some reason, Vampire DMs always look at me strangely when my reaction to the tactical problem "large castle full of uber bad guys we need to make die that's miles away in the countryside from collateral damage possibilities" is *not* "get together a coterie and infiltrate!", it's "look for something with a blast radius measured in kilometers and use it".

 

Sure, high explosives can't solve /every/ problem, but for solving the /particular/ problem of 'confined space full of baddies convenently located well away from the breakables', they're unmatched.

This made me laugh my ass off...

In the one big VtM game I was in, when it came time for me to express my displeasure with the new Prince who had walked in and declared SF his own, I preprepped for a couple of weeks by planting charges all over the city connected to gas mains and the like. The Prince threatened me, I sneered back (sneering is required in Vampire) He ordered me killed, I pulled out a detonator with a deadman trigger and went *click*

"you want this city, you come through me. Send your flunkies and you'll be Prince of a smoking pile of rubble. Choose"

I never could do the whole moping around in the dark brooding over my lost humanitas thing very well. And Louis was a whiny ponce.

There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives.

[lemming]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives.

Reminds me of a Cthuhlu game. We blew up the center of a small town to get rid of some spawn. Happy times.

[Jhamin]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

Sure' date=' high explosives can't solve /every/ problem, but for solving the /particular/ problem of 'confined space full of baddies convenently located well away from the breakables', they're unmatched. [/quote']

 

 

See, when I ran my games that was always a real threat.

 

Heck, when the PCs ran a Vampire Hunter game in the WOD they burnt down an "abandoned" apartment building rather than clean out a nest by hand.

 

Of course the one Vamp with Fortidude 3 promptly crawled out & evicerated them, but up until then they were batting .1000

[Kristopher]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

(*) For some reason, Vampire DMs always look at me strangely when my reaction to the tactical problem "large castle full of uber bad guys we need to make die that's miles away in the countryside from collateral damage possibilities" is *not* "get together a coterie and infiltrate!", it's "look for something with a blast radius measured in kilometers and use it".

 

Sure, high explosives can't solve /every/ problem, but for solving the /particular/ problem of 'confined space full of baddies convenently located well away from the breakables', they're unmatched.

 

This made me laugh my ass off...

In the one big VtM game I was in, when it came time for me to express my displeasure with the new Prince who had walked in and declared SF his own, I preprepped for a couple of weeks by planting charges all over the city connected to gas mains and the like. The Prince threatened me, I sneered back (sneering is required in Vampire) He ordered me killed, I pulled out a detonator with a deadman trigger and went *click*

"you want this city, you come through me. Send your flunkies and you'll be Prince of a smoking pile of rubble. Choose"

I never could do the whole moping around in the dark brooding over my lost humanitas thing very well. And Louis was a whiny ponce.

There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives.

 

 

Not every Vampire game disolves into nihilistic naval-gazing and/or a goth orgy gone bad.

 

Sometimes people actually get into the secret society aspect, and the Byzantine politics aspect, and the explorations of morality and power and need aspect, and etc.

 

(BTW, WW's new system? Hate it.)

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

*apologies for helping derail the thread*

My favorite Vampire hunters were the ones in the book Vampire$ by John Stakely (which the movie John Carpenters Vampires was loosely based off). Basic SOP was simple... Find nest, wait till high noon, demolish building with high explosives, remove rubble with crane, wait for vampires to burst into flames, and occasionally pin one down with a pike long enough to let the sun do its work.

My main Vamps GM eventually asked me to bring in a group of my guildmates to guest in his LARP as vampire hunters so as to put the fear of god, technology and tactics back into his rapidly munchkinizing players

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

Not every Vampire game disolves into nihilistic naval-gazing and/or a goth orgy gone bad.

 

Sometimes people actually get into the secret society aspect, and the Byzantine politics aspect, and the explorations of morality and power and need aspect, and etc.

 

(BTW, WW's new system? Hate it.)

Actually, ours often didn't, but the occasional foray did occur... luckily, our Gm's were good enough to cater to a variety of folk, and we had a diverse set of players... this was back when VtM first came out, so it hadn't gained the "Only Goths play THAT" Stigma yet.

During a several year span of playing time, I progressed from ruthless amoral bloodthirsty killer, to vampire (The only character I've ever made for Vampire who started with a 4 humanity.. and my immediate thought was... thats WAY to high for this guy) to effectively Defender of the mortals of San Francisco. The character never gave a shit about all the infighting, and was prone to becoming very annoyed when other dead things started throwing their weight around. Basically, his theme was "Leave the f**king city alone" It was a good campaign, and I have fond memories... but If I keep on talking, I'm going to trap you in a room and tell you about my character (Loose 3 levels)

[Hex]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

Of course the one Vamp with Fortidude 3 promptly crawled out & evicerated them, but up until then they were batting .1000

 

Hey we survived, man! And I seem to recall we fire bombed his ass too at the end... we succeeded in destroying them all but only after huuuuuuuuuge property damage.

[BcAugust]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

To get off the WW bashing for a bit(I tend to ST Vampire games, and I try hard not to get too angsty. Actually, I don't think I've ever ran a real angsty Vampire game.)

 

I have to admit, having started in a much lighter system(the aforementioned Storyteller), Hero has taken a bit to pick up. I like the fine grains of the system, actually, and I love how the system does disadvantages. Trust me, after 9 some years tearing out your hair over WW merits and Flaws, Disadvantages are a breath of fresh air. I enjoy the skills, also, though the usual complaint about them being perhaps a bit high cost exists, I like the way they work in game. though I don't think I'm ready quite yet to make a character all on my own yet, and I'd buy HeroDesigner way ahead of time before I'd GM it, I like what I've played.

[tancred]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

I can't be objective about HERO; I LOVE it! It's absolutely my favorite system of all time. Not that I've played all that many.

 

I started role-playing D&D in 1976 or '77 (yes, the original boxed set. I still have my original books, too.)

Several bad experiences with it led me to a hatred of level-based systems that persists today. IMHO, the entire concept of level is flawed, and produces mechanics that detract from my fun. YMMV.

 

I discovered The Fantasy Trip, Steve Jackson's predecessor to GURPS, and promptly fell in love with it.

I found Traveller in 1979 and liked that too.

 

I started playing Champions with the 1st edition in 1981. It immediately made more sense to me than any other system. TFT was a little too light (only 3 stats), but HERO was just right.

I started running Fantasy Hero about a year before it was published; HERO was obviously suitable for any genre, and my group back then wanted to try it.

 

I've managed to teach a lot of new players over the years, and haven't found any of the hatred that you see over at RPGnet. But then, we've always had experienced players to teach the newbies.

[Funksaw]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

Having been on all sides of the debate, let me try to explain what I think about this whole debacle.

 

I think one of the reasons for this elitism is that the RPG world is composed of - you guessed it, fanboys.

 

A critique on "your system" is a critique on them.

 

It's rare that a Rolemaster booster will come right out and say: "Yep, Rolemaster does have alot of charts, but I'm willing to sacrifice the time in order to get the information from those charts."

 

It's rare that a HERO gamer will come out and say: "Yeah, there is alot of math, and it's not always the most intuitive to create a character. What's more, you CAN min-max a character pretty easily. But I'm willing to sacrifice the simplicity for the flexibility."

 

It's rare that a d20 gamer will say: "Yeah, the game is really built so that you have to min-max in order to create an effective character compared to other PCs and published enemies, and almost every character of the same class and level is pretty much the same, but I'm willing to sacrifice the flexibility for the familiarity."

 

It's rare that a Storyteller gamer will say: "It does take a long time to resolve combat and the game does seem to attract very scary people, but I'm willing to sacrifice that time in order to have a fleshed out world-background."

 

It's rare that an Unknown Armies gamer will say: "Fuck you! I like it because the book talks to me! Me alone! Only I WILL SIT AT THE RIGHT HAND OF THE GOD OF TIME AND YOU WILL ALL BURN IN THE PORK FAT PITS OF KLLKKEK, the ALIEN SATAN FROM BENEATH MOUNT FUJI!"

[Funksaw]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

... ohhh, you went to their /forums/?

 

I understand your rage then.

 

I must say, however, that in all fairness, not *ALL* VtM players are like that.

 

Yeah... plus, the moderation there...

 

Let me put it to you this way. Quality of posting? Analytical reasoning? Even being funny and entertaining? Anyone who exhibited any degree of "forum competence" left that place (indeed, it's why you find alot of WW threads on other forums, such as RPG.net)

 

The reason is the forum and chat moderator, Conrad Hubbard, who, if you do a search for him on RPG.net is about the lowest human being in the state of Georgia that knows how to type, chooses to moderate based not on appropriateness but upon loyalty to him. Disloyal to him? Get the boot. Complain? Get the boot. Point out something? Get the boot.

 

Act like a jerk, boost HIS company's system, boost HIM, boo other systems? You can stay.

 

I started with White Wolf/Storyteller and find that it's very, very good for limited-scope games. All the "powers" are pregenerated, character creation is simple as hell (except in Exalted) so you can make characters and play in one session, and they've got some very good settings. (Some pretty bad ones, too...) But White Wolf the company has pissed me off enough that I just won't buy their stuff. (Hubbard, DRM, Pimp: The Backhanding...)

 

I do think that there are a disproportionate number of jerks who play White Wolf, I think this has less to do with the games themselves and more to do with the people who create the games. Jerks are the type of market that they seem to be marketing towards.

[ShinDangaioh]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

I do enjoy one White Wolf game: Street Fighter.

 

At any rate, the Hero bashing went down quite a bit since the cross-company module Reality Storm came out.

 

As to Palladium and its line of games. At least the Robotech/Macross RPGs have good ship-plans.

[TheEmerged]

Re: What is it about Champions?

 

I do enjoy one White Wolf game: Street Fighter.

 

That's actually the only WoD-system game I've actually played. It had its moments, although it started getting wonkier as they added to the system instead of better...