The Champions Do they suck?

[CBikle]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

In hindsight, the Champions should've had sidebars suggesting changes for lower and higher versions.

From what I understand, previous superhero-sourcebooks didn't sell all

that well in the past so...

Is there actually a big mandate for high-level superhero characters in

Hero products or is it just the same 3 or 4 vocal usual suspects?

I think if there were sufficient interest, a high-level hero book would be put on the fast track.

[MitchellS]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

In hindsight' date=' the Champions should've had sidebars suggesting changes for lower and higher versions.[/color']

From what I understand, previous superhero-sourcebooks didn't sell all

that well in the past so...

Is there actually a big mandate for high-level superhero characters in

Hero products or is it just the same 3 or 4 vocal usual suspects?

I think if there were sufficient interest, a high-level hero book would be put on the fast track.

Not that I'm trying to speak ill of Hero Games as a company but this is the company which has published 2 star hero campaign worlds, the second after realizing that star hero was a poor seller. Now they are about to release their second fantasy campaign after they themselves stated the fantasy campaign market was too full of competition. I really think they are just jumping around hoping to capture a wild turkey by the tail.

 

I also don't believe you can base 2005/6 sales on an Allies book which was sold in the mid 1990s. It's a new market with new buyers. The M&M annual seems to have sold well and over half of that book is nothing but Freedom City heroes from different time periods. I don't know the sales figures for The Algernon Files but it has apparently sold enough that they are writing a gold age follow up to the book.

 

And it's not really as though Hero Games needs to give us just a book of superheroes, though it would be nice. The company could just include a couple of extra superheroes in products as they are being published. Would The Mystic World have been a worse book if it has included the write ups for the Bay Guardians, which is lead by a character called Eldritch? There wasn't one mystic superhero write up in TMW. I'm sure they could have found 2-3 mystic superheroes to stick in the book. That's almost hard to believe that The Mystic World didn't have a single superhero write up.

 

I think most Hero players have fond memories of Strike Force and The Protectors. I can't believe a book like those can't be popular in today's market. The products seem to be selling for everyone else.

[CBikle]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I think the C:NM Allies book sold poorly as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'd pick up a superhero sourcebook myself, partially

to support the company and , like you, also have fond memories of the

Strike Force and Organizations Books.

 

Purely speculation , but maybe Hero wants a consistant stream of material released (which I think is a nice change from the old days. I think I'm still owed a few issues from my Adventurer's Club subscription) and the Star Hero and Fantasy Hero books were ready to go.

Plus, maybe Hero was banking on the sourcebooks being bought by non-Hero GMs (I've picked up a few GURPS sourcebooks even though the system is ass.).

[Metaphysician]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Well, it doesn't really have to be a strictly speaking "high level hero" book. The only way that'd work is if it uses as its basis a focus on a major team or two, say, Sentinels and Justice Squadron. And, in that case, it'd cover more than just the members, but also allies, sidekicks, butlers, and rogue's galleries, much of which would consist of lower level characters ( after all, every hero needs a couple villains that are classic mooks ).

 

More likely would be a more generalized Hero book, along the lines of CKC: A wide range of heroes, solo and team, from beginning level to the top tiers. Probably tighter point range than CKC, but with more teams.

[gojira]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I like the idea of publishing "upgraded," more iconic version of the Champs, maybe from "different time periods." I think Hero Games should just admit that the Champs are example characters, and add a second version that's "them after they've adventured for several years." Upgraded versions would be trey cool. But don't lose the examples characters for the basic book, they work well for that purpose.

[zornwil]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I think the C:NM Allies book sold poorly as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'd pick up a superhero sourcebook myself, partially

to support the company and , like you, also have fond memories of the

Strike Force and Organizations Books.

 

Purely speculation , but maybe Hero wants a consistant stream of material released (which I think is a nice change from the old days. I think I'm still owed a few issues from my Adventurer's Club subscription) and the Star Hero and Fantasy Hero books were ready to go.

Plus, maybe Hero was banking on the sourcebooks being bought by non-Hero GMs (I've picked up a few GURPS sourcebooks even though the system is ass.).

I think you're right, and I think it's too early to second-guess the strategy. Although of course they have to be able to sustain whatever rate they're choosing, it might be a good slow-growth strategy and spreading out releasing products that might seem more sure-fire now might in some part be a way to control any growth so there's no single spurt they can't deliver on. I've seen companies go through unsupported growth spurts and the downside is pretty ugly.

 

Then again, I may be very far off base, I certainly don't know anything about what the company's making on these products and how sustainable the release cycle is across each genre compared to that or what they gained or lost on (as the example MitchellS cites) the last sci-fi setting. Nor do I know what each book in a series of books that might allow them to cash in as opposed to keeping a foot in each genre would bring in and if it would really constitute greater growth than they can deal with.

[MitchellS]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I think the C:NM Allies book sold poorly as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'd pick up a superhero sourcebook myself, partially

to support the company and , like you, also have fond memories of the

Strike Force and Organizations Books.

 

Purely speculation , but maybe Hero wants a consistant stream of material released (which I think is a nice change from the old days. I think I'm still owed a few issues from my Adventurer's Club subscription) and the Star Hero and Fantasy Hero books were ready to go.

Plus, maybe Hero was banking on the sourcebooks being bought by non-Hero GMs (I've picked up a few GURPS sourcebooks even though the system is ass.).

I really don't think we can take any data from C:NM as being representative. Fuzion splintered the fan base and turned off five-times more fans than it gained. Publishing those 3 books all but killed Hero Games.

[Ehreval]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

"(I've picked up a few GURPS sourcebooks even though the system is ass.)."

 

 

I've recently entered my third decade of game-mastering, and I've found that for most purposes, GURPS is the best gaming system out there. I even suspect that if mortal man could parse their Supers books, that I'd be using them rather than Hero System, but they're so poorly written/edited that they might as well contain pictures of monkey feces rather than descriptions of superpowers.

 

However, since it's not better written, I'm using Hero which, as it stands, is simply the best super-hero roleplaying system I've ever found, by far.

 

It's also unsurprising that people from other systems would pick up GURPS books, as they're generally (and, yes, GURPS Supers is an important exception) the best-written gaming supplements on the planet, with scads of material that can be readily adapted to a large variety of other systems.

[OddHat]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

"(I've picked up a few GURPS sourcebooks even though the system is ass.)."

 

 

I've recently entered my third decade of game-mastering, and I've found that for most purposes, GURPS is the best gaming system out there. I even suspect that if mortal man could parse their Supers books, that I'd be using them rather than Hero System, but they're so poorly written/edited that they might as well contain pictures of monkey feces rather than descriptions of superpowers.

 

However, since it's not better written, I'm using Hero which, as it stands, is simply the best super-hero roleplaying system I've ever found, by far.

 

It's also unsurprising that people from other systems would pick up GURPS books, as they're generally (and, yes, GURPS Supers is an important exception) the best-written gaming supplements on the planet, with scads of material that can be readily adapted to a large variety of other systems.

 

Well, as someone also in his third decade of GMing (), I'd say that GURPS is a good enough system for running certain types of Supers games. Take GURPS Voodoo/Spirits, add GURPS Psionics and Compendium I, and you can build a quite good Iron Age Supers world. GURPS IST wasn't bad (never liked the GURPS Wild Cards stuff). That said, I came back to Hero because it was a better system for the type of Supers games I wanted to run, and because the sheer mas of ready to use villains and NPCs made my job easier. Also, Hero has much better fan support in the Superhero genre.

 

As to using Hero for other genres, it works well enough. Still, Champions is where it shines.

[Mortuorum`]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Random Thoughts:

 

Primary Purpose of Champions: Example of a super team for players

 

Secondary Purpose: To act as the important tewam in the Champs Universe (Avengers/JLA like role)

 

Actually, Primary Purpose: To serve as examples of how to create characters for newbies.

 

Not everyone has been playing Champions/the Hero system for 20+ years. The Champions are an example of relatively simple archetypal characters that new players can look to as sample characters and they serve that purpose well.

 

Would I want to play them? No, not really. They're a little too simple for my tastes and I don't really like gaming at the 350-point level; I find lower-powered characters (who can't afford to be completely balanced offensively and defensively) to be a lot more interesting.

[TheEmerged]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

RE: GURPS Just my opinion, no more and no less.

 

GURPS is better for a low-powered campaign that focuses on the investigative side. GURPS has a better psionics system. But if it weren't for those caveats, it wouldn't be worth the shelf space I give it.

[Southern Cross]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Re: GURPS -

Are you talking about the new GURPS 4e or the now-obsolete 3rd edition?

[rjcurrie]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

The other thing to consider about the Champions is that they were also designed to serve as characters that could be used for convention events and demos. As a result, they were not given terribly complicated backgrounds or personalties, because time is often limited in such situations.

 

Actually, having run a convention game using the Champions, they turned out to be a lot more fun in play than I expected.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I really don't think we can take any data from C:NM as being representative. Fuzion splintered the fan base and turned off five-times more fans than it gained. Publishing those 3 books all but killed Hero Games.

 

Which is sad.

 

Fuzion is actually a good game system. It's like... Hero 3.0? Where "5th" is sort of a late published 2nd Ed?

[OddHat]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Re: GURPS -

Are you talking about the new GURPS 4e or the now-obsolete 3rd edition?

 

Personally all of my impressions of GURPS were formed by 2nd and 3rd ed. I haven't picked up 4th.

[rjcurrie]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Which is sad.

 

Fuzion is actually a good game system. It's like... Hero 3.0? Where "5th" is sort of a late published 2nd Ed?

Fuzion itself is not a bad game system. However, the implementation of superpowers in the C:NM game was not very good and most long term Hero players did not like the loss of detail and versatility that resulted from that implementation.

 

Rod

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Fuzion itself is not a bad game system. However, the implementation of superpowers in the C:NM game was not very good and most long term Hero players did not like the loss of detail and versatility that resulted from that implementation.

 

Rod

 

Oh sure, Powers had it's flaws... but when I thought about the things from Fuzion I wanted to port to HERO, I realized I actually wanted to port powers and advantages to Fuzion.

 

The way they do Limitations (they become a Disadvantage instead), Disadvantages (they ALL use the same standards, plus you don't NEED to max out on them so much), Combat/Skills (iirc, they implemented "roll high" as universal standard), Characteristics (no "sweet spots"), Martial Arts (okay, actually all they did here that I liked was add 'Ki Strike'), technology (it's NOT the same thing as a power if it's real world tech)... possibly vehicles (I can't remember how they worked)... all of these have significant advantages over "the HERO way".

 

Oh, and I like the way they did Killing Attacks. (and yes, the Stun/Hits system)

[CBikle]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

It might be better now, but GURPS is a bad system (I should know, I've playtested a number of their sourcebooks).

The rules were scattered throughout the book's text and sidebars and there was little consistency towards them.

I did like a few things like Quirks and the Intuition advantage. Weirdness magnet too.

 

 

 

.

[Enforcer84]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Questions: Do the Champions Suck?

 

Answers: They are as you make them.

[Kristopher]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Questions: Do the Champions Suck?

 

Well, it depends on whether you believe those articles about Sapphire that keep popping up in Hollywood tabloids...

[OddHat]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Well' date=' it depends on whether you believe those articles about Sapphire that keep popping up in Hollywood tabloids...[/quote']

 

From the campaign I'm co-GMing:

 

From N! Online’s Gossip Page

 

Zerostein Divine? A Fleshy Oscar? Super Vixen Doin Trixen?

 

- by Caballero Sturm

 

Screw discretion. (I think Beau Fury would concur.) Let's take a tacky Tinseltown trip to explain what I mean.

 

Itinerary: rude movie stars, even ruder gossip columnists, pushy publicists, exposure and innuendo, space movies, Edwin Moriarty's mouth, and a rumor about Millennium City’s most watched thighs! Oh, where do we start, my fellow gossipiteers?

 

Breathe. Now, let's go.

 

First off, did last week's nooky roundup of the saltier shenanigans going down on the set of Zerostein get back to star Beau? You decide.

 

On the 21st floor of Century City's posh St. Regis, during the Oliver Stone flick's press junket, Beau waxed unprotected between more prepared sound bites. "F--king boring world we live in," B.F. complained to some movie types--the female ones of whom Beau went out of his way to call sweetheart--regarding his wild-man media rep.

 

Armed with booze (it was 1 p.m.) and fag in hand, the hairy-chested Brit--whose shirt was completely open--continued, "People are so narrow-minded that they have to boil everything down to f--king sex--and just look at my interviews! Stud. Bad boy. So obvious."

 

Either that or precisely what you were after in the first place, Beau-doll.

 

Drawn Dude

 

Next stop, over in Beverly Hills, DreamWorks held a de-lish little do at Spago for the release of Fox 2, the most profitable animated movie on DVD. Star Gem Anderson was a dear, too sweet. Mark Moyers was less so.

 

M2's sharp flack swooped in like a very stern pelican with highlights and stole Moyers away--with his apparent approval--as soon as the overpaid Canadian and I said hello. Said PR bird squawked she'd get me a quote from Moyers later, and it never happened.

 

Obviously, being paid $10 million wasn't enough to entice Moyers into growling out a quote, quite unlike Edwin Moriarty, who stole the show from Moyers, glowing green radioactive hands down.

 

I asked E.M.--in shades, as was his looker wife, Nicolette Michel--why animated movies like the wickedly funny Fox franchise (can't wait to see what hellacious fun arrives in Fox 3) can get away with murder. "Well, I'll tell ya. It's like the Fox-bat's sittin' back," Moriarty told me, not realizing how very right he was.

 

"And he's thinking..." continued Moriarty. (I'm thinking he's not answering the question, but, hey, he's famous, so let 'im finish.) "The Fox-bat's realizing, I don't really feel a part of things, I feel on the outside. And you know," Moriarty added with a pinch of sage, a wink of press perfection, "we all can identify with that. Being on the outside looking in. I certainly do."

 

Doesn't 10 mil buy enough therapy to deal with that?

 

Fly on Spaceman

 

Yikes! Up in the winding hills of Benedict Canyon, Flesh Gordon tried the same poor-me thing at the after-party for the The Spaceman premiere. You know about this film. It's the one that will assuredly get Gordon his first Oscar nod. He plays a Space Adventurer. Shockingly against type, I know! It's beautifully acted and directed, stunningly moving. Or at least that’s what the man wanted me to say, and he has an absolutely huge gun, or so all the girls say!

 

But it's hard as hell to watch. Not only from the film lover’s point of view but in light of Gordon's character's harrowingly lonely existence as well. I asked the happy space cadet where the heck he conjured up such desperation. "I dunno," Flesh meekly replied. "We're all lonely."

 

Okay. Fine. Diff approach: I asked the Academy Award-adored Solitaire: A Mystic Legacy’s only major cast-member who did not get nominated last year which was his fave controversial win from Oscars past. "I don't really follow that stuff," Mr. G. said with a very small smile.

 

Wonder why?

 

Eyes on the Vixen’s Thighs

 

Cheese Cake Valley- I hear things. I hear that Rose Anne Hunter, the Millennium Vixen herself, will, if not has already, shoot a Super-Saucy video. This video will be shot after the Huntress officially joins the Twilight Ladies “heroine†team. As those in the know know, the Twighlight Ladies receive over half of their considerable support from Witching Hour Entertainment, infamous for its release of Super-sexy films. The rest of their support? Why that comes from lingerie far beyond the dreams of mortal men!

 

Ensconced luxuriously on the couch of producer Hector Snipe's Mediterranean mansion, I asked the Snipe Stalker about his chances of bagging the Huntress.

 

"It looks...hopeful," remarked the dapper dude in leather.

 

H.S. made it clear his sites were on Rose Anne Hunter. "Man, what a performer," he declared.

 

"And, man, we been watchin' her," snapped the man who directed Howler: When She Roars. "Yeah, my wife and I watch her in bed. We see her movin' back and forth, movin' her legs, doin' her thing. She been workin' out!"

 

Sounds like the Vixen is soon to be bagged!

[Enforcer84]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Oddhat, you are the bringer of life to the universe sometimes you know that?

[Kristopher]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

From the campaign I'm co-GMing:

 

From N! Online’s Gossip Page

 

Zerostein Divine? A Fleshy Oscar? Super Vixen Doin Trixen?

 

- by Caballero Sturm

 

Screw discretion. (I think Beau Fury would concur.) Let's take a tacky Tinseltown trip to explain what I mean.

 

Itinerary: rude movie stars, even ruder gossip columnists, pushy publicists, exposure and innuendo, space movies, Edwin Moriarty's mouth, and a rumor about Millennium City’s most watched thighs! Oh, where do we start, my fellow gossipiteers?

 

Breathe. Now, let's go.

 

My, look what I egged on.

 

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to OddHat again.