Concerns about Champs Supplements

[Agent X]

I am sure that many will disagree with what I am about to say. I readily expect to see Monolith try to hand me my head but...

 

Having perused the products at the FLGS recently, I took my first hard look at Mutants and Masterminds. While I am not all that impressed with the system, I do admire the format of their supplements and the nature of their supplements.

They put out adventure modules!

 

One of the things that has concerned me about Champions is it seems a bit too closed up and self-referential. It seems too focused on the "rules." Now, they are the best rules I have ever seen for superhero role play but there seems to be a certain dryness to the approach to the Champions Universe and Characters in general. The supplements seem so bent on following a sober format and highlighting the rules system that it loses some of the potential fun that can be had just from reading a role playing supplement.

 

Those Mutants and Masterminds books I have looked at are far more self-promoting in the sense of their take on characters and their universe. They do some really neat things with the way they describe characters and tie them into their universe. I am not advocating too radical a change in the way DOJ does things. I just think the game has lost some of its magic without the Adventure Modules and the reticent approach to adding "color," and I don't mean real color (cuz I'm poor), to their supplements.

 

I miss adventure modules and I don't think I'm the only one. In fact, I plan to buy some of the Mutants and Masterminds modules and possibly Silver Age Sentinels supplements simply to fill the vacuum left to Hero by making Hero Conversions. I know they have "run the numbers" but I know there are more people out there like me who would not only like to see these products, but would buy these products. That is money Hero could be getting but isn't going to be getting.

[Lord Liaden]

Hopefully, the upcoming Champions Battlegrounds adventure compendium book will be more to your liking, as well as the Reality Storm crossover with SAS, and the e-book adventure Shades of Black which should be available soon.

 

I think that DoJ is doing their best to satisfy the part of their fanbase who wants adventures (I include myself in that group BTW) in formats that will still give them an acceptable profit.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

Hopefully, the upcoming Champions Battlegrounds adventure compendium book will be more to your liking, as well as the Reality Storm crossover with SAS, and the e-book adventure Shades of Black which should be available soon.

 

I think that DoJ is doing their best to satisfy the part of their fanbase who wants adventures (I include myself in that group BTW) in formats that will still give them an acceptable profit.

I hope so.

[Trebuchet]

I see where you're coming from, Doug, but I respectfully disagree. According to HERO's surveys, only about 50% of Champions players even play in the Champions Universeâ„¢ world. The others use their own home-made worlds. And lots of other HERO gamers are not even playing Champions, but Fantasy Hero, Star Hero, etc. So DoJ is focusing, wisely in my opinion, on getting the basic system and genre stuff out first. If they get around to pre-generated adventures eventually I won't complain, but I probably won't buy any either. Whereas sourcebooks such as CKC, Champions, UMA, Ninja Hero, and USDB are very useful even to us "non-Hero universe" GMs.

 

I own about 20 of the old 3rd and 4th Edition adventures. To be perfectly honest, I never found any of them to be of any real use, with a single exception (and by the time I'd modified one scenario from Shadows of the City for my 4-color Champions game it was almost unrecognizable except for the names of the villains.). I prefer to get my ideas from my own imagination and from books; I've always found pre-made modules (be they for D&D or for Champions) to lack flavor. I know there are lots of gamers out there that feel differently (I've met AD&D players with 20th level characters who have never played in a home-made dungeon!), but I think they are missing something.

 

I have a very "seat of my pants" GMing style; I use minimal notes and maps but prefer to wing it for the most part. My players are too good to ever figure just what they're going to do, so trying to prepare for every contingency is pointless. Fortunately I've got a lot of GMing experience and can think on my feet; I've been running Champions games on and off for over 20 years. And I never forget that role-playing is best considered interactive fiction. I don't run superhero video games or dungeons.

[Monolith]

Re: Concerns about Champs Supplements

 

Originally posted by Agent X

While I am not all that impressed with the system, I do admire the format of their supplements and the nature of their supplements.

I will not comment on M&M's format. DOJ has no intention of producing color books so arguing that point would be pointless.

 

They put out adventure modules!

Let's also be more accurate: Green Ronin has published 1 module, and I will be honest with you, I did not think it was very good; and I am one of the people who talked about how much I liked Freedom City, so I do not have a baised opinion about superhero source material. I use SAS books, M&M books, V&V books, and anything else I can get my hands on to make my games better.

 

DOJ has Shades of Black and Champions Battlegrounds on the horizon. There is also Reality Storn debutting at Gen Con. Allen has also published two mini-adventure in Digital Hero: One for Champions and one for Terran Empire. I do not think DOJ is opposed to publishing modules, but just as Time of Crisis is a test product for Green Ronin, Shades of Black and Champions Battlegrounds are test products for DOJ. If the modules sell well, DOJ will produce more. Historically modules sell about 20-30% of what other books do though.

 

One of the things that has concerned me about Champions is it seems a bit too closed up and self-referential. It seems too focused on the "rules." Now, they are the best rules I have ever seen for superhero role play but there seems to be a certain dryness to the approach to the Champions Universe and Characters in general. The supplements seem so bent on following a sober format and highlighting the rules system that it loses some of the potential fun that can be had just from reading a role playing supplement.

I can understand your statement about Champions, it is a genre book (which by their very nature makes them extentions of FREd), but I will disagree with you on Champions Universe and Millennium City. There is no rules within either of those books. They are just standard universes and, IMO, a vast improvement over the 4th Edition universe. You might not like Kinetik or Dr. Silverback, but that does not mean the characters are not interesting or not fun.

 

Personal opinions are very subjective. There are characters from SAS and M&M which I like and characters I do not like. Atomic Brain, for example, seems like a really stupid character concept to me. It is too Silver Aged to be interesting in the Meta-4 universe, IMO. Factor Four, on the other hand, I like quite a bit. You might have a different opinion.

 

I am not advocating too radical a change in the way DOJ does things. I just think the game has lost some of its magic without the Adventure Modules and the reticent approach to adding "color," and I don't mean real color (cuz I'm poor), to their supplements.

I am not sure what you mean by "color" in this statement, but keep one thing in mind. DOJ is the 4th company to produce HERO System material over the last 21 years. The first three companies all lost money. By all indications DOJ is making a profit, so if that means we do not get 10 "Adventure Modules" a year, but the company keeps producing useful material, then I am all for their approach. If it is not broke, don't fix it; and certainly don't brake the company trying to fix it.

 

I miss adventure modules and I don't think I'm the only one. In fact, I plan to buy some of the Mutants and Masterminds modules and possibly Silver Age Sentinels supplements simply to fill the vacuum left to Hero by making Hero Conversions. I know they have "run the numbers" but I know there are more people out there like me who would not only like to see these products, but would buy these products. That is money Hero could be getting but isn't going to be getting.

I like modules too. I have stated that many times on these message boards. But I also understand that you cannot sell 1/4 the product and still make money. Publishing is a volume business. The more books you print the cheaper they cost. The less books you print the more they cost. If DOJ has to print 1,000 copies of a module the cost is 3+ times higher, per book, than if they were to publish 5,000 copies, but they cannot print 5,000 copies when the demand is only 1,000. It's a catch 22. As I said above though, if Champions Battlegrounds sells well then I am sure DOJ will be willing to produce more. They need to learn if there is a market before they jump off the diving board; and this is the same thing that Green Ronin and GoO are doing as well.

 

You can have your head back now.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I see where you're coming from, Doug, but I respectfully disagree. According to HERO's surveys, only about 50% of Champions players even play in the Champions Universeâ„¢ world. The others use their own home-made worlds. And lots of other HERO gamers are not even playing Champions, but Fantasy Hero, Star Hero, etc. So DoJ is focusing, wisely in my opinion, on getting the basic system and genre stuff out first. If they get around to pre-generated adventures eventually I won't complain, but I probably won't buy any either. Whereas sourcebooks such as CKC, Champions, UMA, Ninja Hero, and USDB are very useful even to us "non-Hero universe" GMs.

 

I own about 20 of the old 3rd and 4th Edition adventures. To be perfectly honest, I never found any of them to be of any real use, with a single exception (and by the time I'd modified one scenario from Shadows of the City for my 4-color Champions game it was almost unrecognizable except for the names of the villains.). I prefer to get my ideas from my own imagination and from books; I've always found pre-made modules (be they for D&D or for Champions) to lack flavor. I know there are lots of gamers out there that feel differently (I've met AD&D players with 20th level characters who have never played in a home-made dungeon!), but I think they are missing something.

 

I have a very "seat of my pants" GMing style; I use minimal notes and maps but prefer to wing it for the most part. My players are too good to ever figure just what they're going to do, so trying to prepare for every contingency is pointless. Fortunately I've got a lot of GMing experience and can think on my feet; I've been running Champions games on and off for over 20 years. And I never forget that role-playing is best considered interactive fiction. I don't run superhero video games or dungeons.

I would say about 10% of my sessions have been based on Adventure Modules. I stare at them, fix them, change characters, add material, whatever. I have never run a module as is and probably never will - but I find they can spark my imagination at times when nothing seems to germinate elsewhere.

 

I have most of the old Champions stuff except for Dark Champions - it never did it for me. The only Dark Champions stuff I picked up was the stuff I thought I could 'port over easily.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Agent X

I have most of the old Champions stuff except for Dark Champions - it never did it for me. The only Dark Champions stuff I picked up was the stuff I thought I could 'port over easily.

I've never played Dark Champions either. I "inherited" Shadows of the City from a friend who bought it and moved out of town. I used an idea and a couple of characters (Souped up a bit, since 250 point street-level supervillains look pretty pathetic against the spandex & cape crowd) from SotC to put together an adventure. Running a Dark Champions adventure for my 4-color Champions campaign was an interesting twist for my players (actually, I ran two related but separate adventures featuring the same villain.). Even Mentor's wife, who is not a role-player but was present while the game was going, thought the adventure was very "gothic" in feel, which was precisely the effect I wanted to achieve.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I've never played Dark Champions either. I "inherited" Shadows of the City from a friend who bought it and moved out of town. I used an idea and a couple of characters (Souped up a bit, since 250 point street-level supervillains look pretty pathetic against the spandex & cape crowd) from SotC to put together an adventure. Running a Dark Champions adventure for my 4-color Champions campaign was an interesting twist for my players (actually, I ran two related but separate adventures featuring the same villain.). Even Mentor's wife, who is not a role-player but was present while the game was going, thought the adventure was very "gothic" in feel, which was precisely the effect I wanted to achieve.

One of the problems I heard with Dark Champions is that they established parameters for the heroes and villains and violated them too much. When I saw the write-up for Harbinger of Justice I was horrified, horrified that he was supposed to represent the top end of what I call a street level game. He is mighty! I think he is too mighty to be properly called a Dark Champions character - at least as a PC - and I am very wary of giving too many dispensations for the NPCs that I woulnd't give for the PCs.

 

One of my favorite adventures inspired by "outside sources" was the Strand adventure in the back of 4th Ed. Champions Universe. I added more details, included Morjok and the Alternate World group from an old Enemies book that included Gaussian and Bruiser. I also tied in the Watchers of the Dragon's Tournament with the Death Dragon and all that stuff. Finally, it included the Tempus time-travel adventure. Anyway, it was one big mess of time travel, mystic threats, alternate dimensions (including evil versions of the PCs), and more conventional story-lines. It was to culminate with the heroes and the legions of Dr. Destroyer and Tyrannon duking it out in the Temporal Nexus or some-such. I never got to finish it. There was a lot going on in my life and I had to move away for awhile and this was something that would take at least 6 months if the game had gone on every Saturday afternoon like clockwork. See, one of my favorite things is to grab a few adventure ideas and splice them together into something very different and much more elaborate. It keeps the players on their toes and is fun for me to watch how they change the dynamics of the plot.

[Rechan]

Well, I've never found modules that meet my tastes. As a used-to-avid D&Der, none of the modules ever appealed to me. They were *Way* too hack and slash and just... cut and dry.

 

And that would be my concern for HERO, because me, I run a Dark Champions game. They're not the 'Oh look, a villain! We shall fly to the rescue!' smack him around and leave it at that. So I doubt a module would help me - even if I wouldn't mind seeing one.

 

Now, other then that... I think the CU is AMAZING. IT just seems so Fleshed out and Not dry, but Human. Little NPC nuggets dropped everywhere, not to mention (and what blew me away), in CKC they had experts of Other people's comments on supervillains. Not to mention the little details int he USDP that just won me over. There is a *LOT* of detail that I appreciate.

[megaplayboy]

I do appreciate the "adventure seeds" that are given for each major NPC in the supplements.

 

A deluxe adventure collection would be cool--maybe 3-6 different adventures with some loose association?

 

Get 3 top names to write it--Allston, for example--and you'd have a good seller.

[Enforcer84]

I've no complaints with HERO stuff so far. I have been much less pleased with my purchase of SAS and to a lesser extent M&M recently.

 

I bought the Time of Crisis adventure and while its alright, it isn't anything that couldn't have been tacked onto Freedom City (Which I did like alot)

and the SAS stuff, I bought Roll Call and was not at all impressed with 1 the characters presented and 2 the way they were presented, no full sized art, just a close up and one page character. about 25 of them and it was paper thin. I almost through it out as box filler. SAS and D20 SAS is nice but I thought that the Tristat book had color art. It didn't I thought the iconics were fleshed out, they weren't, I wasn't really all that impressed.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Enforcer84

I've no complaints with HERO stuff so far. I have been much less pleased with my purchase of SAS and to a lesser extent M&M recently.

 

I bought the Time of Crisis adventure and while its alright, it isn't anything that couldn't have been tacked onto Freedom City (Which I did like alot)

and the SAS stuff, I bought Roll Call and was not at all impressed with 1 the characters presented and 2 the way they were presented, no full sized art, just a close up and one page character. about 25 of them and it was paper thin. I almost through it out as box filler. SAS and D20 SAS is nice but I thought that the Tristat book had color art. It didn't I thought the iconics were fleshed out, they weren't, I wasn't really all that impressed.

 

The Deluxe Limited Edition SAS book is full color, not the regular edition. I picked up 2 Deluxe copies at the WOTC 70% off sale.

[Insaniac99]

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I have a very "seat of my pants" GMing style; I use minimal notes and maps but prefer to wing it for the most part. My players are too good to ever figure just what they're going to do, so trying to prepare for every contingency is pointless. Fortunately I've got a lot of GMing experience and can think on my feet; I've been running Champions games on and off for over 20 years. And I never forget that role-playing is best considered interactive fiction. I don't run superhero video games or dungeons.

 

 

While you and i have the same GMing style i find that if in a complete hurrying it is always nice to just scann the books for adventures i can do and I'll take only the basic idea (basically converting it into a buncha different plot seeds)

 

 

speaking of which, i hafta say, i enjoy the plot seeds, unfortunately i am only really interested in about 10-20% (pure estimation, not hing more) of the plots seeds, don't know why but i just am...

[Enforcer84]

Originally posted by Gary

The Deluxe Limited Edition SAS book is full color, not the regular edition. I picked up 2 Deluxe copies at the WOTC 70% off sale.

Well, that's notnice, give me one.

[djday38]

Well I have to say I agree with those that have said the 5th edition CU is SO much better than what went before.

 

Everytime I pick up CKC and browse over a villain I marvel at all the little connections the guys have put between the characters, the level of detail and (i think) the amazing layout of each character.

Now it might not be in colour but you get background, personality, tactics, appearance and campaign options. Compare that to SAS in which you get a very basic write up of the character and a colour picture. I know which I would prefer.

SAS has some good characters (Pan and Belle, Bloody Mary, Alice Queen of Hearts, Sentinel and others), I could not comment on Freedom City yet as I have yet to pick it up.

But, I was not impressed with the sample characters in M&M.

 

I was browsing over the old 4th ediiton CU the other day and although Monte Cook did a fine job, pulling it together into some kind of reasonable setting, it really pales into insignificanse compared to the new version.

As many have said before the new CU benefits tremendously from have a couple of people in overall control, so the focus of the universe is tight and does not have any ill fitting elements as did the old CU, which was written to try to make a universe from 30+ supplements from many different authors.

 

As to the adventure topic, I am more than happy to pick up adventures in an e-format if that allows the company to put them out in a profitable manner, but I am ecstatic with the adventure seeds given with each character, they are perfect for setting off my imagination without tying me down into a structured plot and they also (again) tie the universe and characters together in interesting and fun ways.

They are without doubt one of the best new elements of the new champions line.

 

rgds

Dean

[Agent X]

I still want modules.

[Starlord]

The flavor of M&M is very impressive, lots of Silver Age coolness. However, now that I've had a chance to play some random encounters and combats for M&M, HERO is still far superior rules-wise in my opinion.

 

Several Champions modules will be out within the next few months, not bad for a company that is a year-and-a-half old and had essentially one writer up till a little while ago. Hopefully, they will sell well as I'm a big fan of pre-made modules myself. I particularly think the 'multi-module' format could be viable.

[Mutant for Hire]

I view MM as an okay system with an excellent world. I do freely admit I like Freedom City vbetter than Millenium City. The MM people have got atmosphere and style down. For that matter, the same with SAS.

 

As for modules, I think they need to be carefully written with a view of being retooled for an individual campaign in mind. I know, that makes it much harder to come up with an interesting module, but the fact is that most GMs I expect are playing outside of the regular CU universe.

 

I'd like to see rather than adventure modules, a book of plots and creating scenarios. I think that would be far more useful. Things like how to balance minions and masters against the PCs and all that sort of thing. What to do when the players get on the wrong track, etc. I think that would be more useful than actual modules.

[JmOz]

No one has mentioned Digital Hero yet, there are adventure in there as well.

 

I would also point out that a E-Line of modules would be wonderful...

[Monolith]

Originally posted by JmOz

No one has mentioned Digital Hero yet, there are adventure in there as well.

I did too mention it!

 

I would also point out that a E-Line of modules would be wonderful...

I agree. That is why I am really looking forward to Shades of Black and hopefully Engine of Destruction will make it too. I think modules can be a huge factor in dictating the tone of a campaign world. Modules are also a way of learning little details about the world without feeling like you are being preached at. I learned more about how Dr. Destroyer, the Destroyers, and Stronghold fit into the CU from their old modules then I ever did their write-ups in the Enemies or Classic Organizations.

 

Doug and I can agree that we both want modules. I just hope DOJ is able to give them to us in one form or another.

[Steve Long]

Hopefully, they will sell well as I'm a big fan of pre-made modules myself.

 

We hope so too. If they sell well (in either format), we'll probably do more (I have a bunch in mind). If they don't, we probably won't do any more in any format. We can't afford to waste time and resources on products that don't sell well.

[Enforcer84]

Just for reference for when I hit the lottery, How much would yo need to see financially to put some of these ideas in print....

[Doug McCrae]

It may well be justified and necessary from an economic point-of-view but you're absolutely right - Champions isn't fun.

 

Not compared with M&M, SAS and V&V. The problem with Champions is, it's generic. It has to cover all aspects of the superhero genre. I mean is the GURPS basic rulebook fun? No, no it is not. But the world books are.

 

The other superhero rpgs mentioned have a specific tone - Silver Age for M&M and SAS, quirky and somewhat humourous in the case of V&V. All three also have better pictures and presentation, an exception being the George Perez cover for the BBB.

[RevHooligan]

If the peeps want modules, but they're not a moneymaker for DoJ, why don't some of you loudmouths write up some for free and post them up in he-yah? Module fans get their modules, Steve and Co can work on stuff I'll accually buy, Hero Games continues kicking mads heiney, everybody wins!

 

Damn, I'm clever!

[rayoman]

Re: Concerns about Champs Supplements

 

$17 for an adventure module is way too pricey, IMO.

 

Originally posted by Agent X

They put out adventure modules!