Champions universe created by magic?

[DarkClaw]

If magic is the source of superpowers in the Champions Universe if I was a mutant with powers would a negate magic spell nulify my powers? Though my powers are from a genetic alteration it's an alteration that is caused(triggered) by magic so that would make that ability really dangerous.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

If magic is the source of superpowers in the Champions Universe if I was a mutant with powers would a negate magic spell nulify my powers? Though my powers are from a genetic alteration it's an alteration that is caused(triggered) by magic so that would make that ability really dangerous.

It's only "magic" in the sense that all powers, spells, psionics, extra-physical sources of superpowers come from the same source, that thing called "magic."

 

That does not mean, unless the character has a general "dispell" power, could they use a Dispell Magic to neutralize Iron Man's super-armor or Superman's Flight ability.

 

You still have to tailor your powers to SFX, not the metagaming aspect.

 

Now, if I was the GM and you wanted a character with a Cosmic level Dispell, then yes I'd be willing to permit it to dispell a larger swath of the superpower spectrum, maybe even mystical sourced powers. You would just have to be willing to pony up the points for it, and it wouldn't be cheap.

 

TB

[Spidey88]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

My impression of the "magic background for superpowers" from CU is that magic subtly altered the laws of physics and probability - so that magic is not the actual direct source of (most) superpowers, but opens the door for those sources. Sort of a one-time thing - so at least in any game I ran, a superhero entering an anti-magic field could still fly.

 

My take on it, anyway.

[DarkClaw]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

In the Star Hero book the loss of superpowers nad heroes was due to the change in the flow of magic (until later on in the Galactic Champions setting) so how would the genetic mutations suddenly be lost or those with powers from a chemical or other such powers if they aren't related to the flow of "magic"? What about those that were immortal now they no longer immortal? Just gives me some real cool ideas for an alternate universe storyline.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Now all this is dependent on you using the idea in the first place. I have and haven't. In the game world I and others run in, we don't use it.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

In the Star Hero book the loss of superpowers nad heroes was due to the change in the flow of magic (until later on in the Galactic Champions setting) so how would the genetic mutations suddenly be lost or those with powers from a chemical or other such powers if they aren't related to the flow of "magic"? What about those that were immortal now they no longer immortal? Just gives me some real cool ideas for an alternate universe storyline.

Not all magic stopped, only the magic that spawned super-powers. The magic that causes Psionics and genetic enhancements was still extent in the universe.

 

Keep in mind that it is pretty clear that if there was NO magic whatsoever in the Hero Universe life would more than likely cease to exists. There has to be some around, it just doesn't always work in the same way or in as large a quantity in all places and at all times.

 

TB

[ghost-angel]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

it's not so much magic that makes the CU go 'round as magic which is completely different.

 

We're using a word for familiarity but it's not magic in the spell casting sense as Giant Cosmic Force For Non-Reality.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

it's not so much magic that makes the CU go 'round as magic which is completely different.

 

We're using a word for familiarity but it's not magic in the spell casting sense as Giant Cosmic Force For Non-Reality.

Exactly, it's a word that describes that extra-Physical energy that creates/spawns/causes to come into being, all things that are beyond mundane physics.

 

It can change, mutate, lessen, increase, alter to many forms and expressions of its power, but in is always there. It just might not be strong enough or being expressed in a way such that Superpowers or Fireballs can be created or develope.

 

TB

[David Johnston]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

If magic is the source of superpowers in the Champions Universe if I was a mutant with powers would a negate magic spell nulify my powers?

 

No. It would probably be more accurate in the first place to say magic and random power creating events both have a common origin rather than one causing the other. But even if magic causes superpowers, that does not necessarily make the superpowers in themselves magical. For example if my wizard Varesti Silverhand casts a spell and uses her magic to move an anvil over your head and then drops it on your head, that does not in itself make the resulting blunt force trauma a magical effect.

[transmetahuman]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

A more contemporary term for the kind of magic that makes superstuff happen might be "Primal Chaos". Not really controllable, not an energy (which RPGs and comics pretty much treat magic as), so much as a state. An antithesis to natural order. It's still "magic" in the sense that we mundane Earth-types use the word - it makes (or allows) impossible stuff to happen. But it's not "magic" in the "Dr. Strange is drained of his magical energy" sense. You could as easily use the word Glumph.

 

The ability to use magic stems from a rise in the level of Glumph. The serendipitous, non-random way that mutation works in superpowered mutants stems from the rise in Glumph. Glumph causes physical laws to alter in the vicinity of certain gadgets but not in their exact duplicates (unless both are built by the same guy, who happens to be a Glumph nexus himself). Glumph allows magical energy to exist. Glumph makes luck a tangible thing rather than an exercise in statistics. Glumph multiplies the number of spatial dimensions; Glumph makes toast fall butter side up. Glumph is capricious, Glumph is unfathomable, Glumph Rawks. It is both a pirate, and a ninja.

 

The problem stems from using the same word, "magic", for two (or more) totally different things.

 

Or at least, that's one way of looking at it.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

The Empyreans are a race of immortal super humans that date back to the dawn of mankind. They have lived through the "magic low" eras. So, while I'm not sure if they retain all of their powers during the "magic low" periods, they definitly retain their immortality...

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

As is shown in Galactic Champions, during the millennium in which magic in this galaxy was at a record low, such immortal superhumans as the Empyreans and Cateran remained unaging, but their other powers were virtually nonexistant.

 

As far as "magic affecting superpowers/supertech," my gaming group demanded a rationalization that they could relate to. I came up with an analogy which seems to work for them, so maybe it would help some of you:

 

Let's say you're in an unlit room. You can fumble around by touch and determine the overall size and shape of the room; learn and memorize the size, shape and location of objects in it; manipulate them in various ways; but your ability to appreciate your environment, to make changes in it, even to navigate around it quickly and easily is limited by your power of perception.

 

Now introduce light into the room. Suddenly a whole new realm of possibilities has opened up to you. You can perceive all the colors and patterns that were in the room that were previously only shapes. You can readily see where everything is, so you can move around the room and manipulate objects in it without hesitation. You can accomplish tasks requiring precision that was beyond you before. Visual similarities and differences allow you to arrange things in patterns you never imagined. Ah, and if something written is in the room, it offers an entirely new medium for information and entertainment, and one that you can use to express yourself and share with others.

 

Has the light changed anything in the room? Light is a very real force, but in this case it hasn't altered the other forces and laws at work in the room in any way. The addition of it has merely actualized potential that was always there, but impossible to utilize without light.

 

Now take the light away. All that enhanced ability and facility is gone. You remember the way it used to be, but even going by memory you can't do things with the same ease you once could. Some of the things you remember are now meaningless - colors, patterns, writing - because to do anything with them, to create or modify or share them, you would need light.

 

I acknowledge that this probably still won't work for some of you, and that's fair. Not everyone has the same kind of imagination, and makes the same kind of metaphorical leaps. It's not quite as difficult as explaining sight to someone born blind, but that's another analogy. (Or is it?)

[Guest daeudi_454]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

As far as "magic affecting superpowers/supertech," my gaming group demanded a rationalization that they could relate to. I came up with an analogy which seems to work for them, so maybe it would help some of you:

/snip

That is probably the best analogy for it that I have seen.

 

Repped and stolen.

[OddHat]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

The rise and fall of magic theme comes from DC, which pretty much ignores it. Both DC and Marvel use the boom and bust of Supers populations idea to allow multiple genres to more easily be crammed in a single time line.

 

In my own timeline I keep the rising and falling Supers population idea for similar reasons, but separate it from the rise and fall of magic theme. I don't use a rise and fall of magic at all (it doesn't fit how magic works in my game) and I don't like or use the Magic linked to Superhero Class Science idea at all (though I respect Liaden's attempt to force it to make some sense).

 

All of that said, there's a temptation to keep asking "why" when faced with the incredible, and eventually just waving your hands and saying "It's Magic, OK" is a very old, well established answer. I don't begrudge the CU writers their choice to use it, and there's no reason you have to use it in your campaign.

[Chimpira]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

I do not use it. Mainly because it screws up a lot of the Days of Future Past storylines I might want to tell. Magic leaves in what? 14 years? No superheroes by that time?

 

Lord Liaden's analogy works pretty well for the most part and I do like it but if I made a self repairing machine that just required me to push the button to operate it, I am not getting why it no longer works. I understand that my capacity to fully understand, build and repair the thing has been dampened but I just do not get why it no longer works.

 

Let's say for example magic went away during the 70's. Now I am a super science crime fighter in the 50's and the 60's and I built a super computer and happened upon a way to link various other organizations to a network so that we can share information. I named the computer Dell Dimension 3000 and the network I dubbed the Internet. I used all the principals that we use now for the computer and The internet. Because I am decades ahead of the curve I write down all this information in manuals so that others that I have linked to the network can repair their computers and keep the internet up and running. Then, in 1970 all the magic is gone. Now the principals that I had used were solid they were just decades ahead of their time. Why does my computer all of a sudden no longer work? (Beyond the obvious fact that I cursed myself by calling it a Dell) When would it be practical for it to work? If someone understood the manuals would that mean that the magic is coming back? I see a lot of things on the streeet now a days that I would have only seen in Science Fiction movies when I was a kid and I do not think magic has anything to do with it.

 

But really it goes beyond that. You see when I had played gadgeteers in the past the thing I liked most about them was that they were creating things with their own hands and imagination. The idea of knowing that the things you build will make an impact on populace of the planet, maybe not today as a superhero but one can not be a superhero forever. I had my gadgeteers go up against the big threats like alternative fuel sources, food shortages and how to bring rain to drought ridden lands. The idea that one day my character could really make a difference. Until someone clues me in that I was not as smart as I thought I was. That everything that I built was a colossal waste of time. That all I was really doing was playing dress up the whole time and it is time for you to get a real job. That all the money you were paying to help Ravenswood Academy keep running should have been invested in stocks and bonds instead. I really could have used that money to because now I am getting sued for selling equipment that would never conceivably work and they do not seem to buy my story about magic going away.

 

I, also, like the idea of a legacy. I am not knocking other GM's for working with this or even liking it. I am just not interested in it, whether there is a good explanation or not. It just makes me feel like I am cheating the players out of a future for their characters.

[assault]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

I see a lot of things on the streeet now a days that I would have only seen in Science Fiction movies when I was a kid and I do not think magic has anything to do with it.

 

One of the interesting things is what the effect of mobile phones would have been on a whole bunch of Science Fiction films.

 

Which brings us back to superheroes, because, of course, one of the most underrated Golden Age superheroes was: Air Wave. His main power was the ability to make a telephone call from anywhere.

 

That's really useful, actually. Particularly during the 1940s, when such technology was pretty close to unheard of. (Try bugging organised crime bosses, for starters.) Add a standard Golden Age "right to the jaw" and you are a perfectly viable crimefighter.

 

But, if "magic" had cut out a couple of decades ago, presumably his "technology" would have ceased operating. Yes, that is, stuff which is entirely routine now would have ceased to function.

 

Fortunately, I have sufficient magic stored for my crystal ball to send you this message.

[Chimpira]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

But, if "magic" had cut out a couple of decades ago, presumably his "technology" would have ceased operating. Yes, that is, stuff which is entirely routine now would have ceased to function.

 

 

My point exactly

[Blue]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Too broad a category. It's like saying 'Negate Powers'. That includes way too many things.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Lord Liaden's analogy works pretty well for the most part and I do like it but if I made a self repairing machine that just required me to push the button to operate it' date=' I am not getting why it no longer works. I understand that my capacity to fully understand, build and repair the thing has been dampened but I just do not get why it no longer works. [/quote']

 

Well, we hashed that out at GREAT length on the boards a while back, and I certainly don't want to revisit that experience. Anyone who really wants to get into the pro and con arguments, the interpretations and hair-splitting, can sift through that earlier thread. I'll just offer my own elaborations from that discussion, and leave it at that.

 

When I think of "supertech," I think of something being created which operates on a level beyond anything that contemporary science is capable of making practical. A technological leap that goes from early twenty-first century tech to something that rivals the performance of tech from civilizations hundreds or thousands of years older.

 

To my way of thinking, supertech rivals the performance of technology from an older culture, but doesn't duplicate the principles of it. FTL drive may be possible, and we have various theories as to how it might be achieved, but at this point in our scientific evolution we don't have a clue as to how to make it work practically. Other, older civilizations may have discovered ways to do this because their science has evolved further.

 

Going back to my earlier darkened room analogy, science as we understand it is the result of feeling around in the dark. The longer someone has to do it, the more of the room he can map out, the more objects in it he can discover, measure and catalogue, and the more ways to rearrange things he can experiment with. Eventually he may have worked out a pattern for getting to any point in the room quickly without bumping into anything. With the "light" of magic, someone can see the whole room, and make the imaginative leap to realize that he can use visual clues to do the same thing. But when the light is gone the visual clues are gone, and that realization becomes useless.

 

Comparing this to magic, the condition of its presence makes something physically possible that is not possible without it. If you have a self-repairing machine that responds to conditions that no longer apply, it won't work. Just to continue with the light analogy, a camera is a mechanism that works according to reproduceable physical principles. You can build a completely automatic camera, but if you leave it in the dark it won't "work" the way it's supposed to. Or on an even more basic level, what happens to machines that run on electricity when the current is cut off? Or that run on alternating current after all of it changes to direct?

 

Someone on that other thread brought up the example of a stone-age person building a catapult. For an early stone-age man to create a functioning catapult as we understand it would require basic knowledge of physics, mathematics and structural engineering which a stone-age society may be far from developing. However, with the presence of "light" our stone-age genius may perceive another way to create a catapult. It may function like a real-world catapult, but a modern engineer looking at it would say, "Waitaminnit, where's the counterweight to the projectile? The center of gravity is off for this thing, and these materials don't have the tensile strength to withstand that much torque. There's no way it can work!" And yet it does, or at least it did. (Kind of like how superheroes can throw a truck a mile without the opposite reaction hurling them back even farther.) Without the "light" it won't work, and our neolithic savant won't be able to reproduce it since the conditions which enabled it no longer exist. He remembers what he did and can try to explain it, but it won't make sense to anyone familiar with modern science.

 

Again, this may not satisfy you, and that's reasonable. Ultimately what "works" is going to vary from person to person, and since these games are supposed to be for pleasure you should use whatever rationale pleases you the most.

 

Just for the record, I don't really like the magic rationale either. I'd rather they'd use something like "cosmic energy" or "quantum flux". But I can work with it.

 

And having said everything I have to contribute to this topic, I shall now gracefully withdraw.

[Lemurion]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

I can understand why they would want to have an overall explanation. I simply don't like it.

 

I think it would have worked better had they stated that Star Hero came from the future of Hudson City while Galactic Champions came from the future of Millennium City. Two different settings, two different futures. If they can do it in the present, why not the future.

 

I also have problems with the idea that in 14 years any "Official" Champions games will have to start being set in the past. Doesn't make sense to me.

 

That's my two cents, Canadian.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

I suspect that before 14 more years have passed, we'll have the "official Champions Universe, Sixth Edition."

[transmetahuman]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Despite my Ode To Glumph post upthread, I'd never actually use the CU timeline/rise and fall theme in a world I was GMing. It's an attempt to justify tying the various genres together; an artifact of the game company and marketing strategy, and therefore completely unnecessary to me. I just brought the Glumph/"Primal Chaos" thing up as one way for people who do want to use the CU as written to do it. And I do think they're using "magic" in a couple different ways that could've been more clear.

[David Johnston]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

One of the interesting things is what the effect of mobile phones would have been on a whole bunch of Science Fiction films.

 

Which brings us back to superheroes, because, of course, one of the most underrated Golden Age superheroes was: Air Wave. His main power was the ability to make a telephone call from anywhere.

 

That's really useful, actually. Particularly during the 1940s, when such technology was pretty close to unheard of. (Try bugging organised crime bosses, for starters.) Add a standard Golden Age "right to the jaw" and you are a perfectly viable crimefighter.

 

But, if "magic" had cut out a couple of decades ago, presumably his "technology" would have ceased operating. Yes, that is, stuff which is entirely routine now would have ceased to function.

 

Air Wave's power isn't routine at all. He can call a telephone with no connection. No wires, no cell tower, no relay mechanism of any kind. He just sends radio signals that are somehow picked up and interpreted by a device that has no radio reception and interpretation capability (and what's more no _transmission_ capability but you can talk back him anyway). What he does is impossible in a rational universe. While advancing technology makes what he does seem less impressive now, but if you travelled to his world and tried to use your cell phone you would quickly realise that your technology and Air Wave's technology operate on very different operating principles, and just because one stops working doesn't mean the other will.

 

Now, would I use the Champions timeline as the future of my present day Champions campaign...if I had one? No. But I might use it as one possible future, if the forces of Law defeat the forces of Chaos. See my "I'm all about alternatives" thread for another future that you could visit or get visitors from. I wouldn't use any fixed future for any game I ran, even if it was set in World II.

[David Johnston]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

keep the internet up and running. Then' date=' in 1970 all the magic is gone. Now the principals that I had used were solid they were just decades ahead of their time. Why does my computer all of a sudden no longer work? [/quote']

 

What makes you think your computer all of a sudden will no longer work? Of course it'll continue to work. It's mundane technology. You said so yourself. However, I have to wonder...where did you get the components from to make your decades in advance computers work? In reality, nobody is ever decades ahead of their time, no matter how smart they might be. You railroad, when it's railroading time, and not before. Transport this computer back in time to the 50s, with complete documentation concerning how it works, and the reality is if it breaks, the greatest minds of the decade will probably not be able to fix it. The replacement parts to do it simply don't exist and can't be fabricated using the technology of the time. Super-technology, by it's nature is dependant on some kind of cheat, some kind of unique resource that is in short supply. That's why people don't just put it on the open market and make a fortune with a flying car in every garage. It's not because they're too stupid to see the mass market commercial applications. It's because there ARE no mass market applications. They can't be made in bulk because there isn't enough of that resource to make that possible. Remove the resource, whether it's "vibranium" or the unique handicrafting of a few whose work can't be duplicated by others, and the technology itself stops being available as surely as my car is a worthless hunk of junk without a functional battery.

[Lemurion]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

What makes you think your computer all of a sudden will no longer work? Of course it'll continue to work. It's mundane technology. You said so yourself.

 

I think that part of the issue is that people are missing the distinction between more advanced mundane technology and "super-technology." More advanced mundane technology will continue to work, because it doesn't rely on anything outside the commonly understood laws of physics.

 

"Super-technology" would cease to work because it's not really technology.

 

It's as if the "cargo cult" believers had been able to carve wooden replica tvs that actually worked. The whole thing about "super-technology" is that it doesn't work. It's the physical manifestation of a super-power, not an external device made according to the laws of chemistry and physics. It may replicate the effects of such a device, but it isn't one. Higher technology may make such a device possible later in the timeline, but it will follow technological rather than "super-technological" premises.

 

A "Dell" built through super-powered means (as the technology of the day couldn't manufacture the chips) would still work provided it followed physics and not "super-physics."

 

An "artificial mind" wouldn't.