Champions universe created by magic?

[Highwayman]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

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.

 

In the "official" version in the Champions 3000 history section there's a specific event that causes the end of magic. Moreover, it involves the Champions, who I've always seen as basically placeholders for the PCs. If there's any "official" CU campaigns still going in 2020 it's certainly possible for things to go differently.

[Chimpira]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Well' date=' 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.

 

Like I said before I liked your analogy but I think that we are trying too much to force a square peg into a round hole. We needed to get to Star Hero somehow.

 

There is nothing wrong with people using the timeline and the presence of magic as the reason people are smart or skilled or whatever. I mean when magic goes do my talents leave also? How many skills do I drop? If you like it then please use it. It would not stop me from playing in anyones game. I just do not have to worry too much about the storylines with my son or daughter coming back to warn dear old Dad. What? Please it HAS to be a plot. There is no magic in the future when I would have an adult son. Probably Dr. Destroyer pulling my leg.

 

I stated that I would not use it because I feel that it does not work for my game and really just feels wrong to me to tell a player that the self made man he was supposed to be playing really just owes everything to magic.

 

Of course, I did also mention that I did not see why X would fail and you have written an answer to that, although it might be wasted on me, I think other GM's will find it very useful. It seems I must spread more Rep around before giving you anymore.

[David Johnston]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Like I said before I liked your analogy but I think that we are trying too much to force a square peg into a round hole. We needed to get to Star Hero somehow.

 

There is nothing wrong with people using the timeline and the presence of magic as the reason people are smart or skilled or whatever. I mean when magic goes do my talents leave also? How many skills do I drop?

 

Why would you drop any skills? Star Hero has as much room for gigantic omnicompetent skill meisters as any comic book game.

[Chimpira]

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. However' date=' 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.[/quote']

 

Actually I was inspired by an old comic where the hero was known as Captain Future (I think) He was around in the 40's and his future ultra cool tech came from the 90's. (it is a little more detailed than that and had some very mad great ideas in it) A computer like the one currently sitting at my desk would indeed be seen as Super Science in the fifties and the sixties. But the point is that it is several decades a head of its time. Would the thing break down. Yes it would and then we would need to repair it but no one can in that time period but when someone can would that mean we had magic to thank for the fact that we now can repair this relic of a mysterious old crime fighter? What would be our accomplishments and what would be based off of magic?

 

And please do not believe that I am mad or upset in any way because you do make a valid point.

[Chimpira]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Why would you drop any skills? Star Hero has as much room for gigantic omnicompetent skill meisters as any comic book game.

 

Well, I know for a fact that you would need to drop some DC if you are a Martial Artist. If my super strength is taken away, why not my super intellect? Without the influence of magic how can you say that a skill load like Dr. Destroyer is not superhuman? Some talents border on the superhuman and some gleefully cross the line. Or maybe Magic is still around in enough quantities that maybe you still retain all your knowledge but you think slower if you used to have over a 20 INT?

 

At this point, I do not think that it really matters. Some people like it, some people hate it and some people just do not care. I know why they did it and all truth be told I want to like it because I want to link all the hero systems together but I just can not get into it. I am not going to rail against the creators because I love what they do and in my campaign The PC's have taken the place of the Champions so none of this stuff is going to come to pass in the first place.

[David Johnston]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Would the thing break down. Yes it would and then we would need to repair it but no one can in that time period but when someone can would that mean we had magic to thank for the fact that we now can repair this relic of a mysterious old crime fighter? What would be our accomplishments and what would be based off of magic?

.

 

It would all be your accomplishments. You'd just be living in a reality where a few more things are possible to accomplish for someone with enough talent and drive. It's like asking how much of the incredibly long leaps you can do in 1/6th gravity is you. It's all you.

Well, I know for a fact that you would need to drop some DC if you are a Martial Artist. If my super strength is taken away, why not my super intellect? Without the influence of magic how can you say that a skill load like Dr. Destroyer is not superhuman? Some talents border on the superhuman and some gleefully cross the line. Or maybe Magic is still around in enough quantities that maybe you still retain all your knowledge but you think slower if you used to have over a 20 INT?

 

Well, you've shifted from a genre in which there are no characteristic maxima to one in which they are required, so your intelligence would presumably drop by half of the excess. Unlike super-strength, science fiction scientists are often nearly as capable as the comic book variety,

[Chimpira]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

It would all be your accomplishments. You'd just be living in a reality where a few more things are possible to accomplish for someone with enough talent and drive. It's like asking how much of the incredibly long leaps you can do in 1/6th gravity is you. It's all you.

 

That is one way of looking at it and is very true but another way would be for me to say that it was the drugs that allowed me to run faster than everyone else. Now I am doing the actually running but I needed to be pumped up to do it. The only problem is that I had no idea that I was taking drugs when I was running. I thought that I was really capable of running like that. Sucker.

 

Well' date=' you've shifted from a genre in which there are no characteristic maxima to one in which they are required, so your intelligence would presumably drop by half of the excess. Unlike super-strength, science fiction scientists are often nearly as capable as the comic book variety,[/quote']

 

That rationale makes it just a little bit harder to understand why super science stops. I can see that if I had a 30 INT and designed a teleporter based off of my skill set (I know that it was based off my skill set because I designed it with requires a skill roll) that when I dropped 10 INT points it would no longer work. However, if I have a 20 INT and designed a Teleporter based off a skill roll, I would assume that with out the magic that is lighting my way I could not see all the principals that I could before, even with eidetic memory, so a little skill loss is conceiviable.

 

That only seems fair because everyone else is losing so much more.

 

David, this is fun and all but I think that we are discussing this matter a little more than it really needs to be discussed. I am not going to change my mind. Or at the very least I am not going to change it anytime soon. Plus we are having a discussion about super science and rationality in a world that defies rationalization.

 

I have seen the waxing and waning of powers before in different genres, most notably in the Trinity series from Aberrant. I did not have a problem with it there but it was pretty upfront and center that this was a game about people with powers and not a superhero game. I want to be able to tell time travel stories in which they can glimpse their future and possibly the future of some DNPC's as they step up to carry the torch. This is a time honored tradition in comics. I choose to not use the one source of power that causes all other powers to work for this one game. I am not trying to change your mind and I am not trying to say that it is dumb. I just do not care for it. I can sit back and throw out reason after reason and you can counter them as I throw them out but simply put it is just not to my taste.

 

However if you want to discuss anything else further, why don't you shoot me a PM. It has been a pleasure. Repped.

[Vondy]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Try running a hard science fiction game in a universe created by magic...

[Duke Bushido]

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.

 

It's a matter of perspective:

 

The _magic_ is the part where someone is blown up in the middle of a toxic chemical facility and gains super powers rather than die a grisly, grisly, nightmarish kind of death.

 

The _magic_ is the part where a mutation results in the ability to move objects with your mind and leap from dimension to dimension hurling bolts of kinetic energy as you fly through the air.

 

You know, instead of Down's Syndrome, missing limbs, progeria, or other non-magical mutations.....

 

 

Though, for the record, we don't use that 'magic cause supers' either. Our Supers universe (on the rare occasion that we still use it) is entirely separate from the universe of our Heroic stuff.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Try running a hard science fiction game in a universe created by magic...

 

As opposed to being created by miracle?

 

It strikes me that "magic" is just a word we use for phenomena that can't be explained rationally or tested empirically. The problem IMO is that we all have our own preconceptions as to what magic is - and being gamers, that often bears little resemblance to any real-world magic traditions - and that biases our reaction to introducing "magic" into any setting.

 

In the era of quantum physics, the line between science and magic is starting to look awfully blurry.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Try running a hard science fiction game in a universe created by magic...

 

oh heck. That's easy. I call it Reality.

[Chimpira]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

As opposed to being created by miracle?

 

It strikes me that "magic" is just a word we use for phenomena that can't be explained rationally or tested empirically. The problem IMO is that we all have our own preconceptions as to what magic is - and being gamers, that often bears little resemblance to any real-world magic traditions - and that biases our reaction to introducing "magic" into any setting.

 

In the era of quantum physics, the line between science and magic is starting to look awfully blurry.

 

Actually, I grew up studying Celtic Magical traditions and still practice some of the meditation rituals I learned. A lot of my friends were Wicca and I even knew a satanist (although she claimed that she was inducted against her will). I rarely bring that stuff to my games though. I do not think my players would find it quite as exciting.

[OddHat]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

As opposed to being created by miracle?

 

You can't ultimately run a Hard Science campaign in a Universe created by a miracle, or where miracles occur. Bring in G_d, the soul, the afterlife, etc, and you are no longer talking about hard science. You're deciding how much magic you'll allow, where and when.

 

In the era of quantum physics, the line between science and magic is starting to look awfully blurry.

I hear that a lot.

[Andrew Cermak]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Try running a hard science fiction game in a universe created by magic...

 

If no one in the setting knows the universe was created by magic and no one can possibly find out, then I imagine it's pretty easy.

[Vondy]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

As opposed to being created by miracle?

 

 

Who believes that?

[wcw43921]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

As long as we're on the subject, there's something I've always been curious about--

 

Just how well known is it that superpowers in the Champions Universe depend upon the ambient level of magic? Because I could see that as a plot seed depending on how many people are aware of that knowledge. Someone could try to concentrate tremendous amounts of magic in order to bestow superpowers upon themselves, or someone else could try to diminish the ambient level of magic in the world to bring about an end to super-beings.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

As long as we're on the subject, there's something I've always been curious about--

 

Just how well known is it that superpowers in the Champions Universe depend upon the ambient level of magic? Because I could see that as a plot seed depending on how many people are aware of that knowledge. Someone could try to concentrate tremendous amounts of magic in order to bestow superpowers upon themselves, or someone else could try to diminish the ambient level of magic in the world to bring about an end to super-beings.

 

 

To the extent of my knowledge, only cosmic level beings know stuff like that. I'd imagine that the Archmage (if there was one) could find out with a little effort.

[OddHat]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

To the extent of my knowledge' date=' only cosmic level beings know stuff like that. I'd imagine that the Archmage (if there was one) could find out with a little effort.[/quote']

 

Well, all the many immortals should guess something about it. After all, they've lived through thousands of years when their powers didn't work. The Empyreans, Lemurians and other tech using immortals should also have noticed that their technology stopped working for many thousands of years. Some in the Mystic World and the City of Babylon would know that Earth CU became much harder to reach for a few thousand years, and that spells didn't work as easily in that time. Some of the dimension lords probably know something as well.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

The impression I've gotten is that there was never a time when ambient magic was so low that beings of superhuman power were completely powerless, before the events of the year 2020.

 

In Galactic Champions it's mentioned that the Star*Guard "had long been aware that a 'primal force' underlay Reality and made certain powers possible, but kept this information a closely guarded secret".

[Kristopher]

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?

 

Logically, yes.

 

Officially, no.

 

 

It's a wonky kludge designed to shoehorn all the published settings into one timeline and reality. There's a lot of convoluted mental gymnastics required to arrive at the official possition, but it is what it is.

[David Johnston]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Well' date=' all the many immortals should guess something about it. After all, they've lived through thousands of years when their powers didn't work. The Empyreans, Lemurians and other tech using immortals should also have noticed that their technology stopped working for many thousands of years. [/quote']

 

Is there any reason to think their technology stopped working? After all, it's not as as if more advanced alien cultures are not a staple of the science fiction genre.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Logically' date=' [i']yes[/i].

 

Officially, no.

 

 

It's a wonky kludge designed to shoehorn all the published settings into one timeline and reality. There's a lot of convoluted mental gymnastics required to arrive at the official possition, but it is what it is.

 

And you phrased it so nicely. I don't feel at ALL offended.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

And you phrased it so nicely. I don't feel at ALL offended.

 

I'm not even sure I agree with the 'officially/logically' response he gave anyway.

 

A mutant's powers are not magical; however, the alteration to the basic laws of physics that permits mutant powers (purely extrascientific) to manifest is a result of magic.

[Kristopher]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

Well' date=' all the many immortals should guess something about it. After all, they've lived through thousands of years when their powers didn't work. The Empyreans, Lemurians and other tech using immortals should also have noticed that their technology stopped working for many thousands of years. Some in the Mystic World and the City of Babylon would know that Earth CU became much harder to reach for a few thousand years, and that spells didn't work as easily in that time. Some of the dimension lords probably know something as well.[/quote']

 

If it were just magic, I could also deal with the concept.

 

Once it starts affecting science and technology, it goes right into silly kludge territory. If it were fluctuations in the basic laws of physics, I could almost, kinda, if I squinted and turned my head just do, deal with it. But it's not, it's magic.

 

I utterly loath the idea that someone's technological power armor works today, but not tomorrow, simply because "the magic went away". If it's magic, then it's not power armor, it's a suit of enchanted metal.

[Kristopher]

Re: Champions universe created by magic?

 

I'm not even sure I agree with the 'officially/logically' response he gave anyway.

 

A mutant's powers are not magical; however, the alteration to the basic laws of physics that permits mutant powers (purely extrascientific) to manifest is a result of magic.

 

What's funny is that the supposedly-low-magic era of the Terren Empire has psionics, where are just science-fantasy superpowers by another name, and has technology in commonplace, mundane, everyday use when that same technology supposedly took a "high-magic-era" to work prior to 2020 and then just stopped working at all because "the magic went away". Feh, whatever.

 

It either works, or it doesn't, regardless of what it's discovered, invented, built, or used.