Galactic Champions

[David Johnston]

Is Overrider really the right name for her? She doesn't think of herself as "controlling" the machines after all. Access, Liberator, Technique?

 

Also, I find it amusing to think that the Legion of Superheroes would almost all be too wimpy to be in a Galactic Champions campaign.

[MitchellS]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

Also' date=' I find it amusing to think that the Legion of Superheroes would almost all be too wimpy to be in a Galactic Champions campaign.[/quote']

Hero Games has a very defined notion that golden age [and silver age for that matter] means weaker and cosmic age means more powerful. I generally don't agree with that because, as you said, most of the Legion wasn't made up of Mon El types. Likewise the golden age wasn't just Batman and Wildcat types and the silver age wasn't just teen hero Spider-man.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

Eh, the Champions 3K are hardly Mon-El grade. And Mon-El is hardly the only extremely powerful Legionaire. Aside from the various Kryptonian equivalents, there's also:

 

-Brainiac 5

-Element Lad

-Quantum Kid

-Karate Kid

-Saturn Girl

-XS

-Wildfire

-Cosmic Boy ( Pre-ZH Version )

 

And thats just the ones off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.

 

Compared to any decently powerful Legion roster, the Champs 3K are pikers. Of course, they may grow into the role. . .

[MitchellS]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

I don't think you spent much time looking at the DC Heroes write ups for those characters.

[assault]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

Eh' date=' the Champions 3K are hardly Mon-El grade. And Mon-El is hardly the only extremely powerful Legionaire.[/quote']

 

True, but your list included people like Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy. I wouldn't rate either of them as "extremely powerful". Tough, yes, and I'm sure there are examples of them doing some pretty impressive stuff, but they aren't really on the same scale as Kryptonians etc.

 

In fact, in their earlier appearances, they could be viewed as being something like Galactic Teen Champions!

 

Compared to any decently powerful Legion roster, the Champs 3K are pikers. Of course, they may grow into the role. . .

 

They actually match up well enough compared to the founding members of the Legion. The Legion really only started getting tough once Superboy and Supergirl joined!

 

Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad, all about 14 or so years old. Woo hoo.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

I don't think you spent much time looking at the DC Heroes write ups for those characters.

 

I honestly don't care about the DC Heroes writeups. They are next to worthless. Believing them, and you would think Karate Kid would lose a couple matches out of ten to Batman.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

And any "Teen Champions" team that includes near Xavier telepaths is cosmic enough for my taste. Remember, there's more to high power than big strength scores.

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

As for the Golden Age hero teams... the JSA had several street-level costumed vigilante types, but it also had Dr.Fate and the Spectre. I don't care how many Redundantly Survived Krypton's Explosion Lads the Legion recruits, it's not going to get near that sort of overall power.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

As for the Golden Age hero teams... the JSA had several street-level costumed vigilante types' date=' but it also had Dr.Fate and the Spectre. I don't care how many Redundantly Survived Krypton's Explosion Lads the Legion recruits, it's not going to get near that sort of overall power.[/quote']

 

Depends on if they have Duplicate Boy around.

[MitchellS]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

I honestly don't care about the DC Heroes writeups. They are next to worthless. Believing them' date=' and you would think Karate Kid would lose a couple matches out of ten to Batman.[/quote']

I'm sure Ray Winninger would disagree with you. I know how much hair he pulled out having to do rewrites because some DC editor thought he had a stat wrong.

 

Of course your list is also missing Shrinking Violet, Due Damsel, Bouncing Boy, Dawnstar, Phantom Girl, Invisible Kid, and so many of the other Legion powerhouses.

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

The Golden Age had a lot of superheroes who didn't have any powers at all. In my opinion the vast majority were just guys in funny suits with a good left hook. That's a major point of distinction between Golden and Silver Age. By the Silver Age, non-powered superheroes were much rarer. A few had really useless powers like Matter-Eater Lad. Generally speaking the power level was low. There's an early FF where The Thing needs many blows to smash thru a big log. Female characters in particular had very weak powers. They were almost never allowed to have superstrength or offensive abilities.

 

That said there were some amazingly powerful heroes in both eras - the Golden Age Spectre, Dr. Fate and Green Lantern. Superman from the mid-1940s onward and all the knockoffs such as Supergirl, Krypto and Mon-El. Silver Age Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter. And people with what you might call 'rule-based' powers like Duplicate Boy and Nemesis Kid. I don't mean HERO rules but the fairytale rules of Silver Age DC. Grant Morrison's The Quiz, who has every power except the ones you've thought of, is a good modern example.

 

The power range in both eras is so wide you can't really give a point total unless it's for a 'typical' superhero.

[Vondy]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

I honestly don't care about the DC Heroes writeups. They are next to worthless. Believing them' date=' and you would think Karate Kid would lose a couple matches out of ten to Batman.[/quote']

 

Of course Batman would win a couple rounds out of 10. Batman Cheats.

[Kenn]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

The Golden Age had a lot of superheroes who didn't have any powers at all. In my opinion the vast majority were just guys in funny suits with a good left hook. That's a major point of distinction between Golden and Silver Age. By the Silver Age, non-powered superheroes were much rarer. A few had really useless powers like Matter-Eater Lad. Generally speaking the power level was low. There's an early FF where The Thing needs many blows to smash thru a big log. Female characters in particular had very weak powers. They were almost never allowed to have superstrength or offensive abilities.

 

That said there were some amazingly powerful heroes in both eras - the Golden Age Spectre, Dr. Fate and Green Lantern. Superman from the mid-1940s onward and all the knockoffs such as Supergirl, Krypto and Mon-El. Silver Age Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter. And people with what you might call 'rule-based' powers like Duplicate Boy and Nemesis Kid. I don't mean HERO rules but the fairytale rules of Silver Age DC. Grant Morrison's The Quiz, who has every power except the ones you've thought of, is a good modern example.

 

The power range in both eras is so wide you can't really give a point total unless it's for a 'typical' superhero.

 

And this is why "Point Balance" is a sham. The Atom (Al Pratt) is not built on the same number of points as the Spectre. Ant Man isn't built on the same number of points as Thor. Invisible Kid isn't built on the same number of points as Wildfire. The upshot of this is that it takes an emotionally mature gaming group to be able to play in a game with this inherent "unfairness."

 

But that said, I think David's initial point is a valid one. Hero Games' books do take the approach that the higher the year is, the higher the point total should be. I think they're mistaken, but they're the publishers and can make that call if they want.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

I'm sure Ray Winninger would disagree with you. I know how much hair he pulled out having to do rewrites because some DC editor thought he had a stat wrong.

 

Of course your list is also missing Shrinking Violet, Due Damsel, Bouncing Boy, Dawnstar, Phantom Girl, Invisible Kid, and so many of the other Legion powerhouses.

 

Ray Winninger would be wrong, then. Batman stands not the slightest chance against Karate Kid, and thus, Karate Kid's writeup is on the face grossling inaccurate.

 

And yes, I left out the lesser power members of the Legion. They aren't really relevant to my point, given that few if any rosters are composed primarily or solely of them ( hell, with PC rosters trending upward of two dozen members or more. . . ).

[Metaphysician]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

Of course Batman would win a couple rounds out of 10. Batman Cheats.

 

He'd need cheating on the order of Tower of Babel to take any against Karate Kid. Even bringing along the Batwing and cluster bombing the site from 10000 feet probably wouldn't work.

[MitchellS]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

Ray Winninger would be wrong, then. Batman stands not the slightest chance against Karate Kid, and thus, Karate Kid's writeup is on the face grossling inaccurate.

 

And yes, I left out the lesser power members of the Legion. They aren't really relevant to my point, given that few if any rosters are composed primarily or solely of them ( hell, with PC rosters trending upward of two dozen members or more. . . ).

First of all, I never said Batman could beat Karate Kid, you did. Looking at their associated stats from the book I'd say Batman would need to roll exceptionally well [ie lots of doubles] to beat him.

 

The lesser members are relevent to my point. The Legion isn't made up of 50 uber-powered characters. It's made up of a few uber-powered ones, a bunch of mid level powered ones, and a few flops. That's a far cry from what is presented in Galactic Champions power levels [and that is what this thread was about ].

[Metaphysician]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

Except that the only superhero team we've seen so far, the Champions 3K, is rather uniform in power level, and on the low side relative to the Legion ( that is, its members are more like the low-mid Legionaires, than the cosmics ).

 

And, again, I don't care about mechanics. Val Armor kicks Batman's ass 10/10 in any fight that doesn't involve nuclear weapons or the sci-fi closet.

[Pendaran]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

The pre crisis classic legion in fact had wacky powerful characters by the boatload. Even going all the way down to Saturn Girl there was planetary caliber telepathy. The princess projectra/invisible kid/bouncing boy types at best existed in equal measure to the likes of Wildfire, Ultra Boy, Cosmic Boy, Mon El, the dude with the Lantern Ring, Karate Kid was outright ridiculous, even guys as silly as Matter Eater Lad, or guys with a single power type like Element Lad were regularly pulling out insane feats with them. The Legion was basically the most powerful team you could get in comics unless the Endless ever decide to become superheroes.

 

And frankly "well DC heroes had them as weak!" is pretty lame as arguements go, and only supports a generally dissatisfying concept of supers rpgs failing to let you actually do the things a lot of characters do as routine, but that if you complain about that, why, you clearly only care about power, you twink you.

[MitchellS]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

The pre crisis classic legion in fact had wacky powerful characters by the boatload. Even going all the way down to Saturn Girl there was planetary caliber telepathy. The princess projectra/invisible kid/bouncing boy types at best existed in equal measure to the likes of Wildfire, Ultra Boy, Cosmic Boy, Mon El, the dude with the Lantern Ring, Karate Kid was outright ridiculous, even guys as silly as Matter Eater Lad, or guys with a single power type like Element Lad were regularly pulling out insane feats with them. The Legion was basically the most powerful team you could get in comics unless the Endless ever decide to become superheroes.

 

And frankly "well DC heroes had them as weak!" is pretty lame as arguements go, and only supports a generally dissatisfying concept of supers rpgs failing to let you actually do the things a lot of characters do as routine, but that if you complain about that, why, you clearly only care about power, you twink you.

If you say so. And Invisible Kid with his 13 str and +2d6 martial punch could kick Mon El's butt.

 

The simple fact is games don't work like comic books. There's a reason why Champions stresses balance between the characters. Look at the Champions for your example. In a comic Nighthawk would be doing 6d6 and Ironclad around 20d6 [with everyone else in the middle]. Comics allow Batman and Superman to exist in the same game without players getting upset. Comics allow Duo Damsel to exist along side Wildfire. In a game half the Legion would get toasted by the villain Mon El could easily beat.

[Pendaran]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

And in the comics this was why when Mon El and Wildfire would go out to throw down on someone physically, Invisible Kid would, say /do something else as useful, but different/. Like find out where Darkseid's lair was, like use the advantage of the fight to get for himself whatever the gigantor villain that had come out was trying to get. This is also why comic books, the better ones, have things for the heroes to face where everyone can do something without having to turn off half of the team.

 

The simple fact is games don't work like comic books.

 

That for me is the best part. If not for things to feel like the comics, why should a /comic book/ rpg exist, and claim that it is going to allow for the feel of playing in the world of the comics?

 

Comics allow Batman and Superman to exist in the same game without players getting upset.

 

And said comics have them doing wildly different things. Whereas when Batman and Superman exist in a game, if Superman happens to be powerful enough to do some of the things Superman can, players scream bloody murder and talk about "just make a 350 point homage!" when the "homage" can't really resemble at all the source of it, how much of a homage is it?

 

Or, these arguements are wonderful explinations for why it's so hard to bring in new players to rpgs, especially supers ones, and especially if you're trying to do things like getting some people that read comics to game (rarer than you think).

 

New gamer: "I'd like to play Superman!"

 

GM: "here's this homage!"

 

New Gamer: "... this doesn't feel like Superman at all."

 

GM: "what are you talking about, twink with no sense of balance? He's a strongman who can fly and has an ID as a reporter!"

 

New Gamer: "in the movies he.."

 

GM: "how can you possibly expect a supers rpg to do the things that supers do?"

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

Considering the direction this debate is taking, it may be helpful to refer to this free excerpt from an excellent article by Theron Bretz in Digital Hero #3, on running superheroes of different point totals on the same team: Pointless Champions.

 

BTW I don't think that "Overrider" is necessarily an inappropriate name for that Galactic Champions character. On one hand, she could be said to "override" the enslaving control of organics over machine intelligences. OTOH Overrider considers herself a "goddess of machines," and expects other machines to worship her.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

*shakes head* Wow, that DH title is sooooo wrong. . .

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

The Table of Contents for that issue points out that same pun.

[David Johnston]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

The pre crisis classic legion in fact had wacky powerful characters by the boatload. Even going all the way down to Saturn Girl there was planetary caliber telepathy. .

 

Was there? Admittedly I stopped reading Legion as it went into the Iron Age, but the Saturn Girl I remember was far less than planetary in her capabilities.

[Squall]

Re: Galactic Champions

 

Considering the direction this debate is taking' date=' it may be helpful to refer to this free excerpt from an excellent article by Theron Bretz in [i']Digital Hero[/i] #3, on running superheroes of different point totals on the same team: Pointless Champions.

 

BTW I don't think that "Overrider" is necessarily an inappropriate name for that Galactic Champions character. On one hand, she could be said to "override" the enslaving control of organics over machine intelligences. OTOH Overrider considers herself a "goddess of machines," and expects other machines to worship her.

That's a neat article, and addresses some of the concerns I've run into as I've started playing Champions.

 

Personally, when I read and purchase comics, I like either the gritty street level types (I've got lots of Nightwing, Green Arrow, Daredevil), or the world-shoving powerhouses (the Kryptonians, a little Thor, Ms Marvel, Wonder Man, Apollo of the Authority, Gladiator). There's not much middle ground in my comics library, and not much middle ground in the character concepts I come up with in Champions games. When I flip through published books and look for NPCs and PCs that are interesting to me, I read about Green Dragon -- oh, and Gigaton and Firewing. When I think "comic book genre," that's just what pops into my head; either the kung fu guy with a few gadgets, or the demigod defender of humanity.

 

I'll acknowledge it's my fault, and a genre-thing, at least as much as it's an issue with the system -- but it's still something that's nibbled at my enjoyment of the game on and off. The 700+ point games (realistically, I've seen write-ups of some of my favorite characters well into the 1000-1200 raneg), where you can make a Superman or a Thor are few and far between. Most games are, of course, 200 bp + 150 disad's. Trying to cram Captain Marvel or Captain Atom into a 350 (or, in a recent on-line game I'm in, even a 400) point character leaves you either (a) feeling unsatisfied with your character, or ( getting arched eyebrowed looks from your peers, and earning a reputation as a powergamer.

 

I'm pretty curious about how a "Pointless Champions" campaign might work out. My wife and a few of my friends have been thinking about trying to get in a few games over Christmas break -- maybe I'll propose those few sessions as a test run of a pointless game.