Champions Worldwide?

[MikeW]

I don't see much feedback on this particular title. For those who have it-- thoughts? Opinions?

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Lots of good info, opinions and discussion of CWW here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38281

[Publius]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

I for one thought it was great, covers a lot of material, but it does so in a way that is not just a good supplement but a good read.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Since I like to get away from Americentric supers to some extent (nothing against America, but there is a wider world out there and I happen to live in one northern part of it) , I appreciate the book's global coverage. It has a solid sampling of heroes and villains from most regions, enough for interesting adventures and "guest-starring" if not whole campaigns, augmented by plot seeds for every character. Many of the character concepts are fresh and interesting, with significant local color to make them stand out from America-based heroes and villains. The wide range of power levels can provide challenging encounters for almost any level of PC.

 

CWW is a little thin on distinctive cultural elements for each region for my taste, although I suspect that wasn't a priority for this book anyway. We do get updates of supers activity in each region since Champions Universe was published, which is helpful. Some of the art is quite good, most is average IMHO and there were a couple of pieces that made me groan.

 

Overall I was quite pleased with CWW.

[MikeW]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Thanks for the feedback (and the link to the thread). I'm in the mood for some new supervillainy and have been debating between picking up either CW or "Evil Unleashed".

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Perhaps I should mention that Evil Unleashed is almost all reprints of characters who have appeared in other books, which you may or may not already own; whereas Champions Worldwide's characters are unique to that book.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

CWW is one of the best current Champions supplements available, in my opinion. Great selection of characters balanced between heroes and villains, some location info, just lotsa good stuff for any CHAMPIONS campaign.

[Kirby]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

For those who have it-- thoughts? Opinions?

While I think it's a great accessory book (and I've already used at least two characters from it in my current campaign), most of the artwork is just poor quality. That's a big disappointment for a game based off an image-driven industry. There are some good drawings in there, though; it's not totally wasted. Another downside is that there are some characters in the book that *should* have pictures that don't!

 

Other than this, the book has been a great asset for me. My new favorite villain is Taipan (12 Speed!). He's written very efficient (649 points), especially compared to the 1,000+ point characters who often just seem to have stuff thrown on to them. If you can afford it, I'd say buy it.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Other than this' date=' the book has been a great asset for me. My new favorite villain is Taipan (12 Speed!). He's written very efficient (649 points), especially compared to the 1,000+ point characters who often just seem to have stuff thrown on to them. If you can afford it, I'd say buy it.[/quote']

 

I'm quite fond of Molnya, perhaps the most stable and rational mastermind villain in the whole Champions Universe.

 

My last campaign ended in a grand confrontation between my PCs and six of the most powerful, destructive demonic entities abiding on Champions Earth, including The Living Sphinx, Survalesh, Li Chun the Destroyer and Eclipsar from Champions Worldwide, plus Samhain from Champions Universe and Evil Unleashed, and The Murk from Hidden Lands.

[Narratio]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

The Living Sphinx was good, but the CWW still covers only the 'Best known bits' of the world. The thinking behind them was culturally speaking, rather basic; Himalyan yeti types, Egyptian Sphinx, Aussie kangaroomen etc. As Lord Liaden said, the cultural information is a little thin, yet it's this which makes would make "foriegn" NPC's so interesting to US players.

 

As an exercise, you could go and dig through the various fantasy arcanums. Those tomes which list all the nations of the worlds wierd mythological creatures for use in AD&D etc. Then consider them as being Champions NPC's, just rub out the word magic (or not) and insert mutant/powered armour type. you can build some quite odd NPC's or PC's that way,

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

The Living Sphinx was good' date=' but the CWW still covers only the 'Best known bits' of the world. The thinking behind them was culturally speaking, rather basic; Himalyan yeti types, Egyptian Sphinx, Aussie kangaroomen etc. As Lord Liaden said, the cultural information is a little thin, yet it's this which makes would make "foriegn" NPC's so interesting to US players.[/quote']

 

No disrespect intended, Narratio, but your remarks may be a bit misleading. The cultural influences behind each character concept are not as obvious as you seem to imply. For example there are no "Himalyan yeti" or "Aussie kangaroomen" in the book. CWW is a long way from European Enemies.

[Njiall]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Since I like to get away from Americentric supers to some extent (nothing against America' date=' but there is a wider world out there and I happen to live in one northern part of it) [/quote']

 

This it is a problem that I have with “the official” characters at Champions Universe. I believe that too much it is centered in North America and it leaves the rest of the world uninhabited by superhumans. He is peculiar that in Europe as less as two or three personages by country be described (many nor that) whereas 90% of the supermen live in North America.

 

I am going to begin a campaign shortly and it will be located in Madrid, I will remarkably extend the European characters/organizations of the game. I will be publishing some of then when I finishing it.

[MitchellS]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

I think game companies have to build to their fan base. While it might suck for some if most of your fans are in the US then you must build to suit them rather then the small percentages positioned in any specific part of the world. I'd agree that the CU does seem to have an over abundance of US heroes though [a dozen teams in the US seem like twice as many as needed].

[Enforcer84]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

I for one think it's a great book.

Particularly Brigade.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

I've got a full review I'll be posting tomorrow on it.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Brigade is neat.

[assault]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Brigade is neat.

 

Are you trying to tell us something here?

 

 

 

---

 

Actually, I feel a vague affinity with him too. His power set and attitude reminds me of Assault!

 

On the nitpicking side, Darren and Steve got the "Rugby Union versus Rugby League" thing wrong, although not catastrophically. Both games are played in Australia, although League is by far the most popular. An "iconic Australian" character would presumably prefer League - or Australian Rules, if they came from one of the Southern Barbarian states.

 

Also, Australian police forces are organised at the state, not city level. The Mayor of Sydney has no authority over the New South Wales police. In fact, the Mayor of Sydney only has authority over a small part of Sydney, since the city is divided into a whole bunch of little local governments.

 

But these are inconsequential.

 

---

 

I still want Seeker back. In fact, I want a whole school of Australian Swashbuckling Ninjas.

[Kirby]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Actually' date=' I feel a vague affinity with [brigade'] too. His power set and attitude reminds me of Assault!

 

I still want Seeker back. In fact, I want a whole school of Australian Swashbuckling Ninjas.

Heh, I wouldn't mind seeing a "team" of swashbuckling ninjas being led by Brigade into battle! Though, a military name for the team might be difficult. For a few, it'd be "Brigade's Squad" which just wouldn't make sense, but having enough for "Brigade's Brigade" could be downright scary.

 

On the flipside, a school for swashbuckling ninjas could be what's needed to unite these two historically opposing factions. "Seeker's Swashbuckling Ninja School" could just be the Oreo that makes them go great together.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Are you trying to tell us something here?

 

 

He is me.

Best 20$ I spent that year.

[tribe]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Are you trying to tell us something here?

 

An "iconic Australian" character would presumably prefer League - or Australian Rules, if they came from one of the Southern Barbarian states.

 

Hey I resemble that insult!

 

Carn the Crows!

 

Seriously, rugby rates below soccer down here in Victoria. In fact, I'd say rugby rates even lower than lawn bowls.

[Iron Wallaby]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

League is popular in New South Wales and Queensland, and is the strongest domestic competition of its type in the world.

 

Until this year, there was no regular Australia wide domestic rugby union competition. There is the southern hemisphere provincial rugby union competition known as the Super 14, including 5 teams from New Zealand (Crusaders, Highlanders, Blues, Hurricanes and Chiefs), 4 from Australia (Force, Waratahs, Reds and Brumbies) and 5 from South Africa (Bulls, Cheetahs, Sharks, Stormers and Lions). The Super 14 is widely renowned as the toughest rugby competition of its type in the world.

 

AFL however is far and away the largest of the 4 football codes (AFL, League, Union and Soccer). 16 teams compete over 22 rounds in a game that might as well not make sense. Stupid aerial ping pong played by softies who can't make it in rugby...

 

I have always been irritated by the US focus in superhero literature, which is why GURPS IST was one of my favourite supplements. I have run and written many campaigns set in Australia, Asia and Africa. The potential for adventures is ever broader in scope than in the US.

 

Even a domestic Australian game has great scope. Though my longest running game ever was a UN based one.

[st barbara]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

My first problem with "Champions Worldwide" comes with the cover ! It is to o dominated by grey ! Surely the artist could have depicted a character with say a light coloured costume ? Otherwise it is okay, although I notice that the strength level of just about all of the "Bricks" is pretty high (lots of 60 and 70 strength types),few lower level (35-50) super strong types. Only three african heros mentioned ? I would have thought that there might be a few more than that, considering that the continent contains some 40 nations. Perhaps a series of supplemental books dealing with different continents and expanding upon the metahuman populations of each one would be possible. The book is a fair start ; but it needs to be expanded. By way of comparison, how many supers does the "Champions" world place in North America ? If the old "Champions Of The North" is still canon there are 15 in Canada alone and, from reading various older supplements ,I gather that there are a lot more in the U S A ! Western Europe is only touched on lightly , and the U K not at all; we need some Scandinavian and Balkan heros for example (I assume that the U K will be covered in a new version of "Kingdom of Champions" or similar ?) Lets see "Champions Worldwide II" soon to fill in a few of the gaps !

[Metaphysician]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

Well, pretty much all the 'source literature' has superhuman activity focused in the US, with a few hotspots elsewhere. If anything, CW does a good job spreading the joy around. After all, how many, say, Indian superheroes can you think of in the Marvel Universe?

[MitchellS]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

I've been playing superhero games for coming up on 30 years now between V&V, Champions, and M&M, and I can honestly say that I haven't had adventures outside of North America [uS, Canada, and Mexico] probably more then a dozen times in all those years. I've had far more dimensional/temporal adventures then I've ever had global. Anyone I'd use from CWW would almost always be encountered in the US not in their home country.

 

It's always nice to know about the rest of the CU but how often are characters going to run off and visit those 40 countries in Africa that they need to know more about all their heroes and villains? Probably not more then once, IMO [and even then any such adventure is probably going to take place in Egypt or South Africa because those are the places we hear about].

 

Rightly or wrongly Champions material is written for an American audience. That's where most of the customer base is [i'd even go as far as to say 90% of the customer base] so the need to find out what's going on in the rest of the world isn't as pressing as the need to have more information about what's going on in the US. Heck, it's taken 5 years just to get info on a couple of the major superhero teams in the US.

[st barbara]

Re: Champions Worldwide?

 

True "Mitchell S" but "Champions Worldwide" provides an opportunity that isn't being taken advantage of by the comic book companies; to "internationalize" the superhero world and even to do some thinking about how supers effect the world they live in. How would a superhero in an impoverished nation constantly afflicted with hunger and/or natural disasters act ? Could he or she change the situation for the better and if so what effect would that have on the population (or the government) ? What about a super in a dictatorship such as Cuba or Zimbabwe ? Would such a character be brainwashed into being an agent of the ruling powers or would they become an "outlaw" ? How would they be percieved by the populace and/or outside observers ? What is the position of the U N on supers ? Do they have a force of their own or are the supers held by their home nations and "loaned" to the U N in certain circumstances ? There are many questions that aren't being looked at by the comics that could be explored in "Champions" , and i'd like to see some of it attempted in future supplements.