So how did you guys learn the system?

[steelwulf99]

It was a long wait (last batch of international orders) but it was worth it! My books arrived just before Christmas (and a three day trip to the in-law's family farm). Weird though - I'd got the .pdfs too as part of my purchase... I'd even printed them out and I still wasn't prepared for just how big the books are!

 

I originally had a conventional campaign planned for my local group, but two sessions of (still incomplete) character generation has lead me to understand that players who are intimidated by mathematics struggle to make characters for this system.

 

Well no problems there. They're a good bunch, I can live with them not wanting to tackle things like how to build powers in 6E just yet... but I ended up rethinking how I wanted to approach introducing the system to them.

 

I've decided to run "Close Encounters of the Sixth Kind" a genre-hopping collection of short stories, with no character persistence between stories. The only link to continuity I will have will be at the start of each new story in the introduction narration. Things like a PC or major NPC turning off a television showing the highlight of the last story and muttering to himself about how far fetched modern entertainment is getting (or a wizard and a crystal ball, a dream sequence, etc). Each story will run for 4-6 sessions.

 

I will pregen the characters, write the story, advertise it to the dozen or so local gamers I know, take the first to apply for the spots and then run the game.

 

It's kind of railroading but it serves several purposes:

1) I can introduce new rules in a new story, rather than dropping them into a campaign. This means I can deliberately keep the rules simple to begin with and when I introduce new rules I don't need to justify why.

2) It spares them the rigours of character generation. Lucky for them I like things like this. Lucky for me I like things like this. Lucky for the game I get the perfect party composition for the story.

3) Pregenerated characters need less building - no need to fully rationalise complications, for one. I just add in whatever seems good for the characters and write the appropriate hiccups into the story and call it done.

4) It introduces a bunch of genres. I plan to spend some time in familiar territory (Star Wars, generic medieval fantasy) as well as explore some other cool genres that some of them may not be used to.

 

The ultimate goal is for them to pick a genre they love and want to go back to. Then we can spend some time building people their real characters and dive into it from there... ideally at that time we'll have a bunch of players who know the system, like it and (this next one is for me) want to run a game of their own in it some day.

 

We shall see...

 

Anyway... now I've nattered about my plans, how did you guys learn? Did you have players who weren't quick at grasping rules? How did you accomodate them? Any tips? Suggestions? Stories?

[Lucius]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

Well, I - and I'm sure some others - started when there was only Champions. The rules were simpler then....

 

I have found that a good way to learn any rules system is to create characters, but I know a lot of people would rather skip chargen, at least at first.

 

I LOVE your suggestion for getting started - I may decide to adapt it myself, even, when I get ready to start running again. But I can't help wondering if you can't tie them all together more - maybe by having the same "maguffin" show up in each one? Or an NPC who mysteriously seems to be the same person (or versions of the same person) in each story?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

For every world, a palindromedary

[sinanju]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I learned from reading the ORIGINAL set of stapled together Champions books. And then the supplements. And then the newer editions. So I absorbed it all gradually over many years.

 

I imagine that's not a lot of help....

[Narratio]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

Same as Lucius, started so long ago it's hard to remember (Nurse! can I have my reading glasses please?) but the Zeppelins were darned noisy.

 

I came into Champions from D&D (3 small booklets in a... never mind) and I'd entered that from regular wargaming (20/25mm painted metal figures used to... oh forget it). We'd created and played a gladiatoral combat system (As written in Military Modelling magaine in... never mind) and, as part of a league we were keeping our gladiators through different games. So we started creating back stories for them. Which meant, when D&D came out, it all seemed natural... honest Mi'lud!

 

Why not forget the character generation and use the pregenerated charcters that come with the rules? Or download a few from Mike Surbrook? Play with those and then, with the hook set, show your players how to modify those characters via use of experience points. Then show them how to build thier own characters. Like most addictions, let it sneak up on the poor fools... Bwaaah haah haaah hah!

[lemming]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

Started with first edition as well, so more and more got added on during the years. But making characters and playing a lot of games seemed to do the trick.

[ghost-angel]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I started with 4th Edition, heck I didn't even play a "Champions" game for the first year or so I was learning the system. Mostly Fantasy and Cyberpunk. As far as I'm concerned Hero is superheroes second, everything else first.

 

I kind of trundled along with friends learning this and that and how the game works. But I really got into stretching the system with 5th Edition, GMing a few one offs here and there to test things out.

 

The how of me learning Hero was a combination of playing with friends and reading a lot.

[Beast]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

1986 2nd ed

a friend converted a D&D character for me to Champions

been playing with them ever since

[likwidneo]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I actually started with 5ER over a year and a half ago. It started when Penny-Arcade.com had mentioned Champions Online in one of their daily articles and how it was inspired by the PNP game. I've played a handful of sessions of DND but was never a big fan of it. It was something cool and fun to do but I couldn't get into it and make a full fledged campaign out of it. But when my GM read the article about a superhero table top game, soon him and all my friends had big stiff woodies over the idea of it. He picked up a copy of the Sidekick thinking that he'll try a more simplified rule system before diving into the full system headlong with no experience. But between his heavy experience in DM'ing table top games and me being a walking calculator, we pretty quickly realized that we would already start off ahead of the curve and that the Sidekick lacked the structure we needed. So we dove right into 5ER in a Millenium City campaign alongside the Champions and Project Mongoose, pitted against COIL/VIPER and company. Our first characters were way too broken and our group "healer" (I use the term loosely) ended up killing King Cobra in a single blow. We've played another, more balanced Champions campaign since, and one session of CyberPunk Hero which I LOVED, but fell to the wayside for reasons unknown. And now we're giving Post Apoc Hero a run for it's money in a Zombie Outbreak scenario. But the bottom line is Champions did to me what DND couldn't. It actually turned me into a PNP fan.

[Panpiper]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I first learned the system back in the days of first edition Champions. The rule book was substantially less than a half inch thick back then. That shortness of the book also however meant that there were loopholes and shortcomings in the system that could be exploited by power gamers. Figuring out those loopholes was a game of brinkmanship so they could be foreseen and plugged prior to an unscrupulous player unleashing all manner of headache upon a GM. Learning the game was a game in and of itself, as one 'gamed the system'.

 

Nowadays I would suggest that the best way to learn the game is to build two characters and then, on your own, resolve a fight between them. Many new understandings will become glaringly apparent doing that. Take what you learn from that and do it again. It will not take long to learn the system that way, and you will after, have a good handle on both character creation and the strategies in combat.

[Bloodstone]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I built a lot of characters and played a lot of 5E. I read the books, several of them multiple times. I read lots of forum posts by people more experienced than myself. I asked questions of GM's and players that had been involved with the game for decades. Eventually, I started running my own games.

 

I still have players that aren't the best with the rules and I'm ok with that. Heck, I still have to look things up from time to time myself.

 

End of the day, the rules are just the framework on which we buiild our stories together. They guide us from one moment of awesome to the next! If the occasional rule is bent, broken or outright trampled in the name of a good time, no one in my group is going to complain overly much

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

Like most of the other old timers, I started WAYYY back in the days of 1st ed, but I thought I'd chime in an say that I think your idea has merit.

A similar approach I've used before is to start a scenario off with a fairly simple objective and pre-gen characters, throw them right into the action, play out the simple short scenario, then have the created PC's come in later to be the "real" heroes of the story.

The Pre-Gen characters are the "action teaser" before the movie gets started, so to speak... you know, the ones who get mauled by the bad guys before the opening credits. Any of the pre-gens who make it through the intro can show up later as NPC's, ones the PC's will be predisposed to trust.

[gojira]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

Anyway... now I've nattered about my plans' date=' how did you guys learn? Did you have players who weren't quick at grasping rules? How did you accomodate them? Any tips? Suggestions? Stories? [/quote']

 

 

We all picked characters out of the back of 3rd ed. I picked Armadillo, and we went from there.

 

 

Well' date=' I - and I'm sure some others - started when there was only [u']Champions[/u]. The rules were simpler then....

 

 

Yes, this. The amount of verbiage in the current edition dissuades me. And despite the "all the rules in one book" advertisement of 5e, I've nevertheless bought those rules 3 times now. Sidekick, 5er revised, and PS2348. It'll be four times when I pick up Luche Libre.

 

I'm not sure that needing a rules light version is the mark of good planning, but you might want to consider the Basic Rules book. It's at least shorter, and you can embellish anything that seems too skimpy for a given character design.

 

A laptop with a spreadsheet will eliminate 90% of the math. It's not the math however, imo, which really isn't that bad, but the number of options. Too many ways to fit all the pieces together. Cut down the options and you'll cut down on the player angst.

[KawangaKid]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

Started with the 3rd edition rules, my first character was actually pre-built for me by my gaming group then... he had everything focused into his staff.

 

Then I eventually shifted gaming groups to another gaming group that actually played Champions most of the time (in Beresford Rec Center in San Mateo) and they took apart my character, but invited me to build a new one. I bought my own Champions rulebook from a guy at high school (who said it was his, but really just stole it from someone who was in the group I was joining) who said he didn't play no more, learned how to build characters on my own, and tried 'em out at a game. It helps not only to build characters, but to look at other folks characters and learn about their builds, their philopsophies, etc.

[snotnose]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

Very Odd. So even though I (and most of my group) has been playing since the 4 color, 1st-ed Champions Book, our plans to step back into Champions using the 6th edition (after having been away since 4th edition) is to do almost exactly what you are proposing.

 

Pre-gen characters

Several short runs

 

The slight twist is that the PCs actions in these short runs will have an effect on the world. Starting with a run in the 1940s and then as many as 1 run per decade until modern times. Is the world anything like our modern world or has it taken some good or bad turn somewhere? Only time will tell.

 

Whatever you do, make the adventures actually be part of your world so that while the players learn the system, they are also learning what the world is like from multiple viewpoints. Perhaps some viewpoints can be heroes and some villains. Your choice as to whether any of the sessions will have an effect on the ultimate adventures (and whether you will allow your players to create villains).

 

Good luck!

 

EDIT: Whoops...teach me to not read your entire post. Now I see why you aren't doing things set in the same genre for each run...

[Rapier]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I got my start with 4th Edition back in uni circa 1991. It was mostly Champions but we then went from D&D to Fantasy Hero to test the system.

[Ternaugh]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I started playing with the 2e Champions set back in '84, and ended up buying my own 3e Champions rulebooks shortly thereafter. I had come in to RPGs through Top Secret (first game I played in, at school during a free period), and later Traveller (first I ran as a woefully unprepared referee, in '83). I hit my stride with Fantasy Hero, and have mostly played (and refereed) that since. Math wasn't a problem, as I was studying Data Processing in High School, and later earned a BS Computer Science (with an undeclared minor in math) from the university.

 

And my advice would echo gojira's advice, and limit the options, at least at first. Limit the combat maneuvers to the basic ones, at least at first. Don't bother with things like bleeding rules or incapacitation rules, and I'd probably ignore knockdown/knockback for the first few combats.

 

JoeG

[Vondy]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I learned from a combination of oral tradition and character building. I was introduced to the system by a GM who had been playing since 1st Edition. In retrospect, his understanding of the underlying principles that drive the system was flawed, but he did pass on a basic mechanical understanding of how to play/run the game. From their it was character building, experience, and intuiting what lay beneath the cage of words that comrprise the rules.

[Karmakaze]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I came in with 4E as well. The GM sat down with me and we took a little less than an hour to run up a character. It was a simple build, no frameworks. And then we played. Several months down the road, I realized I could run a game better than this guy and started my own campaign. By then I was writing up characters myself, even on behalf of some of my players.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I picked up the 1st edition book way back in the dawn of time and just went to town. It was love at first sight. Of course , it was simpler back then.

[Karmakaze]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

When I'm running teaching games, I start with pregenerated characters, often with a plot centered around the character discovering their newfound superpowers. (Also because I tend to run those at conventions, where player-submitted characters can sometimes be problematic.)

 

I start telling players what to roll, and then just say what happens. "Ok, you hit with a nine, now roll ten dice. Yeah, that staggers him."

 

Then I'll tell them what the rolls are. "You're rolling against an 11 to hit. Your offensive value is two better than his defense, so the +2 that gives you means you need to roll under a 13. Yeah, that 12 will tag. Roll your 10 dice. Total that and you have 35, which is your STUN, and the BODY comes out to 9, counting like this..."

 

Later still, I tell them what power they're using. "You Blast him. That's your 10d6 Energy Blast, on the sheet here."

 

If they're interested, at the end of the session, I'll go over the powers and and advantages or limitations that did not come up in play.

 

I find that interspersing system and character build information through actual gameplay avoids overwhelming a new player. It also mimics the reasoning from effect concept, since they see the effect and then the build.

[tesuji]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

i bought it between 2nd and 3rd edition and immediately started gming.

 

it is easily the system i have the most hours/campaigns using.

got every version and most if not all of the products since 2nd.

 

the sheer poundage of hero books on my shelf is amazing to me

[bigbywolfe]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

"Between 2nd and 3rd"? What does that mean? Did you start with 2nd?

[tesuji]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

I picked up a few second ed, but did not get started until third, so my first game ran with the early third rules but a lot of second ed source material.

[philnicau]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

Our group decided in 1985 to play Champions 1st edition and we learnt by doing, you'll make a few mistakes along the way but the basics of the system aren't that hard to master.

[Lucius]

Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

 

Chapter 1 - Pulp Hero

The Case of the Hard Boiled Dragon Egg

 

Player characters are a detective agency, or a couple of detectives plus their buddies/contacts

(including the "secretary" who's a competent agent in her own right; called "our secret weapon"

because everyone assumes she's just there to type and file.) The elderly Mr. Lung, once from the

Far East and now resident in Hawaii, has hired them to recover a number of antiquities stolen

from his import/export business, most notably "The Dragon Egg," an elaborately painted Shang

dynasty porcelain relic.

 

Will introduce skills like Deduction, Streetwise, Conversation, Combat Driving (the inevitable

chase scene) and of course hand to hand and ranged combat (one obligatory brawl and one shootout.)

 

Whoever holds the Egg at a given time always seems to have frustratingly good fortune (5d6Luck.)

It may become obvious that it's far more durable than a piece of China has a right to be.

They never catch the man who paid to have it stolen, but he is described by his hirelings as

German. No one knows why the Egg is so important, but he spoke of wanting it "for Germany"

and everything else stolen was just loot picked up opportunistically.

 

 

Chapter 2 - Ninja Hero

Return of the Dragon Egg

 

"And that is the tale of what has transpired in the short time since I came to posses the

Dragon Egg," concludes Mr. Lung. "Whatever the truth - and you have heard legends - I know

that evil men, willing to steal and even to kill, desire it, and they will surely come again.

You were all drawn to this tournament by the size of the purse and the chance to compete, but

I have chosen only those I have reason to know as honorable, so I will trust the winner when

I give the Egg into his keeping, to keep and guard it. I am not fit for that honor."

 

Legend says that those who meditate upon the Dragon Egg, and study the symbols and figures,

will unlock subtle and powerful secrets of Kung Fu.

 

Will introduce Martial Arts and perhaps related Skills, Talents, and Abilities.

 

Besides the straightforward fighting contests, there may be other tests of qualities like alertness

or observation, or moral challenges - each character faces a temptation such as gold coins left

unatended, not knowing they are being observed. At least one NPC competitor proves dishonourable

and tries to cheat and is expelled in disgrace. And of course crooks will steal it again - only to

lose it at once to a whole clan of ninja who ALSo want it. When they get it back, it will prove to

be fake - the dishonourable warrior had already replaced it with a copy and took the real one with him.

 

 

Chapter 3 - Psychic Hero

Dragon Egg Dreams

 

Or so it went in the dreams. The Liason says the available intelligence confirms some of it.

MI13 is sure the Dragon Egg is in Britain somewhere - if only because most of the credible psychics say so.

The Nazis want it for some reason, and "anything that makes people who've never heard of it, dream of it,

just because it's in the same country, must be important." Where is it now and who has it? "It'll take a

mind reader or a fortune teller to find out! Uh, I mean...well, that's where you come in."

 

Will introduce mental combat and Mental Powers, including things like Clairvoyance and Pscyhokinesis.

 

Eventually the characters learn - perhaps through Telepathy-enhanced Interrogation of a captured German agent -

That the leaders of a group of Nazi infiltrators, and of a Nazi-sympathizing cabal of occultists, have taken,

the Dragon Egg to Dinas Emrys, where Merlin famously had a vision of dragons, for some unholy ritual. When the

characters arrive there, there is evidence of some kind of ceremony, but no trace of the celebrants or the

maguffin. On the way back, in the nearby inn, they meet the local man who had been the stranger's guide, drinking

heavily.

 

"I was curious - who wouldn't be, such queer folk trying to keep their doings secret - and when they sent me off,

I snuck back to watch. There was candles and chanting and I don't know what, and strange lights and then a fog

that came outta nowhere, and then it was quiet - and the fog vanished, and there was no one there, I swear, they

just disappeared!"

 

 

Chapter 4 - Fantasy Hero

Dungeon and Dragon Egg

 

So it is written in the great Allisma Reenorton's Tales of Other Worlds. Only now have the Wise percieved that

the "Nah-t'sees" in this vision of some other plane are the same as the Dragon Lords whose berserker bands, skeletal

legions, and fearsome monsters now ravage our lands. Even now they have repaired to the labyrinth under Myrthin's

Fortress to Summon something our world has not seen for eons - they hope to evoke Dragons by the power of the

Dragon Egg!

 

Will introduce Multipowers (wizard's spells) and a variety of other game elements, including ways to handle fantastic

"races" such as Elves or Dwarves.

 

After fighting their way through the labyrinth the characters come into a huge open arena where the Dragon Lords are

just completing their ritual. Before the Battle Royale begins, the Dragons appear. They are cosmically huge, seeming to

take shape out of the sky and land itself. They ignore the commands of the "Dragon Lords" and begin to ask questions.

"Who are you? What do you want?" and above all "What have you done with the power that has been given you?" It is hard

to tell who they are questioning, and they listen closely to whoever speaks. In the end they will tell the players that

they have done well, and call the villains "disappointing." They say they will take the Dragon Egg to the stars, "There

to stay, until people grow great enough to reach the stars." They vanish - and take with them all of the power of the

Dragon Lords. Whether the players spare them or kill them, these villains are no longer a major threat.

 

 

Chapter 5 - Star Hero

Dragon Egg among the Stars

 

Of course that quaint fantasy isn't the only thing you find in the data banks. The real Dragon Egg was an artifact of

the First Galactic Empire, and it's said the Empire fell when the Egg was stolen. Maybe it was just a symbol, or maybe it

really was a relic of pre-Human cultures that were starfaring when we were banging rocks. There's one way to find out,

and if some old eccentric wants to pay you to look for it, well, this ship and crew have gone on stranger quests...

 

Will introduce Computers (including AI,) Robots, Aliens, Cyborgs, and Starships (vehicle rules.) Possibly psionics or "Force

powers" or the like if you want a Jedi equivalent. Also blasters, force fields, and other fun stuff.

 

More than one faction is looking for the same thing, and there is probably at least one space battle.

 

The players will surely be surprised that THIS time, they actually keep hold of it and see it safely brought to their employer,

who goes far beyond the promised payment - he instructs the AI in control of his private planet to obey the player characters

and gives them joint ownership of the whole thing because he is leaving it forever!

 

"Where are you going?"

 

"I am taking the Dragon Egg where I hope it will do much good."

 

 

Chapter 6 - Super Hero

We are the Dragon Egg Men

 

The original novel was from the Golden Age of science fiction, but the movie just came out. And their box office went right

through the roof when the news hit about that mysterious object in orbit. It came close enough to the space station for the

astronauts to see it with naked eyes, and the whole world has seen the film - an egg shaped object painted with images of

dragons. It orbits low, it orbits high, it speeds up over water and slows down over land, it went into geosynchronous orbit

over Easter Island for a time prompting jokes about the "Easter Egg" but no one knows what it is or what it is doing - except

that where it passes, things change.

 

An Olympic sprinter does the one minute mile - and is still getting faster. A martial artist learning the arrow catching trick

finds he can now catch bullets. An old man dying of cancer becomes a young man with a body that heals almost as quickly

as it can be wounded. The strangest thing yet is the turkey that grew to the size of Godzilla.

 

The players all possess powers and abilities that would have been impossible not long before.

 

Will introduce every concept in the game that hasn't been hit yet.

 

Will the players ever learn what the Dragon Egg is or how and why it does what it does? Will it even linger in orbit or will it

vanish after permanently changing the world into a setting for comic books?

 

Where do you go from here?

 

The sky's the limit.

 

In fact, the sky isn't even a limit if you don't want it to be.

 

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that it wouldn't even be that hard to keep the same mysterious "patron" figure involved in the first five, or even the last one too.