Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

[SDarkshine]

Hello, everybody!

 

It has been a while, due to haitus.

 

Anyway, I was rekindling my involvement in the Champions Roleplaying game when I came across Grenadier's Champions Miniatures. I thought about re-enacting some of the characters; for me, I would play as one of the females. Unfortunately, the only one that I knew of was Flare.

 

This is where I wanted to ask you all: Do you know anything about the following females:

 

• Mind Maid (I heard that she was part of an initial roleplaying group)
  
• Starlet (I see her on covers, but not much description on her)
  

Pretty much, I am interested in their physical characteristics (eye color, color of outfit, hair color, height, weight, nationality), as well as a brief description of their powers. With that information, I can find some powers for them from the current Powers book.

 

Does anyone have anything on them? If so, can you please share with me?

 

Thank you all for your time in this post. Have a lovely series of Holidays!!

[itsalwayssunny]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Mind Maid receives a mention or three in Champions 2nd edition, I believe she was one of the original Guardians (the team of original PCs in the campaign that started the game). She had, as you can guess, mental powers. She was used in examples of power use. Other than that, no clue.

 

I'm still trying to figure out what the heck Airacobra is supposed to mean and why someone used that as his hero's name!

[Enforcer84]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Airacobra was named after a fighter plane I believe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_P-39_Airacobra

 

Mind Maid still showed up in a few power examples as late as 5th edition

I wrote her up once, but not sure I ever saw a description, so I faked it. Blonde hair, blue eyes, 5'7'' 150lbs

[Checkmate]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Didn't Mind Maid become Rose in the comic book?

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Didn't Mind Maid become Rose in the comic book?

 

Although Rose also had mental powers in the Champions comic series, evidence suggests she was a different character from Mind Maid. Like many of the characters mentioned in the dedications in the old Champions books, Mind Maid and Rose were PCs from early campaigns by friends and acquaintances of Steve Peterson and George Macdonald, the creators of Champions. Mind Maid was a character played by Stacy Laurence, while Rose was credited to Tom Tumey.

[Checkmate]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

...Mind Maid was a character played by Stacy Laurence' date=' while Rose was credited to Tom Tumey.[/quote']

 

Ah thanks. I knew they were all PC's, I just thought Mind Maid became Rose like Goliath became Giant.

[Tasha]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

the Champions II cover has a picture of Rose on the back Cover (along with The Marksman). Front cover has Goliath, Flare, and Gargoyle's Secret ID. IIRC those characters were all from George MacDonald's Campaign. The Team was called The Guardians. No writeups for any of those Heroes appear till The Marksman appears in a Retired form in Champions New Millenium.

 

Some writeups appear in Comic Form in early Heroic Publishing Comics (A separate entity from Hero Games). In early pressings of the Comics the Heroes appear under their original names, but licencing issues caused the Owner of Heroic Publishing to change the names of some of the heroes and drop publications of others. The characters that show up in his current lineup are ones that he licences directly from their creator. You can buy PDF's of his backissues on his website and on Drive Thru Comics. The writeups are done in 3rd edition Champions.

 

With so much interest in George's old Campaign, it's really a shame that noone ever got together a supplement that covered them. It would be quite interesting to read about the original campaign and see where it all started. Kind of like Roleplaying history/Archeology. I have personally heard bits of the history of that campaign from someone who played in one of the early campaigns. It was quite interesting to see the beginnings so we could see how the game evolved to what it is today.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

the Champions II cover has a picture of Rose on the back Cover (along with The Marksman). Front cover has Goliath, Flare, and Gargoyle's Secret ID. IIRC those characters were all from George MacDonald's Campaign. The Team was called The Guardians. No writeups for any of those Heroes appear till The Marksman appears in a Retired form in Champions New Millenium.

 

Some writeups appear in Comic Form in early Heroic Publishing Comics (A separate entity from Hero Games). In early pressings of the Comics the Heroes appear under their original names, but licencing issues caused the Owner of Heroic Publishing to change the names of some of the heroes and drop publications of others. The characters that show up in his current lineup are ones that he licences directly from their creator. You can buy PDF's of his backissues on his website and on Drive Thru Comics. The writeups are done in 3rd edition Champions.

 

With so much interest in George's old Campaign, it's really a shame that noone ever got together a supplement that covered them. It would be quite interesting to read about the original campaign and see where it all started. Kind of like Roleplaying history/Archeology. I have personally heard bits of the history of that campaign from someone who played in one of the early campaigns. It was quite interesting to see the beginnings so we could see how the game evolved to what it is today.

 

Indeed and have George do write ups for them! This has always been something of a Gaming Wet-Dream of mine: Giving the original campaign the Strike Force Treatment.

 

Sadly, with the passing of Mark Williams we can't have him do the art.

[SDarkshine]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Now that you all mentioned it, it would be nice to have a supplement of how it all began. Just imagine, being able to - for just a moment - fighting alongside some of the superheroes that started it all! It could be like traveling back in time or an alternate reality, but that would have been soo cool!

 

This could have been a grand project for someone to create!

 

By the way, thank you all for your help concerning Mind Maid. I'm guessing that Stacy had some fun with her character in the original roleplays.

 

Oh, and one more thing...who the heck is Starlet? I have seen her on some covers, such as the first Enemies supplement (and what's with that guy, he have a crush on her or something?). Other than that, no clue.

 

Who is Starlet?

[steriaca]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Oh, and one more thing...who the heck is Starlet? I have seen her on some covers, such as the first Enemies supplement (and what's with that guy, he have a crush on her or something?). Other than that, no clue.

 

Who is Starlet?

 

That wa Starlet? I always thought that was Flair.

[Greywind]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Flare was in blue. I don't ever recall there being a costume description of Starlet. In fact I've only ever seen Starlet in the Grenadier Champions heroes set.

[itsalwayssunny]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

the Champions II cover has a picture of Rose on the back Cover (along with The Marksman). Front cover has Goliath, Flare, and Gargoyle's Secret ID. IIRC those characters were all from George MacDonald's Campaign. The Team was called The Guardians. No writeups for any of those Heroes appear till The Marksman appears in a Retired form in Champions New Millenium.

 

Some writeups appear in Comic Form in early Heroic Publishing Comics (A separate entity from Hero Games). In early pressings of the Comics the Heroes appear under their original names, but licencing issues caused the Owner of Heroic Publishing to change the names of some of the heroes and drop publications of others. The characters that show up in his current lineup are ones that he licences directly from their creator. You can buy PDF's of his backissues on his website and on Drive Thru Comics. The writeups are done in 3rd edition Champions.

 

With so much interest in George's old Campaign, it's really a shame that noone ever got together a supplement that covered them. It would be quite interesting to read about the original campaign and see where it all started. Kind of like Roleplaying history/Archeology. I have personally heard bits of the history of that campaign from someone who played in one of the early campaigns. It was quite interesting to see the beginnings so we could see how the game evolved to what it is today.

 

 

Marksman, Rose, Icestar, Flare, and Giant/Goliath all received write-ups in the 1st miniseries "Champions" published by (I think) Eclipse in the early/mid-'80s. I can scan & send your way if you're interested. Foxbat had a write-up then too.

 

--Kap

[itsalwayssunny]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

It'd be pretty neat to dig out my copies of Champions, Champions II, and Champions III and play using only those old-school rules.

 

I have all the supplements like "Escape from Stronghold," "The Island of Dr. Destroyer," and so on from way back when.

 

Maybe that'd be a neat campaign on Hero Central: "Champions '82!"

--Kap

[Tasha]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

It'd be pretty neat to dig out my copies of Champions, Champions II, and Champions III and play using only those old-school rules.

 

I have all the supplements like "Escape from Stronghold," "The Island of Dr. Destroyer," and so on from way back when.

 

Maybe that'd be a neat campaign on Hero Central: "Champions '82!"

--Kap

 

You might think so, but the rules had HUGE holes in it that allowed for some QUITE broken builds.

 

Now I have it on good authority that the original Games had the heroes throwing 8d6 on average, which was a far cry from the 12d6 most Champions games have run at since 3rd edition or so.

 

Unfortunately I don't know George. I know people who know people who played in the original campaign(s) and honestly I have fallen out of touch with most of those people too. From what I understand he's quite busy working for some software dev in Silicon Valley. Heck, a bunch of the original Hero crowd seems to have fallen into working for Computer Game Companies.

[itsalwayssunny]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

You might think so, but the rules had HUGE holes in it that allowed for some QUITE broken builds.

 

Now I have it on good authority that the original Games had the heroes throwing 8d6 on average, which was a far cry from the 12d6 most Champions games have run at since 3rd edition or so.

 

Unfortunately I don't know George. I know people who know people who played in the original campaign(s) and honestly I have fallen out of touch with most of those people too. From what I understand he's quite busy working for some software dev in Silicon Valley. Heck, a bunch of the original Hero crowd seems to have fallen into working for Computer Game Companies.

 

I've played enough 2nd edition to know it works just fine if you don't abuse it. All rules systems are ripe for abuse, including the more recent Hero System editions. I see tons of modern character write-ups on the forums that I would never allow in my games for that very reason. I try to play with players mature enough to refrain from exploiting loopholes.

 

I don't follow what your point is regarding 8D6 vs. 12D6 averages...? Personally I think 12D6 is too high for an average; I also think the number of starting pts. has gotten out of hand. There's been a power-level creep-up from edition to edition that I haven't enjoyed. Just a matter of taste: I like lower power levels for starting PCs.

 

--Kap

[Greywind]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Just because you don't like a build does not mean that it is abusive or exploiting loopholes. Most of the character builds get more than enough commentary as to how/why a thing was done with enough outcalls if something is illegal.

 

I don't have a problem with a 250 point build or a 500 point build. If that is where the players want to start at.

 

I've seen starting attacks as low a 6D6 and as high as 14D6. All depends on the nature of the game and, more importantly, the nature of the characters in question.

[Tasha]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

The comment on 8d6 being the original average DC is more of a historical note for people reading this who didn't know that. I have played since 1st/2nd edition and had no idea that the original campaigns were at such a low DC. Our first games ranged from DC 6 - DC 16+. We really had no clue what powerlevel to set characters at and many of us just went by what was ok and overpowered in D&D. Some people just went wild.

 

There was a good reason that 3rd edition made so many changes to Power Modifiers. If I was in an Old School mood, I wouldn't go back further than 3rd edition. 3rd was a fairly solid edition of the rules. It fixed most of the issues that we had with 1st and 2nd (1st and 2nd were actually nearly identical, 2nd just fixed some typos and added some writeups IIRC). 3rd added all of Champs II and III into the main rule book and had all of the skills from Danger International, also the Martial Arts too.

 

My Group settled on 12d6 as an average during most of 2nd edition. It seemed like 60-75 pt powers was a sweet spot in the system. More than that the stats needed to be too inflated. It wasn't really damage that inflated our point totals. It was having characters that had skills so they could investigate and not just beat up on Villains. We started to give extra points just for buying skills (usually around 50pts to spend on "non combat" skills. which meant anything but Skill Levels, Martial Arts or Find Weakness).

[itsalwayssunny]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Just because you don't like a build does not mean that it is abusive or exploiting loopholes. Most of the character builds get more than enough commentary as to how/why a thing was done with enough outcalls if something is illegal.

 

I don't have a problem with a 250 point build or a 500 point build. If that is where the players want to start at.

 

I've seen starting attacks as low a 6D6 and as high as 14D6. All depends on the nature of the game and, more importantly, the nature of the characters in question.

 

Something doesn't have to be "illegal" to be an abuse of the system. In fact, the whole point of the discussion was that you can legally abuse the system to create all sorts of bad-voodoo characters if you want, both in 2nd edition and the newer versions.

 

--Kap

[itsalwayssunny]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

The comment on 8d6 being the original average DC is more of a historical note for people reading this who didn't know that. I have played since 1st/2nd edition and had no idea that the original campaigns were at such a low DC. Our first games ranged from DC 6 - DC 16+. We really had no clue what powerlevel to set characters at and many of us just went by what was ok and overpowered in D&D. Some people just went wild.

 

There was a good reason that 3rd edition made so many changes to Power Modifiers. If I was in an Old School mood, I wouldn't go back further than 3rd edition. 3rd was a fairly solid edition of the rules. It fixed most of the issues that we had with 1st and 2nd (1st and 2nd were actually nearly identical, 2nd just fixed some typos and added some writeups IIRC). 3rd added all of Champs II and III into the main rule book and had all of the skills from Danger International, also the Martial Arts too.

 

My Group settled on 12d6 as an average during most of 2nd edition. It seemed like 60-75 pt powers was a sweet spot in the system. More than that the stats needed to be too inflated. It wasn't really damage that inflated our point totals. It was having characters that had skills so they could investigate and not just beat up on Villains. We started to give extra points just for buying skills (usually around 50pts to spend on "non combat" skills. which meant anything but Skill Levels, Martial Arts or Find Weakness).

 

I didn't know what the average was back then. We just built our characters as best we could. I'd guess our top attack was 10D6. It's all relative to what the other PCs and villains have anyway, so 8D6 could be a lot if most people you fight only have 6D6.

[assault]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

8D6 wasn't enough to break stuff even then.

 

Mind you, back then normal "stuff" wasn't as tough as it is these days. Modern style characters probably could interact with the environment the way it was portrayed back then, and actually look like superheroes, rather than wimps who should go out and buy guns.

 

Yes, the early editions had loopholes. That just means that the GM needs to pay attention to the characters, just like they do these days.

[Doctor Agenda]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Wasn't Starlet a character from the Wings of the Valkyrie time travel adventure?

[Enforcer84]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

never heard of her, but that would explain it since I never saw that one.

Is there an image of Ms Starlet for me to peruse?

[assault]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Starlet was a non-costumed controller of male minds. So, basically a generic 20 COM woman born in 1937.

 

There is a picture of her, but it's completely ignorable.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

The comment on 8d6 being the original average DC is more of a historical note for people reading this who didn't know that.

 

That is interesting, I always thought that Orb was low powered at 8D6 and 10D6 was averaged based on Enemies I and II. At least in Classic Champions, Scott Bennie gives the assumed damage levels.

[SDarkshine]

Re: Who the Heck are These?!? Questions about some of the Old SuperHeroes

 

Lol...what?!? Ignorable? If I wanted her to be ignorable, I wouldn't have posted this thread! I wanna know (and no, I do not mean the Starlet from Wings of Valkyrie).

 

Here are some pictures of her:

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and one more thing, I wanted to change the title of the thread to compensate for the interesting discussions about the 8d6. Anyone have any ideas for the title?