Champions Begins - the GM Starter pack

[Diamond Spear]

And my computer died last night. I'm hoping to have a replacement in the next couple of weeks.

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK I've started work on building characters for the book, making analogues for the base Avengers, some Justice League, and other well-known characters such as Wolverine, Batman, Superman, and so on.  By the time this comes out, Dr Strange might be really popular too but I am not going to bother with magic for a starting character.

 

I'm building them as base 300 point characters, then I'm going to work on a 400 point version and figure out blocks of experience gain so characters can pick between them or the GM can assign them as the game becomes more complex and we add in rules with each session.

[Nothere]

Well as I said I don't have sixth so while I can help with making charecters they'd need to be converted.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Its been kind of fun to build these.  When I'm done we can hash them over and discuss, I just wanted to get the ball rolling.  Each one is gender and ethnicity neutral, you can plug in whatever you want into them.  I build them deliberately to be as vague as possible.

 

What I have so far:

 

Ace - Can throw any object, object gains power based on a small multipower of tricks like entangle, blast, etc.  Former pitcher. [Hawkeye]

Ambassador - Strong flying super polite type with lots of presence skills and tough. [superman]

Behemoth - huge and strong and very tough gray person [Hulk]

Ironmonger - standard power armor type, has missiles that pop up mecha style, etc.  Inventor has permanent link with the wearer of the armor, former military type bodyguard wears it [iron Man]

Lightning - super fast running speedster type, pretty generic [Flash]

Patriot (alternate name: Veteran) - character has been in every American conflict since the first clash of soldiers vs Native Americans in what would become the USA.  Immortal, has a normal blast gun and lots of combat skills and knowledge, regeneration [Captain America]

Specter - Spy type with desolidification and invisibility, lots of spy skills [black Widow]

Street Knight - armored with some gadgets and detective skills, uses a staff to fight with [batman]

Vulcan - god of blacksmithing, etc (has hammer, can create fire, fix things, character becomes Vulcan and is ordinary blacksmith) [Thor]

 

Planned: A Wolverine and a Spider-Man.  Not sure what other character types people would really be interested in that can be delivered fairly simply and directly to beginning players.  Even some of the designs I did are a little complicated (Ace's different attack options, for example).

[steriaca]

Well, for the anime fan, prehaps a "Sailor Moon" style magical girl, a teenage martial artist a kin to Ranma Soatome, and a nother teen a kin to Jotaru Kujo and Star Platinum. Not much, but someone the otakus can play.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm not familiar enough with any of those to do any sort of build.  I thought about doing a "kid in a mecha suit" build, though.

[massey]

More and more I'm thinking that too many cooks spoil the broth. We just need one person to hammer it out.

 

I've got some general ideas, and I can do everything except artwork. We'll see how it goes, if I get enough free time to just crank something out. If it looks like it's any good, I'll request help from people who can draw.

[Hyper-Man]

Something new to me but maybe a blast from the past for some that is sorta relevant to the current topic.

 

 

HM

[steriaca]

I'm not familiar enough with any of those to do any sort of build. I thought about doing a "kid in a mecha suit" build, though.

Magical Girl is basically an Energy Blaster with Only In Other Idenity.

 

The Martial Arts Prodigy is basically a teenage boy with some martial arts skill (bair handed prefered) with powers to simulat 'simple' martial art tricks (no range physical Blast for the hit you hundreds of times rapidly, physical Blast for Ki Blast, ect). I called him "Ranma" but he (or she) is more like Ryu.

 

Who else did I mention? Ah...Jojo (in this case Jotaru Kujo, othoe there are others in the famaly to use the nickname). Jotaru is basically a hard power to model because of his Stand, Star Platinum, but can be done. He is mostly a limited range physical Energy Blaster/Telekinetic (forget his ability to stop time...to complicated for this project). Give him some improved senses and an attitude and your all set.

 

Note: I did not ask for a "One Punch Man" or a "Son Goku" or a "Lena Inverse" for the project, even if they are more recognized by otaku today. To powerful for this project.

[steriaca]

You can call thoes three whatever you like. Ranger Sun, Dragon Kim, and Jimjim comes to mind easily.

[Christopher R Taylor]

More and more I'm thinking that too many cooks spoil the broth. We just need one person to hammer it out.

 

 

Well, that's why I wanted to delegate specific tasks.  If we have 8 writers, we'll end up with trash.  So 1-2 writers at most.  We don't need 5 people creating characters, but since they aren't getting done I just figured I'd bite the bullet.  What's needed most is the writing on the intro and teaching portions, if we use Viper's Nest or especially Deathstroke, there's some conversion and updating needed, but otherwise its pretty well written.

[steriaca]

More and more I'm thinking that too many cooks spoil the broth. We just need one person to hammer it out.

 

Well, that's why I wanted to delegate specific tasks. If we have 8 writers, we'll end up with trash. So 1-2 writers at most. We don't need 5 people creating characters, but since they aren't getting done I just figured I'd bite the bullet. What's needed most is the writing on the intro and teaching portions, if we use Viper's Nest or especially Deathstroke, there's some conversion and updating needed, but otherwise its pretty well written.

I'm just tossing ideas into the air. I'm not a writer more than a idea house.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I'm working on a magic girl/boy that's a kind of Harry Potter/manga blend so its not too specific.  I'd go with just the sailor suit magic girl but the scheme is to make them any gender.  The problem so far is... its a super efficient concept (usually the magic girl transforms spectacularly into someone who can do all this stuff, so its all Hero Form Only).  So I'm working on ways to make the character simple but not too powerful while retaining the idea and still spending 300 points.

 

Its too easy with magic characters to stack on all this weird stuff, since it fits the concept (summon, mental illusions, teleport yadda yadda) but many of them are too situational (escape from being bound!) or stuff that is just too complicated for the starting character.

 

Meanwhile the wolverine analogue is really expensive because he's a stat monster/tough guy.  I wanted him to have the animal senses but I think that's going to be too much to pack into 300 points.  After all, when Wolverine first showed up all we knew is that he was short and had claws.  HE got the regeneration and even showed that the claws were not in his costume in later issues.  So a lot of these things a character "should" have can be added in later issues when they come up.  

 

Which brings up a good overall point about GMing and character design:  Yeah, the fire energy projector could always put out fires, it just didn't come up until issue 18.  So you put that in the back burner and buy it later on with experience points.  Then you say "always had it, didn't need to use it earlier."  That principle can make building characters easier for people to grasp and spending xps make more sense conceptually.  Working that into the GM book would be useful, I think.

[Nothere]

Well things aren't getting done because no one knows what needs doing or whos doing it. Unless that happened in the chat session I missed. How close are we in deciding between Viper's Nest, Deathstroke, and third option? You say what you need most is an intro writer, and someone to convert a few things. We shouldn't have trouble finding a writer. Anyone care to volunteer to do some converting?

[Amorkca]

If you want to assign me a character to build I will do that for you!

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK we need to get this ball rolling.

Since Diamond Spear is computerless for the moment, here's what I have down for who's who and what people are willing to do (the parentheses are stuff that I suggest they be assigned to):

 

Amorkca - character design

Assault - writing, editing, proofing

BigDamnHero - proofing, writing

BoloOfEarth - character design, writing, publishing

Christopher Taylor - art, writing, character design, editing, publishing

Deadman - character art (Heromaker)

Diamond Spear - Coordinator

Massey - writing, character design

Nothere - proofreading, editing (intro and player stuff)

rdj59 - writing, character design

steriaca - writing, proofing (format and design)

 

So if that's what people are willing to do I am willing to take over the role of the "Editor in Chief." I don't see this as the role of someone with veto power, but rather a central manager with the vision to give the product consistent design and themes. It will be up to Diamond Spear to do this kind of post and keep the ball rolling.

 

And that vision is this:

Champions Begins is an introductory product designed to bring new players and GMs into the world of superhero role playing.  The design will give a very simple set of characters and rules that players can start with, and a step-by-step sequential adventure that GMs can use to learn to run Champions as well as teach the principles of role playing superheroes as distinct from other genres.  Concepts such as combat options, spending experience points, complications and how they shape the game, how to use skills, and so on are all introduced in small portions with each step of the adventure until both players and GMs will be comfortable and conversant with the Hero system and playing Superheroes. 

 

 

The poll ended up with Deathstroke as the scenario winner by a small margin but I'd like to propose using Viper's Nest with elements of Deathstroke mixed in, to give it a bit more length and carry some of those themes.  For example, the introductory scenario of Deathstroke had a guy in a costume with lots of presence acting dangerous to act as a distraction from the real theft, but fragile enough to teach PCs to hold back until they know what they are up against.

 

I've built roughs of twelve different characters, presuming that 6 players is the maximum any GM can comfortably run and this gives each player at least 2 choices.  When they're done I want to put them up for people to examine, edit, discuss, and perhaps replace with others if that would be best.

[Joe Walsh]

I'm sorry, but I'll have to drop out due to work commitments.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well you can keep track here and contribute ideas and analysis

 

I'm having some trouble coming up with a Spider-Man analogue that isn't just Spider-Man with a different name.  What makes him so cool and interesting is... all the stuff he is.  The webbing, strength, stick to walls, agility, if you build all that you end up with just Spider-Man again.

 

Wolverine I was able to retask into Honey badger, so instead of claws the character is just really, really hard to hurt and utterly fearless.  But Spidey is a bit of a quandary, maybe someone else can tackle that one.

[massey]

To me, half the fun is writing up a new adventure. So I think I may just fiddle with things on my own. Right now I'm working on a Batman-esque street level adventure. I'm thinking its for up to 3 players. Mr. Midnight and his two teenage sidekicks (still working on names for them). Mr. Midnight would be a more expensive character, a full on Batman analogue. Maybe 600 points or so. His sidekicks would be cheaper, but wouldn't have paid for the Midnight Mobile or anything like that.

 

The adventures would be balanced around those particular characters. There'd be options for running the two sidekicks as Followers, as well as PCs. So if you only haveone or two players instead three, it'll still work.

 

I'm imagining some GM notes and funny pictures regarding how to (and how not to) run the game. Certain power uses are not appropriate for superheroics. Specifically, I'm thinking "Mr Midnight is actually wealthy playboy Lane Bryce. You can see he has 15 points of Wealth on his character sheet. This means he technically has unlimited money. However, because this is a superhero game, MM is limited in how he can use this money. It is generally not appropriate for his wealth to substitute for heroic action. MM should not be allowed to dump a wheelbarrow of money into the villain's hideout to distract the waiting goons." And then we'd have a drawing of a smiling vigilante and his sidekick dumping a wheelbarrow full of money bags (complete with dollar signs on the side) into an open skylight.

 

This sort of thing would bring levity to the book, and make reading the adventure entertaining. It also helps new GMs and players understand how the game works better.

[steriaca]

Well you can keep track here and contribute ideas and analysis

 

I'm having some trouble coming up with a Spider-Man analogue that isn't just Spider-Man with a different name. What makes him so cool and interesting is... all the stuff he is. The webbing, strength, stick to walls, agility, if you build all that you end up with just Spider-Man again.

 

Wolverine I was able to retask into Honey badger, so instead of claws the character is just really, really hard to hurt and utterly fearless. But Spidey is a bit of a quandary, maybe someone else can tackle that one.

Forget the webbing. Just have him be a martial brick able to jump, cling to walls and other surfaces. Find a species of spider who doesn't spin webs.

[steriaca]

Jumping Spider, Spiting Spider, Trapdoor Spider, and Tranalas are all web less spiders.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I like the idea of jumping spider, its coming up with a name really.  Spidey doesn't have any venom so a special energy punch or something would be cool.

[steriaca]

I like the idea of jumping spider, its coming up with a name really. Spidey doesn't have any venom so a special energy punch or something would be cool.

That works.

[wcw43921]

Well you can keep track here and contribute ideas and analysis

 

I'm having some trouble coming up with a Spider-Man analogue that isn't just Spider-Man with a different name.  What makes him so cool and interesting is... all the stuff he is.  The webbing, strength, stick to walls, agility, if you build all that you end up with just Spider-Man again.

 

Wolverine I was able to retask into Honey badger, so instead of claws the character is just really, really hard to hurt and utterly fearless.  But Spidey is a bit of a quandary, maybe someone else can tackle that one.

 

Does he have to be spider-themed?  I had the idea of a character with a raccoon motif called The Rascal.  He has super strength, can cling to walls like a raccoon clings to trees, and can see in the dark.  Instead of webbing he has smoke, flashbang and capturefoam bombs that he can either throw by hand or fire by slingshot--I haven't decided which. 

 

Hope that helps.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well for this at least I want to stick to recognizable or at least semi-recognizable characters for the sample freebie characters.  Here's the roster:

 

Ace (Hawkeye, Gambit) former pitcher, can power up thrown objects for a variety of effects.

Ambassador (Superman/Wonder Woman etc) super polite strong, flies, tough

Behemoth (Hulk) huge, only has one form of gigantic and strong, tough

Honey Bader (Wolverine, etc) very hard to hurt, can hit hard, good senses

Ironmonger (Iron Man) armored, but armor made by wheel chair bound genius, former bodyguard of genius, wears armor

Lightning (Flash, Quicksilver) Basic speedster, can hit just under speed of sound

Patriot (Captain America) veteran of all US conflicts from the very first colony on, immortal super soldier

Specter (Black Widow) spy with invisibility and desolidification

Spellbinder (Magic Girl, Harry Potter) transform into magic user with a wand that enhances abilities, pretty basic fly, blast, and shield energy protector

Street Knight (Batman, Daredevil) body armor and combat with staff, detective

 

Attached files are mostly complete.  They're built at 300 points (100 in disads), with the assumption that they get 100 points of experience in blocks over the course of the introductory adventure.  Please if you can, take a look, and we can hone them down.  Keep in mind that their builds might look a bit complicated, but when stripped down for a simplified sheet won't be that bad, at least I tried to build them that way.

 

2 more on the way...

 

 

Ace.hdc

Ambassador.hdc

Behemoth.hdc

Honey Badger.hdc

Ironmonger.hdc

Lightning.hdc

Patriot.hdc

Specter.hdc

Spellbinder.hdc

Street Knight.hdc