Champions Now Information

[jmucchiello]

On 5/29/2018 at 11:20 PM, Jason S.Walters said:

 

Actually, I've worked very hard at making certain 6th Edition (and even some 5th Edition) books are made available print-on-demand via DriveThruRPG when we sell through their print runs. In fact, the only reason the core 6th Ed rules aren't currently available that way is because Ruben and I had to recently redo their layout to fix some problems. But they will never really go out of print.

 

I don't really count DTRPG on demand printing as In Print. I call ordering it from a local RPG store or a bookseller In Print. And on Amazon, 6th ed part 1 is mostly available used:

 

See all formats and editions

• Hardcover
  from $82.16 13 Used from $82.16 3 New from $230.98 1 Collectible from $95.00

Note: This item is only available from third-party sellers (see all offers).

 

If I saw the above with a book I knew nothing about, I'd guess that title was out of print. Release date is 2009 so yeah, 9 years, it's probably out of date. Now that book will start competing with a book titled Champions Now released in 2019. This can cause confusion. I'm not telling you how to run your business. I'm just expressing my concern about possible confusion among new customers.

Edited May 31, 2018 by jmucchiello
clarification

[Kevlyn]

 I started off as a backer for this, but the more I hear from Ron about the project the more it sounds like a breakdown a psychology or social structure. He spending so much time analyzing every little thing That he is not making me at all excited about this. After the update today I felt so lackluster that I just went ahead and canceled my support.

 

There is zero need for two versions of this product. If you’re revising the rules for now then those are the only rule is that you should need. Most people who are going to back this for nostalgia already have a copy of the original rules anyway.

 

 Best of luck and I hope that your project funds

[Ninja-Bear]

Wow (not judging) this is the first time I heard on this thread of someone pulling support for a kickstarter.

[allenshock]

I am actually quite excited about basically getting two versions of the rules in one book. It will be fun to see how they compare.

 

Allen

[Pattern Ghost]

On 5/29/2018 at 7:42 PM, assault said:

rjcurrie is correct about the two rule sets.

 

This is interesting. Do they have a test document for the second ruleset yet? Have you seen it? Impressions? Tell me more.

[Pattern Ghost]

On 5/29/2018 at 1:23 PM, Jason S.Walters said:

With any luck you won't *need* Hero Designer for Champions Now!

 

I can understand why it may not be financially feasible to offer HD for Champions Now!, but just for the sake of helping you gauge interest, I'd buy a new HD license for this.

[assault]

3 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

This is interesting. Do they have a test document for the second ruleset yet? Have you seen it? Impressions? Tell me more.

 

No test document yet.

[MattyHelms23]

On 6/4/2018 at 2:33 PM, Pattern Ghost said:

 

This is interesting. Do they have a test document for the second ruleset yet? Have you seen it? Impressions? Tell me more.

To aid future discussions, should we refer to the restatement of original Champions as Champions Then and the new ruleset as Champions Now?  ?

[MattyHelms23]

If you haven't seen it yet, backers will now receive PDF copies of Champions third edition and the two supplements upon successful completion of the campaign!

[Chris Goodwin]

Christopher Helton of EN World interviews Ron Edwards about Champions Now.  Part 1, part 2, part 3.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Chris Goodwin

[Spence]

1 hour ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Christopher Helton of EN World interviews Ron Edwards about Champions Now.  Part 1, part 2, part 3.

 

Is there a transcript? 

 

The over-reliance on PODcasts and videos is the primary reason my gaming related spending has plummeted to a fraction of what it was.  I have very little free time and I'd rather actually play then waste hours grinding through audio/video on the off chance someone might accidentally answer a question.

 

I can read/skim the transcript of an hour long cast in minutes.  But 1, 2 or 3 HOURS of someone talking says: Go away I don't want your money.

 

A concise written description is how you sell something to employed adults.

 

It's not just this KS.  It is the overall laziness that has overtaken the gaming industry at large.  If I watched/listened all of the monthly 'cast/videos that now pass for company updates I would never be able to actually game again.

 

[Chris Goodwin]

11 minutes ago, Spence said:

Is there a transcript? 

 

It's possible to view a transcript taken from the automatically generated captioning that YouTube does.  If you look under the video frame, at the thumbs-up/thumbs-down/share/add-to/three-dots menu, click the three dots, then Open Transcript.  It's for sure not a real transcript; it doesn't track the speaker, and you get occasional homophones that are pretty easy to figure out from context.  

 

I can have a better transcript up sometime this weekend, if someone else doesn't get to it first.

[steriaca]

I'm stumped about exactly what is Ron's goal with Champions Now. If it is cheap and affordable after it clears Kickstarter, I might buy it. Otherwise, I might pass.

[Pattern Ghost]

On 6/7/2018 at 7:16 AM, steriaca said:

I'm stumped about exactly what is Ron's goal with Champions Now. If it is cheap and affordable after it clears Kickstarter, I might buy it. Otherwise, I might pass.

 

I think they need a better statement of what exactly the product is. Especially since he claims that it's not an OSR/nostalgia edition, although that looks like exactly what it is. The test document reads like a combination of some essays and house rules for 3rd Edition Champions. So, from what I can gather, it's going to be a book with a lot of discussion about gaming, and how to approach the pre-4th Edition Hero System/Champions (and Champions 3rd edition does refer to the Hero System, though not the codified version of gathering the various flavors together that 4th was comprised of) from his point of view. The second rules set, I don't know. I'm going to assume it's going to be something derived from pre-4th Hero/Champions but moving a bit further away mechanically than the tweaked 3rd edition that the Champions Now rules seem to be.

 

The rules themselves look like a stripped down 3rd edition Champions with elements changed to fix perceived flaws in the system without adding too many new rules. There's a summary of changes from 3rd Edition at the end of the playtest document. You might say it's kind of Champions 3.5. It's still got the old bias toward super heroic role playing, when Champions, Espionage!, Fantasty Hero, etc. were all separate products. So, you still have things like costing Superleap at 10 pts per doubling of leaping distance, which is a much better deal for bricks, for example.

 

It seems like there's going to be a lot of material about how to use the system in play, so it should be a good system to introduce people to Champions/Hero, or for quicker things like pick up or side games at cons, or whenever you don't want to delve into more detailed builds for things. It's definitely more limited in crunchy options for character definition than 4th edition and up. It seems to be taking a more narrative approach to things, rather than explicitly defining everything a character can do. I think one way to use it would be to take it as a base and add in some elements from 4th edition, to create a quick rules light version of Hero for stuff like pick up games or PEBM games, etc.

[Spence]

On 6/6/2018 at 12:05 PM, Chris Goodwin said:

 

It's possible to view a transcript taken from the automatically generated captioning that YouTube does.  If you look under the video frame, at the thumbs-up/thumbs-down/share/add-to/three-dots menu, click the three dots, then Open Transcript.  It's for sure not a real transcript; it doesn't track the speaker, and you get occasional homophones that are pretty easy to figure out from context.  

 

I can have a better transcript up sometime this weekend, if someone else doesn't get to it first.

 

Wow, the things you can still learn.  I never realized that was there. 

I'll have to give it a try.

Thanks ?

[allenshock]

if they arwe going to give away PDFs of Champions III as well as Champions 3rd for the KS, they might want to seriously consider including the errata for both products that was published in Adventurers Club #6, Champions III had some major errata issues.

 

Allen

[Christougher]

On ‎6‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 5:33 PM, Pattern Ghost said:

 

It seems like there's going to be a lot of material about how to use the system in play, so it should be a good system to introduce people to Champions/Hero, or for quicker things like pick up or side games at cons, or whenever you don't want to delve into more detailed builds for things. It's definitely more limited in crunchy options for character definition than 4th edition and up. It seems to be taking a more narrative approach to things, rather than explicitly defining everything a character can do. I think one way to use it would be to take it as a base and add in some elements from 4th edition, to create a quick rules light version of Hero for stuff like pick up games or PEBM games, etc.

 

Having read the playtest document, this is what this Kickstarter is. It's not about rules or settings.  It's about how to PLAY.

 

Chris.

 

[Spence]

12 hours ago, Christougher said:

 

Having read the playtest document, this is what this Kickstarter is. It's not about rules or settings.  It's about how to PLAY.

 

Chris.

 

 

So if it is intended to teach actual play, then it includes one or more starter scenarios and characters so people can immediately play, see how the rules actually function in play and get an idea of what they are really doing before trying to build their own characters. 

 

In other words, it will allow new players to actually play "out of the box". 

 

???

 

[Ninja-Bear]

13 hours ago, Spence said:

 

So if it is intended to teach actual play, then it includes one or more starter scenarios and characters so people can immediately play, see how the rules actually function in play and get an idea of what they are really doing before trying to build their own characters. 

 

In other words, it will allow new players to actually play "out of the box". 

 

???

 

During one of his videos, he talks about emergent play and how the original creators trusted you to create your own thing, so I highly doubt it.

[Spence]

4 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

During one of his videos, he talks about emergent play and how the original creators trusted you to create your own thing, so I highly doubt it.

 

OK, more of the same then. 

 

We've basically seen the same thing repeating for the last 30 years.  Rules, advice on rules, advice accumulating, rule plus advice to 7 or 8 hundred pages, back to just rules with minor advice. 

 

And now more advice.  The beginning of the slow expansion toward the 8 hundred sometime in the future.

 

Rinse repeat. 

 

 

[SCUBA Hero]

11 days remaining and $6,250 to go... unless there's a push at the end, I don't think it'll fund.

 

(Disclosure:  I've pledged.)

[assault]

2 hours ago, SCUBA Hero said:

11 days remaining and $6,250 to go... unless there's a push at the end, I don't think it'll fund.

 

(Disclosure:  I've pledged.)

 

If it does, it will be very close.

 

Even if it doesn't I'm going to stick with 3e now. I've always used it as "pseudocode"  when designing for other editions, and I no longer feel compelled to convert the resulting characters.

[RDU Neil]

So, at the Indie games booth at Origins, there was a big sign for Champions Now, and they had a list of current games you can kickstart, but they didn't have a lot of explanation for it. 

 

Personally, if there really is a Nar set of rules for doing Champions, I'm interested just to see how he resolves the extremely "simulationist" build structure of Champions with a rule set that actually encourage director/actor stance, moves, and other constructs of modern indie gaming. 

 

I'm also confused about how he can seem to enjoy the old Champs math and structure of building a character, min maxing points at x3 breaks, etc. which always seemed to undermine actual story in my experience, as people were more worried about "did I get enough power for my points" rather than, "did I create an engaging character who can add to the narrative."

 

Ron Edwards has always struck me as dichotomous in his projected design/game interpretation aesthetics.

[Chris Goodwin]

Ron and I had a video conversation via Discord over the weekend.  We talked a little about Endurance; that portion is here.  (I promise, in real life I do more than just go "yeah, yeah", and it was early Sunday for me so my resting grump face was in full force.)

[starblaze]

Are you going to be running this at any Cons in the near future?