So... is it good?

[Michael Hopcroft]

5 hours ago, nitrosyncretic said:

As reference for Champions Now, it's really worthwhile to buy access to the Marvel Comics online and read the 60s through early 70s of Spider-Man and the FF and whatever else takes your fancy. You can also get anthologies from most libraries. Ron sees the original Champions as inspired by this era and that is indeed what he's trying to capture.

In the introduction to Situations, I believe Edwards cites the "Demon in a Bottle" storyline where Tony Stark battles the worst enemy he ever faces -- his own alcohol addiction. Stan Lee had already broken the back of the Comics Code Authority by examining drug abuse and its consequences in comics. I need to read those stories, because the panels of them I've seen are heroism.

 

A person's demons -- the things that live in their minds and souls and eat away at them little by little -- make really good Situations. But not all Situations are negative; if you and your spouse are on the same team, and both player-characters, then you draw some strength from the relationship. But it also causes problems in your lives...

[Brian Eye]

My hard copy arrived yesterday, just in time for some needed reading on Mother's Day. My Mom bought me my first Champions set back in 1982, so sorta fitting. Anyway, I certainly like it after a read or two through ... still need to sit down and create some characters, etc. ("the usual"). 

 

The organization's a little odd, and like others I'd like an index. That said, I like the discussion (or lecture) as the book unfolds, and the integrations to comic history and publishing is something I'm enjoying.

 

Probably the most likely version of Champions for me to run for the foreseeable future. I think this, and the earlier Strike Force, have been my favorite Hero projects in recent memory.

[Pariah]

I received my hard copy in the mail yesterday. In terms of production quality, it's solid. Tight binding, sharp printing and graphics, good quality materials. 

 

I've had the PDF for  while now, of course, but it was nice to feel the paper in my hands. I'm old-school like that, I suppose.

[Doc Democracy]

I got my hardcopy yesterday too (in London no less).  I have not actually looked at the PDF at all.  Too busy with other things.  The paper copy demands attention in a very different manner.

 

Doc

[pawsplay]

It's pretty good. I ordered a hard copy. I put up a review in the Hero Products section.

[Escafarc]

I'll be sticking with 6E, this just isn't my cup of tea.  

[Michael Hopcroft]

I, on the other hand, are very enthusiastic about playing or GMing this game.

[IndigoDragon]

Hi all, new to the forums and coming on here after buying C-Now. This is my first Ron Edwards rpg so I really am not sure what I am getting into but I've always had an appreciation for Champions and Hero System. I can already tell by flipping through the first few pages that C-Now is very different than the other versions of the game. 

 

It's nice to meet you all.

[Michael Hopcroft]

11 hours ago, IndigoDragon said:

Hi all, new to the forums and coming on here after buying C-Now. This is my first Ron Edwards rpg so I really am not sure what I am getting into but I've always had an appreciation for Champions and Hero System. I can already tell by flipping through the first few pages that C-Now is very different than the other versions of the game. 

 

It's nice to meet you all.

Nice to meet you two. As you have probably seen, Champions Now has been a very divisive release here. Ron Edwards is also was on the most polarizing figures in the industry whose theories and designs are controversial. He's been promoting them two decades and they're still controversial.

 

Introducing narritavism into the core of one of the definitive simulationist systems is naturally going to be controversial.

 

 

[pawsplay]

I'm not sure it has a narrativist bent. Ron seems to have gone all-in on the "let the dice fall where they may" aesthetic for this one.

[nitrosyncretic]

2 hours ago, pawsplay said:

I'm not sure it has a narrativist bent. Ron seems to have gone all-in on the "let the dice fall where they may" aesthetic for this one.

 

Well, Ron hasn't used the term "narrativist" for more than 12 years. 

 

The dice falling where they may is a perfect partner to the "now." The concept is to establish a starting condition full of motivated and planful NPCs, let play determine how any conflicts turn out, then visit how that changes the motivations and plans of the NPCs.

 

Each now is a list of NPC cast members with their motivations and any actions they intend to take in the next session. You can read about this in the chapter called "The Now."

 

During a session, the GM plays the NPCs to follow their plans until the players get in the way. If the players don't get in the way, the NPCs just proceed uninfluenced. If the two collide, then play (including but not always dice rolls) determines  outcomes. No planned outcomes. No gifts from the GM. 

 

Then the GM creates a new Now sheet, where the NPCs adjust their attitudes and plans based on what just happened.

 

Things the GM does not do include: require a particular outcome from a conflict, require a particular course of action, set things up so only one path will work, or invent discoveries and conflict in front of the characters wherever they decide to go.

 

This evolution aims to create what Ron has termed "Story Now."

 

[pawsplay]

It's definitely story-focused in sense of "story" being an emergent aspect of play that happens in role-playing games.

[David Blue]

On 4/22/2020 at 11:37 AM, Michael Hopcroft said:

Now that's a concept I don't quite grok yet. What is the ratio, what does it measure, and what in-game purpose does it serve?

 

The first Champions character sheet I ever saw was several pages of -1/2 this and -1/4 that, and Powered Armor Guy (as I'll call him) was well over 700 active points, on a base of something like 100 character points and 100 disadvantages.. He was not the most powerful character in the game; that honor went to Wimp To God Guy, who bought all his stats down, then back up again through his -1 OAF magic amulet. But Powered Armor Guy was quite strong. The player was proud of himself, and the young and eager gamemaster was impressed by all the hard work that the player had put into the game. Then there was Power Ring Guy.

 

Superheroes are a power fantasy, and you should expect power fantasy behavior from young men who learn a game where you get more super-heroic if you take more limitations.

 

Then there were characters who were not built on limitations; we simply had Acrobatics, Martial Arts, Stealth, and Detective Work, or whatever our ideas called for. So it would be 200 points spent, and say 220 points active, give or take an OAF baton and a swing line.

 

According to the logic of the Hero System, all these character should have been equal and should have adventured well together, because limitations pull you back as much as the active extra points help you. That theory didn't work.

 

In my opinion, this campaign, and many like it, would have benefited greatly from a ratio rule that said that if your active points are 1.2 times as great as your real points, your power build is too sophisticated and you need to pull back. I am sympathetic to the ratio rule.

[Lord Liaden]

Yeah, that sounds a lot like the early years of the game, when many players and GMs fell into the power-gaming trap without the experience to know the trouble they were getting themselves into trying to play such characters. Hero has evolved greatly in terms of guidelines and recommendations to minimize the worst abuses (selling back all your stats is a big no-no in the default rules, for example). The whole gaming hobby has also gotten more sophisticated. But there's still no substitute for a Game Master willing to tell his players, "No" when they want to do something that will damage play. Preferably explaining why. Of course beginning GMs frequently lack the experience and/or assertiveness to make that call, let alone know when to make it.

[David Blue]

4 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Yeah, that sounds a lot like the early years of the game, when many players and GMs fell into the power-gaming trap without the experience to know the trouble they were getting themselves into trying to play such characters. Hero has evolved greatly in terms of guidelines and recommendations to minimize the worst abuses (selling back all your stats is a big no-no in the default rules, for example). The whole gaming hobby has also gotten more sophisticated. But there's still no substitute for a Game Master willing to tell his players, "No" when they want to do something that will damage play. Preferably explaining why. Of course beginning GMs frequently lack the experience and/or assertiveness to make that call, let alone know when to make it.

I agree with what you say, Lord Liaden.

 

Reportedly Ron Edwards wants Champions Now read, interpreted, played, and gamemastered as though we had never read or played anything before. One should go into it with complete naivety, and learn it as a wholly new thing.

 

I don't know that I like that idea, but judging by the way the book is written that is indeed what the author wants. He has a different starting point from any version of Champions or Hero System that we've seen before, and he puts that before the rules, or rather doing things his way and not in some way one has experience with is his first and most important rule.

 

In that context, with gamemasters and players forcing themselves to stick to an attitude of fearless naivety, there is some simple rule like the ratio rule to limit what will go wrong, or the limit will be reached when your campaign crashes, rolls, and burns at the outset.

 

I support the ratio rule. It is not an adequate substitute for a gamemaster who is experienced, and who wisely remembers and applies his experience, but it is a lot better than what would happen without it.

[Pattern Ghost]

On 5/16/2020 at 11:14 AM, Michael Hopcroft said:

Introducing narritavism into the core of one of the definitive simulationist systems is naturally going to be controversial.

 

 

I'd argue that the Disadvantages system is a hugely narrative element in the system, so some of that reputation lies with player behavior. I always thought the system was balanced pretty well between both ends, at least up to 4th Edition. I've always thought that trying to force the system to be truly generic (i.e., building talents with kludged powers, some of the skill system expansion, etc. from fifth on) was a mistake.

 

I think you can build a pretty narratively-focused game with Hero even today, should that be your preference. The rules lend themselves well to streamlining the mechanical aspects to lean more into a more narrative style of play. And people have done this, for kid's games, for Con games, etc.

 

Though I agree that with the current general perception of Hero in the hobby, Ron Edwards' approach in Champions Now is bound to conjure up some cognitive dissonance.

[GDShore]

I do not understand the "controversy" when we started Champions we just assumed story was a major element. We thought that we effectively were doing a TV series in which events that occurred in episode one might come back somehow in episode six or seven or whenever. Narrative was always important, it gave purpose to what was happening.