rravenwood

For the longest-running shared universe that I had experience with (way back in the early '80s and up through the early '90s), it was a mix of real and fictional places. The baseline was real locations, but fictional restaurants, hotels, small towns out in the middle of nowhere, etc., were devised (usually off-the-cuff) and dropped in with regularity. At the start we were high-schoolers and a few slightly older folks, and this predated easy access to the internet, the existence of things like Google Maps, etc., so a) players were much less likely to have detailed knowledge about any particular area to begin with, and b) it was just a game, so why spend hours doing detailed research on the real geography of a place none of us had ever been to? We all understood that this was fiction, and while the occasional joke was made if something seemed particularly incongruous, no one seriously tried to pick things apart. At the very, very start of the first campaign (better described as a vaguely linked series of games that gradually coalesced into a coherent setting), the original GM who introduced us to Champions ended up basing things in a totally different part of the state, which none of us were particularly familiar with. We could point to it on a map, and from there have an idea of its relation to the rest of the country and world, but in those early sessions most of the action was local anyway, and so while it was ostensibly a real place, in practice it was essentially the same as a "Metropolis" or "Campaign City". The second GM to start up a campaign in that same game universe based his in our actual real-life area. He could refer to and use local landmarks as set dressing, and could make use of shorthand references that were meaningful to us ("The gang is based in blah-blah-neighborhood" -> yup, that's a real-life dangerous place!). Still, though, it didn't serve to constrain the fiction - it was just a rather loose backdrop to the larger-than-life superheroics that were the real focus. Of course, eventually there were different worlds out in the galaxy, alternate dimensions, and all that comic-book cosmic goodness, which were obviously all invented for the games, but I think that's beyond the scope of the question here. The day-to-day setting was an outline of the real world, but we colored outside the lines freely.

He of course did write Mythic Greece and it was a wonderful book (never got to play a campaign based off it, but it was a great read), but the first "Campaign Classic" was actually Robin Hood, published the year before. </pedant> Aaron also published articles in the Space Gamer that kind of chronicled his discovery and embracing of Champions - and eventually ended up as editor of that magazine for a spell. Taken too soon...

Voted by mail early enough to avoid significant worries, and the relevant state website confirms that they received my ballot.

This, soooooo this! Just pick one and stick with it, for cryin' out loud!

My copy has a barcode - photo attached. Possibly they decided to add it for the second printing? I like your spreadsheet, Duke. I haven't been able to spend much time going through it, but I took a quick peek. I have something vaguely similar - no promises, but when I get a little time, I'll let you know if I have any info collected that I think will help your sheet.

Thanks Duke and LL! I agree, it does seem to have sold out rather quickly - it was so long ago that I'm probably not remembering clearly, but I don't think I waited all that long after it was released before I bought it. Duke, I will check my copy this evening after I get home and let you know if it has a barcode or blank space on the back.

This is definitely not of great importance, but just in case someone has the answer: Does anyone have a copy of Gadgets! that shows a "First Printing" date - and if so, what is that date? My own copy which I bought Way Back When shows "Second Printing September 1986", and the PDF of it that I picked up in one of the Bundles of Holding a couple years ago also shows "Second Printing". Thanks in advance!

Danger International, p.49: "When a character tries to escape from being held, use STR versus STR Rolls (see Characteristic Rolls)." So by strict RAW for DI, it's not roll-STR-damage-dice-and-compare-BODY, but rather a CHA Roll vs. CHA Roll contest. The Escape maneuver gives +3 to the martial artist's STR Roll for this STR Roll vs. STR Roll contest.

Well, it doesn't matter maybe, what matters is that the cases don't exceed the capacity of the hospitals. Unless we find a vaccine nothing will stop people from getting Covid-19. Of course it's important that hospital capacity is not overwhelmed, but it should also be clear that people taking proper precautions in order not to carelessly spread the disease in the first place are still quite necessary. Taking measures to reduce the chance of contracting the virus is the name of the game. The day when a safe and approved vaccine is available will be a great one, but in the meantime anyone who shrugs their shoulders and decides not to do anything about it until that time comes is being selfishly irresponsible, not only for their own sake but for the sake of anyone they may come into contact with.

In the area where I live, the number of daily new cases has been slowly but surely rising since the start of May, and the trend is now higher than it ever was back in April. Despite this, some restrictions have been lessened, and some folks are just not following sensible precautions (social distancing, masks, etc.). It makes for a peculiar feeling of blood-boiling despair.

3e has the same cost as 1e/2e.

That's okay, 17 years of marriage to a Japanese wife hasn't granted me enough grammatical knowledge to follow any conversation more than a couple seconds. I learned the characters in the hiragana and katakana syllabaries (which is how I recognized it was written in Japanese), and am familiar with some of the kanji, but my actual language ability is rather atrocious... At some point hopefully I can actually devote the time necessary to improve that.

The poster is in Japanese - the larger text under the tomato means something along the lines of "A perfect score for a substantial meal!" The rest of it is too blurry to make out (not that I would be able to without consulting dictionaries, anyway...)

Here you go: 1st edition 2nd edition 3rd edition

Caveat: I'm not trying to "win" any debates or "prove" myself right or anyone else wrong. I'm genuinely curious, in case I've forgotten or just plain overlooked something. My recollection is that essentially nothing in Champs II was incorporated into 3rd edition. Is my memory that bad? 3rd did incorporate a couple clarifications first presented in Champs III, but otherwise largely ignored the material in that book too. My own take on 3rd (and I'm quite happy to agree that other views may be equally valid) is that it was an opportunity to a) make the core game look better - in line with the steady evolution in graphic design and layout demonstrated with each new release from at least Justice Inc. up to that point - b) make the core rules more "user-friendly" (as Aaron Allston described it in an issue of Adventurers Club), and c) polish some rough edges off the core rules, as opposed to a major reworking a la what happened with 4th edition. I don't believe it was ever intended to substantially incorporate any of the "optional" material presented in Champs II or III.

Indulging my casual interest in game history minutiae, my belief is that Champions III is a 2e book for two reasons: 1) in the Character Generator, both Growth and Shrinking are presented using 2e rules and not the revised 3e versions; 2) in the text for the new Teleportation Against Others advantage, it mentions that "Teleportation, like all movement powers, uses 1 END for every 5" the character moves. Moving extra characters, multiples of distance, or using Teleport against others does not cost extra END", which puts it clearly on the 2e side of the divide; under 3e Teleport is stated to cost "1 END for every 5 Power Points in Teleport (unlike other movement powers)." Now back to your regularly scheduled house rules.

I don't think that counts as an official nomination for either album, so I will go ahead and nominate "Hemispheres" (although it's REALLY hard not to also nominate "A Farewell to Kings").

Rush was a huge part of my musical life starting from when I first heard them as a young teenager... This is just devastating news. RIP Neil. "The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect"

A lot of good suggestions in this thread - to me, it comes down to the question of: In your game, since elves don't need a skill roll for regular spells, should they require a Skill in order to perform cantrips? If your answer is no, then just consider it a kind of custom Talent or Perk with a cost that seems appropriate to the level of actual utility you anticipate allowing it to have (3 pts, 5 pts, etc.). If your answer is yes, elven cantrips should require a Skill, then just go with Power Skill - Chris Goodwin in particular pointed out some other possible applications of it beyond "power stunt" cantrips.

I'm pretty sure Piercing was first introduced back in Champions III in the 2e/3e days. I don't believe it made the cut into the core 4e rules.

I think Gnome has brought up a point that hasn't been emphasized enough in this particular discussion (not saying it hasn't previously been brought up, I'm just not going back through all the older posts to find examples to quote...): As always, GMs have to consider whether or not any particular character build fits within the guidelines/parameters of their campaign, which in this case includes spotting builds that could make abusive use of Combined Attacks. I'm not arguing for or against caps in this thread, but just for the sake of example, if I have a 60 AP cap on attacks for beginning characters in my game, I would need to carefully review a character capable of using both a 12d6 Blast and a 5d6 Flash as a Combined Attack - to even consider allowing it, there would have to be some kind of mitigating Limitation(s) that would disincent casual usage of such a Combined Attack (for a couple random examples, the Flash could have 1 charge/day, or x5 END, etc.). Secondly, the Multiple Attack section of the rules (which contains the separate Combined Attack rules - I agree that this placement was unfortunate) is flagged with a big yellow warning symbol, which I suppose lends even greater weight to any particular GM's decision not to use some or all of the rules within that section. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Combined Attack rules was a bit of a shock when coming to 6E from the older editions, where we had to take approaches such as Reduced Penetration to represent two tiger claws simultaneously raking a victim (or Speed limited to certain attack actions only [if the absolute simultaneity of the attacks wasn't necessary], or even just a bigger attack than would seem to be called for - with an SFX such as "claw-claw-bite" justifying the quantity of dice purchased), so I can certainly see that might be too great a bridge to cross for some - and absolutely no disparagement intended in that statement! Everyone has their own preferences, is all. Can we all sing "Kumbaya" now?

Reading the 6th edition rules with prior experience only from 2nd through 4th editions, the Multiple Attack rules were one of the major bogglement moments for me too. The key distinction between "Combined Attacks" and "Multiple Attacks" - as far as I understand it, which might be mistaken - is that a Combined Attack requires the following: Character has multiple powers which are not otherwise precluded from being used simultaneously (e.g., Linked limitation, separate slots in a Multipower where the reserve isn't large enough to "fire" them at the same time, a single power requires multiple hands [so two guns/swords/whatever couldn't be used together], etc.) Combined attack is made once in the attacker's phase against a single target The Two Weapon Fighting skill applies to Multiple Attacks, eliminating the first -2 OCV penalty, not Combined Attacks. So for the book example of the robot with a blaster in one hand and a laser in the other, Two Weapon Fighting is inapplicable if the robot makes a Combined Attack with both weapons against a single target. If the robot decides to attack multiple surrounding foes (to choose just one possible example), then it becomes subject to the Multiple Attack modifiers and could then benefit from having Two Weapon Fighting (assuming, for the sake of this example, the GM ruled that it was applicable [1]). Two Weapon Fighting allows a character to be more successful at Multiple Attacks, and so is useful when doing things (as I believe Chris Goodwin mentioned above) like old-edition Sweep and Double-Fire maneuvers. Again, AFAIK it has no bearing on or use with Combined Attacks. To me, this is specifically referring to the modifiers/requirements for performing Multiple Attacks. It doesn't preclude characters being penalized with an off-hand penalty, for example, if the game is using that rule. In such a game, if a character with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other attacks a single opponent with both, the single Combined Attack attack roll would (in my opinion) suffer from any off-hand penalty incurred by the weapon wielded in the attacker's off hand. In this specific case, the increased chance of missing with both sword & dagger (the Combined Attack) would have to be weighed by the attacker against the potential benefit of both attacks being inflicted upon the target in a single attack action. As far as characters with Ambidexterity, either that resolves any perceived "problem" with dual-wielding characters making constant Combined Attacks (because they've paid points to offset the off-hand penalty, and should therefore be able to enjoy some benefit from that), or the GM can - if they really want to discourage it - set a campaign rule that characters still need something like Two Weapon Fighting in order to make a dual-wielding Combined Attack. [1] Two Weapon Fighting does state that "Unless the GM permits it, characters cannot use Two-Weapon Fighting with unarmed HTH Combat attacks, innate powers like Blast, and so on. As the Skill’s name indicates, it’s generally intended for use with weapons, not personal powers or abilities." (6e1 93) - weapons built into its hands could be seen as "personal powers" for such a robot.

Just for the purpose of setting the historical record straight - absolutely no disrespect intended! - the negative BODY rule has been around since 1st edition (p.34, "Effects of Damage"): "A character whose Body Pip total has been reduced to 0 or below will die. Death is not immediate, and the character may survive if he can get medical aid. Every turn at the post segment 12 Recovery, all characters with 0 or negative BODY totals lose and additional BODY. If a character has ever lost twice his total BODY then he is considered dead." The paragraph that follows gives an example explaining that a 10 BODY character will be dead upon reaching -10 BODY. Was "dead at 0 BODY" a house rule, maybe?

Hi Duke, I very well may have owned this once, but that was long ago and my memory just isn't THAT good. Having said that, take a look at https://www.rpggeek.com/rpgitem/67115/gamemasters-screen-champions-2nd-edition - it has a picture of the "cover" of the screen showing the same "2nd Edition" splash and the "HER005" stock number. It also references that it was made up of two 2-panel sections. I also have a couple other info sources: one is an old web page from the Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/web/20120413095739/http://www.sysabend.org/champions/HERO_System_Products_List.html) where if you scroll down a ways to the section for the original Hero Games stuff, it lists both 1st & 2nd edition versions of the GM screen as stock # 005. The entry for the 2nd edition screen does mention "Revised Edition" rather than "2nd Edition" which both yours and the image at the link above show, but that may very well be a mistake. The other info source isn't something I can give a link for, but there's a capsule review of the product in issue #51 of Space Gamer magazine (written by Aaron Allston) that mentions that the screen is 'two 17" x 11" screens folded in half'. (For the curious, Aaron's conclusion of this 4-paragraph review is "GMs who really want a good-looking cardstock screen should pick this up; misers (like me) will improvise.") That certainly doesn't address any of your observations about the print job, but it DOES seem like the form factor and details are right, at least. If it is a knockoff, then it at least seems to be a well-made one...?

Tying these two thoughts together, what about a laminated card divided into halves by a line down the middle, with one half labeled "OCV" and the other half "DCV", and then each player could write down their current modifiers in the appropriate section? When they reach their next phase and their modifiers change, they can erase and rewrite. Eventually the players would (hopefully) get better at keeping this information in their heads and no longer need the card, but it might help out in the beginning. That said, I have to ask: what sort of laminated playing aids have you put into use? (Inquiring minds want to know )