Opal

Wasn't there a lot if discussion of eliminating "cost breaks" in the lead-up to 6th?
 
I can see how "must use most expensive way," yet another round of skill &c bloat, and 1000 point characters could come out of that. 
 
IDK, I look at 5th & 4th (and GMs folding together JI, Fantasy Hero & Star Hero with Champions before that), and I see enough skill bloat and new powers ignoring the actual effect/special effect line, to be very concerned.

"D&D The First and still the Worst!"
 
Though, really neither of those is fair... D&D didn't claim to be an RPG, initially, but "Rules  for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures" ...
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_(1974)#/media/File%3AD%26d_Box1st.jpg
 
 

My bit of smugness is:
 
D&D hasn't been the best RPG since it was the only RPG.

Fully-compatible 5e add-on and Pathfinder are not exactly away from D&D.
 
That's on the level of "I heard cigarettes are bad for you, now I use a filter or smoke a pipe"

Fully-compatible 5e add-on and Pathfinder are not exactly away from D&D.
 
That's on the level of "I heard cigarettes are bad for you, now I use a filter or smoke a pipe"

Sure.
 
That's the brilliance at the core of Champions - you don't buy what you do or how you do it, but what you accomplish. 
 
Flying across town, whether eagle form or jet pack or self-TK, is just flight.
 
If some other aspect of to the special effect is something you want - like rending talons or TKing someone else - you buy those things, too, or they're glossed over, ignored or explained away.
 
 
And that was, like, 1981.  Other games were all "should armor deflect or reduce damage? How can multiclassing work better?  Classes or skills? Can I play a Balrog?" And Champions just casually cracked how to do a universal system.
 

Fully-compatible 5e add-on and Pathfinder are not exactly away from D&D.
 
That's on the level of "I heard cigarettes are bad for you, now I use a filter or smoke a pipe"

Yes and no. No, in that you need another program to launch it from a Windows 3.1 emulator.  Once you have the emulator, it rung quickly in its 320x240 SVGA glory.  I did this on my old machine and it worked, but I had to print to disk, as the printer drivers bear no resemblance to what modern printers require.  But the program still produces BBB legal characters, and I much prefer the BBB 3 Collumn format for character sheets, if I could get them to print. 

I always assumed it was because some people found it easier to suck up to the game master than to learn a game system.

Sure.
 
That's the brilliance at the core of Champions - you don't buy what you do or how you do it, but what you accomplish. 
 
Flying across town, whether eagle form or jet pack or self-TK, is just flight.
 
If some other aspect of to the special effect is something you want - like rending talons or TKing someone else - you buy those things, too, or they're glossed over, ignored or explained away.
 
 
And that was, like, 1981.  Other games were all "should armor deflect or reduce damage? How can multiclassing work better?  Classes or skills? Can I play a Balrog?" And Champions just casually cracked how to do a universal system.
 

Sure.
 
That's the brilliance at the core of Champions - you don't buy what you do or how you do it, but what you accomplish. 
 
Flying across town, whether eagle form or jet pack or self-TK, is just flight.
 
If some other aspect of to the special effect is something you want - like rending talons or TKing someone else - you buy those things, too, or they're glossed over, ignored or explained away.
 
 
And that was, like, 1981.  Other games were all "should armor deflect or reduce damage? How can multiclassing work better?  Classes or skills? Can I play a Balrog?" And Champions just casually cracked how to do a universal system.
 

Sure.
 
That's the brilliance at the core of Champions - you don't buy what you do or how you do it, but what you accomplish. 
 
Flying across town, whether eagle form or jet pack or self-TK, is just flight.
 
If some other aspect of to the special effect is something you want - like rending talons or TKing someone else - you buy those things, too, or they're glossed over, ignored or explained away.
 
 
And that was, like, 1981.  Other games were all "should armor deflect or reduce damage? How can multiclassing work better?  Classes or skills? Can I play a Balrog?" And Champions just casually cracked how to do a universal system.
 

I'm reminded of the 1st ed discussion of Special Effects and the example of the shapeshifting character with the ultra multipower.  One slot was Flight,,special effect: turns into an Eagle; another, Growth: turns into a giant ape; HKA: tiger; etc.
 
(It thought: Make it multi slots and turn onto a wider variety of things.)
 
It may seem primitive or lacking granularity or something, but, really, it was fine. 
 
(I suppose you could have added a physical limitation just as a catchall, "can't do things the form he assumes couldn't.")
 
So yeah, no need for Multiform (though I suppose you could think of Multiform as whole characters stuffed into slots of a huge multipower)

I agree.  Before that it wasn't a unified universal system, just another 80s "core system" a given company would build a variation on with each new game.
And after that, way too much bloat in skills, perks, skills, proficiencies, skills, familiarities, skills, contacts, skills, skills, and more skills, not to mention open-ended knowledges, sciences, proffessions, area knowledges, and, oh, yeah languages. 
 
Like, 1st:
"Ima detective in m'secret ID"
Detective Work, INT roll, 5 pts
 
Then 2nd & 3rd, stuff bled in from Espionage, Justice Inc, Danger International ...
Criminology is only 3 pts.... better pick up profession Private Investigator and Perk PI liscence, as well. 2pts ea.    
 
4th ... I think there's a 20 point package for that some where... 😐
 
5th. Did I say 20? I meant 50.  😞
 
6th:  I see your 50 and raise you...
=:-O
 
 

I agree.  Before that it wasn't a unified universal system, just another 80s "core system" a given company would build a variation on with each new game.
And after that, way too much bloat in skills, perks, skills, proficiencies, skills, familiarities, skills, contacts, skills, skills, and more skills, not to mention open-ended knowledges, sciences, proffessions, area knowledges, and, oh, yeah languages. 
 
Like, 1st:
"Ima detective in m'secret ID"
Detective Work, INT roll, 5 pts
 
Then 2nd & 3rd, stuff bled in from Espionage, Justice Inc, Danger International ...
Criminology is only 3 pts.... better pick up profession Private Investigator and Perk PI liscence, as well. 2pts ea.    
 
4th ... I think there's a 20 point package for that some where... 😐
 
5th. Did I say 20? I meant 50.  😞
 
6th:  I see your 50 and raise you...
=:-O
 
 

I agree.  Before that it wasn't a unified universal system, just another 80s "core system" a given company would build a variation on with each new game.
And after that, way too much bloat in skills, perks, skills, proficiencies, skills, familiarities, skills, contacts, skills, skills, and more skills, not to mention open-ended knowledges, sciences, proffessions, area knowledges, and, oh, yeah languages. 
 
Like, 1st:
"Ima detective in m'secret ID"
Detective Work, INT roll, 5 pts
 
Then 2nd & 3rd, stuff bled in from Espionage, Justice Inc, Danger International ...
Criminology is only 3 pts.... better pick up profession Private Investigator and Perk PI liscence, as well. 2pts ea.    
 
4th ... I think there's a 20 point package for that some where... 😐
 
5th. Did I say 20? I meant 50.  😞
 
6th:  I see your 50 and raise you...
=:-O
 
 

Big Blue Book was the dawn of 4e.
 
[And why did I start typing a response about the "Blue Book" from the first Basic D&D?]

Dude, you want to talk about watching something grow out of control?
 
A lot of us started with 1e.  I stopped with 2e (still play; I just didn't go in for newer rules sets) and back-ported a few things from 4e (not many), Champs 2 and Champs 3, and of course, I also back-ported the _must have_ "Create' from the original Fantasy HERO (as easy as back-porting and up-porting are in HERO, absolutely no edition has attempted to touch Create.  I cannot believe that forty years later we are still putzing around with trying to beat Transform into doing the job of Create on staff of using the thing that actually does that- that actually creates, and it has been hanging right there in front of us, with a large label,that says "use this to create!").
 
The majority of 6e players say 6e plays the same (unless,you want to create something)- and I don't doubt that it does- but it seems to quadruple the preload, especially if you are new to the game.
 
 

I mean, I could picture Princess Bride as GURPS more readily than D&D.
 
 

It's more Hero than either.  A fencing duel featuring different martial arts styles?  A giant who does more with his PRE than his STR?  Count Rugen's machine that's basically a long term END drain?  Inigo making an EGO roll to continue the fight with Rugen?
 
But then again most things are more Hero than either GURPS or D&D, because those are inferior systems for inferior people. 

Some of the more enterprising players have implemented spell points systems. The most obvious is to just total up all the spell slots and use that for spell points. More complicated is to multiply that by some number and then recost each spell in terms of points, such that Magic Mouth and Goodberry might actually be worth casting. 
 
Ultimately what you get is slightly more versatile casters, which screws over the martials—but they were already screwed anyway so it doesn’t matter so much. 

Gurps Old-school Renaisance.
 
GOR
 
I anticipate no issues.

Obviously they all emigrated to NY

Gurps Old-school Renaisance.
 
GOR
 
I anticipate no issues.

Obviously they all emigrated to NY