Taking Champions out for a spin

-
So, after Adam's post about the epic-length Champions game in which he played as a child, I got pretty sentimental about Champions, Fourth Edition (aka the Big Blue Book).  Rather than bring in my entire, huge group of players, I decided to start small.  So, I made PC's for both kids, Bubblegum (Champions edition) for the daughter, a guy named "Kroxigor" for the son.  For those who follow these things, Bubblegum is a low-level martial artist with Entangle and Flash, Kroxigor is a straight up light brick at 250 pts.

First, Bubblegum encounters Pulsar attacking the police.  She does a good job switching between her gum powers and her martial arts.


Then, Bubblegum finds Kroxigor fighting Bluejay, who is attempting to recapture him and return him to his creators.  They make pretty quick work of her.


Then, back at the defunct Ultimate Posse headquarters, the pair hear that GRAB is robbing a bank.  Three villains is a lot for them to handle, and they'll have to coordinate their actions to beat them.  Sadly they don't, and both the heroes are knocked out and GRAB makes their getaway...


The group is mixed on it. I could tell they didn't like the weird OCV/DCV math, and the more rigid rules.  They also hated losing, but that happens in comic books....

Comments

  1. Adam DicksteinAugust 30, 2015 at 7:33 AM

    Not knowing a lot of the details of the way it was run (as opposed to the scenario itself) it's difficult for me to comment, but I like that you guys gave it a try.

    My only thought is, "the more rigid rules" - rigid in what way?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. WQRobbAugust 31, 2015 at 8:16 AM

      I think what I really meant to say was "more rules" not exactly "more rigid," although they asked about Affiliation Dice (a great innovation of MHR). Champions is a "roll low to hit, roll high for damage" game, which most contemporary games don't do anymore, and that was counter-intuitive for them. They also had a little trouble with stunts vs. special effects. In some games, you can attempt a stunt and get some kind of effect. In Champions, it is just a special effect.
      e.g. Bubblegum's player was battling Pulsar. She asked how he was shooting his energy blast and I said "out of his hands." She then said she wanted to gum up his hands and I said, "fine, that's your Entangle." "No," she replied, "that's the power I use to gum up his whole body. I'm trying to do something specific." I'm not sure what she was aiming for there (no pun intended) but I just did the GM "sure, okay" response.

      Delete
  2. BlacksteelAugust 31, 2015 at 12:45 PM

    I can't think of a bigger mindset jump than Marvel Heroic to Champions and that's exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking of. Champions is just a lot more specific about things and has a lot of old school "tells" like the roll low approach that newer players just don't get.

    I'm thinking you could try and use martial combat maneuvers as a "step-up" for creative thinking and stunts but even that may not cover everything a player can come up with. M&M has the array option but Champions has a hard time handling that on the fly.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I moved ages ago, but forgot to tell anyone

-
 I decided to get my own domain name: strangevistas.org and have been posting there for over a year.  When Adam at Barking Alien mentioned that he wanted me to start blogging again, I realized that he might not know, and that likely others didn't as well. So, now you do.  See you soon!
Read more

RPG Review: Far Trek

-
Image
So, as I mentioned recently, I've got a lot of sentimentality for Star Trek RPG's, and Star Trek in general.  Three actual honest-to-God licensed ones exist in history: FASA's, Last Unicorn Games, and Decipher's.  I own the first two and have heard mixed things about the third. But there are also a lot of non-licensed Star Trek RPG's out there, and recently I saw that one of them, Far Trek , was offering a hard copy for a couple of bucks on Lulu.  Never one to let a deal go by I picked it up and thought I'd give you, gentle readers, my thoughts. Far Trek is a light-hearted, even breezy take on the Star Trek universe, almost exclusively the original series.  There rules incorporate stats, skills, and talents.  There are four stats: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma, with the stats ranging from about a -2 to a +2, reflecting their modifier on the die roll.  I actually like this mechanic, which I first encountered in True20.  It doesn't ma
Read more

Heroes Against Darkness review

-
Image
For my birthday I picked up a print copy of Heroes Against Darkness  by Justin Halliday .  Why, might you ask, would I spent hard currency on a book that is offered as a .pdf for free? First, I like real books.  I read them better, and can do so in places other than in front of a computer monitor. Second, it's worth it.  Beats me if Halliday makes any money off the sale or not, but I hope he did, because offering this game for free was a very generous gift to the gaming world. Heroes Against Darkness is worth owning. (At least if you are me.  Your mileage may vary.) Heroes Against Darkness  is, by its own admission, a "fantasy heartbreaker," which is the usually derogatory term used by someone's homegrown version of Dungeons & Dragons.  If I had to summarize HAD's genetic heritage, I'd call it an early edition of D&D done using Fourth Edition mechanics.  If that early edition had 11 character classes. HAD has the standard D&D stat layou
Read more