Champions RPG

[BkMamba]

I know people will then counter with the fact that it's a great way to emulate the genre but they quickly forget that the actual genre is manipulated by writers and this is an actual GAME.

The purpose of the GM's Fiat rule is to allow the GM to take-on the role of the "writer" so that he can manipulate events outside of the mechanics of the game - and it is not cheating because the players benefit from the manipulation. No game's mechanics always give a satisfactory or dramatic result. A game becomes dull if the story is only dictacted by the drama of the dice, IMO. And I honestly do not believe there is an experienced GM in gaming who has not given a major foe some extra Hit Points, Stun/Body, whatever, to make the fight last a little longer to add more drama and tension to the encounter.

 

[Felon]

Hero's core mechanics have not changed over the years. 5th edition offers a lot of refinements, and the scope of a lot of game mechanics has improved, but attacks are still based off of rolling 3d6 and looking for a number under 11 + your OCV - defender's DCV. Skills are still 9 + characteristic/5. There are still Powers, Limitations, Advantages, adn Disadvantages.

And it's still all based off pie-in-the-sky design. You aren't supposed to buy up STR simply because it pays for itself in figured characteristics. You aren't supposed to hop around everywhere instead of running even though leaping movement scales to STR while running movement is a flat 6" (and once again, STR pays for itself). You aren't supposed to max out "soft" Disads like Psychological Limitations, Hunteds, and Distinctive Features while not even casting a sideways glance to "hard' disads like Susceptability, Vulnerability, and Unluck. You aren't supposed to buy up Flash Defense, Power Defense, and Mental Defense simply because they're so very, very cheap (way out-of-whack with the attacks they provide defense against). You're not supposed to have resistant defenses if your character concept is Spider-Man or Iron Fist. And everyone is not supposed to be a walking Obvious Inaccessible Focus. Nope, you're sure not supposed to...

You're not supposed to, but you're pretty much on the honor system. And I have a beef with a character-building system that revolves around a fairly complex system of point-costing when that system ultimately does such a poor job of abuse-policing. What is the point of all the accounting if, in the end, you could get away with just as much by just making it all up off the top of your head? Let's play TSR Marvel Super-Heroes if we just don't care about balance.

In many areas, Champions just does a bad job of representing the spectrum of superhero concepts. You really need resistant defenses. You really need everyone's atacks to do roughly the same amount of damage. You really have to consider Knockback Resistance because otherwise the knockback rules will have every character spending a half-phase standing up every time they get hit.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Sidekick...

Also I'm seeing alot of people posting about how complex the rules are and how big the rulebook is when honestly you dont use everything in the rulebook. It's a toolkit and advertises itself as such. It's there right on the cover "THE ULTIMATE GAMERS TOOLKIT"

There's also Sidekick which is basically the essentals you need for character creation and running a game. If I remember correctly Sidekick is about 128 pages.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

The purpose of the GM's Fiat rule is to allow the GM to take-on the role of the "writer" so that he can manipulate events outside of the mechanics of the game - and it is not cheating because the players benefit from the manipulation. No game's mechanics always give a satisfactory or dramatic result. A game becomes dull if the story is only dictacted by the drama of the dice, IMO. And I honestly do not believe there is an experienced GM in gaming who has not given a major foe some extra Hit Points, Stun/Body, whatever, to make the fight last a little longer to add more drama and tension to the encounter.

I get that.

But to say I can render the players unconscious with out an actual fight and simply reward them with Hero Points feels like cheating to me. Just like your opinion is yours this is my opinion on GM Fiat.

And as an experienced GM of over 20 years I used to pad hit points on occaison to prolong a fight, but now I just find it distasteful and it feels like I'm robbing my players of their victory on some level. I've also discovered that there are other ways to gain a tactical advantage over my D&D and HERO players withour making cheating in order to make a challange interesting. With M&M it seems (too me anyway) like whenever something doesnt go in the Hero's favor they gain a hero point and that doesnt quite work for me.

Anyway, for me, padding is a lot different than saying "youre all knocked out, oh here's a Hero point for your trouble"

 

[BkMamba]

Anyway, for me, padding is a lot different than saying "youre all knocked out, oh here's a Hero point for your trouble"

I think the point you are missing here is those types of actions are common within the superhero comics and movies:

For some strange reason Spider-man's Spider-Sense does not work in time and Green Goblin managed to easily KO Spidey with some knock-out gas - GM's Fiat to end the combat so the GM can advance the role-playing side of the story.

Sure, sometimes the story demands a big dramatic battle but other times the story needs to be advanced through role-playing. If we only used Game Mechanics Spidey might never fail a Fort Save against that gas attack and we would never get to the next segment of the story. As I said above, sometimes the game needs to be more than the drama of the dice.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I think the point you are missing here is those types of actions are common within the superhero comics and movies:

For some strange reason Spider-man's Spider-Sense does not work in time and Green Goblin managed to easily KO Spidey with some knock-out gas - GM's Fiat to end the combat so the GM can advance the role-playing side of the story.

Sure, sometimes the story demands a big dramatic battle but other times the story needs to be advanced through role-playing. If we only used Game Mechanics Spidey might never fail a Fort Save against that gas attack and we would never get to the next segment of the story. As I said above, sometimes the game needs to be more than the drama of the dice.

No, having read super hero comics for close to 30 years, I'm very familiar with the conventions of the genre. What I'm saying is that when I'm reading a comic book and ultron takes out the Avengers with his ecephelo (sp?) ray or whatever, I get that that's part of the story that I'm reading.

When I'm running a GAME it doesnt sit well with me. I'm not saying this not having tried it, I used the exact same example that I with an Ultron like villian vs. my PC's and it felt like I was cheating them. It felt CHEAP. I did it to advance the plot, they all got a hero point for thier trouble and it still felt CHEAP.

It's fine that it works out for you. But for me I understand that there are distinct differences between two different media. A game is a game and there are certain aspects of genre emulation that simply arent going to translate well into another medium. GMFiat, for me at least is one of those things.

 

[BkMamba]

It's fine that it works out for you. But for me I understand that there are distinct differences between two different media. A game is a game and there are certain aspects of genre emulation that simply arent going to translate well into another medium. GMFiat, for me at least is one of those things.

We are on different ends of the spectrum then. When I play a game I am specifically trying to emulate the genre the game is about not just play a game system; and I appreciate any rules a game might have which makes the genre emulation easier.

In any event, I hope you can find some people to play HERO with eventually. I know how much it sucks to not be able to play a game system you like and want to play.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

We are on different ends of the spectrum then. When I play a game I am specifically trying to emulate the genre the game is about not just play a game system; and I appreciate any rules a game might have which makes the genre emulation easier.

Nah D00d, I totally understand and respect that, I'm not completly against genre emulation, there are just somethings that dont work for me, that's all. Really other than that, I think that M&M is a pretty elegant system and I think I said so earlier. I'm probably going to have to run another M&M game because like I said it'll be easier to find players for it than it would be for a HERO SYSTEM game.

In any event, I hope you can find some people to play HERO with eventually. I know how much it sucks to not be able to play a game system you like and want to play.

D00d, It most certainly does.

 

[buzz]

I think the point you are missing here is those types of actions are common within the superhero comics and movies...

The more important point, IMO, is that those types of actions are common with GMs. With the GM Fiat rule, you at least get something in exchange for the GM railroading you into a plot.

Hero Points are one of the few areas where I think M&M just flat out does a better job than HERO. HERO has the Power skill and Heroic Action Points (a Luck variant detailed mostly in Pulp HERO), but neither are quite as cool to me.

 

[00Machado]

You only need the Hero System 5th Revised but getting a villains book and the champions book would go a long way towards easing the GM burden.

And that's what it really comes down to. How much work do you want to do yourself? What do you want to have done for you? What do you want to pull ideas from? And how vast a scope to you build campaigns before they start?

You definitely only need the core book, but at various points you may want to consider:
Champions 5e - to help with some GM tips for supers, and using the rules to best effect in a supers game. It also has templates (for lack of a better word) for supers archetypes. If you get only one supplement, get this one.

Champions Universe - If you want a setting that's out of the book (and the one all the other setting books reference). They have two city setting books as well, if you want your setting to be a city rather than an entire supers continent, planet, galaxy, etc.

Until Super Powers Database 1 and 2 'if' you want to save time calculating out typical power builds.

One or more villain books if you want some ready made villains, or want to recycle the builds into your own villain ideas, use it for inspiration, etc.

Ultimately, you can do everything with the single book. The rest are designed for simplifying the GM workload, and/or setting material.

For a more streamlined version of the rules, you can get Hero Sidekick. Or even an old version of 4e.