Games with "terrible" follow-up editions

[Thomas Shey]

The acronyms have left me behind here. I have no idea how a lot of these connect up to the listed fuzion games. "Hero/Champions and Cyberpunk, and Victoriana 1e, Usagi Yojimbo 1e, Dragonball Z, Sengoku, Bubblegum Crisis, Teenagers From Outer Space, and a few others."

DBZ I could link to Dragonball Z.

BGC is Bubblegum Crisis, I am guessing, but I had to relook up the list of Fuzion games to get there.

HSR might be a heroes book? C4 is probably either a Champions or a Cyberpunk one.
Not being deep into these games or the associated properties the acronyms do not jump out at me as instantly recognizable things here.

By C4 I'm pretty sure he's referring to Hero 4e (the publication history of Hero is a little peculiar, because 4e was the point where they stopped being Champions and a bunch of associated games and became a generalized system with specific sourcebooks in a vaguely GURPS-like fashion. HSR is usually an an abbreviation for Hero System Rules (i.e. that core rules set that isn't genre specific).

 

[DrunkonDuty]

@aramis erak thanks for taking the time for the detailed explanation. I'll be honest, L5R 5e sounds good. I think I'll pick it up.

Cheers!

 

[aramis erak]

By C4 I'm pretty sure he's referring to Hero 4e (the publication history of Hero is a little peculiar, because 4e was the point where they stopped being Champions and a bunch of associated games and became a generalized system with specific sourcebooks in a vaguely GURPS-like fashion. HSR is usually an an abbreviation for Hero System Rules (i.e. that core rules set that isn't genre specific).

C4 = Champions 4th. In that edition, the core was sold both with the Champions setting built in (Champions 4E, a 1" thick hardcover, aka the big blue book, big blue bullet stopper, etc), and the half-inch or 5/8" thick Hero System 4th Edition. All of HSR4 is, page for page, in C4...

HSR is indeed Hero System Rules volume -- note that there is no separate HSR before Hero 4th edition, since all the others are based upon whichever Champions was in publication when written.

 

[Thomas Shey]

C4 = Champions 4th. In that edition, the core was sold both with the Champions setting built in (Champions 4E, a 1" thick hardcover, aka the big blue book, big blue bullet stopper, etc), and the half-inch or 5/8" thick Hero System 4th Edition. All of HSR4 is, page for page, in C4...

Ah. You're distinguishing between what we called the Big Blue Book and the Little Yellow Book back in the day. I had forgotten that technically the BBB was Champions while the LYB was Hero System.

HSR is indeed Hero System Rules volume -- note that there is no separate HSR before Hero 4th edition, since all the others are based upon whichever Champions was in publication when written.

Yeah, that's what I was referring to in talking about the oddity of the publication history. 5e didn't even really have a separate Champions rulebook as we think of it (there was a Champions book, but it was pretty much setting only (Champions Complete, on the other hand, does include the 6e rules).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

CNM was a let down... it wasn't really Interlock Supers, nor really Hero System, and it was competing with a still in print HSR4.... but, being Champions, it was the Hero fans who grabbed it, and found their HSR4/C4 corebook was still needed....

I should have listed Champions: New Millennium, but it's a weird one for our group, because we didn't like the previous editions either.

We didn't like Champions/Hero, like, ever. We tried very hard to like it as everyone told us it was the best supers game, but I dunno who it was in the group who described it as something like "Tedious WW2 squad combat skirmish wargame meets overcomplicated and poorly-balanced power design rules", probably my brother, but it stuck. Apart from GURPS Supers (which might as well have been called "GURPS: This is why you don't give people 400 points and access to all the books"), I've never played a superhero RPG that felt less about superheroes/superheroics.

We thought, fools that we were, that Fuzion might fix the issues Champions had by using a more streamlined system. Oh boy.

So we bought C:NM. Everyone made PCs, and there were some great ideas even if it was a bit "Image era" (esp. given one of the PCs had a backstory that involved that he was "never going back to jail"), and I set up a first adventure, which admittedly, did feature a good number of super-villains to fight at once. I was familiar with Fuzion's rules and very familiar with Interlock, as were we all.

The adventure started okay, but when we got to the "big fight", which might have taken, say, 40 minutes or so to resolve in Marvel FASERIP, say, things really bogged down. Turns out C:NM was neither fish nor fowl and had brought in tons of clunk from Champions, and lots of needless analysis-paralysis-encouraging choices from Fuzion.

The big fight took 5 hours to resolve. For what in game took, IIRC, 3 minutes.

Now I'm sure us being new to this specific version of Fuzion was part of it, but 5 hours?! For like, 4 superheroes vs 5 villains (two of the latter kind of weedy). Good god. It may be the only RPG that my group played and then said "Okay, we're not playing this ever again" after a single session of. It wasn't even a fun 5 hours, particularly not as the segment-based system meant some players got way more "goes" than others (of course the analysis paralysis made this even worse, esp. as the player with the most "goes" had unwittingly designed his PC to give himself particularly acute analysis paralysis).

EDIT - Man I really want to complain GURPS Supers more one day, good god that was a bad idea. C:NM was tedious but GURPS Supers was just basically a bad idea from the ground up.

 

[Scottius]

I should have listed Champions: New Millennium, but it's a weird one for our group, because we didn't like the previous editions either.

We didn't like Champions/Hero, like, ever. We tried very hard to like it as everyone told us it was the best supers game, but I dunno who it was in the group who described it as something like "Tedious WW2 squad combat skirmish wargame meets overcomplicated and poorly-balanced power design rules", probably my brother, but it stuck. Apart from GURPS Supers (which might as well have been called "GURPS: This is why you don't give people 400 points and access to all the books"), I've never played a superhero RPG that felt less about superheroes/superheroics.

We thought, fools that we were, that Fuzion might fix the issues Champions had by using a more streamlined system. Oh boy.

So we bought C:NM. Everyone made PCs, and there were some great ideas even if it was a bit "Image era" (esp. given one of the PCs had a backstory that involved that he was "never going back to jail"), and I set up a first adventure, which admittedly, did feature a good number of super-villains to fight at once. I was familiar with Fuzion's rules and very familiar with Interlock, as were we all.

The adventure started okay, but when we got to the "big fight", which might have taken, say, 40 minutes or so to resolve in Marvel FASERIP, say, things really bogged down. Turns out C:NM was neither fish nor fowl and had brought in tons of clunk from Champions, and lots of needless analysis-paralysis-encouraging choices from Fuzion.

The big fight took 5 hours to resolve. For what in game took, IIRC, 3 minutes.

Now I'm sure us being new to this specific version of Fuzion was part of it, but 5 hours?! For like, 4 superheroes vs 5 villains (two of the latter kind of weedy). Good god. It may be the only RPG that my group played and then said "Okay, we're not playing this ever again" after a single session of. It wasn't even a fun 5 hours, particularly not as the segment-based system meant some players got way more "goes" than others (of course the analysis paralysis made this even worse, esp. as the player with the most "goes" had unwittingly designed his PC to give himself particularly acute analysis paralysis).

EDIT - Man I really want to complain GURPS Supers more one day, good god that was a bad idea. C:NM was tedious but GURPS Supers was just basically a bad idea from the ground up.

Yeah, GURPS has always been a good realistic to cinematic level game but not good for really high power stuff like Supers. I remember reading an article in Pyramid back in the day where they were talking about statting out Vampires and Werewolves from World of Darkness for the upcoming GURPS WOD books and I think it was something like Vampires were equivalent to a Supers character while Werewolves were around 1000 point monstrosities.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Yeah, GURPS has always been a good realistic to cinematic level game but not good for really high power stuff like Supers. I remember reading an article in Pyramid back in the day where they were talking about statting out Vampires and Werewolves from World of Darkness for the upcoming GURPS WOD books and I think it was something like Vampires were equivalent to a Supers character while Werewolves were around 1000 point monstrosities.

Was that for GURPS 3 or 4e? as the character cost in 4e is higher.

 

[Voadam]

Was that for GURPS 3 or 4e? as the character cost in 4e is higher.

The GURPS WoD books are for GURPS 3e.

 

[Scottius]

Was that for GURPS 3 or 4e? as the character cost in 4e is higher.

This was in third edition. Funnily enough I saw several of those 3e GURPS WOD books last time I visited my local used bookstore.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This was in third edition. Funnily enough I saw several of those 3e GURPS WOD books last time I visited my local used bookstore.

All my experiences with GURPS were 3rd edition too, I note. It was around for 16 years so a long time.