(the superhero theme rides on...)


I've been experimenting with some Champions games lately. I've said many times in the past that although I love GURPS, I feel that it breaks above a certain power level (an opinion that many agree with), so I when I'm in a super-heroes mood and still want the toolkit feel, I go to the Hero System.

I've don't see a lot of strong opinions on Hero, especially compared to GURPS. Why is that? Is it just the overbearing GURPS fans? Am I just hanging out on the wrong forums, where no tries it? I would think a lot of the same folk that dislike GURPS would dislike Champions for the same reason, but Hero games doesn't get as much venom directed at it (in my observation). They're both modular systems, and seem very similar to me, largely differing in combat 'feel' (realism vs cinematics), & what power level they handle.

I think I could really get into Champions if I hadn't invested so much time and money into GURPS by now.

I don't care for it. Its too complex for the return if gives. You end up doing more work than should be necessary for a game. I've played it and run it, and found Gurps far less bothersome. (Admittedly these days, I don't even find Gurps simple enough for my tastes.)

I like the idea of Champions, I just think it's way too complex for what it is supposed to be. When writing 6e, Steve Long should have started with 5eR and cut 200 pages. Instead, he added a whole extra book.

BASH does 95% of what Champions does, with a fraction of the rules.

My other big issue is how the rulebook nudges you to build everything, even minor equipment, using the powers rules.

Quote from: danbuter;470782I like the idea of Champions, I just think it's way too complex for what it is supposed to be. When writing 6e, Steve Long should have started with 5eR and cut 200 pages. Instead, he added a whole extra book.

BASH does 95% of what Champions does, with a fraction of the rules.

My other big issue is how the rulebook nudges you to build everything, even minor equipment, using the powers rules.

^This and get a calculator, a really good calculator.

I play Hero/Champions on a weekly basis and I find it to be a lot of fun and gameplay fast and simple to follow (we average 2-4 fights a nights of roughly 30 minutes to a hour in duration given a 5 hour session and non-combat tasks are handled by simple characteristic and skill rolls).

It can be a real builder's toolkit if that's what you like but I also know that Darren Watts, president of Hero Games, runs his games pretty off-the-cuff and so do many others. There is also the HERO Designer program and the various supplements filled with pre-fabricated powers, equipment, NPCs, as a GM, if you absolutely need to be anal about the math and/or have things set in stone.

Quote from: danbuter;470782BASH does 95% of what Champions does, with a fraction of the rules.

That's what I thought at first but BASH ended up being different in play - not that I hated it - more like a MSH that worked.

HERO is a technical masterpiece.  It isn't all things to all people like GURPS tries to be nor does it try to be.  There are many things it isn't and is ill suited to but solid Marvel in the late seventies and early eighties it does very well indeed.

But it is a creature of an earlier time and owes much of its nature to the hex and counter wargames.  It is a book keeping nightmare for a GM who cannot bear to leave the 'i' undotted and the 't' uncrossed.

But it does what it does profoundly well and manages to do things within a decent radius of that well also.  The thing I never feel it does well is money.  If GURPS is broken by high points totals, then HERO is broken by cash and a catalog.

Quote from: David Johansen;470804HERO is a technical masterpiece.  It isn't all things to all people like GURPS tries to be nor does it try to be.  There are many things it isn't and is ill suited to but solid Marvel in the late seventies and early eighties it does very well indeed.

But it is a creature of an earlier time and owes much of its nature to the hex and counter wargames.  It is a book keeping nightmare for a GM who cannot bear to leave the 'i' undotted and the 't' uncrossed.

But it does what it does profoundly well and manages to do things within a decent radius of that well also.  The thing I never feel it does well is money.  If GURPS is broken by high points totals, then HERO is broken by cash and a catalog.

Essentially; Hero has been a game I've played on and off again for 20 years.  Parts of it frustrate the hell out of me, some of it is just amazing.  We've run 75-point-character competent normals Call of Cthulhu type horror with it, and we've run 450 point powergaming fests in the middle of a mashup of the Marvel and DC universes, and everything in between.

One thing I find that Hero has a severe problem with is acceleration - I've never found a good way to model actual acceleration in Hero.  During the run up to our current campaign (an alternate-universe Aliens type Universe where the horror is Cthulhu, not xenomorphs) I was trying to build the Sulaco and the dropships and while you can go zero-to-whatever in a single phase, slowly building up to that speed is just...very...very hard to do.

But yeah, I like it.  I'm not passionate about it like I am D&D; frankly I think Champions has gotten better with each edition (I haven't played six and I don't like the idea of "everything's bought, nothing's figured any more" so I may not) but that's because each edition has been just subtle tweaks.  A 400 point Mechanon (think Ultron from the Marvel Universe) as statted up in the 3e Villains book is just as much a threat to 5e 250 point supers as he was back almost 20 years ago.  What's been added have been clarifications, and new applications of the system to new powers - but the underlying math has stayed consistent.  As a Christmas gift one year I got one of the guys in the group an issue of Danger, International! (like the first or second issue) and we played a supers game out of it but using characters built with 5e.

Overall I like Hero system for sci-fi, occasional horror, gadgety stuff, and superhero stuff.  I don't like it for high or low fantasy (although how they handled Fantasy Hero this time around made it slightly more palatable), and as noted vehicle movement is wonky.  But, again, yeah in the overall?  Like it a lot.

I like Champions.  They've got a lot of good books out there, and I've got a number of them around the house.  I don't get a chance to play it as often as I'd like.

Unfortunately, it's complexity and how busy I am these days, means I'm more likely to run a simpler game, like Icons, than Champions these days.

It amuses me to no end that a game with phased movement can't do vehicle movement well.

I believe the solution is an SFB style impulse chart for vehicle movement that extends well past the 12 limitation of Speed chart.  But I'm sure many people would blanch at the very though.

Yeah, GURPS does speedsters and vehicles better to a point.  Enhanced Move has an acceleration equal to the character's move so if you have x8 Enhanced Move it will take you 8 seconds to reach full speed.  GURPS breaks down in other places.  Like the doubling progression on Enhanced Move in a very high points game.

Oh, okay.  I'll bite.

Champions isn't an RPG.  It's a single unit tactical superhero wargame.  And it doesn't even do that well.

Quote from: daniel_ream;470817Oh, okay.  I'll bite.

Champions isn't an RPG.  It's a single unit tactical superhero wargame.  And it doesn't even do that well.

I disagree, but only because I think tactical wargames require a much lighter touch than Hero system has or is capable of.

Once you start stripping things off of Hero to make it more agile on the tabletop you'd better just quit while you're behind and play the game you're trying to make it be.

Quote from: David Johansen;470809It amuses me to no end that a game with phased movement can't do vehicle movement well.

I believe the solution is an SFB style impulse chart for vehicle movement that extends well past the 12 limitation of Speed chart.  But I'm sure many people would blanch at the very though.

I cannot imagine a game mechanics problem in the world that you'd call an "SFB style impulse chart" a solution for (except maybe for SFB).

I was big fan of original Champions back in the old days, but the over complication of the system turned me off.

Quote from: Spinachcat;470849I was big fan of original Champions back in the old days, but the over complication of the system turned me off.

This. I enjoyed playing and running 1st and 2nd edition Champions (although I preferred MSH), but after those early editions the (already fairly complex) game's complexity seemed to shoot through the roof.  

I never really liked the point-buy system either. Players who enjoyed it and were skilled at it could easily create characters 50% to 100% more powerful at the same point level than those of causal players. I used to piss off the "point buy experts" when I ran games by deciding whether PCs were balanced and fit the campaign by eyeballing them instead of just checking their math.

Worse, I didn't care about the math -- I'd disallow mini-maxed characters with perfect math who were far more powerful than I wanted while accepting characters with flawed math but were the power level I had stated in the campaign description. Players were told I would do this before they made their characters, of course.

It got so I would tell players who weren't into the math to just create an interesting character about the power level of (I'd name 3 or 4 Marvel/DC heroes of the power level I was looking for) and don't worry about the math. The point buy experts were also annoyed that I did not waste my time carefully doing the math for all my NPCs, no matter how minor. I usually did the math for major villains , but when the point buy experts still did not like it because I did not bother to min-max my designs.

Side Note: I think I've always had more "casual players" in my games than I have had "hardcore gamers." This shows in my choice of games and my approach to them (and in my dislike of min-maxers and rules lawyers).