I'm neutral about Edwards.

My impression of the project is to create something akin to a Castles and Crusades; to create a retrogame with some modern quality of life improvements.  One big difference is that the retrogame will have official branding.

I'm not nostalgic about Champions.  I have thought about picking up the oldest books on occasion out of a collector curiosity.  I guess I'm curious about this, but not enough to risk a Kickstarter.  I might buy the book at retail.

Whether I'm justified in this view or not, the Kickstarter feels very "pie in the sky" to me.  It seems like the idea was dreamed up last week and everything haphazardly thrown together.  It feels very much about enthusiasm and very vague on end goal.  In short, it seems like thousands of other ill conceived Kickstarters.

Maybe I'm being unfair.  That's fine.  I suppose I'm just not the audience.

This sounds like one of those things where the possible outcomes easily range from "interesting, new take on an old idea" to "massive train wreck".  I applaud the risky shot at the moon, but no way I'm spending any time even looking at it until it is done, and we see some reviews.

I backed it because I'm on something of a Hero nostalgia trip this weather, and it seemed a little too serendipitous to pass up. Fuck knows what I'll end up with, but that's the beauty of the singularity, innit?

Quote from: Omega;1041258Yep, that Ron Edwards. The one who claimed traditional RPGs cause "brain damage" and other little gems and also pretty much the spearhead for the Forge and Pundits "Swine" who are still around making their crackheaded claims as usual.

I see.  Hmm, and he's a fan of Champions?  Interesting.  Well, if he gets his project off the ground and books into stores, then I will pick it up.  Good luck.

I'm unimpressed by the playtest document, which reads to me as markedly *less* clear than just reprinting the original game book. Admittedly, this is a playtest document - but that's sort of the point.

This strikes me as a nostalgia product aimed mostly at aging fans of the original system, rather than trying to make a game that new people will play.

From my perspective as a Hero fan, I'd want a game that is streamlined and easier to learn. Whereas Steve Long has primarily followed the usual trend of RPG editions, where each edition is more complex rather than simpler - because it is catering to the hard-core fans. I liked 4th edition mainly because it actually was an effort at simplification. It was more complicated than 1st edition, but it was simpler than the hodge-podge of 3rd edition genre games (Danger International, Fantasy Hero, etc.) - where it condensed down the variations into a universal system.

I'm skimming the playtest doc. I don't know anything much about the Hero/Champions system, so I don't know if his advice is good or not. That said his output seems very grounded in actual play:

QuoteSetting and concept

There is no setting for this game. That's because the comics that inspired it didn't have one either;
they were set sort of "right now right here," without much reflection or justification. Look around –
and imagine some superheroes there too. And that's all.
There are lots of ways to start, but for playtesting purposes, try it like this. Whoever's organizing this
group for play, have these two things at the ready, no more and no less.

• One solid bit of content about superheroes and/or villains
• One solid bit of genre specification, implying a fictional style and specific types of problems,
including the location of play

Obviously comics can be set anywhere, but the best practice is to use a location that someone in the
group knows really well. That person can be the resource at the table for what is where, and how big
things are, and what the weather is like, even if he or she is not the GM. Anything you use this way
will be better than setting it in a fake New York that no one really knows, or in some Hollywood
conception of a city.

From there, and here I'm speaking to the group, what you'll play is your superhero comic. It doesn't
have to be consistent with or to imitate any other. The rules won't tell you what a "hero" is. There is
no genre pack to conform to. There is no franchise to support. As far as the bunch of you are
concerned, this is the superhero comic you most want to be into right now, and that is all it needs to
be.

That will require communication and trust among you, but contrary to the boilerplate gaming
advice, that doesn't mean tedious negotiations that lock everyone into a complex agreement. Chat it
up, but only a little. Going with those two points above, it's better to find out what everyone makes
of them via their characters rather than to run every step of character creation by committee.
Attendance pays off big for this game, so if that means fewer people, that's OK. Just two or three
players will work fine. It also responds well to expanding the group size later, after a foundation is
laid by a few motivated participants.

Here's an example of those two starting points.

• Super "villains" sometimes aren't, and "heroes" rarely are
• Crime, police, and law drama; set in Chicago

QuoteDeep Dive

I've seen two other things work well for initial group orientation. One is to provide one or two
example comics pages with a distinctive art style, and say, "it looks like this." Another is to establish
a super-naming convention that all such characters use. If you use these, present them as fixed, nonnegotiated
features of the game you are organizing.

What about powers specification? It's almost irresistible to specify something like super-tech across
the cosmos, or martial arts + mental powers, or animal shapeshifters ... and you can do that if you
want. But it's better to start with the two statements described above, let the players independently
come up with concepts, and then treat that as the specification. For a number of complicated
reasons, pre-specifying powers works best for very short, typically single-session play.

Champions is an amoral game system. Build everything to showcase and reinforce whatever you
think is going to be the most fun, and don't get distracted by debating what they would or should
do. Whatever ethical or legal profile you want your character to have, that's what they'll have;
whatever activities they get up to, that's what they'll do.

What that means is, you can't hide behind the game or a genre regarding the character's morality or
likeability. You own that, with whatever it entails for people wanting or not wanting to play with
you. The best practice is to find people whose interests and creative impulses include you.
If you just can't help yourself at setting-building, it's waiting for you. Nothing ever benefited more
from "less is more" than the setup for this game, but "more is definitely more" is waiting around the
corner. Instead of your voluminous epic notes, start with the characters, who are arriving chock-full
of villains, implied history, implied or explicit setting concepts, and supporting cast. All these become
yours to define, enrich, and develop. Work outwards from there and you'll find a richer and more
storied setting than you dreamed possible.

I'm debating this one. I may just use the play test document as supplemental material if I ever decide to go back to Champions. When I did a massive gaming purge after getting engaged, my later Hero system stuff went, but Champions I, II, and III I kept. Skimming the play test document, it looks like there is some interesting commentary that may be useful, and who knows, maybe the rule changes make sense also.

As to Ron and the brain damage thing? The guy goes off the rails. The message he was trying to convey got lost because of the overly inflammatory brain damage comment. He's also tossed insults my way.

I'll likely play the wait and see game...

Frank

Tangentially, this makes me wonder if GW would be willing to let someone do the same for "Oldhammer" (and combine Fantasy and 40K in a single volume) ....

I would be more of a fan if he did remove Figured Characteristics and used Unified Power instead of ECs.

Quote from: jhkim;1041303I'm unimpressed by the playtest document, which reads to me as markedly *less* clear than just reprinting the original game book. Admittedly, this is a playtest document - but that's sort of the point.

This strikes me as a nostalgia product aimed mostly at aging fans of the original system, rather than trying to make a game that new people will play.

From my perspective as a Hero fan, I'd want a game that is streamlined and easier to learn. Whereas Steve Long has primarily followed the usual trend of RPG editions, where each edition is more complex rather than simpler - because it is catering to the hard-core fans. I liked 4th edition mainly because it actually was an effort at simplification. It was more complicated than 1st edition, but it was simpler than the hodge-podge of 3rd edition genre games (Danger International, Fantasy Hero, etc.) - where it condensed down the variations into a universal system.

From what I see, Edwards' writing style is rather slack and hard to follow, and his approach to gaming design makes him the hippy-dippy Plato to Steve Long's empirical Aristotle, but I guess the two guys actually like each other.
I think most people who know Hero would agree that 4th hits a sweet spot in complexity that the later editions never really got.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;1041375From what I see, Edwards' writing style is rather slack and hard to follow, and his approach to gaming design makes him the hippy-dippy Plato to Steve Long's empirical Aristotle, but I guess the two guys actually like each other.
I think most people who know Hero would agree that 4th hits a sweet spot in complexity that the later editions never really got.

JG

If they had done the 6E drop of the derived characteristic bases in 4E, it would have been just about perfect.

Funny, but I just started playing in a Fantasy Hero / 5th edition game.

That document makes me skeptical as well. I get how he wants to do way with point buying everything under the sun, but it sounds more like he just wants some story in his rpg. You can get that with Icons.

they are keeping the worst offending parts of what makes Champions character generation fall off the cliff of complexity

I don't see the playtest document as an improvement. I see it as a repackaging of old ideas.

Will I buy it? It's not looking likely at this point. I still have all of my old 3rd edition books. So I don't see this as being something I need.

Quote from: Ron EdwardsInstead of your voluminous epic notes, start with the characters, who are arriving chock-full of villains, implied history, implied or explicit setting concepts, and supporting cast. All these become yours to define, enrich, and develop. Work outwards from there and you'll find a richer and more storied setting than you dreamed possible.

I'll give Ron some props here; this is a great insight and one of the strengths of Hero. I wasted too many years writing "plots" for my Hero games, until I finally realized the players were writing the plots for me, with their selection of Hunteds, Watched, Dependent NPCs, etc. So many times I made the mistake of making the players conform to my plot, rather than vice versa.

This assumes that the players are actually creating relevant and rich disadvantages. "Hunted by some villain" isn't going to work.

Quote- Super "villains" sometimes aren't, and "heroes" rarely are
- Crime, police, and law drama; set in Chicago

And this is where they lose me.  So a superhero game without superheroes?  What is this Gotham?