Champions (role-playing game)
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| Champions | |
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| Designer(s) | George MacDonald, Steve Peterson, Bruce Harlick, Ray Greer |
| Publisher(s) | Hero Games |
| Publication date | 2002 (5th edition) |
| Genre(s) | Superhero fiction |
| System | Hero System |
Champions is a role-playing game originally by George MacDonald, Steve Peterson, Bruce Harlick, and Ray Greer, published by Hero Games, designed to simulate and function in a four-color superhero comic book world.
A more recent edition of the game, using the Fifth Edition of the Hero System as revised by Steve Long, was written by Aaron Allston.
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[edit] Description
Champions, first published in 1981, was one of the few role-playing games of the time in which character generation was based on a point-buy system (a process pioneered by The Fantasy Trip, published in 1977), as opposed to random dice rolls common in RPGs. A player decides what kind of character to play, and designs the character using a set number of "character points", often abbreviated as "CP." The limited number of character points generally defines how powerful the character will be. Points can be used in many ways: to increase personal characteristics, such as strength or intelligence; to buy special skills, such as martial arts or computer programming; or to build superpowers, such as supersonic flight or telepathy.
Players are required not only to design a hero's powers, but also the hero's skills, disadvantages, and other traits. Thus, Champions characters are built with friends, enemies, and weaknesses, along with powers and abilities with varying scales of character point value for each. This design approach intends to make all the facets of Champions characters balanced in relation to each other regardless of the specific abilities and character features. Players are motivated by rewards of character points which are then used to increase the power of their heroes.
While Champions is the name of the game, "The Champions" is also a team of superheroes provided by the publishers in the fourth and fifth editions of the game as a model of a balanced team dynamic, a ready-made team of non-player character allies, or pre-created characters to allow players to skip the lengthy character creation process.
[edit] The system
Using the Champions rules system, players can design any superpower. The Champions rulebook includes rules governing many different types of generic powers which can then be modified to fit the players idea. Rather than offering a menu of specific powers, Champions powers are defined by their effects. (An energy blast is the same power regardless of whether it represents a laser beam, ice powers, or mystical spells.)
This allows players to simulate situations found in superhero stories. Like most comic book heroes, characters and villains are frequently knocked out of the fight but seldom killed. There are special rules for throwing absurdly heavy objects, such as aircraft carriers.
Champions, at the time, was unusual for only using six-sided dice. Most roleplaying games of the period used polyhedral dice.
[edit] History and other genres
The Champions system was adapted to a fantasy genre under the title "Fantasy Hero" (the first playtest edition of Fantasy Hero appeared before Champions was published), with similar advantages and disadvantages to the original Champions game. More recently (in 1984), Champions was incorporated into a generic role-playing game system called the Hero System. Champions now exists as a genre sourcebook for the Hero System. Books for other genres have also appeared over the years, including Star Hero, Dark Champions, Pulp Hero, and Ninja Hero.
[edit] Character archetypes and designs
The four most common archetypes in comic book superheroing are based on how they use their powers in combat, and they are:
- the martial artist (or martist for short) - lightly-armored hand-to-hand combatant who fights with skill, quickness, and agility
- the brick - slower hand-to-hand fighter who relies more on raw strength and tougher defenses
- the energy projector - primary combat ability is a ranged physical attack (not necessarily energy-based)
- the mentalist - abilities target the mind, not the physical foe
Other well-known types tend to combine or tweak aspects of these four. For example:
- the scrapper and semi-brick - a character whose abilities fall somewhere between the martial artist and the brick
- the speedster - a "martist" who relies almost exclusively on the quickness aspect and power stunts based on superspeed
- the gadgeteer or power suit - a versatile character who uses technological means to "get in the league" of other characters, able to fill any one (or more) of the main categories
The Champions superhero team is an example of how to build a well-balanced team in terms of game mechanics. The members as presented in the Champions genre book are:
- Defender - an inventor wearing powered armor
- Ironclad - a superstrong and supertough alien
- Nighthawk - a grim inventor/martial artist
- Sapphire - a flying energy projector
- Witchcraft - a sorceress
(This membership supersedes the membership of the Champions fourth edition roster, which had only Defender in common. The other members were Seeker, an Australian martial artist; Obsidian, a superstrong and supertough alien; Solitaire, a magic-wielding mentalist; Jaguar, an animal-themed hand-to-hand combatant; and Quantum, a flying energy projector. These five characters do not exist in the "new" Champions Universe. Seeker is reused in an in-game comic book based on the new Champions)
[edit] Hero Comics
Starting in June 1986, a comic mini-series was published by Eclipse Comics based on characters from the first Champions campaign. After the initial mini-series a regular series was published by Hero Comics (later Hero Graphics, later still Heroic Publishing). Like the Villains and Vigilantes comic mini-series, the early issues printed character sheets which allowed readers to incorporate characters used in the comic books in their own Champions campaigns. Heroic Publishing still prints comics about some of the characters in 2007.
[edit] Awards
The Champions product line has won awards for the following adventure books:
- Silver Medal 2005 ENNies: Best Adventure for Villainy Amok [1]
- Gold Medal 2004 ENNies: Best Non-D20 Adventure for Champions Battlegrounds [2]
- Silver Medal 2004 ENNies: Best Non-D20 Adventure for Shades of Black [3]
- Inducted into the Origins Award Hall of Fame (1999) [4]
