The title is a bit of an inside joke, since my plan today is to talk about a game that's coming back from beyond the grave as well as an old article that has some bearing on it. The game is Champions, in the form of the recently completed Champions Now Kickstarter. Ron Edwards got permission to put out a new version of the original, pre-HERO System version of Champions. To those of you unfamiliar with the game's history, until the 4th edition (the famous "Big Blue Book"), Hero's games ran on similar, but subtly different engines. The characteristics and the core mechanics remained the same, but Disadvantages worked differently in Champions. Magic in Fantasy Hero worked differently from Champions powers and Justice, Inc. Talents were their own thing. Fourth edition did a great job of unifying things into a single system, but I always felt it kind of watered down the flavor of the individual games, especially Champions.
Apparently, I'm not the only one to think so, if what I've seen in the Kickstarter and gamer response is any indicator. Apart from the nostalgia for an "easier" version of Champions (and yes, easy is definitely a relative concept), there's a sense that we've forgotten not only how revolutionary the game was, but also what wonderful at-the-table experiences it provided. Yes, yes, I know all the horror stories: Two hours to play out twelve seconds of combat, An hour of fun in a six hour bag, you need a degree in calculus to play. And yes, it could be those things. But that two hour combat? Full of action and excitement and over-the-top heroism. That one hour of fun in a six hour bag? Probably a GM who didn't understand how to pace a game and build an adventure around plot-important conflicts. Calculus? Nah, a basic understanding of algebra is sufficient -- in fact, I credit 100% of my passing college algebra on the third try to my picking up Champions.
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| Amazing cover by Bill Willingham |
One of the things I found last night was what is probably the first published gaming adaptation of an existing comic book property. In August of 1982, Chaosium's house-organ, "Different Worlds" had a superhero issue, including an article by Glenn Thain presenting Marvel's X-Men in Champions terms. I don't own the magazine, but I do have a photocopy of the X-Men article. Last night, I noticed it's fading rather badly (unsurprising, considering its age), and I decided to transcribe the whole thing rather than scan it. This forced me to read it in detail as I went along and, unsurprisingly, I have some thoughts. I've taken the liberty of putting a PDF of my transcript online here. The words are Glenn Thain's. The original article is Chaosium's. The X-Men are Marvel's. I make no claims otherwise, and will take it down if requested.
So, let's look at this thing. First off, the article is largely written in a first-person, chatty style. This is cool, definitely in-keeping with "Different Worlds," and a lot more fun than the "technical manual" house style we see in later-era HERO products. The article is as much about presenting the stats in game terms as it is a how-to narrative. Mr. Thain wasn't inventing the process, of course (see "Giants in the Earth" in the pages of Dragon Magazine for fantasy heroes), but it was certainly a first for Champions and, to my knowledge, the first time something like that had been done for superheroes.
His thoughts along the way are as interesting as some of his mechanical decisions. I like the fact that he notes it's almost impossible to get a definitive take on a character due to the nature of the medium being adapted. Also, he mentions balancing the characters against the rest of the team. This is a necessity in gaming we don't see in the fiction. Later systems came up with ways of handling power iniquities at the table, but this was the Wild West, where points on the sheet and combat effectiveness was measured in dice. Overall, his methodology is quite sound and he does a solid job of explaining most of his rationales.
He notes that X-Men was at issue 161 as of his writing. That was a flashback issue, telling the story of Charles Xavier's and Magneto's falling out. Previous to that, the X-Men fought Dracula (yes, really), and Ilyana Rasputin (Colossus' little sister) had been kidnapped to Limbo by Belasco. Eventful times.
So, let's look at the writeups...
Sprite (Kitty Pryde)
Yes, kids, in 1982, Kitty Pryde was known as "Sprite." It was a terrible name, even acknowledged as such within the pages of the comic. Shortly after this, she took up the moniker "Ariel" for a brief time, and was generally just called Kitty in or out of costume. The much better "Shadowcat" was a few years off.
I find it amusing that Thain starts off by declaring Sprite "worthless," then qualifies this as assessing her value in a fight. Because, fact is, combat was a huge part of the game, both in terms of the genre as well as GM and player effort. Combat in Champions WAS detailed and fiddly and time-consuming. And, as I got the hang of it and became really good at running it, I used the non-trivial nature of a setpiece battle to good effect. I think we already saw the roots of it this early, though I can't say for sure as I was about eight months away from picking up the game at this point.
Anyway, he goes on to note that she makes an exceptional scout and since her phasing doesn't make her look ghostly (bought with Invisible Power Effect), she can fake opponents out into punching right through her. The Desolidification along with its reduced Endurance cost is VERY expensive (187 points on one power), but Endurance was a much more important part of combat and character design back then. This will come up a few more times in this article. The one quibble I have with Sprite's write-up is her ability to disrupt electronics. It's done as No Normal Defense attack. The problem with this is that NNDs do Stun damage only, and eletronic systems, being inanimate, don't typically have Stun scores. As a result, it's 100 points spent on a power that's very hand-wavy. Additionally, it's not purchased as "always on." There's no indication that 1982 Kitty could turn this disruption on or off.
Her Disads seem pretty solid. I have no complaints there.
Storm
In the notes, Thain shows his chops as a Champions player by noting that all of Storm's various weather-based attacks are just special effects. Dude knew what he was talking about. Later on, she might get saddled with the Variable Effects Advantage, but this was 1982 and we didn't need that nonsense. He also wisely defines her "gliding" as Flight in game terms, because what Storm does isn't Gliding in Champions terms. It's a great example of separating game terminology from the special effect.
Storm's powers are built with an old-school Elemental Control. I don't think any other piece of character creation went through so much evolution from edition to edition. The first edition EC was particularly weird, being listed as a Power (as was Multipower). The idea behind an Elemental Control is to give the player a price break for coming up with a unified set of powers, a reward for a good character concept. Unfortunately, ECs were probably the most abused thing in the game and, to quote the late Aaron Allston, "Having a good character concept is the basic requirement for playing in my game." Later editions did things to try and address ECs and 6e finally disposed of them entirely. But this was 1982, so Storm has one. It's fairly difficult to decipher the math on her write-up without sitting down with my first edition rulebook, but there are a couple of odd things at work here. It appears all of her powers are bought with 1/2 Endurance cost, but this isn't noted anywhere. As a result, it's hard to tell whether or not she's priced out correctly. If I have the time to research this further, I'll make a note in the comments.
I also take issue with her Berserk Disadvantage, especially as Thain says she relies on her Code Against Killing to counter it. To me, a Berserk mostly overrides Psychlims, though I can see where her Code might allow her a recovery roll. It still seems a rather risky proposition. I'm also not keen on "Hesitant" as a Psychlim, though we're already seeing defining character traits as Disads (see Sprite's "Novice Superhero."
I have no idea what Thain meant by "(gross)" after Kitty's name in the DNPC entry. I also don't approve of superpowered DNPCs. So points off.
Colossus
A nice, straightforward adaptation. I find it interesting that Thain included Density Increase in C's armored form on the grounds that he was a heavier. This was the de facto simulationist approach to character creation in Champions/HERO until sometime very late in fourth, or more likely early fifth edition, where the important thing became the game effect. If your armored form just made you heavier, then that became a special effect. If you were just naturally big, then you shouldn't have Growth, always on, etc. Honestly, this philosophy bugs the hell out of me. Yes, you have to jump through a couple of hoops, mechanically-speaking, but those hoops come pre-equipped with mechanically-supported game effects.
I'd note that Colossus has no reduced Endurance on his Strength, so he can only deliver a few full-force (14 END) punches before tapping out. With his Recovery of 20 in armored form, he can sustain it a bit, but he's going to wear out if he's not careful. Like most of the team, he has a Speed of 5, which was, in my experience, pretty normal for a non-speedster Champions character. These days, I tend to cap everyone at 4, having come to the conclusion that Speed should reflect spotlight time rather than physical swiftness, but I was years away from reaching that conclusion, so I considered him a bit fast for a brick.
Nightcrawler
This is a really well-done take on my favorite X-Man (and favorite Marvel character and favorite superhero). Thain does a great job of showing his work in the notes. The one thing I'm a little quibbly on is Kurt having both Stealth on a 17- AND Invisiblity in Darkness (that apparently has no Endurance Cost). Personally, I think for all the "He's almost invisible in the shadows" narrative, Kurt just has a really high Stealth roll. Since the Invisibility doesn't seem to be against anything except normal vision, it's functionally identical to the Stealth roll, for two extra points. So, I don't like it.
Otherwise, he's great. The teleports really work as advertised, and I love the Psychlim "Swashbuckler," not because I think it's a particularly great psychological limitation but because it's saying, "I got 20 points for this Disadvantage. It's a huge part of my personality and want it used against me a lot." It totally makes up for the bogus Invisibility.
Cyclops
So MUCH discussion of Endurance here. Cyke's powers are pretty straightforward here, but the Endurance stuff is crazy fiddly and not spelled out well, in my opinion. But, Endurance Batteries/Reserves are another thing that changes with every edition. I like the fact that he's got a high INT and PRE. These are appropriate for a long-time team leader. Not sure about the Acrobatics with Endurance to explain why he seldom uses it, but it's a perfect example of how important END was to the game economy at this point. If everything costs END, you're going to be more careful with it.
For his Disads, I'm iffy on the Berserk, again. I also dislike the fact that there's no "Moping Over Jean" psychlim. I'd have taken that over the Berserk.
Wolverine
For the record, Wolverine was the first X-Man I attempted to adapt to Champions. I went with the Inobvious Inaccessible Focus on his skeleton and was very offended by Thain's approach. I was also Wrongitty Wrongerson, Mayor of Wrongtown, Population Me. A high CON and defenses was absolutely the way to go and it works quite well. I like the fact that he's among the most skilled X-Men, if not the most skilled, and he has Stealth and Acrobatics. That's it. There weren't a lot of skills in play in first edition and even second and third, unless you used the new ones from the Champions II supplement (which I did - I like Skill Monkeys).
A very strange thing I copied directly from the original write-up is the END cost for Ultrasonic Hearing, Discriminatory Taste, and Lack of Weakness. I'm fairly certain these are errors, but I need to check my old rulebook.
Logan's Disads are appropriate, including the Berserk, for a change. I approve.
After Wolverine's write-up, Thain gives some more general guidelines for converting characters. Again, he stresses looking out for one-off oddities. He also emphasizes getting other eyes on the character and playtesting it out and balance with the other characters on the team. It's solid advice, still applicable today.
Finally, we get the bad guy, in the form of Magneto.
Hoo-boy! One thousand, five hundred points. Speed 9. A potential 20d6 Energy Blast. High defenses. All in all, a very solid write-up. His high Speed is a good example of a difficult lesson many novice GMs have to figure out the hard way: a solo villain simply won't hold up on his own if you stat him up in a "realistic" manner. Is Magneto actually that fast? No. But with a SPD of 9, he can devote every third action to a defensive action or a Recovery to keep himself up. If he just goes attack-attack-attack, he'll burn out, but if he were a SPD 6 or less, a group of PCs could quickly overwhelm him by forcing him to abort to defensive actions. With his Force Wall, he can deny parts of the battlefield to his opposition and channel their attacks. And, well, his attacks themselves, are potentially devastating, capable of one-shotting the toughest opposition.
I love the 200 points for Installations/Bases. In later supplements, this would become the Mastermind pool. It's a great example of how a GM could just assign a point value to something not covered by the rules and roll with it.
One more thing that just occurred to me: Combat Values (OCV/DCV) range from a 6 (Sprite) to a couple of 9s (Nightcrawler, Wolverine), with most in the 7 or 8 range. ECVs range from 3 to 6 for the X-Men (with Cyclops taking top honors) while Magneto has a 9. Notably, at this time, the whole psychic interference helmet wasn't a thing yet, so he just had a massive EGO of 26.
So, that's the article. And my thoughts. Overall, it was a pretty ground-breaking piece of work.
Yay! Thank you, I remember this article with fondness, and enjoyed your critique. I hope things are improving for you. Keep up the hard work.
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