Post by Chris Goodwin on Jun 5, 2018 22:42:17 GMT
The Kickstarter has been going now for 8 30 days (out of 32) and is up over 50% funding! Edit: $71 to go as of right now, with coming up on 45 hours remaining!
Videos explaining it:
This is my own personal attempt to explain it after having been a reader of Ron Edwards over the years, and especially having followed his discussions with Steve Long regarding Champions.
Champions, first-gen (first through third editions) was a focused superhero roleplaying game. Champions, second-gen and beyond (fourth edition and up) was a universal system with Champions as superheroic genre material. I personally, speaking for myself here, was never as satisfied with even Champions under 4th edition and beyond, much less any of the other genres. To me, it didn't show as much in Champions as it did in the other genres; it always felt like I was trying to emulate the older games using 4th edition rules. Also, the stand alone genre games (Fantasy Hero, Justice Inc., etc.) had vastly different sets of assumptions; they didn't use the complete ruleset, so when you were, for instance, playing Justice Inc. you were interfacing with the genre through Justice Inc.'s tight subset of the rules. Whatever powers the individual games used had an implied set of origins and special effects built in: Champions powers represented super powers; first-gen Fantasy Hero used almost the identical system, but with a different set of initial assumptions, some effects from Champions missing, some new ones that weren't present in Champions. In FH, the effects represented magical spells, magic items, and monster special abilities; they included various limitations by default (magic skill roll required; full-phase to cast; half DCV to cast), which you could buy down or off with Advantages. In JI, you had psychic powers, which weren't built using the Powers system at all; they had their own initial assumptions (acted a lot like a skill roll; usually worked unconsciously, as a means for the GM to pass along info, and trying to use them consciously was at a penalty). Danger International didn't use powers at all.
So, the thing that I see in the first-gen rules -- and again I'm speaking for myself here, not Ron Edwards -- was genre focus. The Hero System was a house system powering multiple games, rather than a strictly universal system. In Champions, all of the assumptions were that you were there to play superheroes, and the rules supported that. In Fantasy Hero, all of the assumptions were that you'd play warriors, rogues, wizards, and clerics; the rules might allow you to build a superhero, but it would be expensive and difficult, because it was a different game from Champions, and wasn't expecting you to try to play superheroes. In Danger International, the assumptions were that you'd play some kind of highly skilled agent, and powers didn't figure into the game at all.
Starting with 4th edition, there was no default set of assumptions. That led to a different style of play; Steve Long hit on it in his fourth edition Dark Champions book, where the powers system was used to represent more or less everything that characters in any form of adventure fiction could do. For instance, the common action-adventure trope of a character leaping out of a building ahead of an explosion and floating to earth, could be represented as Gliding, Requires Explosion. I'm not saying this is good or bad -- it's different. But, again speaking for myself, it's not to my particular taste, or at least not for all games at all times. I ran headlong into this major disconnect when trying to run a number of different heroic genre games with a 4th edition group; none of us knew that we were approaching the game from entirely different directions, and especially when you're not aware of assumptions clash like that you can't really address it in a campaign guidelines document. But that soured me on 4th edition. 5th and 6th went more in that direction, to the point that I can't find people who run and play the kinds of games I want to play, and I'm still seen as the odd one for wanting to play them. (My "HERO System Low Heroic Protocols" document, linked in my signature below, was my attempt to address this disconnect.)
Videos explaining it:
- What and Why
- Brie Sheldon: Five or so questions on Champions Now
- Part 1 of an interview with Chris Helton about the project
- Part 2 of the interview with Chris Helton
This is my own personal attempt to explain it after having been a reader of Ron Edwards over the years, and especially having followed his discussions with Steve Long regarding Champions.
Champions, first-gen (first through third editions) was a focused superhero roleplaying game. Champions, second-gen and beyond (fourth edition and up) was a universal system with Champions as superheroic genre material. I personally, speaking for myself here, was never as satisfied with even Champions under 4th edition and beyond, much less any of the other genres. To me, it didn't show as much in Champions as it did in the other genres; it always felt like I was trying to emulate the older games using 4th edition rules. Also, the stand alone genre games (Fantasy Hero, Justice Inc., etc.) had vastly different sets of assumptions; they didn't use the complete ruleset, so when you were, for instance, playing Justice Inc. you were interfacing with the genre through Justice Inc.'s tight subset of the rules. Whatever powers the individual games used had an implied set of origins and special effects built in: Champions powers represented super powers; first-gen Fantasy Hero used almost the identical system, but with a different set of initial assumptions, some effects from Champions missing, some new ones that weren't present in Champions. In FH, the effects represented magical spells, magic items, and monster special abilities; they included various limitations by default (magic skill roll required; full-phase to cast; half DCV to cast), which you could buy down or off with Advantages. In JI, you had psychic powers, which weren't built using the Powers system at all; they had their own initial assumptions (acted a lot like a skill roll; usually worked unconsciously, as a means for the GM to pass along info, and trying to use them consciously was at a penalty). Danger International didn't use powers at all.
So, the thing that I see in the first-gen rules -- and again I'm speaking for myself here, not Ron Edwards -- was genre focus. The Hero System was a house system powering multiple games, rather than a strictly universal system. In Champions, all of the assumptions were that you were there to play superheroes, and the rules supported that. In Fantasy Hero, all of the assumptions were that you'd play warriors, rogues, wizards, and clerics; the rules might allow you to build a superhero, but it would be expensive and difficult, because it was a different game from Champions, and wasn't expecting you to try to play superheroes. In Danger International, the assumptions were that you'd play some kind of highly skilled agent, and powers didn't figure into the game at all.
Starting with 4th edition, there was no default set of assumptions. That led to a different style of play; Steve Long hit on it in his fourth edition Dark Champions book, where the powers system was used to represent more or less everything that characters in any form of adventure fiction could do. For instance, the common action-adventure trope of a character leaping out of a building ahead of an explosion and floating to earth, could be represented as Gliding, Requires Explosion. I'm not saying this is good or bad -- it's different. But, again speaking for myself, it's not to my particular taste, or at least not for all games at all times. I ran headlong into this major disconnect when trying to run a number of different heroic genre games with a 4th edition group; none of us knew that we were approaching the game from entirely different directions, and especially when you're not aware of assumptions clash like that you can't really address it in a campaign guidelines document. But that soured me on 4th edition. 5th and 6th went more in that direction, to the point that I can't find people who run and play the kinds of games I want to play, and I'm still seen as the odd one for wanting to play them. (My "HERO System Low Heroic Protocols" document, linked in my signature below, was my attempt to address this disconnect.)
