A Look Back at CHAMPIONS 1st Edition

The Third Superhero RPG Rewrote the Book on Gameplay and Design

I was recently reading through some of Ron Edwards’ writing on “Fantasy Heartbreakers” for an upcoming article I’ll be calling “Do You Even Fantasy Heartbreaker Bro?” It’s an article about how this genre of game is one of the driving forces behind a lot of modern independent game design and how much fun it is/was to work on a Fantasy Heartbreaker, but more on that later.

During my reading, I saw Ron Edwards’ Champions Now, a retro-imagining of what a Champions 4th edition would have looked like had he been in charge of design. The 4th edition of Champions is a great game, but it is also a game that marks a shift in game design and presentation by Hero Games. The game was always a “point build” system where players spent a limited number of points to build their characters. The early editions were more along the lines of what I would call “Point AND Special Effects” games. From 4th edition on, the game became “Points ARE Special Effects” oriented. Champions Now is game that hearkens back to the first three editions of the game with its own radical differences, which I’ll review later.

Without further ado though, let’s get to reviewing Champions 1st Edition.

Champions 1st Edition Review

The Champions super hero role playing game is one of the best super hero role playing games ever designed, and the standard which all super hero role playing games are judged.  Champions wasn't the first role playing game in the super hero genre, that honor goes to the game Superhero 2044 which I discussed in an earlier blog post (link below). 

Champions itself is based on and builds up from some of the ideas in Superhero 2044.  Champions used the vague point based character generation system of Superhero 2044 -- combined with house rules by Wayne Shaw (podcast link below) that were published in issues 8 and 10 of the Lords of Chaos Fanzine-- as a jumping off point for a new detailed and easy to understand point based system.  I believe Champions was also influenced by the melee combat system in Superhero 2044 in the use of the 3d6 bell curve to determine "to-hit" rolls in combat and the comparison of combat skills to determine to hit numbers.

While Champions wasn't the first super hero role playing game, it was the first that presented a coherent system that allowed a player to design the superheroes they read about in comic books.  The first edition of Villains & Vigilantes, which predates Champions, did a good job of emulating many aspects of comic book action but the ability to model a character in character design wasn't one of them.  Champions was released at the Origins convention in the summer of 1981, and it immediately captured the interest of Aaron Allston of Steve Jackson Games.  Allston gave Champions a positive review in issue #43 of the Space Gamer magazine, wrote many Champions articles for that publication, and became one of the major contributors to the early days of Champions lore.

Reading through the first edition of the game can have that kind of effect upon a person.  The writing is clear -- if uneven in places -- and the rules mechanics inspire a desire to play around in the implied super heroic setting.  George MacDonald and Steve Peterson did more than create a great role playing game when they created Champions, they created a great character generation game as well.  Hours can be taken up just playing around with character concepts and seeing how they look in the Champions system.

For this review I won’t go into an item by item review of the game and game play. I will do that for the 2nd edition of the game since it is the first "professional” release of the game. Instead, I am going to point out some interesting tidbits about the first edition of the game.  Most of these will be critical in nature, but not all.  Before going further I will say that though Champions is now in its 6th edition and is a very different game today in some ways, the 1st edition of the game is highly playable and well worth exploring and I'm glad that Ron Edwards reminded me of the pre-4th edition world with his work on Champions Now.

• One of the first things that struck me reading the book was how thoroughly playtested the character design system was.  This is best illustrated in the section under basic characteristics.  In Champions you are given a certain amount of character points with which to build characters. These are spent on powers, but they are also spent on primary and secondary characteristics.  The primary characteristics include things like Strength and Dexterity and the secondary statistics are all based on the primary statistics (via various equations) and represent things like the ability to resist physical or energy damage.  Where the playtesting really shines through here is in how the game allows players to buy down all of their primary statistics, but only one of their secondary statistics.  A quick analysis of the equations used to determine secondary statistics demonstrates that if this wasn’t done a player could take advantage of a "buy strength then buy down all the secondary stats related to strength" infinite loop that would break the game.  

• Given the state of later editions of Champions, and of many skill based systems in general, it's striking how few skills there are in 1st edition Champions.  There are 14 in total, and some of them are things like Luck and Lack of Weakness which aren’t “skills” at all.  There are no "profession" skills in 1st edition and to be honest, I kind of like this lack of profession skills.  Professions in superhero adventures seem more flavor than something one should have to pay points to have as a part of their background. If you want to be “better” at a profession, you could take a “skill level” with bartending or something similar, but it isn’t necessary. You just say what you are and that’s what you are. It’s Points AND Special Effects instead of Point ARE Special Effects and I love it. Sadly for me, but a joy for others, this is something that will change in future editions.  

• There are a lot of powers in Champions, but the examples are filled with phrases like "a character" or "a villain" instead of an evocative hero/villain name.  It would have been more engaging for the folks at Hero Games to create some additional Iconic characters that could be used throughout the book as examples of each power. The game does include 3 examples of character generation (Crusader, Ogre, and Starburst), but these characters aren't mentioned in the Powers section. An example using Starburst in the Energy Blast power would have been nice.

• The art inside the book is less than ideal in many cases. Mark "the hack" Williams has been the target of some criticism by others for his illustrations, but his work is the best of what is offered in the 1st edition book.  It is clear to me why they decided to use his work in the 2nd edition of the game.  Williams’ art is evocative and fun -- if not perfect -- while the work Vic Dal Chele and Diana Navarro is more amateurish. I am a huge fan of Mark Williams art work and his Bob Laytonesque style was a big reason I came to love Champions. I wish he had more pieces in this edition and I wish those had served as the foundation for Iconic characters used for each power.

• The game provides three examples of character generation, but the designs given are less than point efficient and one outclasses the others. I think this is a good thing because it demonstrates a focus on feel rather than function. The three sample characters are each built on 200 points, point inflation will start with 2nd edition.  Crusader (a Daredevil type character) can barely hurt Ogre if he decides to punch him (his punch does only 6d6 damage), and his Dexterity is bought at one point below where he would receive a rounding benefit to a secondary statistic.  Ogre has a Physical Defense of 23.  This is the amount of damage he subtracts from each physical attack that hits and it is very high.  Assuming an average of 3.5 points of damage per die, Ogre can resist an average of 6.5 dice of damage per attack.  Yes, that's an average but the most damage 6 dice could do to him would be 13 and the odds of that happening are very low (6^6).  That would be fine, except Crusader has that 6d6 punch, and Starburst...oh, Starburst.  All of Starburst's major powers are in a multipower which allows him to buy powers at a discount because they are connected. This connection means that as he uses one power he can use less of the other powers in the multipower.  The most damage he can do is 8d6, but he can only generate this amount of damage if he isn't flying and doesn't have his forcefield up.  Not efficient at all.  One might hope that character examples demonstrate the appropriate ranges of damage and defense, these don't quite achieve that goal. These are not only not min/maxxed, they aren’t really balanced.

• The combat example is good, if implausible.  Crusader and Starburst defeating Ogre?  Sure, okay. We’ll say they got lucky.

• There are additional supervillain stats at the end of the book, for 8 villains and 2 agents, but these characters lack the correct accompanying art.  The only exception is Shrinker. There is an illustration on the character sheet for Howler, but if you read the description of the character you’ll see that the illustration is not of her.

• Speaking of artwork and iconics.  Take a look at that cover.

• Who are these people?!  I want to know.  The only one who is mentioned in the book is Gargoyle.  It's pretty clear which character he is, but I only know his name because of a copyright notice at the front of the rulebook.  Who are the other characters?  Is that "Flare"?  The villain is named Holocaust, but that cannot be discerned from reading this rule book.  If you know, please let me know.  I'd love to see the stats for that guy punching "Holocaust" with his energy fist (Icestar?).

Champions is a great game, and the first edition is a joy.  If you can, try to hunt down a copy and play some old school super hero role playing games.