CHAMPIONS (ROLE-PLAYING GAME)

'''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.

Contents

Description

The system

History and other genres

Character archetypes and designs

The Champions Team

Hero Comics

Awards

External links

Description

''Champions'', first published in 1981, is one of the first examples of a role-playing game in which character generation was based on a point-buy system instead of random dice rolls. 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.

The system

Main articles: Hero system

Players can design custom superpowers using the ''Champions'' rules system. 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.) The ''Champions'' rulebook includes rules governing many different types of generic powers which can then be modified to fit the players idea.
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 heavy objects like aircraft carriers.
''Champions'', at the time, was unusual for only using six-sided dice. Most roleplaying games of the period used polyhedral dice.

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''.

Character archetypes and designs

Four common superhero archetypes in comic books are based on how they use their powers in combat. As commonly used by Champions players, they are:

★ the ''martial artist'' (or ''martist'' for short) - lightly-armored hand-to-hand combatant who fights with skill, quickness, and agility (Daredevil)

★ the ''brick'' - slower hand-to-hand fighter who relies more on raw strength and tougher defenses (Incredible Hulk)

★ the ''energy projector'' - primary combat ability is a ranged physical attack, which, despite the name, is not necessarily energy-based (Green Arrow, Cyclops)

★ the ''mentalist'' - abilities target the mind, not the physical foe (Professor X)
Other well-known types tend to combine or tweak aspects of these four. For example:

★ the ''scrapper'', ''semi-brick'' or ''martial brick'' - a character whose abilities fall somewhere between the martial artist and the brick (Beast)

★ the ''speedster'' - a "martist" who relies almost exclusively on the quickness aspect and power stunts based on superspeed (Flash)

★ 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 (Iron Man, Steel, Fixer)

The Champions Team

The Champions superhero team is presented as 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, however, as Nighthawk declined to license his image.

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, although they have long since parted ways with the makers of the game. At one point the comic featured a multi-issue crossover with the Southern Knights.

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]

External links

★ Hero Games Official site

★ Gamespot interview on cancelled ''Champions'' PC game