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Post by Scott on Aug 24, 2012 12:09:12 GMT -5
Anybody ever play? I'll be trying it tonight for the first time with my slightly ki charged kung fu hero, name tbd.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 24, 2012 12:34:07 GMT -5
Nope, I did peruse it back in the 80's but the consensus of comics goons seemed to favor V&V* and MSH.
*P.s.:In a fit of what seems OCD my little brother converted all my homemade comic characters into V&V stats which I didn't approve of the final assumptions. I still have them and theyre horrible to behold except where I did the artwork. His art was atrocious.
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Post by Scott on Aug 24, 2012 13:26:03 GMT -5
Never tried V&V. Had fun with MSH, but not sure about it's campaign potential; I'd have to try it again.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 25, 2012 21:17:47 GMT -5
V&v was the one where YOU were the alter ego so it kind of forced the envelope of the oldest concept of role playing (what if "I" was an adventurer?) as a playable game. Whereas D&D sort of diversified through wear and tear on a pile of dead bodies until the "I" became a chance to push acting as an "other". Which isn't necessarily inherently bad except perhaps in the crappy fantasies of the past 30 + years!
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Post by Scott on Aug 25, 2012 21:48:58 GMT -5
It's a complex system. We had 5 players that were new, or almost new to the system, and a GM reacquainting himself with the system after a long hiatus. It took us about 3 hours real time to play out 12 seconds of game time. That is all due to the newbie factor. I can see it being much smoother once we all get more familiar with the system. I had a good time.
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Post by GRWelsh on May 8, 2014 8:55:40 GMT -5
I'm still disappointed that this game was aborted by Mark. We spent all of that time designing our heroes and trying to learn that system, and I was really looking forward to a super-powered game. I guess he just felt like it was too much pressure, and/or didn't like the way the first two sessions went. A strength of the Champions system is its balance -- you can be whatever you want, but the point system inherently limits you and keeps you on par with the other players.
In college, we played TSR Marvel Super Heroes, which was a blast. I love that game, but it did not have a good character generation system for original heroes. Too random. It produced too much oddball stuff, and not enough balance with the useful powers or core abilities. Karma was the built-in game incentive to "be good and heroic," but wasn't done as effectively as it could have been, since it doubled for "luck points" and "experience points." Who wants to spend their experience points in order to have to succeed in adventure scenarios?!? What a revoltin' conflict of interests!
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Post by geneweigel on May 8, 2014 23:14:26 GMT -5
Honestly, I think it would be a hard sell to get people into a comic game. I think VILLAINS & VIGILANTES (1979), CHAMPIONS (1981) and later MARVEL SUPERHEROES (1984), HEROES UNLIMITED (1984), DC HEROES (1985) had the same sense of game to them where it was an Avengers or Justice League mode and everyone had no real superhero adventures to themselves. DC didn't match up to the Marvel abilities so the "who's stronger?" angle was out as well.
I remember my main character in V&V put Bruce Wayne to shame with a space station, robots and a car/jet and absolutely the most jumbled combats where I was running away over half the time and I had to explain my origin to every new player and never had an enemy of my own. It was very non-comic-like.
I think that I had more fun with the original TOP SECRET from 1980. At least thematically it was more straightforward and on the mark: point and shoot kind of stuff.
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Post by GRWelsh on May 9, 2014 12:52:54 GMT -5
Yeah, I would never try to sell someone on a super heroes game unless they were already "into that."
Then the question becomes which system works best for it. I've never wanted to play someone else's character, so Marvel and DC don't have any advantage over the other systems in that sense. I don't actually want to play Spider-Man or Batman -- I want to generate my own original character... and I think most people feel that way, it's one of the appeals of playing an RPG and getting to use your imagination.
Perhaps most important is if the GM is able to run it in a way that makes it actually feel like a comic book and not just "D&D with super powers." That might actually be the hardest part.
One of the things I did like about Champions was that it built comic book sensibility into the character generation, with the concept of limitations. A limitation could be a typical sort of weakness, but could also be conducive to role play, like having a normal dependent or friend (Aunt May, Jimmy Olsen, etc.), or an arch enemy, rival super hero, etc. And taking limitations was attractive, because it allowed you to take more powers and higher attributes on the other end. Not all limitations would necessarily come into play in each game session, so they were more about adding color than to be debilitating.
Players who choose really obscure weaknesses to try to game the system could generate some odd results. My friend Mark was telling me about some player who was going to take a weakness against stuffed animals thinking that could never possibly come into play. And of course, the first thing the GM thought of was to introduce a Toy-Maker style super-villain.
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Post by geneweigel on May 9, 2014 13:18:49 GMT -5
When my brother was converting my comic book heroes to V&V it had no end it was like he was doing it because he didn't know what else to do with all the character sheets that my uncle, in the printing business, printed up for it.
Another trend that was off putting was players rolling up characters with non-thematic random powers and pulpy sounding detective story names to blanket the whole shebang.
A lot of times, the games would be intended to start off like SECRET WARS (1984-1985) with "I've gathered you all here" but came across more like the antics in the comedy film MURDER BY DEATH (1976) with everybody trying to go off but are trapped.
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Post by GRWelsh on May 13, 2014 9:37:28 GMT -5
When my brother was converting my comic book heroes to V&V it had no end it was like he was doing it because he didn't know what else to do with all the character sheets that my uncle, in the printing business, printed up for it. Do you still have any of your original comic book heroes? In the late 70's/early 80's I drew my own comic books. Sadly, there is little of that stuff left around. Most of my characters were very derivative. When I was very young, I drew some Green Lantern comics, as part of a newsletter -- as if I were producing my own local newspaper with a comic strip included. The only one I remember clearly now was Green Lantern fighting a Norse God type of villain that I called "Ragnarok" -- a pretty lame "evil Thor." But I was proud of the fight sequence with Ragnarok smashing Green Lantern's green force shield with his magic weapon. I also drew comics with members of my family as superheroes. This eventually bloomed into a complete mythology with extended family and friends reimagined as heroes, and then a bit later with some more attempts to be more original, or reinterpret the old characters. A lot of it was heavily influenced by the Claremont/Byrne X-Men run, as well as Perez' New Teen Titans, and other comic books I was reading at the time. I actually drew and sold some comics in 6th grade -- wish I still had those!
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Post by geneweigel on May 13, 2014 10:44:23 GMT -5
That sounds like right around the time That I was doing them. The first series was in Bic pen and then graduated to art pencils. I have them all in a binder. The first story is now lost in which this bald weight lifter type character is walking around in havoc on the streets of a city. I later reintroduce him with a name when I do this other character whose alter ego looks like a cross between Jeff Lynne from ELO and Indiana Jones. Yeah, its that bad. The character's superhero look is part Thor, part Nightcrawler, part Spiderman, part Moon Knight and his quasi-Aztec god powers are unknown. The dialogue is so bad I always say it comes across like everyone is having sex off screen. Its horrible.
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