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Y’know, I’ve never heard of this guy. In what way is he “that” Rob Edwards?
 
It didn't really fundamentally change all that much though until 6th edition, did it? Or was it 7th that went off the rails? I always thought of Hero system/Champions as being a "build onto prior edition by adding more multipliers/advantages/disads" than "go back and redo everything every new edition".
 
It didn't really fundamentally change all that much though until 6th edition, did it? Or was it 7th that went off the rails? I always thought of Hero system/Champions as being a "build onto prior edition by adding more multipliers/advantages/disads" than "go back and redo everything every new edition".

Almost nothing changed from 1st through 5th except the different costs of powers and skills being recalibrated from time to time. 6th changed a lot by breaking up hitherto linked attributes like Strength and Body so one wasn't based on the other. There is no 7th unless you want to count Champions Complete, but that was really just a thinner, more streamlined version of 6th with a massive amount of text chopped out.
 
Is Champions Complete in print? 6th edition has been out of print for many years. It managed to go out of print before I even knew it was in print.
Yes - you can still buy it from the hero website and at Amazon. Its also available as POD recently from drivethru - which possibly indicates the end of a print run, but there is no indication that this project is set up to replace it.
 
Y’know, I’ve never heard of this guy. In what way is he “that” Rob Edwards?
Well, I'm not really wanting to spend much time dwelling on it, but Ron Edwards was the major figure at The Forge and the various games associated with it, including his own.

He created the 'indie' and 'narrative/GNS' identities (that's the best word I'd choose) that was a point of conflict for some in the 2000s (with some echoes continuing today) and wrote at least one online controversial essay that caused offence at the time. As I say, it's not really the best place to recall it all here, and to be fair to him, shouldn't be something we should reflect on as he tries to build support for an entirely unrelated project.

However, the point above about his history of liking Champions is an interesting contrast to the types of games and precepts he was arguing for at The Forge. I have a theory that the gamers who were most enamoured with the 'narrative' approaches in games like those created by The Forge, are often those whose previous experience tended to focus much more on simulationary and rules-laden systems. That is, there is a subset of gamers who think new games are revolutionary because they hadn't had as much experience of other games, or gaming groups, that were doing this sort of thing in earlier years.

I call it the Shawn Driscoll syndrome - as an example of someone who lectures other gamers with evangelical zeal, on the qualities of character and story driven gaming, over wargaming, as if people hadn't discovered this for themselves forty years ago. :smile:
 
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Almost nothing changed from 1st through 5th except the different costs of powers and skills being recalibrated from time to time. 6th changed a lot by breaking up hitherto linked attributes like Strength and Body so one wasn't based on the other. There is no 7th unless you want to count Champions Complete, but that was really just a thinner, more streamlined version of 6th with a massive amount of text chopped out.

That's right...that's where the break was, thank you.

I have a 3e champions brick (a thinly-veiled Colossus rip-off) I've been using for 31 years now off and on; never changed a thing about him.
 
That's right...that's where the break was, thank you.

I have a 3e champions brick (a thinly-veiled Colossus rip-off) I've been using for 31 years now off and on; never changed a thing about him.
The point costs probably would have changed if you used any advantages or disadvantages.
If I recall correctly Armor and defenses changed a bit between 3rd and 4th edition.
 
Well, I'm not really wanting to spend much time dwelling on it, but Ron Edwards was the major figure at The Forge and the various games associated with it, including his own.

He created the 'indie' and 'narrative/GNS' identities (that's the best word I'd choose) that was a point of conflict for some in the 2000s (with some echoes continuing today) and wrote at least one online controversial essay that caused offence at the time. As I say, it's not really the best place to recall it all here, and to be fair to him, shouldn't be something we should reflect on as he tries to build support for an entirely unrelated project.

However, the point above about his history of liking Champions is an interesting contrast to the types of games and precepts he was arguing for at The Forge. I have a theory that the gamers who were most enamoured with the 'narrative' approaches in games like those created by The Forge, are often those whose previous experience tended to focus much more on simulationary and rules-laden systems. That is, there is a subset of gamers who think new games are revolutionary because they hadn't had as much experience of other games, or gaming groups, that were doing this sort of thing in earlier years.

I call it the Shawn Driscoll syndrome - as an example of someone who lectures other gamers with evangelical zeal, on the qualities of character and story driven gaming, over wargaming, as if people hadn't discovered this for themselves forty years ago. :smile:

Fair enough. I've heard of the GNS thing, but that's about it. Not familiar with "The Forge."
 
Fair enough. I've heard of the GNS thing, but that's about it. Not familiar with "The Forge."

The Forge was a gaming theory-based forum where Ron and his friends developed the concept of GNS. In the course of this it became quite controversial, as Ron denigrated certain playstyles ad popular games, and said a few stupid things (like certain RPGs he decided were "bad" according to the terms of his theories caused "brain damage" to players - he phrased this as a sort of analogy, but it didnt go over well, as you can imagine). GNS theory suffered from some rather specific flaws that have been exposed ad naseum in the years hence.

Recently, Ron gathered a bit more controversy, when after years of shitting on Dungeons & Dragons, especially classic D&D and old school playstyles, he out of the blue tried to take credit for starting the OSR (he did no such thing).

Mostly though, Ron's name has only been kept alive in the online hobby by the Pundit, who considers Edwards his archenemy.
 
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Well, I'm not really wanting to spend much time dwelling on it, but Ron Edwards was the major figure at The Forge and the various games associated with it, including his own.

He created the 'indie' and 'narrative/GNS' identities (that's the best word I'd choose) that was a point of conflict for some in the 2000s (with some echoes continuing today) and wrote at least one online controversial essay that caused offence at the time. As I say, it's not really the best place to recall it all here, and to be fair to him, shouldn't be something we should reflect on as he tries to build support for an entirely unrelated project.

However, the point above about his history of liking Champions is an interesting contrast to the types of games and precepts he was arguing for at The Forge. I have a theory that the gamers who were most enamoured with the 'narrative' approaches in games like those created by The Forge, are often those whose previous experience tended to focus much more on simulationary and rules-laden systems. That is, there is a subset of gamers who think new games are revolutionary because they hadn't had as much experience of other games, or gaming groups, that were doing this sort of thing in earlier years.

I call it the Shawn Driscoll syndrome - as an example of someone who lectures other gamers with evangelical zeal, on the qualities of character and story driven gaming, over wargaming, as if people hadn't discovered this for themselves forty years ago. :smile:
That's not fair. Not everyone has an unwatchable YouTube channel.:hmmm:
 
metaphorians?


HOoDRPK.jpg
 
Recently, Ron gathered a bit more controversy, when after years of shitting on Dungeons & Dragons, especially classic D&D and old school playstyles, he out of the blue tried to take credit for starting the OSR (he did no such thing).
Someone linked me to the series of Youtube videos that Ron Edwards did on the OSR. It was bizarre. If I recall, he went on for hours about OSR games, but at no point did he even vaguely convince me had read even a page of any of the games he was discussing. The gist of his lecture was about how the OSR is an essentially a puritanical religious movement based on playing D&D exactly by the book. He never even attempted to reconcile this with the fact that most of the OSR games he kept clumsily namedropping contained changes to D&D. He spent a lot of time talking about the dangers that fanatical religious movements have presented throughout US history, hinting that the OSR was a similar threat.

The biggest irony of the whole thing was that Edwards opinions of OSR games seemed to be a matter of blind faith, as they didn't seem based in any actual research of current OSR products.

That all said, I'm cool with him doing a new version of Champions. I'm always happy when Internet provocateurs actually design games, as it eats into the time they spend trying to stir up controversy.
 
:blah:... I think I broke my funny bone. :quiet: Comedy is rendered prostrate before a reality that keeps beating it to the punch. :cry: I will miss laughter.
 
The Forge was a gaming theory-based forum where Ron and his friends developed the concept of GNS. In the course of this it became quite controversial, as Ron denigrated certain playstyles ad popular games, and said a few stupid things (like certain RPGs he decided were "bad" according to the terms of his theories caused "brain damage" to players - he phrased this as a sort of analogy, but it didnt go over well, as you can imagine). GNS theory suffered from some rather specific flaws that have been exposed ad naseum in the years hence.

Recently, Ron gathered a bit more controversy, when after years of shitting on Dungeons & Dragons, especially classic D&D and old school playstyles, he out of the blue tried to take credit for starting the OSR (he did no such thing).

Mostly though, Ron's name has only been kept alive in the online hobby by the Pundit, who considers Edwards his archenemy.
The only thing I'd take issue with here is that he wasn't, as explicitly stated in his discussions, making an analogy about brain damage. He went out of his way to explain he meant actual physical damage on the neural structures of the brain. Y'know, a bit like Videodrome....
 
The only thing I'd take issue with here is that he wasn't, as explicitly stated in his discussions, making an analogy about brain damage. He went out of his way to explain he meant actual physical damage on the neural structures of the brain. Y'know, a bit like Videodrome....
brianoblivion.png


"The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the RPG forum, the RPG drome. The RPG forum is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore the RPG forum is part of the physical structure of the brain, therefore whatever appears in the rpg forum emerges as raw experience for those who participate in it, therefore RPG forums are reality, and reality is less than an RPG forum."
 
Ron is not always a great writer, to say the least. And does have a history of being dogmatic and saying some pretty stupid stuff, from the "brain damage" thing to the OSR which he kinda-sorta takes credit for while at the same time just. Not. Getting. It.

But he can also be insightful at times. His Fantasy Heartbreakers essay is excellent; in fact, his inability to see the OSR as a creative (rather than repetitive) force, in light of the insight he displays in his old essay, further boggles the mind.

I've also read his blog entries on comics, and his sidebars on the Champions playtest doc. I think he'll pull it off.
 
The only Hero system material I ever owned was a copy of the Fifth Edition Sidekick book (a heavily abridged version of the core rules) that I bought in the summer of 2008 shortly before my fifteenth birthday.

Spent most of Tenth Grade reading the fuck out of the Sidekick and planning campaigns for it, but never actually got anything going due to the pressures of my miserable high school experience.

Still, it was the first RPG I bought that wasn't D&D and the idea of playing RPG's in non-medieval fantasy settings amazed me at the time due to being an impressionable teenager.

I possibly would have become a Hero System devotee had I not ended up getting involved with Vampire: The Requiem, World of Darkness, and White Wolf's materials when I was sixteen.

So, I am glad for the Hero fans that they are finally being thrown a bone after all these years. Even if it's from someone as eccentric and controversial as Ron Edwards.
 
The only Hero system material I ever owned was a copy of the Fifth Edition Sidekick book (a heavily abridged version of the core rules) that I bought in the summer of 2008 shortly before my fifteenth birthday.

Spent most of Tenth Grade reading the fuck out of the Sidekick and planning campaigns for it, but never actually got anything going due to the pressures of my miserable high school experience.

Still, it was the first RPG I bought that wasn't D&D and the idea of playing RPG's in non-medieval fantasy settings amazed me at the time due to being an impressionable teenager.

I possibly would have become a Hero System devotee had I not ended up getting involved with Vampire: The Requiem, World of Darkness, and White Wolf's materials when I was sixteen.

So, I am glad for the Hero fans that they are finally being thrown a bone after all these years. Even if it's from someone as eccentric and controversial as Ron Edwards.
I ran a couple of concurrent (but not contemporaneous: one was set in the 1940s and the other was set in the 1960s in the same world) campaigns 5th edition Champions about 5 years ago...both games lasted something like 6 solid months of regular sessions. I think I might have played it once or twice since then. I doubt I'd use Champions again but it would be neat to see them gain some ground. If I were to play Champions again, I think I'd probably go back to an earlier edition like 2nd or 3rd. Even though the rules are largely the same, for some reason for me they seem less encouraging of the point-shaving and loophole-exploiting I found happened (or attempted, in my games) with 5th edition.
 
Love Champions (only played 1st edition) but my dislike for Ron (from his persona and behavior at The Forge) is so strong would never support or buy a product with his name on it or associated with him.
 
Accusing roleplayers of having brain damage from playing or being exposed to certain games is a line crossed for me. I didn’t have any interest in Champions anyway, but this would be an easy “no”.
 
It’s not surprising to me that RE would take this project on, since Champions was an early favorite of his (he was also apparently a superhero comics fan) and Champions figures prominently in his idiosyncratic theory of the history of RPGs and the “lost cause” of proto-narrativism in the ‘80s. He saw a critical change in Champs going from 3rd to 4th edition where it was “taken over” by “Simulationist” concerns, so I expect his goal is to undo all that and refine what he sees as the “Nar” aspects.

As for me—no real interest in superhero games, or in design by RE. For either of these to work for me, the time investment would need to be ultra-light—Trollbabe is the only RE design I think I’d like in play—largely due to a play report posted on rpgnet by Brand Robbins, of a lightly-hacked version.
 
Even though the rules are largely the same, for some reason for me they seem less encouraging of the point-shaving and loophole-exploiting I found happened (or attempted, in my games) with 5th edition.

It's about the same. Both 3E and 5E have Elemental controls and figured characteristics, which is where a lot of the CP manipulation occurs. They finally did away with both in 6E. Champions Complete is my reccomendation for newcomers.
 
So, I am glad for the Hero fans that they are finally being thrown a bone after all these years. Even if it's from someone as eccentric and controversial as Ron Edwards.

Reactions on the Hero forum are mixed, but mostly negative, ranging from:
  • I have no idea what this is
  • Why do I need yet another version of the rules?
  • Why is Ron desigining two sets of rules in one product? (this one boggles me)
  • This hearkens back to a simpler, more fun time
My own group falls into bullet 2. We're happy with 6E.
 
It's about the same. Both 3E and 5E have Elemental controls and figured characteristics, which is where a lot of the CP manipulation occurs. They finally did away with both in 6E. Champions Complete is my reccomendation for newcomers.
I've got Champions Complete. It is not good for newcomers.

I appreciate that they wanted to create a slimmed down version of the rules from the massive 2-tome Hero 6th Edition and Champions book, but it was a bit like going from crazy to crazy in effect. The system may be easy to follow if you've been playing the game for 30 years, but for a newcomer (and I was essentially a newcomer when I got it, with very minimal exposure to it previously) it's a very difficult book to follow. Too many TLAs, too many complicated stipulations and the rules aren't particularly intuitively written. The layout is as plain as they come, which for a game simulating comics is not a good look.

To me it's a shame. Champions belongs up there with D&D (Fantasy), Traveller (Sci-fi) and Call of Cthulhu (horror) as a founding game for its specific genre (superheroes), but unlike the others recently it has stumbled in putting out an accessible, full colour and impressive looking hardback game. There has also been a lack of outside criticism coming into their community to actually pull apart and refresh the system in ways that it could actually improve. People just go along with thinking it's perfect, but there are some real stumbling blocks for learning it as a new system - and it's why other supers games are overtaking it somewhat.

The basic attack equation in combat states:

OCV + 11 - 3D6 = the DVC the attacker can hit

Now, I understand the maths of it, but it is still a bloody awful way of expressing it to newcomers. Couple it with about eight stipulations about applying various modifiers, a whole bunch of differing manoeuvres, and you can see why people feel it's complicated and off-putting.

If somebody really wanted to make Champions accessible, then they really need to develop it in ways that make it truly accessible.
 
  • Why is Ron desigining two sets of rules in one product? (this one boggles me
From the video, it looks like one set will be a cleaned up version of 3e, while the second will allow him to go wild on the Forge-ification of Champs.
 
I've got Champions Complete. It is not good for newcomers.
I have it as well and agree. I got it because it was advertised as "6th edition, but streamlined and easy to use," but for me it was anything but.
 
I've got Champions Complete. It is not good for newcomers.

That is true. Note that I said "CC is my reccomendation for newcomers." I did not mean CC is good for newcomers; rather, all of the other options are worse. 6E 1 and 2 (the two thick books) are the worst possible ways to get into the game. 5E's big black book is no better. 4E's big blue book is simpler than 5E, but still CC wins. I like 6E Basic (like 5E's Sidekick) but honestly it's not much different than CC in terms of intuitiveness.

The system may be easy to follow if you've been playing the game for 30 years, but for a newcomer (and I was essentially a newcomer when I got it, with very minimal exposure to it previously) it's a very difficult book to follow.

Even after 30 years, there are still sections I have trouble with! Mostly the complex stuff, like VPP's and autofire. But I've got the basics down.

The basic attack equation in combat states: OCV + 11 - 3D6 = the DVC the attacker can hit. Now, I understand the maths of it, but it is still a bloody awful way of expressing it to newcomers.

No argument there! I use the grid. I wish they'd invert the whole system to roll-over. That way you would see 3d6 + OCV >= 10 + DCV, which is basically D20.

If somebody really wanted to make Champions accessible, then they really need to develop it in ways that make it truly accessible.

Yes. I've given up on that dream. No one wants to make Hero accessible. They'd rather start weird kickstarters with Ron Edwards.
 
I just watched the video for the KS...it's uhh..a bit weird.


Is that Ron Edwards? He comes across sorta creepy.
 
Changing HERO to a roll over mechanic would have plenty of benefits in my view. Also, if you want something that starts to look approachable (for me at least), the Live Action Champions book was heading in that direction. I've no interest in playing Champions live action, by the way, and it would need to be developed a lot more to make it 'Complete' - but that was the sort of direction I'd be looking at in how they presented rules and character profiles.
 
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