Happy 43rd Birthday to Champions: The Superhero Role Playing Game

Not the First Superhero Role Playing Game, but the First Great One

Champions 1st Edition (1981)

The Origins Game Fair is one of the oldest role playing game conventions in the the world, having started in 1975. It currently takes place annually in Columbus, Ohio and has done so since 1995, but before it found its permanent home it was held at different locations around the United States each year.

While the logistics of having a large scale gaming convention in a different city every year are very challenging, there were a couple of advantages to doing exactly that. First, it help to support the hobby as a whole by creating excitement that was geographically diverse. It allowed for gamers have access to games and game companies that their local stores might not carry. Additionally, they served as important places to learn about new games in the hobby. Without the modern internet, it could be difficult to learn what games were coming out. Sure, magazines like Different Worlds, White Dwarf, and Space Gamer wrote up short articles on new releases, but they often got that news by attending these conventions.

More importantly, and after reading how much money Mayday Games LOST at this year’s Origins Game Fair, having different locations reduces the logistic burden on regional or local gaming companies who wanted to showcase their games at a major event. It can be very expensive to rent the space and ship your merchandise to a convention. The most recent Origins Fair had a total attendance of around 17,000, but each of those attendees has differing tastes and budgets. It can be very hard to predict inventory and that can lead to expenses.

Given that Origins is the official convention of the Game Manufacturer’s Association, I might advise them to return to a roving schedule and to move their conference further away from Gen Con’s dates. Doing so might align better with their mission of supporting game manufacturer’s. It might not. I may have been a finalist to be GAMA’s Executive Director in 2008, but I haven’t seen their costs so I don’t know that it’s even feasible. Besides, GAMA also hosts a trade show to connect manufacturers with distributors that goes a long way to fill that niche. I just miss the idea of big conventions wandering around the country because I think it helps build a larger gaming community in ways that centralized conventions cannot, and even that the internet cannot. That’s an entirely different conversation though.

Needless to say on the weekend of July 3rd through 5th in 1981, the Origins Game Fair took place in San Mateo, California at the Dunfey Hotel. Those familiar with the Bay Area Gaming scene in the 80s through 90 are very familiar with the Dunfey and miss its pseudo-medieval stylings that just screamed, “This is a Place Where Role Playing Games are Played!” Just look at that crenellation and Fachwerk! How could you not what to game there?

Advertisement for Origins in Dragon Magazine #50

San Mateo also happened to the home base of a small gaming company called Hero Games who had just published the first edition of a superhero role playing game called Champions. They released the game on July 3rd of 1981, making today the 43rd anniversary of its release. Happy Birthday Champions!

The Champions Superhero Role Playing Game is one of the best super hero role playing games ever designed, so much so that it is THE game to which all super hero rpgs are compared.  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 post.  Champions even builds upon some of the ideas in Superhero 2044.  Champions character creation has a foundation in the vague point based system in Superhero 2044. These vague rules were combined with house rules by Wayne Shaw published in issue 8 of the Runequest (another Bay Area connection) themed fanzine Lords of Chaos Fanzine. George McDonald and Steve Peterson saw how Wayne Shaw had made the almost non-existent system of Superhero 2044 into something almost workable and further adapted it to create a new detailed and easy to understand point based system.  I would argue that Champions also based its combat system on the melee combat system presented in Superhero 2044. Both systems compare combat capabilities to determine the the target numbers on a 3d6 bell curve for "to-hit" rolls in combat.

The Origin of Champions as Detailed in the 1st Edition Rulebook

Superhero 2044 -- A Look Back at the First Published Superhero Roleplaying Game

Episode 155: Wayne Shaw Discusses the History of Superhero Role Playing Games

While Champions wasn't the first super hero rpg, 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.  Because Champions was released at the Origins convention, one of the largest gaming conventions at the time, Aaron Allston of Steve Jackson Games was in attendance and it immediately captured his attention.  Allston gave Champions a positive, but constructively critical, review in issue #43 of the Space Gamer magazine. That experience led to Aaron Allston running a Champions campaign back at home which led him to write several Champions articles for Space Gamer and he became one of the major contributors to the early days of the Champions line. Those contributions included the Strike Force Sourcebook, which is one of the most important role playing game books ever written…for any game system. You MUST own it.

The first two paragraphs of Aaron Allston’s review of Champions in Space Gamer #43 (1981)

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 sandbox provided by the rules.  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.

There are sites galore about Champions and many reviews about how great the game is, and it truly is, so the remainder of the post won't be either of these.  Rather, I would like 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.

One of the first things that struck me reading the book was how obviously playtested the character design system was.  This is best illustrated in the section under basic characteristics.  In Champions there are primary and secondary characteristics.  The primary characteristics include things like Strength and Dexterity.  The secondary statistics are all based on fractions of the primary statistics and represent things like the ability to resist damage.  Where the playtesting shows here is in how players may buy down all of their primary statistics, but only one of their secondary statistics.  A quick analysis of the secondary statistics demonstrates that if this were not the case a "buy strength then buy down all the secondary stats related to strength" infinite loop would occur.  

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.  There are no "profession" skills in 1st edition.  To be honest, I kind of like the lack of profession skills.  Professions in superhero adventures seem more flavor than something one should have to pay points for, but 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 Iconic characters that are 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.  Mark "the hack" Williams has been the target of some criticism for his illustrations, but his work is the best of what is offered in the 1st edition book.  It’s no surprise that Mark Williams would go on to work on in the special effects industry on films like The Abyss and Terminator 2. Sadly, he died in May or June of 1998 of complications related to cancer. Mark’s work is superior to that of his co-artists in the first edition, Victor Dal Chele and Diana Navarro. It is clear why they decided to use Mark’s 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 was less “comic bookish.”

Art by Mark Williams, Diana Navarro, and Victor Dal Chele

To be fair, Victor Dal Chele was a relatively young artist and his craft improved significantly as he got older. By 1981 he was a Storyboard Artist on The Kid Superpower Hour with Shazam! and he went on to work on GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and a ton of other cartoons. I have not been able to find more information on Diana Navarro, but as “non-comic bookish” as her art was there is definite talent there and I’d be interested to know where her career went.

The game provides three examples of character generation, but the designs given are less than point efficient and one outclasses the others.  The three sample characters are built on 200 points.  Crusader can barely hurt Ogre if he decides to punch him (his punch is only 6 dice), and his Dex is bought at one point below where he would receive a rounding benefit.  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.  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 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 only 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.

The combat example is good, if implausible.  Crusader and Starburst defeating Ogre?  Sure. The mathematics don’t really support that outcome, but I’ll save that analysis for another post.

The supervillain stats at the end of the book -- there are stats for 8 villains and 2 agents -- lack any accompanying art.  The only exception is Shrinker.  

Speaking of artwork and iconics.  Take 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.  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 who the Iron Man clone is, please let me know.  I'd love to see the stats for that guy punching "Holocaust" with his energy fist. It might be Ice Star, but he’s punching with energy and not cold so I have no idea.

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 rpg.