Make Mine Savage -- Some Observations on Savage Worlds Probabilities Before Conversions

One of the many concerns that gamers have when playing any game is "will my character be as awesome as I imagine?" In a d20/Pathfinder game where the player wants to become the world's best dual wielding sword fighter, this is a question of optimization within some pretty well known constraints. A lot of work has been put into d20/Pathfinder and 4th Edition D&D to ensure "balance" and regular play and min/maxing gets players familiar with certain guidelines. Every gamer, no matter how RP oriented, has a little power gamer in them. This can especially be the case when the player is adapting their favorite character from fiction into a role playing game character. Have you looked at some of the stats for Conan or Elric in Gods, Demigods, and Heroes and Deities and Demigods? Let's just say that there is some game breaking wish fulfillment going on there.

I have found that this call to power game gets amped up on steroids when players start adapting their favorite super heroes to their favorite super hero system. Sometimes all thought of game balance goes out the window in the attempt to create "accurate" representations of one's favorite hero/heroine. I remember when I first started playing Champions. The first superheroes I converted to the game were the X-men -- Byrne era. It was a great exercise in design. The X-men had a broad array of powers among them and statting them up really taught me the underlying basics of character design in Champions. I built the characters with Sunburst and Crusader as my benchmark characters and had a stack of 200 point X-men (it was 2nd edition Champions). Colossus had a 55 Strength, Nightcrawler had teleportation and martial arts, Wolverine had a 2d6 killing attack (3 1/2d6 with Str added), and so on. When I showed these characters to some new friends, they told me that I had the X-men all wrong. Colossus was severely underpowered, etc.

When I designed the characters, I looked at the baseline world rules in the Champions rule book and the Guide to the Marvel Universe to feed my assumptions. To me it was perfectly clear that the Hulk with his ability to lift 100 tons had a 60 Strength which has a lifting capacity of 100 tons. Colossus < Hulk, thus 55 Strength. My baseline was a far cry from the baseline of the group who were using Grond as proxy for The Hulk and who were playing experienced characters in a campaign that had already suffered a good deal of "power proliferation." How much? People were taking "double armor piercing" as a modifier to overcome villains with "single hardened" defenses. At the time, I adjusted my next character designs and fit within the group's baseline.

As I've played more role playing games, I've come to the conclusion that my first instincts were right. That doesn't mean that I think my X-men were "correct," I'd have to look them over to see if they actually emulated the characters at the time. But it is to say that I think that the players in my group were suffering from a case of "power exaggeration" which led to power proliferation and eventually led to very long and drawn out combats as everyone had defenses too high (both villains and heroes) for the damage being done. No one wanted to get hurt...and so no one did. The group used their power fantasy to set the assumed baseline instead of starting with the game's mechanical baseline. Instead of asking how high a strength do you need to have to punch through a brick wall, they asked how they compared to Grond or Eurostar.

I don't mean to point them out as "playing wrong" because I don't think they were. I do mean to say that had they viewed the baseline as lower, then there would have been more room for character growth horizontally and less power proliferation. I think that the power exaggeration tendency is one of the reasons why many gamers think that game X or game Y cannot properly emulate super heroes or that the game can only do street level heroes and I noticed a bit of this discussion in my recent post on how Savage Worlds has these wonderful switches that GMs can use in game to have the same characters interact at different scales without ever needing to change the stats of the character.

Let me put it another way. How high a Shooting skill do you think Hawkeye needs to have?

1) d12
2) d12 +2
3) d12 +4
4) d12 +8

The power gamer might say d12 + 8 because "Hawkeye Never Misses." This isn't quite true, but it is true most of the time and we all know that Hawkeye can do some ridiculous things with his bow and arrows.

I would ask to start with the system's baseline assumptions. In Savage Worlds, the base difficulty for any skill and for all ranged attacks is 4. In order to get a "raise" on the action (and only 1 raise matters for the purpose of damage), the player must get a total of 8 or higher. With that in mind, we can see that at d12+8 Hawkeye will never miss, but is that really what Hawkeye is? Let's look at his probabilities at the different levels.

d12

What we can see here is that Hawkeye has an 87.50% chance of rolling a 4 or better with a d12 and a 49.77% chance of rolling an 8 and thus getting a raise. This gives Hawkeye a pretty amazing chance to hit his opponent and that he will likely only miss opponents with Superspeed or Deflection or at long range (-2 modifier). If you want to make it so that he hits 98.61% of the time and gets a raise 65.28% of the time then give him d12+2. At +4 he hits all of the time and gets a raise 87.50% of the time. I think a case can be made for any of these power levels depending on whether you are starting Hawkeye at Novice or at Legendary. I don't know that I would ever worry about d12+8, but if everyone in your game has Superspeed at -6 (the max) Deflection you might need that.

Just in case you are wondering what the probabilities for die values other than d12 are, I am providing them below. I think understanding the probability of a skill/attribute achieving a certain target number is one of the keys to creating a balanced Savage Worlds campaign. The game is a little "looser" in the balancing math than other games and requires GMs to be able to "eye" it out more than other systems. Note that all of these graphs are for Wild Card characters and include the possibility of choosing either the main or the wild die. I want to thank Any Dice for making this easy (all rolls assume a choice between exploding d6 and exploding dX with an expode depth of 3).

d10

 

 d8

 d6

 d4

As you can see by the above Wild Card probabilities, even a d4 Wild Card has a 62.50% chance to succeed at a basic difficulty task. The "GMs Best Friend" in Savage Worlds is supposed to be a +/-2 modifier with +/-4 modifier representing a significant advantage or disadvantage like hiding in heavy cover (+4) or shooting at Long range (-4).

All of these a significantly better than the chances of a d4 or d5 "Normal" who has a 25% or 50% chance of rolling a 4 or higher.

When I provide my character conversions and conversion guidelines, I want you to know where I am coming from. I will be coming from a position that a Novice Hawkeye probably has either a d12 or d12 +2 Shooting skill. At d12 he would have an 11% chance of shooting someone at Long Range who was in Complete Darkness. I think that is pretty amazing. At d12+2 this increases to over 30%. Now neither of those comes with a raise, but c'mon...he's shooting someone at 120 yards in total darkness almost 1/3 of the time...without spending a Bennie.

If my conversion guidelines end up seeming a little on the low end to you, please feel free to bump them up.

Make Marvel Savage!!!

The recently cancelled Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game is among the better superhero rpgs to see publication. It combined a deep knowledge of the source material with an easy to learn and robust game mechanic. Marvel Heroic took a "drama" driven approach to comic books and the Cortex+ system was a good match. The license for the game ended before Cam Banks and crew were able to complete their goal of providing three campaigns for the game -- Civil War, Annihilation, and Age of Apocalypse -- but the source material they published is a gold mine for anyone playing any superhero game.  If you can find copies of the system and supplements pick them up.

As much as I enjoy the Cortex+ system, not everyone in my regular gaming group liked it as much as I did. They all recognized that it was a good system, but some of them are more tactical and miniatures minded than the game robustly supports. These gamers prefer more action and combat focused games like 3.X, 4e, and Savage Worlds. All games that can be played dramatically --just as MHR can be played with a combat focus -- but which lend themselves well to the use of miniatures. Of these games, I am most fond of the Savage Worlds game system due to its focus on quick and easy game play. I'm a busy GM and the Savage Worlds system and support material greatly aid the "working GM."

Yesterday I started posting write-ups from my old "Savage Worlds Character a Day" website, and I plan to continue that trend and to provide new write-ups as well. While my backlog contains characters from many genre -- including the Firefly Crew who are now a part of a new Cortex+ game -- my new write ups will largely be adaptations of comic book characters. Make that Marvel comic book characters based on the write ups in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game. Why? Because I think I want to run my players through Civil War or Annihilation...maybe both...and this is a good place to start. The Savage Worlds Super Powers companion has a very flexible and workable super hero system that has some guidelines/switches that add to the system's ability to emulate a wide variety of heroes. For example, it has guidelines for both street level and cosmic level hero campaigns. The thing is that Marvel characters are often a combination of the two. Nova is a mid-range hero when he's battling the villains of New York City, but when he exits the atmosphere he is a truly cosmic hero. Below are how I propose toggling the switches when running a Marvel game.

Savage Marvel Settings

When playing a Savaged Marvel game, it isn't as easy as stating that the current game is "Street, Baseline, or Cosmic." The circumstances of the story set the overall power level of the basic "Environmental Options" that are used in a gaming session. Character Power Point options are still determined by a Street, Baseline, or Cosmic character type but the underlying switches change. For example, Luke Cage's Super Strength lifting capacity fits more with "Street Hero" environment when he's hanging out with the Heroes for Hire, but when he's running around with the Avengers his lifting capacity seems to fall more in line with the "Baseline" campaign.

Note that this is an adjustment to the "Enviromental Options" and not reflective of the "Power Point" options. Luke Cage would likely be a "Standard" hero in that mix while the kids from Power Pack would be Minor Leaguers and Skeets and Boom-Boom might be Second Stringers.

According to the Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion the most common super hero campaigns have he following setting rules:

• Baseline Environment
• Inherent Power
• Knockback
• Recurring Roles
• Super Karma
• Unarmed Defenders

I would argue that the Savaged Marvel Game doesn't quite match this common campaign description, but only with regard to the environment. I would argue that the environment in Savaged Marvel campaigns should match the evening's (or plot point's) circumstances rather than be static. Characters in a Savaged Marvel campaign should be designed with their "Origin Environment" in mind and gain/lose benefits based on where the adventure is taking place. With this in mind, I recommend the following adjustments to the Environmental Options.

COSMIC AND BASELINE HEROES IN STREET HERO ENVIRONMENT

1. The carrying capacity, flight, and speed modifiers for the Street Environment are used  instead of the Origin Environment.
2. Knockback is reduced. Ever notice how The Thing doesn't seem to knockback "normals" as far as he would villains in his "Street" stories? 
3. The character must spend a Bennie to get the benefit of their Heavy Weapon or Heavy Armor abilities.
4. Cosmic Heroes must spend a Bennie to gain the Focus effect on their powers.

STREET LEVEL AND COSMIC HEROES IN BASELINE ENVIRONMENT

1. Carrying capacity, flight, and speed scale to Baseline. It's amazing how Nova slows down and Spider-Man scales up. (I would argue that Spider-Man is a Standard "Street Hero").
2. Knockback is normal.
3. Street Heroes can spend a Bennie to gain the Heavy Weapon trait on their powers for 1 round.
4. If a Street Hero purchased Heavy Armor in Street Environment the hero can spend a Bennie to get a +6 to toughness against a non-Armor Piercing attack.
5. Cosmic Heroes must spend a Bennie to gain the Focus effect on their powers.

STREET LEVEL AND BASELINE HEROES IN COSMIC ENVIRONMENT

1. Carrying capacity, flight, and speed scale to Cosmic automatically. Colossus and Gladiator have similar, but not identical, capabilities.
2. Knockback is at Cosmic.
3. All heroes can spend a Bennie to gain the Cosmic Focus ability that all Cosmic Origin characters have in this environment. 
4. Characters with Strengths of d12+1 or higher, or those with an appropriate theme, may gain Heavy Armor for an entire combat with the expenditure of a Bennie.

As you can see, the major change from the rule book to the "Savaged Marvel" is that it allows characters from one Environment to team up with heroes of other environments at the "same level" so long as they are willing to spend Bennies to get certain effects. I think that this house rule allows a rough approximation of how heroes behave in the comic books. For example, Wolverine's claws would likely have the Focus ability at creation but when he's in a Street Environment he might have to spend a Bennie to get that bonus (signaling extraordinary effort for the Environment).

This house rule is far from official, but I think it will be a great aid when contemplating how Gladiator and The Hulk should have similar Strength stats even though Gladiator is a Marvel Superman proxy.

Colossus -- Savage Worlds Style (A Beginning)

Way back in 2004, I started a blog with the bold title "Savage Worlds Character a Day" with the audacious desire to convert one character from comics, history, or television into the Savage Worlds game system per day. Needless to say, I didn't accomplish the goal. What I did do was to stat up quite a few characters I enjoyed and spark some discussions with friends. I've decided to move those write ups over to this blog in the hopes of both centralizing my "writing" and spurring more discussion.

I do not present these write ups as the only way to represent characters in the SW system, rather I hope to see your ideas and enter into a conversation with you about how you would write up the same characters. These are starting points. Let's chat and come up with a "merged" write up so I can create a page of "finalized" characters. The statistics below were adapted using the original Savage Worlds supers rules as presented in the original Necessary Evil campaign guide. Let's update this using the full Super Powers Companion.

Colossus (A Savaged Version)

Security Level: Novice

Race: Human (Mutant)

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit, D6, Strength d8 (d12+5), Vigor d8 (d12)

Skills: Fighting d10, Guts d6, Intimidate d6, Throwing d8, Knowledge (Art) d4

Charisma: +0, Pace: 6, Parry: 7, Toughness: 6 (10/Heavy Armor)

Hindrances: Mutant (Major as Minor Wanted and Outsider), Heroic (Major), Loyal (Minor), Enemy (minor)

Edges: Arcane Background (Super Powers), Brawny, Power Points

Super Powers:

Living Steel Form: [Super Attribute (8pp) +7 steps Strength and +2 Steps Vigor requires activation; Toughness (4pp) +1 and Heavy Armor requires activation]

Attack Melee (3pp) +2d6 requires activation

Security Level: Seasoned

Race: Human (Mutant)

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit, D6, Strength d10 (d12+7), Vigor d10 (d12+2)

Skills: Fighting d10, Guts d6, Intimidate d6, Throwing d8, Knowledge (Art) d4

Charisma: +0, Pace: 6, Parry: 7, Toughness: 8 (11/Heavy Armor)

Hindrances: Mutant (Major as Minor Wanted and Outsider), Heroic (Major), Loyal (Minor), Enemy (minor)

Edges: Arcane Background (Super Powers), Brawny, Power Points x2 (20 total), Take the Hit

Super Powers:  

Living Steel Form: [Super Attribute (11pp) +8 steps Strength and +3 Steps Vigor requires activation; Toughness (4pp) +1 and Heavy Armor requires activation]

Attack Melee (5pp) +2d6, Knockback, requires activation

Security Level: Veteran

Race: Human (Mutant)

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit, D6, Strength d12 (d12+8), Vigor d12 (d12+2)

Skills: Fighting d10, Guts d6, Intimidate d6, Throwing d8, Knowledge (Art) d4

Charisma: +0, Pace: 6, Parry: 7, Toughness: 8 (11/Heavy Armor)

Hindrances: Mutant (Major as Minor Wanted and Outsider), Heroic (Major), Loyal (Minor), Enemy (minor)

Edges: Arcane Background (Super Powers), Brawny, Power Points x3 (25 total), Take the Hit, Hard to Kill (2pp), Arcane Resistance

Super Powers:

Living Steel Form: [Super Attribute (10pp) +8 steps Strength and +3 Steps Vigor requires activation; Toughness (4pp) +1 and Heavy Armor requires activation]

Attack Melee (9pp) +2d6, Knockback 4 AP, requires activation

Little Geek Girls: Don't Say Superheroes are "Just for Boys"

On Tuesday, Kirk Hamilton at Kotaku shared a music video by The Doubleclicks entitled "Nothing to Prove."  I'll be honest and say that the song itself doesn't do much for me and sounds a bit like a song that would be performed by Carrie Brownstein on an episode of Portlandia, though I guess comparing a song to a song by a member of Sleater-Kinney isn't exactly an excoriating review. The aesthetics of the song notwithstanding, it was the visual content of the music video that really resonated with me. In particular the woman holding the "Don't tell my daughters that Lego, Robots, and Superheroes are for boys."

That sentence struck me like lightning and with almost perfect timing. As regular readers of this blog know, I am the father of two young girls I call History and Mystery in my blog posts and who are the two "Twin Princess Superheroes" referred to in the right sidebar. To give you a picture, this is them on a "Fancy Day."

As you can see, they are wearing Fancy Nancy-esque clothing with sunglasses, domino masks, and History is holding forth a Captain America shield. This is them at their "Princess Superheroiest," well accepting when they where their Bell and Aurora dresses kitted with Merrida bow and arrow and Iron Man masks and "Boomers." All of which is to say that they have acquired many of their mom and dad's geek obsessions. I cannot express how much fun it is imagining playing D&D with the twins when they get older. I'm giddy right now thinking about it.

As you might guess, my daughters live a pretty happy life. They have parents who share their interests and who play are willing to play any game or support any interest. But that's not to say that these young innocents haven't already faced the dreaded "you aren't allowed to be interested in that" assertion by some of their peers. There was one student at their school - a student that History had a crush on no less - who saw that History and Mystery were wearing superhero tennis shoes (Cap and Iron Man) and who took it upon himself to point out to my daughters that "Superheroes" are for boys. What's more, the boy also pointed out the "Blue" is for boys too.

Blue.

BLUE!

Are you kidding me?! This kid tried to lay claim to a color? Ugh.

Back to the story. This young boy's attack upon their preferences was the first time that my daughters had been told that something was outside their purview. Sure, Jody and I have told the girls that we cannot afford certain things or that they have to wait until they are "bigger kids" to play Advanced Squad Leader with dad, but we've never told them that any given entertainment was reserved for a particular subset of society. Jody and I find that concept to be absurd on its face. No one is going to stop me from DVRing REAL HOUSEWIVES (OC and Jersey only), and certainly no one is going to tell Jody she cannot watch JUSTIFIED or THE AVENGERS because she's a woman.

So after this boy attacked my daughter's love for superheroes Mystery comes home weeping. She's upset that she's no longer allowed to like Captain America - who has fought off more Closet Monsters than I care to imagine - because he's for boys. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to inform my daughter that Captain America is for everyone and to give Mystery several real world examples of the women in my and Jody's life who are fans of "Steve." After which we watched a couple episodes of EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES and called it good. My daughters seemed satisfied. Heck, History started wearing blue (Mystery's favorite color) in solidarity with her sister.

But the story doesn't end with having a supportive mom and dad who have supportive friends. Sadly, this little punk has already sown the seed of a mental weed that must be constantly pursued and extracted as quickly as possible. I've already had History ask me if there REALLY are any female race car drivers and heaven knows what the next moment will be. One thing I do know, I'll have to be vigilant. It's no longer enough to just share the things I'm passionate about with my daughters. I now have to be prepared to help my daughters defend their enjoyment.

I'm happy to do it, but it's something that shouldn't have to be done. Stop attacking "Fake Geek Girls." Some of the kindest, warmest, and giving people I know are Geek Girls (yes I'm talking about you Jody, Susan, Shawna, and America...and many others). There is nothing fake about them.

And for those of you who spend the time "vetting" to see if a "Fake Geek Girl" is actually a real geek. You know that vetting time would be far more enjoyable if it was just a normal conversation where you both geek out right? Sure, you might end up fighting about whether Alan Scott or Hal Jordan are the better GL or how big a jerk Dan Didio is, but I guarantee that you will be more likely to leave that conversation with a friend than you will if you begin your "conversation" with an oral exam in which you scrutinize even the slightest error.

[From the Archives] SUPERCREW -- Quick and Easy Superhero Role Playing

Back in 2010, I wrote a review for a Swedish super hero roleplaying game called THE SUPERCREW. Some time has passed since that review, so given the obscurity of the game I thought that I would share the review again.

I have made some slight edits to update the review and provided information from an update I did a couple of months after the initial review.  This is a rare game, but you should check it out.





Every now and then, there comes along a product that manages to simultaneously appeal to several of my obsessions. The Supercrew roleplaying game by Tobias Radesaeter is one of those products. The game combines my interest with the indie game movement with my obsessive need to own every superhero roleplaying game ever published. As numerous re-reads of Superhero 2044 prove to me time and time again, the targets of my obsession do not always lead to enjoyable (or even understandable in the case of 2044) experiences.

The superhero genre features characters of near unlimited potential, and who possess a vast array of capabilities. Any game designed to emulate the feel of the source material faces a daunting challenge. How does one design a game that can simulate an almost infinite collection of powers and abilities, yet is also as fast and exciting as the source material being emulated? It's not easy to do, and it is one of the reasons that some successful superhero systems are also successful "universal" systems. For a while, it seemed as if all decent superhero systems were also universal systems. The indie game movement, with games like Capes, proved that being universal wasn't a necessary condition of a superhero game and that games could be designed based on emulating the feel of comics without granularly emulating the physics of them.

Games like Capes are a part of the narrative focused game design that influences a lot of what is going on the indie gaming community. Design choices in these games focuses more on how a particular mechanic can help to create a collaborative "playing story" rather than a quantified gaming representation of "reality." To be reductive for a moment, these games have a narrative rather than a gamist focus.

Supercrew takes a fairly strong narrativist approach to the superhero genre in it design choices, and even makes one small quip regarding gamist style games, and even presents its rules in a narrative format.

Supercrew's thirty-page booklet presents the games rules in a comic-book panel format. The first game to attempt this approach was the unplayable He-Man and the Masters of the Universe RPG by FASA. It's a novel approach to introducing roleplaying concepts and mechanics, and in the case of Supercrew is done in an effective manner. The rules are presented in a logical and engaging manner. They are also very easy to understand, making this game a potentially great introductory roleplaying game -- in addition to its potential use as a narrative rpg for experienced gamers.

GAME CONCEPT

Supercrew begins with an interesting premise as a game within a game. The central conceit of Supercrew is that all of the superheroes designed by the players are their own alter-egos. As the game explains it, "The players play super-powered versions of themselves. Each adventure starts with them playing a role-playing game when they hear about some kind of emergency they have to stop." You read that right. The players are playing characters who are playing a roleplaying game that gets interrupted and needs their superheroic intervention. When I first read that the players play versions of themselves, I was reminded of the character design system for the revised edition of Villains and Vigilantes so I didn't think Supercrew's approach was too novel. Then I read the sentence where the rules describe it as a game where the "characters" have shown up to play an rpg, only to have it interrupted, and a number of wonderful uses for this game popped to mind -- this is before I read a single rule.

Every group has players who show up late, or cannot make it to a particular session. If your group is playing in a long term campaign, you often don't want to continue the adventure without the player as it could make the player feel left out as their characters don't earn as many experience points or miss out on key plot points. You also have to consider the feelings of those players who did show up. They are there to have a good time and to play a game. If your group agrees to use Supercrew as the backup campaign, it's central conceit is perfect for these occasions. Let's say Jim doesn't show up to your regular D&D campaign. You begin the session as normal, "when we last left our heroes," but somewhere in the middle of the first encounter you do your best radio static impression and blurt out "News Alert! Baron Ravenblood and Persecutus are holding the city hostage threatening to destroy the Gas Company building unless the mayor wires $1 billion into their bank account by 3pm." The players grab their Supercrew character sheets, and their "characters" excuse themselves from the D&D game to fight for great justice!

Sounds like fun, but does the system work?

GAME SYSTEM

Characters in Supercrew are constructed using three main abilities and three tricks which are particular uses of these abilities. The powers are ranked from 3 - 1 in order of power. Three is the most powerful ability, two is the most frequently used ability, and 1 is the least powerful ability. It doesn't sound like a lot of powers to give a character, but it actuality this is a pretty robust system.

For example:

Christian wants to make a character based on everyone's favorite Flight, Invulnerability, and Super-Strength character. To avoid copyright attorneys suing his game group, he decides to name the character Superior! He give the character the following powers Heat Vision, Inert_Gas-ian Physique, and Flight. He states that Heat Vision is Superior!'s most potent ability (as is often described regarding our favoring FISS character, though rarely believed) at rating 3. Inert_Gas-ian Physique, Superior!'s most frequently used power, is given a rating of 2. Finally, Christian gives Flight a rating of 1.

Inert_Gas-ian Physique is a broad descriptor that encompasses super-strength, super-speed, x-ray vision, super-breath, and invulnerability. There is no reason to quantify each individual power, as would be done in more granular systems, since the broad descriptor's effectiveness is determined by the associated rating.

The effects of powers are determined by the roll of ordinary six-sided dice. The player rolls a number of dice equal to the abilities rating. Those dice that have a result of 4 or greater are considered successes, lower results are considered failures. This is a system similar in basic structure to Burning Wheel or White Wolf's World of Darkness systems where pools of dice are rolled and successes counted based on the results of individual dice.

The game enforces the use of ineffective powers, and limits the usage of the most potent powers, by requiring that heroes spend "hero points" in order to activate the rank 3 power. The only way to acquire hero points is to either use your rank 1 power or to be knocked unconscious in a battle. Each of these gives the character a hero point that may be spent later to activate rank 3 powers. This is an elegant design choice that undermines overt power-gaming where players would minimize/maximize abilities to tweak a game system in their favor and hold more "power" than other gamers. In this system, that is relatively impossible. Even if the player chooses a broad ability descriptor, like Superior!, since how an ability is used is determined when the player's describe what they are doing the broad descriptor is no more useful than the narrow one. After all, the Shade Knight can apply his "Keen Intellect" descriptor just as broadly as Superior!'s Inert-Gas-ian Physique.

For any given task, the Game Master sets a success threshold. The individual character can only contribute toward passing that threshold, once per round -- or once per task for certain tasks. Teams must work together to succeed at fighting earthquakes and burning buildings.

In combat, and in other situations, the player first states what ability they wish to use. They do not describe how the power is used, or its effects, until the number of successes achieved is known. In a recent post discussing the Dragon Age RPG by Green Ronin, I discussed how I liked how Dragon Age's stunt system allowed for more narrative combats. Supercrew's system is attempting a similar effect here, the benefits of "roll before you describe" are discussed at length at GamePlayWright. Once the player knows how many successes the character has achieved, and how many total successes are needed for an action, that player -- whether he completed the task or not -- describes what happens. This game is very much about the player, knowing the results, creating the narrative regarding how his/her character succeeded or failed. Typical of many modern narrative games, this player empowering approach can be disorienting or empowering depending on your group's preferred method of play.

The combat rules are an extension of the basic task resolution system, and the game provides some excellent examples of how they would represent villains, groups of thugs, or hazardous events like building fires.

The system looks like it works and it looks fun. Simple but able to simulate a broad array of activities, what designers often call "robust."

CRITICISMS OF THE GAME

I have two major, and one minor, criticisms of Supercrew.

While the game provides some examples of how they would represent villains, thugs, and hazards, the game provides not guidelines or benchmarks to help the game master. Experienced game masters may not technically need these in order to run a game, but they would be exceedingly helpful. This is an even larger flaw when considering the fledgling game master. The games rules and concepts are perfect for the new gamer, in addition to the experienced gamer, but the new gamer needs more assistance when creating opponents for their players. Some comments regarding balancing encounters, more than just the examples, would have been greatly appreciated.

The game also lacks any real online support, which is tragic as the game deserves more. The rule book says to visit the Kaleidoskop site for character sheets etc., but the majority of game aids are in Swedish.  For example, their Hjältegalleri which features a number of characters created using the system is entirely in Swedish.  It would be helpful to have English versions of the characters. While it isn't difficult to figure out what Gravitationskontroll or Noll Friktion are in English, Osynlighetskappa is another matter entirely. Thankfully, Christopher B at A Rust Monster Ate My Sword has designed an excellent character sheet for use in the game.

Lastly, and this is a minor quibble, the game's prose isn't quite funny enough. I would have liked more jokes. Given the entertaining cartoony art in the rulebook, some more jokes would have been appreciated. Maybe it's just the translation that lacks the humor, but I'd have liked more.

In conclusion, I think that this is an excellent game at a reasonable price. It isn't likely to replace Savage Worlds' Necessary Evil campaign in my game rotation any time soon, but I think I'll be trying to fit it in when some players don't show up for our regular sessions.

I wish some of the early professional efforts where as clearly explained and thought out as this gem.

[Simulation vs. Playability] Villains & Vigilantes 2e -- A Look at Telekinesis and Force Field

As I mentioned in a background post recently, I will be doing a series of posts looking at roleplaying games  to analyze how they balance simulation and playability in the execution of their rules set. In that post, I asserted that every non-abstract game is a simulation of some central conceit. This is particularly the case in role playing games where the conceit is one of the major reasons for the selection of a given game. While some people might play a role playing game because it uses system a or system b, I would argue that more players buy a game because it has a certain conceit. How many people are buying the new STAR WARS rpg by Fantasy Flight Games because it uses a "narrative dice" mechanic, compared to how many people are buying it because it is the current STAR WARS rpg?

I would argue that while every game faces significant challenges in balancing simulation vs. playability, superhero roleplaying games face the largest challenge. This is largely because a superhero rpg must be able to handle almost any possibility in order to simulate its source material. Almost anything can happen in a comic book and that can be difficult to simulate.

The first superhero roleplaying game was Superhero 2044, and it was inspirational on many levels. It was also unplayable as written. Donald Saxman did a yeoman's job of simulating certain aspects of comic books -- superhero "patrols" for example -- but the combat system and character creation systems need additional tweaking to work. Many of the concepts of 2044 made their way into the CHAMPIONS roleplaying game, via heavy house rulings by Wayne Shaw. You can see 2044's influence in both the "point based" character creation system and in the CHAMPIONS combat system (click the link above to see the similarities in the combat system).

The first playable superhero roleplaying game was Villains & Vigilantes. The first edition of the game is playable, but has some very cloogy bits -- like the "to hit" matrix which makes the 2nd edition matrix look like child's play. The second edition was an improvement in every way over the first edition and is still a game I very much enjoy reading and playing. I recently had my regular gaming group roll up some V&V characters and look forward to a full fledged adventure in the near future. It's a fun system that falls heavily into the "abstractionist" rather than "simulationist" camp, but some of its design choices simulate comic book action better than others. To highlight this conflict, I'd like to examine how two powers are mechanically represented in the game: Force Field and Telekinesis. These are two of the three powers in the game I would need if I wanted to make Sue Storm Richards -- The Invisible Woman as a character. I understand that she she doesn't "technically" have telekinesis as a power, but she uses her force fields to mimic the effects of a traditional TK character.

In fact, let's stat up Sue Richards in the process.

In V&V, like in many super hero game systems, a character's primary statistics can affect how individual powers work. V&V uses the classic D&D system of 3 to 18 as the range of "normal human" statistics, and has five main statistics: Strength, Endurance, Agility, Intelligence, and Charisma. Most of these are self-explanatory. Only Charisma doesn't follow the normal definition. It measures not only what we would normally call Charisma, but also includes what degree the character falls on the side of good or evil. So a "very heroic" good hero might have an 18, as would a "very evil" villain.

In Sue's case, I believe all of her basic attributes fall within the normal range. If they didn't, we'd have to decide what her stats were before exposure to Cosmic Rays and deconstruct what her "initial" statistics were and how they are different from her "super heroic" statistics so we could know what attribute related superpower -- like "Enhanced Agility" -- we would need to give her. To limit debate -- though not eliminate it -- I'll be using the "Classic Marvel Forever" stats for the old TSR Marvel Game as a baseline. Since "weight" also matters in V&V, I'll also use the Marvel.com bio which tells us that Sue is 5"6" and weighs 120 lbs.

Below, I'll include her Classic Marvel Forever stat and follow it with my V&V translation. For Charisma, we'll assume that she isn't currently under the influence of the Fear Monger and give her a high Charisma.

Attribute	Classic Marvel	V&V
Strength	Typical	10
Endurance	Remarkable	18
Agility	Excellent	16
Intelligence	Good	14
Charisma	N/A	16

For the sake of argument, we'll make her a 7th level character. This will matter as things progress, and we'll also assume that her 6 level advancements have not been added to the stats above.

Now...let's have a look at those powers and see how they simulate various effects from the comic books.

Force Field

The Force Field power is pretty interesting and actually covers most of what Sue Storm Richards does with her Force Fields in the comics. It creates barriers that can comprise of x number of 1 inch "square planes" where x is the player's current number of power points (1 inch is the equivalent of approximately 5 feet). In the case of Sue Storm she has 58 power (starting power equals the sum of all stats except Charisma), so she is capable of making a pretty big force field -- Fifty-Two five foot "square planes" is a lot of surface area.

Force Field provides "Force Field defense," which in Villains & Vigilantes means that the player is very difficult to hit. Most powers need to roll a 0 or less on a d20 to hit someone in a Force Field. While that might seem impossible, players do get to add modifiers to that base number of 0 or less based on powers, stats, and level. The Force Field power also lets our Invisible Woman attach opponents doing damage equivalent to her "basic HTH damage." As you will see when you look at the character sheet below, this isn't very much. In fact, it's only 1d4.

There are a couple of interesting things to look at here.

First, it costs a number of Power Points to keep up a Force Screen equal to 1/2 the number of points of damage repulsed which originated from a list of powers. This is interesting because there is not a rule anywhere in the game for determining whether damage is repulsed or not. One might assume that "damage repulsed" is damage from an attack that would have hit the defender, but for the fact the defender was protected by Force Field. I think this is a reasonable interpretation.  Let's see how this ruling would work -- notice that we are already having to make a ruling to interpret the use of a power.

Ice Powers are on the list of powers that take energy to defend against using Force Field. Ice Power hits a character protected by Force Field on a 0 or less. A character with no defenses that work against Ice Power would be hit on a 14 or less (a 70% chance). Let's say that Blizzard is attacking Sue Storm. Normally, he would hit her on a 14 or less, but she has her Force Field up. He rolls to hit as normal and rolls a 13 and would normally hit Sue except for the Force Field, so he misses. With other defenses, this would be the end of the result. Because Force Field has a power cost related to "repulsed" damage, we now need Blizzard to determine how much damage he would have done and we subtract 1/2 that amount from Sue's current power score. If Sue were protecting someone else and the attack got past the Force Field, which in Blizzard's case would only be possible with modifiers from stats or level, she would lose power equal to the full amount of damage done. At least that's what I think would happen.

Let me just say, that if my interpretation is correct it seems like a pretty good simulation of how Force Fields work in the comics. We often see Force Field users straining to maintain the Field under pressure of attacks. How this power would work from devices, like Iron Man's suit for example, is another matter entirely as suits don't have "Power Ratings" and instead have a number of "Uses." This only adds to the number of rulings we must make to fill in cracks in the rules.

The second interesting thing here is that the Force Field's damage is based on the character's normal ability to damage someone when punching them. I don't know about you, but I think most Force Field attackers -- like say Hal Jordan or Sue Storm -- have this kind of attack because their hand to hand attack isn't very "superheroic." This aspect of the power doesn't seem very realistic as a simulation. I would recommend using a fix that I am going to be making for Telekinesis in a moment, and that is to use an alternate means of calculating base damage for this power. A normal HTH attack is based on a character's strength and weight. Force Field powers should have their "HTH Damage" based on an attribute that best simulates how the Force Field works. For Sue Storm, I would argue that the HTH damage should be based on her "Endurance" instead of Strength. This would still only give "Level 1" Sue Storm 1d6 damage, and isn't something that breaks the system. I would also argue that Hal Jordan's should be based on his Charisma score.

Reading through the Telekinesis power, we can see that it does essentially what Telekinesis should be able to do. It can move things, be used as an attack, and manipulate physical objects. Sound's right. What is interesting here though is the "telekinetic capacity" and how it is determined. The number of pounds a character can move is equal to Strength x Level x 10 pounds. In Sue's case, this would mean she could lift 10 (her Strength) x 1 (or 7 for our "experienced" version) x 10 pounds with her mind. So she could lift either 100lbs. or 700lbs. This would allow her to do either 1d4 or 1d8 damage with her TK. Not very impressive (okay, the 1d8 is almost in the right range for a primary attach, but not quite), and seemingly counter-intuitive. How many of the primarily TK oriented characters are known for their massive Strength? Most of the TK oriented heroes I can think of have average strength, and substitute TK for their Strength.

I think we should use an alternate means of Capacity Calculation. Normal carrying capacity is calculated as follows:

So for Sue we take one-tenth her Strength cubed (1 cubed) plus one-tenth her Endurance which is 1.8. This gives us a total of 2.8 which we multiply by 1/2 her weight or 60lbs. This gives us a total of 168 pounds. I think that looks right for her carrying capacity, but not her "Force Field" Capacity. If we substitute Endurance for Strength in this equation to determine "Force Field HTH", we get 458lbs and a 1d6 damage. While I still think this is low for a higher level Sue, it seems okay for 1st level Sue.  As for Telekinesis, I recommend making two changes. First, change the equation to (Key Stat x Level x 20 lbs = TK Capacity). Then I recommend selecting the appropriate key stat for the character's character concept. In Sue's case, I think it should be Endurance. At 1st Level, this would have given her a 360lbs. TK capacity. Not fantastic, and still only good for 1d6 damage which is about 1/2 of the average attack power, but I think it's well within reason for a starting character.

One thing that is possible in V&V is for a character to have a power "selected" multiple times. The recommendation V&V gives is to increase the effectiveness of the power if it has been "rolled" more than once. I would argue that Sue Storm rolled TK at least twice and would have that increase the multiple of x20lbs to x40lbs giving her a 1st level TK of 720lbs and 1d8 damage. That's all I need for her starting out.

One of the things that V&V allows characters to do is increase basic statistics with level increases. For the sake of argument, let's assume that modern Invisible Woman is 7th level and that she has put all of her advancements into Endurance.

Using our updated equations 7th level Invisible Woman would have a Force Field Capacity of 973lbs doing 1d10 damage. This is right in the sweet spot of between 1d10 and 1d12 plus stat bonuses damage (+1 in Sue's case). Her TK would be 6720lbs which does 2d8 damage. Given that this hits like a HTH attack, and HTH attacks are the least accurate in the game hitting on only a 5 or less, I think this is right in the sweet spot and puts her in line with most of V&V's "Bricks."

Notice that what constitutes a massively strong character in V&V is 3 tons, significantly less than the Hulk's 100 ton lift capacity. That would do somewhere in the range of 6d10 damage, a figure not likely to be "survivable" by most characters.

Just looking at these two powers it seems that V&V is a very good simulator of Comic Book style action, but that it still has a few cracks to fill in. Some are easy to fill in, like changing the TK equation or even I imagine coming up with a new Carrying Capacity to Basic HTH Damage chart (something I would recommend doing). Others are a little more difficult, like figuring out what is meant by "Damage Repulsed." The game was the first truly viable superhero role playing game. It is a fun game, but it does show some fraying around the edges of the rules. Some of these are legacies of being a kind of D&D derivative in combat, others are due to insufficient play testing.

None of them are game killers though, and all of them make for interesting combinations about how V&V tackles the problem of Simulation vs. Playability. With the exception of some of the equations required, and the clunkiness of the combat system, it's pretty clear that a lot of effort went into playability instead of simulation and where the designers focused too much on simulation -- the system's attack power vs. defense power attack chart comes to mind -- you end up with some of the more clunky aspects of the game.

I hope that Fantasy Flight Games Fantasy Games Unlimited and Monkey House Games are able to work out their legal issues in an amicable manner, and that we will be able to see a true 3rd edition of the game soon. It is one of the greats.

 Invisible Woman is Copyright Marvel Comics.

[Vintage RPGs] CHAMPIONS 1st Edition -- A Blast from the Past

The CHAMPIONS super hero role playing game is one of the best super hero role playing games ever designed, and 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 blog post.  CHAMPIONS even builds upon 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 -- as a jumping off point for a new detailed and easy to understand point based system.  CHAMPIONS was also likely influenced by the melee combat system in SUPERHERO 2044 in the use of the 3d6 bell curve to determine "to-hit" rolls in combat.

While CHAMPIONS wasn't the first super hero rpg, it was the first that presented a coherent system by which a player could 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, as I have been doing the past week, 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 thinks 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 is clear 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.
• 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 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"?  Someone once told me the villain's name was Holocaust, but that could just be a Bay Area rumor.  If you know, please let me know.  I'd love to see the stats for that guy punching "Holocaust" with his energy fist.

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.

[Superhero RPGs] Changling of the Teen Titans: The Same Hero in Different Systems

Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis know that  I consider Different Worlds magazine to be one of the great publications of what James Maliszewski calls the Golden Age of D&D.  The magazine ran from 1979 to 1987.  It was initially published by Chaosium, then by Sleuth Publications, and finally by Different Worlds Publications.  Two of those companies are still around today, and one is going very strong.

I was particularly impressed with Different Worlds' famously reprinted issue 23.  That issue was a "Special Superhero Issue" that contained articles by the designers of CHAMPIONS, VILLAINS & VIGILANTES, SUPERGAME, SUPERWORLD, and SUPERHERO 2044.  That's right, the designers of all the major superhero rpgs of the time had an article in that issue.  Add to this a cover illustrated by Bill Willingham and stats for the X-men in three different game systems (V&V, Champions, and Superworld) by the game designers, and you have a truly special magazine issue.  I would argue that it is the single best issue of a gaming magazine published to date.

 

The success of this issue led Tadashi Ehara -- the magazine's editor -- do make the Special Superhero issue a somewhat regular feature, and a year later with issue 30 in September of 1983 the magazine had a special "New Teen Titans" issue.  This issue provides statistics for the New Teen Titans -- Nightwing and crew, though he's still Robin at the time -- for CHAMPIONS, VILLAINS & VIGILANTES, and SUPERWORLD.  Three systems that each handle super powers differently, but that are all workable systems.  The statistical representation of the characters, all done by the system designers, reveal interesting things about the rules themselves.  This is especially true for the character of Changeling.  As a shape shifter, his powers are a challenge to emulate.  How do you design a character who can become any animal?  It's a difficult design question, but one that comes up from time to time in the comics.  It is also a question that eventually led CHAMPIONS to adopt the "Multiform" power, a solution that I've never been fond of.

 

Starting with CHAMPIONS, the character of Changeling is represented as a relatively normal heroic character in his base statistics, but has all of his shapechanging powers in a single 200 point multipower with all of his abilities represented as variable "multi" slots.

133 pts.   200 pt Multipower (+1/4 only reasonable creatures, +1/4 x6 END Battery) 

27m        Growth (200 pts)

  7m        Density Increase (50)

            7m        Flight (50)

It goes on like that to include a number of possible power combinations.  It's a solution, but one that isn't much better than the "multiform" solution later implemented.  I have always liked the use of a multipower in order to simulate this kind of ability, but I prefer one of two options not presented by Steve Peterson here.  First would be the each "animal" is a different "ultra" slot in a multipower.  Thus Gorilla would be one slot and Monkey another.  The other way would be to have several multipowers.  One for offensive abilities, a second for defensive, a third for movement, and a fourth for "variable senses and options."  Any of these can work, but as you can see any version also requires a lot of work by the player to get what they want.

Steve Perrin's SUPERWORLD adaptation was to just give Changeling all of the powers -- heightened strength, shrinking, growth, armor, movement, etc. each with a conditional use modifier of "only in certain shapes."  This is followed by a list of shapes that Changeling can assume: man, bear, cat, bird, canine, snake, elephant, octopus, and so on.  Any animal that he has listed, he can become.  And the GM and player can discuss which powers are appropriate to the form.  This is a pretty good solution, but it also requires bookkeeping with regard to building and then maximizing each form.

Jack Herman in his VILLAINS & VIGILANTES adaptation highlights the "rulings over rules" nature of the V&V system.  In this game, there is not shapechange power that quite captures Changeling's ability.  So Herman gives Changeling the following power:

TRANSFORMATION (Shapeshifter/Creatures): PR for each change equals the square root of the number of Basic Hits possessed by the new form assumed.  Any shape having over 20 Basic Hits cannot be maintained for more than 11 turns.  Smaller shapes have no time limit.  Only creature/animal shapes may be assumed, including intelligent non-human species, but he must be familiar with the creature to copy its shape.

 That's it.  Leaving the player and GM to design each and every animal the player can turn in to.  Other than having to design a lot of animal stats, this is a pretty nice adaptation.  It is also one that Herman had to invent as the power isn't in the rulebook.  That's the nature of V&V though.  House rules rule the day.

When the DC Heroes RPG eventually came out, they represented Changeling in the following way.

                                                                                                                           

He's got stats that are at the high end of normal human ability, except for his Body stat which is quite good.  His shape change power is represented by... well... the shape change power which is as follows:

I am a big fan of the DC Heroes solution.  It is similar to Herman's, but balanced by being a very expensive power to have at high levels, though inexpensive enough for a starting character to purchase it.  It limits abilities to existing animals, and many can be found in the appendix.  Like all of the options though, it does require a player to have a number of character sheets at the ready to represent Changeling in multiple forms.

I think it is interesting how the different games each approached the design challenge that a shape changing character brings.  I don't know that any has a perfect solution.  I like DC Heroes' solution, but only because their underlying AP rules structure means that each numerical value has a very specific meaning.

[Gaming Library] Aaron Allston's STRIKE FORCE: A Must Own GM Resource

At the Origins convention in 1981 Hero Games released what would become one of the best selling super hero role playing games of all time, a game that is still around and which has served as the IP behind a  computer MMORPG.  That game is CHAMPIONSand it is one of the great games that the hobby has produced. 

CHAMPIONS has a large and active fan base, though it does seem to have dwindled a little between the 5th and 6th edition of the rules.  That dwindling may soon find itself reversed with the recent release of CHAMPIONS: LIVE ACTION and upcoming release of CHAMPIONS COMPLETE.  I've been of the opinion the past couple of editions of CHAMPIONS and the HERO rules have become a little bloated, and it seems that the designers behind CHAMPIONS COMPLETE agree as their upcoming rulebook is only 240 pages in total.  While much can be, and has been, written about the CHAMPIONS game, there is one supplement for the game that transcends the game itself and is one of the best "how to run a campaign" supplements ever produced...for any game system.

When CHAMPIONS was released in 1981, Aaron Allston worked for The Space Gamer magazine which was then a publication of Steve Jackson Games.  Steve Jackson returned from the Origins convention with news of the game and asked Aaron to review the game for the magazine.  Aaron did so and his positive review appears in issue 43 of The Space Gamer.  This article was quickly followed by a "proto-Strike Force" article entitled "Look Up in the sky..." in issue 48. 

In the article in issue 48, Allston describes how he came to be a CHAMPIONS player and game master -- he would later become one of its premiere contributors.

The superhero campaign of CHAMPIONS which I run, which is successful enough that it's been thrown out of TSG playtest sessions (it was crowding out all the other games), began as an irritation. Steve Jackson came back from Origins with the news that some new company in California had nabbed the name CHAMPIONS; I'd hoped to use CHAMPIONS on a personal game project.  I could review the Hero Games offering if I wished.  Wonderful.

 Looking over the rulebook, though, I was impressed.  The game appeared clear and coherent after a single read-through and seemed to faithfully simulated the four-color stuff of comic books.  Extensive solo playtesting ensured almost immediately, with the heroic Lightbearers waging a running war with the criminal mastermind Overlord.

In the end, Overlord's munitions-running scheme was wrecked; the Lightbearers disbanded, with one member dead and two others unwillingly allied with the villain; and I had chosen to run CHAMPIONS on a regular basis.

 There is a good deal more to the article in which Allston shares with potential players and game masters some guidelines and some pratfalls that might happen as one plays a super hero campaign.  How does one exactly acquire a super hero secret headquarters anyway?  One can see the foundations for the book STRIKE FORCE in the article, and Allston provides a nice glimpse into what can contribute to the running of a successful game.  As good as the article is, it pales in comparison to the CHAMPIONS sourcebook that Allston wrote based upon that early -- initially merely a playtest -- campaign.

Aaron Allston's STRIKE FORCE is one of the better campaign sourcebooks ever written.  It has a very simple arrangement.  It begins with a section on campaign use.  This section is not a how to plot an adventure section, as by 3rd edition CHAMPIONS had a pretty good chapter on that, rather it was advice for dealing with very specific problems.  This chapter covers the following:

• The "Character Story" -- discusses how to help players develop the character stories that they dreamed up when they initially created the character.
• Simulating the Comics -- discussed how to keep the players behaving in a four-color fashion.
• The New Player
• Aging the Hunteds -- How to make "Hunted" behave like real world constant interactions rather than as a mere random roll done each week.
• Listening to Your Players
• Ground Rules
• Translation Follies
• Types of CHAMPIONS Players -- The Builder, The Buddy, The Combat Monster, The Genre Fiend, The Copier, The Mad Slasher, The Mad Thinker, The Plumber, The Pro from Dover, The Romantic, The Rules Rapist, The Showoff, and The Tragedian.
• Character Conception Checklist
• How to Ruin Your Campaign

If Allston had written no other sections than the "types of players" and "how to ruin your campaign" sections of the sourcebook, this would be an invaluable resource.  Allston's breakdown of player types builds upon some of the discussions which had been going on in Different Worlds magazine and other places in the game-verse, but his clear description of the varied motivations of players is spot on and extremely useful.  Between STRIKE FORCE and Robin Law's book on Game Mastering Rules, you have almost everything you need to run any game successfully...if you follow the advice that is.

In addition to the overview on Campaign advice -- generic campaign advice -- Allston then continues providing an invaluable tool by giving us a look into his own campaign in the subsequent chapters of the book.  We are given an "Abbreviated History" of the STRIKE FORCE campaign, which can be used as an example or as an outline for one's own campaign.  He provides the full roll call of the STRIKE FORCE and SHADOW WARRIORS teams as well as Independent heroes and a number of Villains from the campaign.  This is followed by a detailed history of the campaign -- both his real world work and the in game history.  In the history, Allston shares some of the storytelling challenges he faced and how he overcame them in play.

If you can find a copy of the book, I highly recommend it.

[From The Archives] Surprised by Superhero 2044 -- The First Superhero RPG was More Influential than You Might Think

This post was originally published in June of 2010. Given the "rolling" format of blogs, I thought that I would repost it for newer readers. I was nicely surprised by Superhero: 2044, and will be blogging about Supergame soon as well as I own both the first and second editions of that superhero game.  After reading this review, Donald Saxman was kind enough to include the test of the post in a reprint of the game. 

 

According to Heroic Worlds by Lawrence Schick and Steve Perrin in Different Worlds #23, Superhero 2044 by Donald Saxman is the first commercially available superhero themed role playing game. Saxman's game was publishedin 1977 under the name Superhero '44. The game wasn't entitled Superhero 2044 until the game's second edition, when it was by Lou Zocchi's Gamescience Inc. later that same year. While I am a huge fan of super hero role playing games, and a student of the history of rpgs, this game sat on my bookshelf for years without a complete reading. Its lack of a list of itemized superpowers, and the mechanics of how they worked, was one of the key reasons that the game languished for so long on my shelf without a thorough examination. Apparently, Donald Saxman intentionally left a formal list of superpowers out of the book in order to respect the copyrights of various comic book publishers -- though that didn't stop artist Mike Cagle from providing a cover illustration filled with characters who bear an uncanny similarity to many popular comic book characters.

I just couldn't ever muster the desire to read or play a superhero role playing game that lacked a robust super power system. The recent release of Icons by Adamant Entertainment got my mind focused reading a new super hero rpg, and this opened the door for Superhero 2044 to work its way off the book shelf and into my reading pile. I quickly devoured the booklet and have come to the following conclusions.

First, Superhero 2044 is almost unplayable with its Rules as Written (RAW). The game is a jumble of multiple systems and contains no fewer than three major design directions, none of which are flowing in the same direction.

Second, without Superhero 2044 modern super hero role playing would not be what it is today. Those three major directions I mentioned above? Each of those had a significant influence on the super hero games that came after Superhero 2044. Without this game, there would be no Champions, Supergame, or Golden Heroes. Each of those super hero games lifts a concept out of Superhero 2044 and structures a game around that concept.

Superhero 2044 is more than the first super hero role playing game, it is the foundation upon which many games followed.

It was the first superhero game to include point based character construction. Though the point expenditure was limited to the building of a character's "attributes" and were not a part of "power design." This innovation, and at the time of Superhero 2044 this was a significant innovation, is one of the major design starting points for a number of super hero role playing games -- not the least of which is the Champions game.

Influence on Champions

Speaking of Champions, in addition to being inspired by the point based character design of Superhero 2044 it is evident that Champions melee combat system was influenced by Donald Saxman's game as well.

In Champions combat is resolved by taking a character's "Offensive Combat Value" and subtracting an opponent's "Defensive Combat Value." The result of that subtraction is then added to 11 to find the number required to hit an opponent on a roll of 3 six-sided dice. Champions combat system is one of the best on the market and the fact that it uses a comparison of combatant's effectiveness, and a bell curve resolution system, are among its chief strengths.

In Superhero 2044, you take a character's "Stamina" and subtract his opponents "Stamina." The difference between these two numbers is compared to the Universal Combat Matrix which gives you a number between 3 and 18 that the character must roll on 3 six-sided dice to determine if the character hit his opponent. It should be noted that this combat system is only used for "melee" combat in Superhero 2044, where it forms the foundation of Champions combat.

The Champions version is more elegant, as the result of the initial comparison is the modifier to the 3d6 roll, but it is the same system. It is as if the designers of Champions playtested and refined the Superhero 2044 melee combat system. Champions combat has some significant differences overall to Superhero 2044, but one can see that one echoes the other.

Influence on Supergame

Like Champions, Supergame was influenced by Superhero 2044's point based character generation system. Given its own 1980 design date, and the fact that it was a part of "California Gaming Culture," might hint that Supergame itself also influenced Champions. One sees the underpinnings of Superhero 2044 is in the purchase of a character's starting attributes.

Both systems feature something that many modern gamers might consider odd. All of a character's attributes start at zero and can be increased -- this itself isn't odd to the modern gamer. What is odd is that both games have attribute levels where the character is suffering from a disability. In Superhero 2044, if a character has an Endurance of less than 20 that character is "fatigued" or worse. In Supergame, a character with an "Agony Score" of less than 15 "may either move or attack, but only one per turn." There are similar penalties for "Vigor" in Superhero 2044 and "Physical Score" in Supergame. The names of the attributes and the level of effect are different, but one can see the similarities. Most modern systems would start a character with a base number of points sufficient to not be fatigued or incapacitated, but both Superhero 2044 and Supergame allow for the possibility.

But it isn't the point based character design where Supergame bears the most similarity to its predecessor. Supergame includes rules for building specific powers -- though not as robust the later published Champions -- that are themselves an innovation over the state of gaming at that time and a step beyond what were offered in Superhero 2044.

The area where Supergame most reflects Superhero 2044 is in its ranged combat system. In Superhero 2044, ranged combat is decided by rolling a six sided die and adding/subtracting to the die total applicable modifiers. This sets the target number that must be rolled, or higher, on a second roll of a six sided die. For example a character with a 20 Dexterity (-1) shooting an opponent at point blank range (-3) with a shoulder weapon (-1) rolls a 6 on a six sided die. This gives a modified result of 1 (6-1-3-1=1) and means that the character hits if the player rolls a 1 or better on the second roll. This system, with some differences in modifier values, is the system used in Supergame.

Influence on Golden Heroes

While I was intrigued by the way that Superhero 2044 influenced the design of American super hero role playing games, I was amazed at how it had influenced a British one. In White Dwarf magazine issue 9, game designer Eamon Bloomfield reviewed Superhero 44 -- Superhero 2044's first edition -- and wrote the following:

"Each character fills out a weekly planning sheet indicating whether he is patrolling, resting, training, or researching. This...show[s] how many crimes of what type he's stopped this week and at what damage to himself; without actually having to play the event...Overall good fun and realistic and a welcome addition to any role playing fan's collection. Certainly as a postal game it has a great future."

The weekly planning sheet is one of the most intriguing aspects of the Superhero 2044 game and the most playable aspect. The game includes weekly planning sheets that provide a number of "activity blocks" to which players assign particular tasks, like fighting crime or resting. Golden Heroes, Games Workshop's super hero role playing game, featured a campaign system that bears no small similarities to that of Superhero 2044. Games Workshop was, and still is, the publisher of White Dwarf magazine and so it is easy to believe that this game review sparked some discussion of "planning sheet" style campaign play.

Golden Heroes features a campaign system that heavily relies on something very similar to Superhero 2044's weekly planning sheet. They have a system that uses something called a "Daily Utility Phase" or DUPs. The game describes them as follows:

The scenarios played in each week occupy a certain number of DUPs for the characters involved. Any remaining DUPs can be devoted to other pursuits such as training, improving powers, developing scientific gadgets, etc.

Thus at the end of each scenario, you must inform the players how many spare DUPs their characters have. Preferably then, or at worst at the start of the next game session, the players must tell you how their characters have spent those DUPs.

The player's allocation of DUPs is compared to various campaign ratings, something vary similar to what Superhero 2044 calls "handicaps," in order to determine what events happen to the character and how much the character is able to improve over time. Both systems are dynamic and change as characters interact with the game world. The Golden Heroes system is more developed and is a part of a more complete system of mechanics, but it is unarguably a descendant of the Superhero 2044 system.

Closing Remarks

I wish I had read Superhero 2044 much sooner than I did. It is a definite diamond in the rough. While it would be difficult to play RAW, it has a large number of innovative mechanics and ideas. The fact that it contains enough ideas to influence no fewer than THREE super hero role playing games in their design is a significant achievement in and of itself. One cannot truly understand the development of the hobby without reading this game.

I think I will try to play the game itself soon, though I don't know if I will try to design a comprehensive powers system or use an existing one to supplement the game, as the campaign play system still stands out as something that has some depth and would be useful in a number of games. Given the abstract nature of the campaign planning system, one could easily adapt it to another game for use.

The game also features a detailed setting for super hero play. The setting lacks the microscopic detail of modern settings, but for the time the game was written it is quite intricate. Like the game itself, its setting is one that inspires addition and extension rather than provides a complete painting.

Donald Saxman has created something pretty special here and I'd love to see someone take this system and make a modern edition out of it. It would take some work, but it would be worth it.