From: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: marvel vs. Champions
Date: 20 Aug 92 16:35:25 GMT
Reply-To: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim)
Organization: Columbia University

jlb@engin.umich.edu (Jeffrey Lawrence Bailey) writes:
>I find people who like the control of character that Champions gives you,
>and I find (and _am_) people who like the freedom that the GM enjoys in
>controlling their world, if they're smart. 

	I am a little confused by this statement - GM control has nothing to 
do with the system in this case. MSH has random character generation which 
is no more and no less subject to GM control than Champions player-design 
character generation.

>
>I've heard that people don't appreciate the limiting structure and hideously
>labyrinthine point-cost arguments in Champs.  For example, it's literally
>near-impossible to run a high-power space campaign (such as the recent Marvel
>Operation Galactic Storm or Infinity Quest/Gauntlet/War/Whatever) without
>creating characters with about 5,000 points with no disads (or very few).

	This is two different points, IMO. Champions does not scale to those 
high levels of power as well as, say, DC Heroes - because you have to deal 
with unreasonably large numbers of dice to throw, etc. MSH also has scale 
problems if you move to Unearthly and beyond. 

	I agree that defining powers can be a hideously complex endeavor in 
Champions, and particularly daunting to beginners - but this is a separate 
problem from scaling difficulties. Because the system is so complete, Champs 
GM's are often unwilling to define new powers or otherwise simplify. In 
principle, defining a power in Champs can be just as easy as defining a 
power in MSH and GURPS - just use of GM fiat. However, Champs GM's are 
generally fairly anal about points (to be fair, so are most GURPS GM's that 
I have met). 

>
>Giving the GM maximum freedom in what players can and can't do prevents arg-
>uments in the future, and lets the GM establish a coherency in the characters
>that doesn't violate the premise of the campaign.

	This is rather backwards, IMO. The main reason to have rules, rather 
than just relying on GM opinion, is to establish consistancy. A primary 
function of the Champions point system is to answer the question of how, say, 
the Power Cosmic is affected by Neutralizing Man's energy-depleting force 
field. 
	Relying on the GM's opinion may be more sensible at times, and less 
complex, but it generally does not establish consistancy very well. In 
Champs, the question of how someone's cold field affects fire blasts is 
determined during character generation with how the powers are defined. 
In other games, it is a matter which the GM must produce a rule for when it 
comes up - which either requires good memories or a stenographer to maintain 
consistency. 
	Champions players also have a tendency to be anal about the rules, 
however, and may refuse to accept that the GM has authority over the rules 
(despite the fact that the rules say so). 

>
>Villains and Vigilantes has less definition than Marvel, and is for those
>gaming groups who have a well-defined world they want to create within a
>system.  That's another reflection of my problem with Champs:  no real esta-
>blished history.  They've tried, and they've got some decent progress with
>VIPER and some of the supplements (I particularly enjoy CLOWNS), but if you
>look at the points for Mechanon, you get this very incongruous 442-point
>"Villain Bonus" that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  Champs simply can't
>deal well with established characters.

	Sorry? I'm a little confused here. How is having a high power NPC in 
Champs any different than in the other systems? The "Villian Bonus" just 
indicates roughly how powerful the character should be in relation to the 
PC's. I think this might be better described as saying the villian is based 
on 542 points rather than 100 with a 442pt 'bonus', but that is largely a 
semantic difference. 

	True, Champs has not released any definitive timeline/history for 
their game-world like GURPS Supers, MSH, and DC. And IMO, most of the 
published Champions material is fairly awful - in particular the Enemies 
books collected from submitted material of vastly different campaigns. 
Decent works include Challenges for Champions, the 'Classic' collections, 
Enemies International (3rd Ed), and Wrath of the Horsemen (3rd Ed.). I am 
not too thrilled with Heroes Unlimited or GURPS Supers game-worlds', either, 
however. 

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John Kim                    | "Remember: a running man may slit a thousand
jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu | throats in a single night."
Columbia University         |                           - Klingon proverb