From: PCHEM14@Zeus.unomaha.edu (FALL88)
Subject: Re: marvel vs. Champions
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 04:18:46 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.11

In <#Nf-3JC@engin.umich.edu> jlb@engin.umich.edu writes:

> I have much debated the systems myself.  (I own both, and have played both.)
> 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've heard comments that Marvel
> causes unbalanced campaigns if everyone rolls up characters (like having the
> Punisher team up with Adam Warlock and Silver Surfer; while it sells comics,
> the Punisher should experience a massive inferiority complex, and so will the
> player).

If you like control of character and, as a GM, control of the world, what is
the problem.  You can have this with Champs, GURPS or DC.  Of the games
discussed in this post, only Heros Unlimited and Marvel fail to deliver on
these, by making players roll up characters with thier silly generators.
You seem to be trying to assert that a player controlling logical developemnt
of his character goes against GM controlling his world, but that is only true
if the GM refuses to moderate character development (see below).

> 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).
> I tend to agree that Marvel is a much more sensitive system, because it's so
> ill-defined.  Definition is limitation.

Excuse me, but you say it's 'near impossible to run....  without creating
characters with about 5000 points...'  So?  That says you can do it, just
like the system promises.  Becuase the system gives powerful characters a
high point-cost, doesn't mean there is an inherient flaw in it.  Rather,
this just proves (to a limited degree) that at least the point system is
somewhat effective in it's goal.  And, speaking of 5000 point characters,
have you actually run a heros-in-space game, or are you just estimating 
that it would take 5000 points?  I have set it up and looked at the various
consequences, and the characters worked out to about 1000 point each.  Is
this a problem?  No, it's simply a fact that the powerful space-faring
heros are worth 1000 points each.  That is all.  If you want to go and look
at Marvel and try to create a relative design system for it, you will find
that many of the space entities are pretty 'expensive' too.
 
> 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.

I hardly understand this statement.  As a Champs GM, I just tell the players
what is expected of them, and they give me my characters.  If I don't like
them, I had them back and explain my problems.  Then the character is fixed.
Simple.  You act as though the GM doesn't oversee character development.  If
anything will destroy a campaign right off the bat, it is a GM who doesn't do
that.  In *any* system.  In GURPS, it is the same way.  In Marvel, a GM who
holds to all of the dice rolls in character generation and won't step in when
one player is rolling feebles in his stats and the guy next to him is rolling
amazings is just asking for it, isn't he?  Complaining that common sense has
to be exercised isn't a complaint about a certian system, becuase it is true
of all systems.

> I also think Champs discourages anyone but the die-hard Grognard from joining
> as a new player.  DC and GURPS don't suffer from this particular aspect, be-
> cause they largely let the GM define a power.  I also have a fondness for
> Heroes Unlimited from Palladium, since it tends to merge the good aspects of
> both Marvel and Champs.

It may be true that Champs can put off new players.  IT does something that
no other system really dares to do: it gives you the basic mechanics, you
apply them as you see fit, creating a *lot* of flexibility.  GURPS and DC
hardly 'let the GM define a power', I don't have any idea what makes you think
that.  In these two games, the powers are more closely defined by the game
itself, not by the GM.  Champs/Hero kills both of these games when it comes
to this aspect: creating your own powers.  Why?  Becuase, once again, Champs
gives you the basic mechanics, you apply them and label them with special 
effects.  Both GURPS and DC have function, and I well respect them both,
but neither come close to the total control of mechanics like Champs does.
(Note: the latest edition of GURPS Supers touches on this at times, but does
not go as far as Champs does.  DC is kinda the same way, the powers are fairly
flexible and mallaeble, but have built in modifiers that serve the DC idea
of how powers work.  This is why I don't go for games like Marvel or DC, 
becuase you have to go and eliminate the specific elements of that publisher.)

Heros Unlimited is by far the worst game to enter the discussion so far.  What
does it have to offer?  Nothing that I can see.  Every time I have played this
game I have been disappointed.  It has silly 'classes' of characters, and it
has the old problem of the physical skills making you super-humanly strong and
tough too.  Bet you didn't know that you could raise your Strength from just
a little over average to game maxima with the right classes in college.  The
rules are incomplete, and require a working knowledge of the Palcladium system
to use.  I remember that they explained blocking with, "You can do it, and you
use a 20 sided die."  Didn't say anything about *how*, so I had to go to a
Palladium player and ask him, where he looked it up in his book and found a
better description.  I'd rather play Marvel than this game.  Heros Unlimited
loses the simplicity of Marvel and the elegance of Champs.  It's hardly a
good comprimise of the two.

> 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.

I have no idea what you are talking about.  First, like I said before, using
a certian number of points as an arguement that a game is poor is absolutely
silly.  To me, a lack of established history, except a little to help a
beginning GM, is a boon.  It means I haven't wasted $ on worthless Marvel
timelines and characters.

I'm sorry if the fact that Mechanon has a villian bonus bothers you so much,
but it's really irrelevant.  The point system's primary importance is to
help balance PC's in a fashion that the GM approves of.  Mechanon is a villian
made to take on more than one hero, which takes more power (read points).  The
reason it's just written off as a villian bonus is that the writers are trying
to get to a point that a friend of mine made so well, 

"Silly rabbit, points are for players."
                               - Bruce Tong

From what I can tell, you are complaining about pretty meaningless things.
You've harped on points a couple of times for no reason, and you've tried
to assert that DC and GURPS gives the GM better control of the powers.  The
only legitimate point you've made is that Champs is a bit more daunting to
the beginning GM, to which I agree.

> I've divided this into several sections.  When responding, please only quote
> those sections you want to discuss.  (And the rabid Champs fans out there
> in their ivory mega-processor towers, don't bother quoting when you respond.
> We'll recognize the foam.)

A pretty immature statement.  But don't worry, since you only made one
legitimate point about Champions I'm not afraid to quote 'till my little
heart is content.  Please pick on pertinent issues, not that it takes x
points to do such-and-such or that the GM doesn't have control.  Both of
these are not only untrue, but silly.

As to me, I like Champs, DC and GURPS Supers, in that order.  Marvel can be
entertaining at times, and Heros Unlimited is a loss.

-james
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy