Character Balance in RPGs

 

It's a quirk of the modern RPG scene that there is so much concern over "Balance". It really falls into two areas - 1) Character Balance and 2) Encounter Balance. It's almost an obsession in some corners of the internet and while bouncing back and forth between various Supers RPG and running a D&D style campaign I thought it was worth discussing here so let's do Characters today and Encounters tomorrow.

Character Balance shows up in a couple of places and in a couple of ways.

First up I see a ton of discussion around this with D&D 5E-style games. Playtest classes for upcoming expansions, new classes for new games like Tales of the Valiant ... as soon as something comes out there will be immediate numerical breakdowns of damage per round and similar CharOp metrics at different levels and given certain feat or weapon choices and honestly these days it's just tiresome most of the time. It's not as important as you might think.

 This kind of thing mainly got going during D&D 3E and became it's own mini-industry for some people while completely ignoring the RP part of the RPG. This became especially evident in mid to late 3E when "experts" were recommending ridiculous combinations of classes and prestige classes as the "optimal" choice that were never going to happen in any real game with an actual DM trying run even a semi-coherent campaign. They were only even slightly likely to be achievable via one of the Adventurer's League type games where there was no central DM and no need to play out how your human fighter/cleric/ranger managed to join and train with the elves' arcane archers. You still see a degree of this even now with some of the multiclassing recommendations that get posted as the optimal build for today's games. Again, what DM is going to just let that happen in an ongoing campaign?

It also tends to ignore the non-combat abilities of a character and class and that's a huge miss in my opinion - it's not just about combat! We do other things too! At least 5E made some effort to categorize three areas of the game with combat, exploration, and socialization within the rules. Whether they succeeded is something people like to debate but they at least put it in the book and hopefully 5.5 is doing an even better job. If you are playing in an ongoing campaign, with a steady group of other players, in a setting that is supposed to be a "real" fantasy world with some internal logic, then DPR and other number-crunched metrics are one of the least important things to worry about. Because once in the game who cares which character does more damage by a few points here or there? Why does that matter? You're not competing with the rest of the internet and you aren't really competing with your own party members - you're supposed to be on the same side most of the time when a fight breaks out. Are you happy with what your character can do in a fight? Are you happy with what they can do outside of a fight? If so then you probably made a good choice - regardless of what the various forums, Discord channels, and social media groups say. 

Point-based games are kind of built around this concept - the points are mainly for the PCs. The DM doesn't have to use them at all. If all  the PCs are using the same points totals then they are all equal on some level within the game system. That said this type of game, even more than D&D style games, need DM supervision to reign in extreme character choices. Things like active point limits in Hero and power level limits in M&M help, but there are still ways to break things - with the great freedom that point-based games give you comes the need to work within the framework of the specific campaign. Not everything needs to be optimized. Not everything needs to be a variable power pool or a multipower or put in an array. With this type of game if one character does more damage than another that should be the result of deliberate choices on the part of those players and there is nothing wrong with that. 

If this stuff matters in your group it can be discussed in the good old session zero - "I really want to play a tank this time" or "I want to play a sneaky DPS guy" - I think most people get what this means now. My group still discusses classes and races (if applicable) when we start a new game and possible roles within the group if it's a less-structured game like Savage Worlds but it's done in a very open way and we don't really have anyone that thinks there can be only one of a type or class within the party or that wants to compare DPR numbers. They will find combos and they will absolutely break classes but it's not a competitive thing because they don't care who is the "best" most of the time. That said the cleric and the paladin in my current game trying to top each other's armor class has been pretty entertaining. 

Then of course there are games that absolutely do not care about balance between different classes or character types. Old school D&D doesn't care much at all, certainly not math-wise. Traveller doesn't care - one character might have 4 levels of "Bureaucracy" and "Pistol-0" if they're lucky while another may have Combat Rifleman - 5 and Cutlass - 3. Both are viable because combat isn't the only thing in the game - personal combat is only one of several options for combat - and it's a big universe with a lot of things to do. Getting your guns onto that  planet with law level 9 is going to take some Bureaucracy skill - probably some Bribery skill as well.

Really any game where random rolls are a major feature of character creation has an inherent lack of concern for character balance. If I end up with an 18 strength and you end up with an 8 we are headed in different directions with D&D combat. D&D, Traveller, Villains & Vigilantes, Cyberpunk, Gamma World, Runequest - all of these have random character generation, many beyond just determining ability scores, and yet we played them all, sometimes for years, and no one argued about this.

The game most openly, brazenly even,  unconcerned with balanced characters in my opinion is original recipe Rifts. Random stat generation then your race/class choice dictates everything else and on no level are they balanced. In a game where you could play a Glitter Boy, a more general robot or power armor pilot, a juicer, a wizard, or a dragon hatchling I have seen people choose to play the Rogue Scientist - sort of a post-apocalyptic Indiana Jones who's signature feature is that they get a lot of skills. No special combat abilities, no extra luck, no magic, no power armor, and the same standard equipment options everyone else gets. 

People make choices in these games, even when given obviously more powerful options, to play the things they want to play, the things that call out to them. My take on the "truth" of character balance is that as much as it's a feature of online discussion and debate it really doesn't matter all that much in actual play in an ongoing campaign. Sure, people will optimize or power game some things sometimes but they tend to do it with character types they are already interested in beyond whatever the numbers say. The prospect of living with the same character for months or years brings perspective that goes beyond the numbers.

Champions Complete

 

So ... it's been a while, but I have hopes of actually getting something going before the end of this wonderful year. Deprivation followed by a bit of hope  can send you to strange places so I found myself finally picking up a copy of Champions Complete!

First up it's funny how so much of this is still locked into my brain. I started playing Champions - 2nd edition, officially - about 1983 and the core of this 6th edition of the game is incredibly similar. Most of the changes are in details and clarifications, not in the way the game works. 

This book is a reworking of the 6th edition Hero System rules and the 6th edition Champions sourcebook to get back to giving players a one-stop source for "Hey let's play Champions" that does not require two big hardback rulebooks and another big sourcebook just to play the damn game. You know - like it was up through 4th edition. It's 240 pages long, softcover, black and white inside, and is listed at $30 though it can usually be found for less than that online at least. 

Side note: I bought this and the D&D 5th edition Eberron book on the same day from the same place and both of them were $22. The 5E book is hardcover, full-color throughout, and 1/3 longer. It's a clear demonstration of the power of the print run and scaling advantages. 

Hero 6th edition came out ... ten years ago. Sheesh. I stopped at 5th because I was still catching up with 5th edition and it's lengthy line of books when 6th was announced and I was also keeping up with 4th edition D&D and it's impressive run of books as well. Considering we never played Hero 5th, not even once, it made little sense at the time to me to start picking up a new version. Plus somewhere along the way I realized I would probably just use 4th and my damn-near-complete set of books for it if we got a serious Champions itch going. So I'm seeing some of the 6E changes up close for the first time. Thoughts below:

If you've played and remember the core of what Hero System is like from an earlier edition you will find it's very similar. The stats are very similar though the point costs are different as this edition has completely removed the whole derived stats concept. So if you want to make a character who is great at sleight of hand but terrible at dodging and shooting things you don't have to do anything complicated - you buy up Dex and do nothing for OCV or DCV. most still have a base value, pretty much what the old versions used if you had the human average of 10 in your core stats, but your character's Con, Body, Stun, PD, and ED are completely unrelated to each other mechanically. Dex is still an important stat but it's no longer the god stat that it was as it's unrelated to your CV's and your Spd. Overall I'm fine with this change as while it seemed intuitive back when it was new it does make some assumptions about characters and as time has gone on and more complicated concepts have emerged it's totally fine to de-couple these things. 

System-wise you still build a character out of points with a base allotment and then an expected amount from "Complications" - the new name for Disadvantages. It's a little more clear as a name for what it covers and I'm fine with that change too. There are actually fewer discrete complications than I recall because most of them are folded into Physical (which we always had), Psychological (which seems even broader than before), or Social (seems new to me but makes a ton of sense as a category) complications, plus the old standbys like DNPCs and Hunteds. 

You still have skills and they still work the same way with a 3d6 roll-under approach. A typical roll is still an 11-, with a familiarity being a fixed 8-, and a nice sidebar on what the various other levels mean and how you might rank up compared to the world at large. Levels are still a thing too and combat levels have been thoroughly fleshed out to where I think you can aim to achieve pretty specific things via levels alone. 

Powers and  power modifiers take up a big chunk of the book (as they should) and I don't see any problems here either. Some things have been combined or refined or clarified and I can see where they have tweaked some areas I remember being tricky or unclear. I have not really spent much time trying to recreate any old characters -yet- but I didn't see anything ridiculously different. Well, "Energy Blast" is now "Blast" - I mean it makes sense and that might have changed in 5th but it's been "Energy Blast" since I was about 13 so it stood out to me.

In fact, each of the "bigger" to my mind, or maybe "more complicated" powers has a very cool discussion of how it works and interactions with other parts of the game. Things like telekinesis and teleportation and even stretching are covered like this. A lot of powers that at one point in the game were described mechanically and left a lot of implications and loopholes for enterprising players to explore are much less so now with some discussion of modifiers included right there in the listing for the power itself. The improvements in this section are some of my favorite parts of the book. 

One other major flaw with Hero for me in recent years is the lack of a Fate/Force/Hero point/Bennie mechanic like most other RPG's have now and have had for decades in some cases. At the least they are a way for players to smooth out the extreme whims of the dice gods and in many cases they allow for some scene editing that makes a ton of sense in a comic book game. Champions hasn't had that ... but it does now: Page 130 of this book - "Heroic Action Points". It's not as completely fleshed out as Savage Worlds' Bennies or Mutants & Masterminds Hero Points as they are  straight-up 1 to 1 dice modifiers but it is a start and I could work with it from there. 

Final notes:

• Yes, the vehicle construction and combat rules are included
• Yes there are base-building rules included as well
• Yes there are rules for heroic or agent level play with normal characteristic maxima, hit locations, bleeding, and all of those optional combat rule changes you sometimes see with that style of play.
• There are some excellent, excellent examples of actual well-known comic book hero powers: power rings (built as a multipower and not a VPP - I was shocked), claws, invulnerable shields, web shooters, utility belts - solid solid solid.
• The sourcebook section is a good start - types of characters, types of campaigns, villain motivations, and more. There are tons of additional material of this type in the Champions line alone, much less the universe of superhero RPG's but it is not wasted space here. 

In case it wasn't clear I am really impressed with this book. It is truly a one-volume rulebook for playing and running Champions. They actually did it! For context, the "normal" 6th edition rules were split into two separate books that are almost 800 pages long combined. The Champions book which is mainly sourcebook type material and not a duplication of the core rulebook material and adds another 300 pages. So, on some level here we have a 240 page book that accomplishes what you might have taken 1100 pages previously! The Hero bloat, especially with 5th and then 6th, was real. It's nice to see the realization of that and that action was taken for those of us who would like it to stay a game, not a lifestyle choice. 

Day 17: Which RPG have you owned the longest but not played?

I had to do a lot of thinking while standing in the main "library" room to answer this.

If we start counting different editions as different games then it's probably Hero 5th edition. It came out in 2002, I bought it that year, and I've never run it or played it with anyone. That's 15 years and that's a pretty long dry spell for me.

I've never run Aces and Eights and that came out in 2007 so that's ten years.

Underground is in this discussion too. It came out in 1993, I've owned a copy since around that time, and I think we made characters for it once but never had another session where we actually ran.

Hackmaster is in a similar situation: Had it since around 2001 but never ran it. We played around with making characters but never had an actual run and we were so wrapped up in 3E D&D at that time that it was never going to get serious attention.

If you don't count character creation as "playing" then those two would bump Hero 5 down to third place.

There are some other games that have been out longer that I have not played but I did not pick them up until later. I have a pretty decent collection of RPG's but unlike a lot of collectors I usually pick up stuff with the intent to play, not just store it on a shelf. Now I may have only run them once, but the vast majority of the games I own have been played at some point.

That said I own a fair number of RPG's I haven't run or played in 20+ years. I may have played them a ton in the 80's or 90's but for whatever reason I haven't touched them in the 2000's. They may have been superseded by later editions, no one else is interested in playing them, or tastes may just have changed but they still have some value to me and so they remain.

Fantasy Hero Complete

So this is the cover of the new "Fantasy Hero Complete"

Following in the footsteps of "Champions Complete" it's a one-stop book for using Hero System to run a fantasy RPG. I love the idea, as Fantasy Hero is a great system, but what is going on with that cover illustration? Is this a shot from a blooper reel? Why is everyone cracking up? It's like a SNL skit gone wrong. What is supposed to be happening here? To contrast, here are some of the prior covers of Fantasy Hero:

First edition is a little static but it looks like a dungeon crawl of the time. Also, that font/logo is a million times better than the one on "complete". Also interesting - first edition was a complete standalone game too.

It looks like there was a kickstarter last year (that I somehow missed) to do this complete version.  I'm disappionted in a  way that the game isn't doing better. It's one of the older "not D&D" fantasy games still around and it's a great system though it does go against the current popular trend of "simpler is better." It's also not an OSR game, so no pocket of resistance there. Players who enjoy more complex rules are probably already playing Pathfinder so there's not a lot of room to recruit new players. I suspect there's just not enough of a critical mass of hero gamers out there to do much more with it right now.

Had a hard time finding a decent cover shot online so that's a scan of my old battered book. Note the Elmore cover - they could afford decent cover art at some point.

In the 80's & 90's though it was a fairly popular game. I played various incarnations of Hero in college quite a bit, mostly Champions but we used it for Fantasy as well. It made a nice alternative if you were tired of 2nd ed. AD&D but didn't necessarily want to go gritty like with Runequest or GURPS. I ran a homebrew campaign of my own in the mid 90's that was well-received and I've always wanted to go back to that someday.

Same here - scanning in the old warhorses. Also an Elmore cover

The second release of Fantasy Hero came out about 1990 and that's the version we played the most. I suspect the 90's were the peal of popularity with Champions 4th edition being regularly supported and even Fantasy Hero had a pair of companion supplements released. Between the 3 books there was a very large number of races and schools of magic available, making it pretty easy to find something you liked or an example that could be used to build your own version of a particular concept.

Just for grins, here's the back cover of the FH Companion II

When Hero 5th edition came out in 2002  it brought another release of FH which was a single huge volume. I never played much with this edition but it did bring a new wrinkle: settings.

Not a terrible cover and it wraps around to the back

Previous editions of FH (and Hero System in general) were strong on mechanics and campaign advice but lacked a published setting to tie things together.  Now with Hero being the ultimate toolkit some might say that it didn't really need a published setting as everyone was going to homebrew or convert their own. Looking back though, I disagree. Based on the past 30+ years of RPG history I think settings are what keep people playing your game. Sure, mechanics are important but mechanics just do not inspire loyalty the way a strong setting does. Look at the Forgotten Relams, Greyhawk, Glorantha, and even Pathfinder's Golarion has a strong following now. Deadlands is another example. Also, licensed settings like Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, and DC change mechanics with every edition but certain groups roll with those changes because they love the setting regardless.

Pretty effective cover

For 5th edition Hero there were 3 published settings:

The Turakian Age - the high fantasy big magic setting

The Valdoran Age - the low fantasy swords and sorcery setting

Not the most inspiring cover - what is this, a Traveller supplement? (I don't own this one)

Tuala Morn  - The Celtic setting

Now all of these were single-volumes with one book and no other real support but it's a big step up from where things were before this. 

Unfortunately this version was up against 3E D&D and the d20 revolution and I believe that tidal wave just rolled over and smothered much of the conversation and interest with Hero. I know it did with my own group, and the few other people I knew who played it in the past pretty much lost interest during this time. That said Fantasy Hero for 5th did also receive a bestiary, a grimoire of spells, and a "Battlegrounds" book with maps ad adventures intended to be dropped into any campaign. This was the most published support FH had ever seen. I think timing, ot the quality of the game, was the biggest issue here. 

With 6th edition Hero there was of course a new Fantasy Hero as well. I know nothing about it other than it exists and probably covers a lot of the same ground as the previous 3 editions. Requiring the buy-in of Hero Basic and Hero Advanced (6th edition finally split Hero System core into two books - two not-small books) plus this game probably damaged it's chances, especially in this era of simpler, faster RPGs. Fantasy Hero complete is a good move in my opinion as making it a one-book game gives it a much better chance to find some traction out there.

I do think Fantasy Hero has a chance. With D&D 5th's extremely slow release schedule I think there's a chance to connect with gamers who are tired of Pathfinder, not feeling a lot of love for D&D, and maybe not super-committed to 13th Age or one of the OSR games. FH has the mechanics already. For example, D&D looks at flying PC's and says "oh that's a problem". Fantasy Hero looks at flying PC's and says "Cool - 15 points" and has a system built to handle that kind of thing. It's great strength is that you can break away from the limited concepts of player character races found in most fantasy games combined with the lack of character classes and create any kind of world you want while knowing the mechanical underpinnings of the game will be solid. If you want a world where the Hawkmen from Flash Gordon, Warforged from Eberron,  Frost Giants, the talking animals from Narnia, and the Horta from Star Trek are all playable races then Fantasy Hero is the perfect game for that. Maybe you want six different and mechanically distinct magic systems - FH can do that. Breaking out of these mechanical limitations also tends to free me up at least from a lot of other conventional thinking so I've written up campaigns with FH in mind that were set on a flat earth and a fantasy ringworld. 

For the future, I hope Hero Games can do more. The wishlist:

• I'd like to see, well ... better art. It does matter. Even a "line artist" to help get some attention and make it look like a modern game line would be a big improvement. Look at everything from Pathfinder to D&D 4E to D&D 5E to games like ICONS and Mutants and Masterminds. They tend to have a certain "look" especially when it comes to covers. They came close to this with 5th edition, then gave up.
• I would limit the number of books of rules material but something like a bestiary or expanded race-building options is probably good. Mass combat, kingdom ruling, and expanded magic examples and options would be fine based on past history. I think a lot of this kind of thing would be best handled through PDF support.
• The big one is a setting. A great setting that demonstrates what FH does better than other games. There have to be some out there from long time players. Just as an example, Pathfinder has had adventure paths focusing on epic, mythic power in a war against a demon invasion - Hero could do that. PF has also had one about crossing technology and fantasy - FH could do that easily. I'd look for something beyond those but thinking on at least that level is a start. 

That's probably more than enough on the subject but the Hero System in general, and  Fantasy Hero in particular, is an old flame of mine and it's worth a few more electrons that a lot of games. Hopefully this is the start of a new and better run for the game.

RPGaDAY - Day 6 - Favorite RPG that you never get to play

A few weeks ago I might have said "Savage Worlds" but I'm fixing that particular problem so I'll say it's this:

The Original

I've owned this game since 1982, picked up every version except the latest, have a ton of supplements for it, and haven't run or played it in at least ten years. Why?

• It's a fairly complex game that rewards "system mastery" but not many people want to take the time to "master" it nowadays.
• Combat is complicated, though I don;t think it's much more complicated than most 3E/4E/Pathfinder D&D games and like those it smooths out a bunch with experience
• Champions books were everywhere in the 90's during 4th edition. Most RPG'ers knew about Champions/Hero System. Then the company that published it hit some hard times and it took a few years to get the game back on track with a new publisher. I think this put it behind the curve of the 3E boom when a lot of people came to/came back to RPG's circa 2000 and it never really caught up in "mindshare". Now it's on a 6th edition and it still almost non-existent in game stores as the company again has had some rough times the last few years. 
• It covers a lot of genres but it was always best known for Superheroes, and in the last 10-15 years a bunch of superhero RPG's have come along, from Mutants and Masterminds to ICONS. Not all of them have survived, but going from 3 or so popular superhero games to half a dozen or more really segmented up what was already a niche genre.

The Peak

It's big advantage though is that it models anything you can dream up with a system that is pretty crunchy and uses a point system that has 30+ years of actual play behind it so when they say "balance" it's not just a bullet on a list of design goals. It's also pretty fun to play (and run) based on my more-distant-than-I-would-like memories. There is also quite a bit of supporting material developed over the years and even more from hardcore fans on the internet.

The Current
(and wow that is not my favorite cover)

I really need to find a way to work this game in to the rotation.

There IS a Hero System Combat Manager!

On a prior zero-prep post I made this comment:

"If there was program like Combat Manager for Hero System, I would run a lot more Champions than I do."

Well, it turns out they have one now. The Hero store has it here. It is linked to Hero Designer, but if I decide to dive back in to Hero in a significant way I would want that anyway. 

There is a video of it in use here. It's interesting. The interface is pretty plain, but it looks like it works well enough.

Now it works with 5th or 6th edition, as does Designer. I own 5th but have never really done much with it and skipped 6th entirely. I was thinking 4th would be my preferred flavor of Champions if I started something with it but the availability of these does make that call a little tougher.  I'll have to ponder this one for a while.

Magic Systems

Because it had the WIld Mage, that's why

Confession: D&D's magic system is not my favorite. It works, and I'm comfortable with it, but there are other games that do a lot more with magic than any edition of D&D. Barking Alien had a post or two on this that sparked a fair amount of discussion and I wanted to expand on some of my comments there.

Magic is one of the distinguishing features of a fantasy game and to me there are two main elements of interest: mechanics and feel. Rather than go into a bunch of theory I'l talk about some specific games.

I'll use D&D as the baseline for my comparison - because it was the baseline for me. Mechanically magic is limited but 100% reliable: spells always go off, magic items always work. There are saving throws, but even then there is often some negative effect applied. At first this was fine but in comparison to to other approaches it doesn't feel especially "magical". It can feel more like science or superpowers at times

Example: a wand of fireballs typically has 50 charges. A 50 charge limitation is not much of a limitation in Champions, and that wand will always work and will always inflict some kind of damage unless you use it on a foe that's highly resistant to fire, specifically.

Now this saves a lot of player aggravation but magic in books and movies is often portrayed as risky business, not an infinitely-repeatable formula. It is also often shown as being draining or tiring to the magic-user - not so in D&D. Magical items are typically rare and wondrous, perhaps a relic of a past age - a wand of fireballs is something a medium level wizard can crank out every month if he wants.

Also in some sources wizardy types are portrayed as having more than just a spell list - they can sense magic, see things others can't see, and know arcane lore that others have no need to know. In the later versions of D&D you can give them some knowledge:arcane type skills but the closes they come to the rest of it is Read Magic and Detect Magic, which mechanically are the same as every other spell. They can't automatically see "magic" or tell that an item is magical just by touching it.

All that said I'm perfectly fine with D&D as-is, because at this point D&D is just expected to work a certain way and the tolerance for change is pretty narrow. Still, sometimes I'm in the mood for a different flavor of magic.

The first system I recall that felt really different to me was GURPS Magic. Now I had been exposed to Fantasy Hero and WFRP 1E before I ever played GURPS but those didn't register the way it did. Here was a system where magic was not going to wipe out an army but had far more utility type effects built in. Spells were learned as a special type of skill which meant even a starting wizard could have many of them and there was a chance they wouldn't work! Casting limits were determined by your skill and by your ability to handle the energy physically - go too far and it started causing fatigue! Go even farther and it could cause serious damage! Mechanically it fit with the rest of the game, and it felt like a completely different approach than D&D - wizards had broader abilities but  less powerful spells at an individual level and it felt much more personal. It also played more like art than science to me. Beyond the general "main" GURPS magic system there was room for different approaches such as Unlimited Mana. Magic items were also less powerful and less common than in most D&D campaigns.

Warhammer FRP, second edition, coming years later, had another great system. In Warhammer magic is inherently dangerous, tapping in to the power of chaos which has temptations similar to that of the Dark Side, and far more corrupting to those who succumb. It is tolerated as a necessary tool to fight the real threats coming from Chaos directly but it is not sure and not safe.In this system skill and experience help but there is always a chance that the winds of magic (flowing from the chaos wastes at the north and south poles of the world) will blow the wrong way at the wrong time and bad things will happen. Smaller effects are fairly safe but screwing up something big can result in anything from a physical mutation to daemonic possession. It's a "grim world of perilous adventure" and the magic system feels like it springs directly from that world.

Sure, there's a chance your wizard may go insane but there's enough mind-bending stuff in the world that everyone else has a pretty good chance of losing it too if they go poking into ruins and tomes of forbidden lore. They might also end up maimed, mutated, or dead as well so the risks are a part of the lifestyle. It's a pretty fair cross between D&D and Call of Cthulu. Notably, magic items are closer to D&D style - most are potent and many are permanent, though you're not going to be cranking out magic swords or fireball wands in this game.

Beyond the mechanics there is a lot of atmosphere tied to magic as well - much of it is secret, there is always more to learn, and there is a price for learning it too quickly. Plus if word gets out that a PC is delving too deeply into the secrets of chaos it's a pretty good bet there will be witchunters on his trail, something unlikely to happen to magic types in most other fantasy games.

Finally the other game I wanted to mention came out in between those first two - Shadowrun. Playing a magic type in Shadowrun feels more complete than any other game I have played.  Sure, they know spells, and they are often quite potent, but they are so much more. Summoning elementals or spirits is built right in to the mechanics and explained very well in the "fluff". Basic spellcasting works about like a skill and is not a sure thing all of the time. Casters have to resist fatigue similar to GURPS and can push themselves into taking physical damage if they go to far. They can create temporary magical effects tied to an item. They can use items as a focus to increase their casting power. There are permanent items but the powerful ones are fairly rare and typically only good to the magically aware.

Spirits are a big part of the game and are far more than meatshields. Summoning a spirit lets you use them for that of course, but they can also be asked to perform various services, used for combat effects (like armor),  or even be used to power spells! The whole spirit/elemental subsystem is very well done and makes it feel like an integral part of how magic works.

The biggest differentiation for me though is astral space. Being magically active automatically ties you to the astral plane. You can feel magic and if you "asense" you can see into the astral plane and see what a magical person/place/object is and gain some information about them. You can see a spell or a spirit coming. If seeing isn't enough you can fully shift over to the astral plane, basically moving to another layer of reality to deal with threats that way. It's a cool concept and it works well within the game and it feels "right" for what mages are about in this universe. Mages are aware of and vulnerable/exposed to things that mundanes never have to deal with, and it makes the whole system something special.

There are other little touches as well - centering, initiation, lodges, totems, "background count", and all of the little things that mages can dig into.

And that's only one type of character in the game!

Getting back to D&D, I have mostly played clerics in my limited playing time, and for them I think the D&D system works just fine - calling on your personal relationship with a deity to power magical effects, well, it should be pretty reliable. For wizard types though I lean more towards introducing some risks and that's probably why I favor the Wild Mage. They were big in second edition and there was some crazy stuff they could pull off (and some horrible accidents too). I think there was a prestige class for them in 3E but I never saw one in play and that seems like a reduction anyway - let me play it from 1st level! They came back in 4E as a type of sorcerer and while not as over the top as the 2E versions they still have that random element that I enjoy so much. I hope they will make a return in some expansion for Next to help keep things lively. It's not always about mechanics, sometimes it's just about feel.

Character Builders

I'm seriously considering some character building software. The 4E offline builder opened the door, the ICONS Character Folio opened it a lot more (it's a lot of fun), and now I'm really sliding down the slope.

First, I'm thinking about HeroLab because it seems to be the standard and I could use it for Mutants and Masterminds right now. There are some things I want to convert from M&M 2E and software would make it much easier. The Apprentices impressive lack of ability to keep up with their character sheets for most games is also a consideration here. The character sheet output looks nice too. Beyond that it has sets for Savage Worlds, Shadowrun, and it interfaces with DDI. I might dig into the authoring tools as well and see if I couldn't learn something and tune it up for some other games.

Second, I'm thinking about signing on to DDI - despite my dislike of the subscription-based approach - for two reasons: The Monster Builder would save a lot of time on my conversion activities and I still like to have a printed monster sheet in front of me when I play. Additionally I think it's time to pull down all of the 4th Edition material while it's available and I'm running some campaigns. No, WOTC shouldn't pull it all off of the web just because a new edition is coming or after one launches - it's not like there's much expense in keeping it available - but it has happened before and there is some good stuff on there that I don't have. As much time as I spend running 4E games, I feel like it's worth ten bucks to try it out.

Finally I'd like to get Hero Designer just because I like to tinker with Champions characters and that's easier to do in software than on paper. Also it supports 5th and 6th edition and some 5E updates of some of the old 3E/4E characters would be a lot of fun and less time consuming with it. No I'm not running a Hero game (yet) so this would be a total indulgence on my part. I try to have a real use for the gaming stuff I buy, and I try to focus my money on games I am actually running, and this would not fall into that category. I'm still thinking about it. Mostly I'm thinking about which day this week to do it.

If any readers have any personal experience with any of these, I'd be interested in what you have to say. If I proceed with any of them I will share my experiences.

Unfortunate Character Choices Returns! - The Ruler of Crime

I thought I was out of worthy candidates for this special honor - but I'm not! Picking up some older Champions material that I had never read has revealed another Unfortunate, and I'm calling him a Top 3 candidate. I give you the Ruler of Crime:

I really laughed out loud when I saw this near the back of Enemies: The International File. Wow, that is just terrible. I don't think Superfriends stooped that low. With that costume and that name the only crime this guy is qualified to commit is stealing Hostess Fruit Pies. I'm glad they left him mouthless as it makes quite a bit more menacing - until you see the numbers down his side.

Wait, I found another possible home for him:

"Hold it right there Crime Ruler! It looks like your plan has come up short!"
(I can play this game all day)

I was thinking that surely he was some kind of gimmick growth/shrinking guy with a humorous background. Oh no, we can't do that - he has a completely serious backstory as a genius child prodigy who sidekicks for a villain named the Sniper and then takes over for his Aryan scientist father as a criminal mastermind in Brazil. What are his powers? Let's take a look.

Now this book came out in 1988 so we see the soon-to-be-very-familiar 4th edition style statblock. His first two powers are "Shrinking Gas grenades" and those next two are from his "Tape Measure belt" which generates a protective forcefield and will shock anyone who touches him. He also has flash defense, UV vision, and life support from his costume. So he's spent over 100 points already on gadgets that have nothing to do with his actual powers!

Then we get to Elemental Control - Detection Abilities. Sure.

• Detect and analyze distances - seriously? Mechanically how often is this going to be useful? The game doesn't restrict measurements during the game anyway? Has anyone had this arise as a challenge in any super RPG session? "Oh, if only we knew how far away that guy is." Realistically I know that we had laser rangefinders in 1988 so is this really a superpower? 
• Detect and analyze trajectory? Again, when does this come up? How does it help?
• Detect and analyze size and weight? OK if Indy has this at the beginning of Raiders then it's a less action-packed opening sequence but is that really a 20-point super power? 

Aren't all of these really more of a talent like "Bump of Direction" - note: BoD is 3 points in the BBB. I know everything wasn't quite integrated yet but going by the visual design it was clearly being worked on. To continue:

• Telescopic Vision - fine, but it can still be replaced by binoculars or a scope
• Danger Sense - At last, a useful power. It's explained in the text as some kind of minor telepathy springing from his super-brain. I'm not sure I'd allow it in an EC when it's conceptually different from his "uncanny ability to know the exact distance between any two objects" but we're on pretty shaky ground already with this guy.

Combat: He's supposed to be a behind-the-scenes mastermind but he has a force field and a damage aura so I think he's fair game. What if some rival copied his famous tape-measure belt and touched HIM? We would have a 6d6 energy attack vs. 16 points of ED. That's going to average out to 21 Stun and 6 Body. With 35 Stun and an 18 Con he could actually take that for awhile with no ill effects

Say he gets hit by the generic 12d6 Energy Blast - that's 42 Stun and 12 Body. That's going to let 26 Stun through, stunning him (Con 18 remember) and the second hit is going to floor him even if he gets a Recovery in there. So he's not particularly tough, and with a OCV/DCV of 6 his Speed of 5 is best used to run away. At least he doesn't have any x2 Body or Stun disadvantages.

He does have a pile of disads though: Arrogant, Overconfident, Ruthless, sees others as disposable, addicted to drugs, dependent on drugs - wow, that is an excuse for any kind of bad behavior the DM wants to engage in. He's also hunted by four different agencies, which seems like a fairly significant problem.

So we have a puntastic name and a ridiculous concept topped off with a weakly themed set of powers - what's not to like? Well, there's also a disconnect with the background. He is described as not being an action-seeking guy preferring to let his soldiers do the work but his powers are all dependent on direct action! The only thing useful out of combat is maybe his Forgery skill and his 28 Int! Even his tertiary abilities seem to be direct action-focused: Disguise, Security Systems, and a 30 point Gun Pool! Shouldn't he have minions or agents of some kind in their little ruler-themed uniforms? Maybe some kind of distance-distortion gun - mechanically an entangle that takes no damage from attacks? Maybe a flash attack themed as a cloud of numbers clouding one's vision? Some kind of telescoping ruler that is a monofilament blade? "I have discovered Measurement Zero! - Now taste it's edge!" I mean if you're going to crack open the can of goofy, then let's go all the way! Where is his nemesis hero Mister Metric? Come on!

Missile Deflection vs. all attacks, self only, OAF Ruler-fan, 10 points
(This really isn't that hard once you embrace the madness)

So there he is in all of his glory, the Ruler of Crime, likely the least-scary 597 point villain in all of Champions lore. I'll be keeping my eyes open for more like him as I read through some classic Champions material, but I don't know if I can top this one.

The Rambling End of the Year Post for 2011

The Amazing Aluminum Man keeps an eye on Baby New Year - just in case

Wrapping up a few loose ends and clearing the decks for 2012:


 - A week or so before Christmas: Wizards of the Coast's annual Christmas layoffs appear to have begun. So far, casualties appear to include Rich Baker and Steve Winter. Yeah that's great. A wonderful holiday tradition. I've been "downsized" a few times over the years ad it's not fun at any time of the year. Hopefulyy (given their time with the company) there were severance packages sufficient to see them through the holidays and find something new.

 - Going back to Thanksgiving: Hero Games has been around for 30 years with ups and downs. The economy's been pretty rough lately, as has the gaming market. With declining sales and fewer releases, Hero has reached the point where it's no longer possible to maintain a full time staff of three, so it's scaling back. Darren and Steve will be departing December 2nd, with our thanks for a decade of hard work that gave us 108 books, and best wishes for their future endeavors, which may include producing new books under a Hero System license. We'll keep you posted on that. Jason will remain to continue shipping books and handling day-to-day matters. Existing books will continue to be available for purchase, and the company will continue in business, just a bit more slowly. The online store remains open. Steve will continue to answer rules questions on the Hero boards as "the guy who wrote the rulebook." We're looking into doing a Kickstarter to print Book of the Empress, since it's complete and ready to go. For the near future Hero would appreciate your kind thoughts and your patience. Transition periods of this sort take time, and Jason has a lot of work cut out for him, so the support of our fans is much appreciated. Wow more good news. Forum discussion here.

I think Hero's biggest problem is that while it has a great system (one of the best if you like crunch) it doesn't have any compelling worlds to play in. 5th edition was sold primarily as a toolkit and the game universes were left as sort of an add-on. People get interested in systems but they get attached to worlds and Hero has little in the way of shared experiences the way everything from D&D to RuneQuest to Traveller to Pathfinder has. Even Champions has only a proto-universe that gets rewritten every time the edition changes. The first Champions game I played had Gargoyle and Marksman as heroes. Then we got Seeker and Obsidian. Now we have Ironclad and some other new faces. Sure some of the villains are still in the game, and some of the organizations, but they change pretty drastically between editions too, and that's their BEST universe! What's a compelliong reason to play Star Hero? It lets you do anything you want? Traveller covers a lot of that ground, and so does Savage Worlds, and if I'm looking for a universe they have everything from the Third Imperium to Hammer's Slammers to Slipstream! Same question for Fantasy Hero - if I haven't been a fan since the 80's or 90's, why should I even look at it? Between the 14 versions of D&D out there from OSR clones to Pathfinder to 4E I have a whole lot of D&D to choose from. Oh wait, it's "not D&D"? Well I have everything from RQ to  WFRP to Savage Worlds (again! - Evernight, Sundered Skies, etc.) for "not-D&D". Fantasy Hero's potential campaign worlds get 1 book (at most) and then get changed in every edition (80's-90's-00's) anyway! I know the thinking is that Hero players prefer to create their own worlds but does that mean you shouldn't try to create some compelling world to share with your players instead of yet another edition of "300 pages of pre-built spells" ? I suspect 6th edition Hero will sputter along for a while under most people's radar until some new blood/new money gets interested and takes a run at a 7th edition.

 - Dark Sun 4E: I realize I'm a year behind on this one but I finally got it, read it, and it's a pretty good version of Dark Sun. I think it's great for Heroic, interesting for Paragon, and then I'd like to know what Epic is supposed to be about. With no gods and almost no planar travel, then if you're playing the game of thrones at Paragon what do you do after that? Conquer the world? Alright I guess. Restore the world? Even at Epic that seems like more of a long-term mission than something you roll dice for - "Alright now we're in the Great Slat Flats - roll your Gardening check, DC 50 - OK, it's green again. See you next week!" I think it needs something more. Maybe you restore an old battleship and head off through Astral Space to Iskandar or something, but I don't think it's a great setting for Epic as it stands right now. Earlier levels though, I can see it being a fun change of pace from the usual approach.

 - The Sellswords Trilogy:

• Servant of the Shard - This first one is OK, but it was written yeras before the next two and was notable at the time as the first Drizzt novel without Drizzt. It does wrap up the story of the Crystal Shard nicely though.
• Promise of the Witch King - This second one is actually pretty good, and serves as a shining example of how an "evil" party of characters might go adventuring together to investigate/avert/steal from a larger threat. I really liked it.
• Road of the Patriarch - The third one is terrible as it picks up right where #2 leaves off and then goes in a completely different direction, focusing back in on Artemis Entreri, particularly his bad childhood which I didn't find all that interesting. I also think that Calimshan had been covered pretty thouroughly in the earlier books and wow, the world's greatest assassin takes his revenge on a corrupt local priest - whee. A letdown after #2.

 - Obligatory End-of-Year-Prediction: Despite pronouncements to the contrary when 4E was released that we would never need it, and despite pronouncements that Essentials was and was not 4.5, I think that we will probably see D&D 5th Edition announced in 2012, probably at GenCon, for a 2013 release. The timing works with a 2013 release coming 5 years after the 2008 release of 4E. Beyond that I don't think they would have hired Monte Cook this year if they didn't have a job for him to do, and I suspect that job is 5E. 

Now that all that is out of the way, I have to say that for me 2011 started off on the lower end of things and has ramped up nicely in the family, professional, and recreational sense. I hope 2012 continues the trend, and if your personal trend hasn't been going the same way then I hope it turns around soon. I plan to continue the blog through thick and thin so there should be no major changes here.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from the Family Blacksteel! See you in 2012!

Champions in Color Special: Ripper

Stepping back to the early days of Champions we have the cover of Stronghold:

That's one of my favorite covers from the whole line. The subject of the piece is "Ripper", a Vietnam veteran who was subjected to some horrible experiments and who can boost his strength to *100* when he needs to do so. He's an awesome villain and that cover really makes him look good. Those poor guards and security bots clearly stand no chance against him!

However there is the ... color ... issue: he is colored a sort of ... pink. It's hard to admit, but there it is. We can talk about this openly, can't we? It's a little odd to have a badace ex-military villain who is potentially stronger than Grond and then color him pink. I'm going to go with the "interpretation" and the "printing error" theories here and say he was supposed to be either flesh-colored or purple instead of pink. Either one makes more sense, or at least looks better. Even if one insists he must be pink, he's still one of my favorites. Then look at what they did to him in 4th edition's "Classic Enemies" (I know it's not color, bear with me) 

So I guess he stopped working out and started eating a bunch of pork rinds in prison? Decided it was safer in there and gave up trying to escape? Gained a few levels of horizontal growth har har? I don't know but compared to the lean and mean guy on the cover of Stronghold, this is a disappointment. However, he did get the cover picture of that book which made up for a lot:

Now that's an image that lives up to the original!

(Side commentary: Oh look, it's Seeker being beaten like a rented mule. Clearly this is a 4th Edition book!)

Some time after this, though, he seems to have joined up with Viper, to the point they put him on another cover:

Well, he at least looks meaner here. Still kinda pink though. Hmmm, I wonder if he's around for 6th edition? Don't know, I'm opting out of that one. But Champions Online is a fun game and it's pretty closely tied to 6E. How about that?

Ugh! Too much cyber and not enough altered human! I'm still not sure about his color there either. Bleah, I'll take early 80's Ripper over that generic-looking cyberzombie any day!

Yeah, that's better.