Exactly what it says on the tin. How playable is it, what quirks should I watch out for, will it cause my brain to run out my ears?

It's...fantastically complex, and a little dry at first.

Once you get the hang of it, it's great fun (for Champions/superhero play, at least, I'll admit that I have yet to use it for anything else, though hopefully I'll have some HERO Fantasy under my belt in the next few weeks). The complexity of the system means you really can run pretty much anything with it, and it will -- once you and your gaming group know the rules -- run pretty smoothly.

It's an entirely point-buy system, and one that is, in many ways, based around advantages/disadvantages. The GM needs to keep a sharp eye out for abuses of the system, but the book actually helps with this in some instances as certain abilities, and certain dis/advantages, will actually have yield or stop sign icons next to them, as a "heads up" that something is easily abused, or needs to be read over more carefully.

One thing that is both wonderful and terrifying about it, all at once, is that there are many different ways to represent certain abilities. This can be fantastic, but can also be somewhat confusing or overwhelming.

Somewhat rambling (it's 4:00 am) example: I've got a superhero with a shield. I built the shield as what's called a "multipower," which is basically a list of various abilities that I can describe the shield as doing for me, but I can only do one at a time. There's a whole slew of things I can do with the shield -- bash someone with it, throw it all around a room, slash someone with the edge of it, hunker down behind it for an armor bonus, shield someone else with it -- but I can only do one thing a turn with it. This was my interpretation of what a comic book superhero "shield" should be able to do. My buddy, weeks before that game, had built a guy with a shield, too. His idea of a shield was the "barrier" power (not unlike the Barrier Shadowrun spell) that had advantages built on that let him move it. We could both use our shield defensively -- mine increased my armor rating, his acted as a physical wall in front of him...and the same GM okayed both interpretations of a shield. As different as both our "shields" turned out to be, neither one is the same as what a shield does for you in HERO Fantasy, for a classic sword-and-shield type knight.

HERO system is, in other words, almost entirely what you make of it. It's up to you to take the idea you've got for a gadget, and item, a superpower, or whatever...and to figure out YOUR interpretation of it. I could build a poisoned knife that's statted up entirely different than your poison knife. I could even build a super speedster that uses an entirely different movement power and set of rules than yours...and don't even get started on martial artists.

That sort of...of...wondrous variety...is often hard to wrap your head around, and can feel very unnecessarily confusing, especially to new players.

Starting cost can also be pretty high, too. The core books -- rules of creating characters, rules for running a game -- will run you $80. World books (for the Champions setting, or Fantasy, or whatever) will generally be $40-$45 apiece. Other books (full of martial arts rules, or the Bestiary, or Champions supervillains, or whatever) are $35-$40.

Depending on how much you want those secondary and tertiary books -- and someone new to the game probably, and rightfully, wants all the guidance and pre-made stuff they can get -- it can get pretty expensive, pretty quickly. Combined with the complexity of character creation, which makes it a good idea to have multiple core rulebooks (so everyone can read over it and learn the basics, work on their own characters, etc)...it adds up.

As an aside, Hero Designer is their in-house character creation program, and it is well worth the cost to download. It's also worth pointing out that, in my opinion, their books are very well written, with above-average artwork and -- Champions books in particular -- an amazingly fleshed out, "comic book universe" logical/realistic, world.

Anyways, I'm sorry, I know this is kind of bouncing all over the place...but I've got a lot to say about the system, most of it very, very, good, but at the same time I don't want to lie and tell you it's easy or cheap to get into, or simple to wrap your head around, or whatever. If you've got buddies that already play it, I'd talk to them or see if you can sit in on a game. HERO also has some pretty active forums, and if you're up for it there's Hero Central, a play-by-post sight.

I'm lucky (?) in that I got dragged into the system just a few years ago, as the new guy in a group of folks that've been playing it for years and years. I had lots of help learning the basics, as such, and it really made the transition much easier. If, instead, someone had just thrown the massive, heavy, rulebooks at me and told me to figure it out? I'd likely never have made it through creating my first character.

So, in order to run Champions, I need (at minimum) one copy of HERO System 6th Edition and one copy of Champions?

Exactly.

And just to copy the above, the HERO System (while it has some flaws) is an amazing system. It is extremely complex and has a fairly steep learning curve, but once you "get it" you will love its extreme flexibility. It's more like a toolkit than an actual game, though. All those campaign/supplement books are there to give you ready-made classes/items/spells/whatnot, which just use the rules found in the two rulebooks. They do not really expand on the rules, but give you a good idea how to use them and what to do with them. It's a bit different to other games in that regard.

Bye
Thanee

Yes, the core pair of Hero System books, and the Champions book, would get you there. There's also an excellent Champions Universe book that came out fairly recently, that will be of immense help if you plan on running your game in their official superhero world.

One other option I'd suggest is checking Half Price Books (or eBay, or whatever) for some of their 5th Edition books, at least the world-related ones. 5th-6th wasn't a huge change -- many of the pre-statted NPCs would work just fine making the jump from edition to edition -- and it might be a handy way to get a better handle on the game world. Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks is an NPC/Supervillain book that's well worth it, in my opinion...and has so much information that the 6th Edition version is being broken into three different sourcebooks.

Well, actually the step from 5th to 6th is the biggest since 3rd edition (I do not know the ones before 3rd). 3rd-5th the game was pretty much the same. 6th is still very similar, but had some substantial changes to the core rule system (i.e. attributes redefined).

While it is still very much possible to use the older stuff with the new edition, it does require some expertise.

I would not really recommend mixing the editions before you are familiar with the game system enough.

Bye
Thanee

See if you can find a used copy of Champions 4th Edition, and save yourself the money. I love Champions but 6th edition is just...too much, too spread out and too expensive.

I'll take your word for it -- all I know is my GM threw several 5th Edition baddies at us (with CKC right there at the table with him) last week, and things went pretty smoothly. I've only ever played 5th and 6th, so I can't say anything about how big/small the change was from other editions.

Yeah, it definitely works. But it might be a bit confusing if you are new to the system, because there are some substantial differences between 6th and the earlier editions. That's all I'm saying.

Bye
Thanee

Hero System is a great system, but it has a high learning curve. Once you understand it you can make anything. I've played in Hero System games ranging from Superhero to Cyberpunk to Feudal Japan and all worked.

If you are just learning and have the available funds, I suggest starting with the current edition. It is good. Don't get Champions or any of the other supplements until you have read through the core books, you may not need them. Once you have a 'feel' for the game you can decide what you need. Some players/GMs just 'get it' and don't need any more help, some like to have examples to see how to make various things.

If money is tight, I suggest getting 4th Edition. It is cheap and works well.

Some of the things to disallow/avoid are:

• Faster than Light travel: Usable against others.
• Inter-dimensional Travel: usable against others
• Tunnelling: Usable against Others

See a running theme? btw I love Champions and play Chamions Online now. Unfortunately the online version has only the fluff and not the meat of the PnP game.

Our last PnP chamions game was a Transformers themed game. Champions does battle-suit and gadet guys better than just about any other system out there.

I haven't seen the latest versions, but when I played it, Power Pools took quite a bit getting used to. If you're trying to GM and new to it, you might want to ban them for the first few sessions until you get a hang of them. PPs can be dangerous to the game, or extremely tedious if you can't handle them.

The easiest fix to Variable Power Pools -- at least as far as them slowing down the game -- we've run into has been just to let the VPP character sit at the computer with Hero Designer up. They can number crunch a minute or two in advance, during other folks' actions in combat, or whatever...They're still potentially very powerful, yeah, but at least this way it doesn't bog anything down.

What, exactly, are these Power Pool thingies and why should I be wary of them?

Think...Green Lantern, let's say. His ring lets him shoot energy beams, make force fields, fly, translate stuff, use telekinetic abilities, create constructs out of energy, all kinds of stuff, right?

Well, one way to recreate that sort of character is with what's called a Power Pool, or a Variable Power Pool (the name changes a little between editions). Basically instead of buying Energy Blast, Force Wall, Flight, Universal Translator, Telekinesis, and whatever else...he can just say "Y'know what? I'm gonna put like 250 points into a Variable Power Pool, called 'Green Lantern Ring Powers,' okay GM?"

There's an associated cost with doing so, and additional points can be spent to change the amount of time it takes to change the Pool from one thing to another, or to change the limit of how many of these "Pool Points" can be spent on any one power...but the end result is someone who can basically change his powers on the fly. He won't be as good as a dedicated guy that's built all around one schtick, but he'll have a Swiss Army Knife versatility to him that can, if a player is creative about it, sometimes make it difficult for a GM to balance a campaign around.

Like pretty much everything else about HERO/Champions, there are several others way to build a character with all those powers...but this is one of them, and one that can complicate a game and potentially be kind of a show-stealer.

One handy thing about the rulebooks, though, by the way? They'll actually have yield and stop sign symbols on abilities, like a Variable Power Pool, that have the most potential to complicate and/or imbalance a game...so it's kind of an automatic "heads up, this is powerful and/or confusing, tread carefully!"

Green Lantern's powers are the perfect example of a VPP/PP. @=)

It would be, in Shadowrun terms, a Skill Group but with a lot more punch.

Uhh... no.

In Shadowrun terms it would be like being able to change almost everything (Attributes, Skills, Qualities, Gear, and so on) about your character at a whim.

It means you have everything available at all times. The only limit is how much of everything you can have at a time. Plus any limits you put in yourself.

Bye
Thanee

or a different example, sr magic but with on the fly re-designable spells.