Champions (role-playing game)

Champions is a role-playing game published by Hero Games that is designed to simulate and function in a four-color superhero comic book world. It was created by George MacDonald, Steve Peterson, Bruce Harlick, and Ray Greer.

The latest edition of the game uses the sixth edition of the Hero System, as revised by Steve Long, and was written by Aaron Allston. It was released in early 2010.

Description
Champions, first published in 1981, was the first role-playing game in which character generation was based on a point-buy system instead of random dice rolls. A player decides what kind of character to play, and designs the character using a set number of "character points", often abbreviated as "CP." The limited number of character points generally defines how powerful the character will be. Points can be used in many ways: to increase personal characteristics, such as strength or intelligence; to buy special skills, such as martial arts or computer programming; or to build superpowers, such as supersonic flight or telepathy. This point system was praised by reviewers for the balance it gave character generation over random dice rolls.

Players are required not only to design a hero's powers, but also the hero's skills, disadvantages, and other traits. Thus, Champions characters are built with friends, enemies, and weaknesses, along with powers and abilities with varying scales of character point value for each. This design approach intends to make all the facets of Champions characters balanced in relation to each other regardless of the specific abilities and character features. Characters are rewarded with more character points after each adventure, which are then used to buy more abilities, or eliminate disadvantages.

The system
Players can design custom superpowers using the Champions rules system. Rather than offering a menu of specific powers, Champions powers are defined by their effects. (An energy blast is the same power regardless of whether it represents a laser beam, ice powers, or mystical spells.) The Champions rulebook includes rules governing many different types of generic powers which can then be modified to fit the players idea.

This allows players to simulate situations found in superhero stories. Like most comic book heroes, characters and villains are frequently knocked out of the fight but seldom killed. There are special rules for throwing heavy objects like aircraft carriers.

Champions, at the time, was unusual for only using six-sided dice. Most roleplaying games of the period used additional types of polyhedral dice.

History and other genres
See also: List of Hero System Products

The Champions system was adapted to a fantasy genre under the title Fantasy Hero (the first playtest edition of Fantasy Hero appeared before Champions was published), with similar advantages and disadvantages to the original Champions game. More recently (in 1984), Champions was incorporated into a generic role-playing game system called the Hero System. Champions now exists as a genre sourcebook for the Hero System. Books for other genres have also appeared over the years, including Star Hero, Dark Champions, Pulp Hero, and Ninja Hero.

Archetypes
While Champions does not use "character classes" as some RPGs do, it does define common superhero archetypes as found in comic books. These are based variably on how they use their powers in combat, motivation, or the powers' origin. As listed in the Champions genre book, they are:
 * Brick - slower hand-to-hand fighter who relies more on raw strength and tougher defenses (Incredible Hulk / Colossus)
 * Energy Projector - primary combat ability is a ranged attack, which, despite the name, is not necessarily energy-based (Cyclops / Starfire)
 * Gadgeteer - abilities based on technological devices (Brainiac 5 / Forge)
 * Martial Artist (or martist for short) - lightly armored hand-to-hand combatant who fights with skill, quickness, and agility (Daredevil / Wolverine / Batman)
 * Mentalist - abilities target the mind, not the physical foe (Professor X / Jean Grey)
 * Metamorph - abilities involving changes in shape and/or size (Plastic Man / Morph / Mystique)
 * Mystic - trained in the use of magic, or with abilities or items with magical properties (Doctor Fate / Doctor Strange)
 * Patriot - an embodiment of his or her nation (Captain America / Vindicator / Captain Britain)
 * Powered Armor - a variant of a Gadgeteer, who uses an "all-in-one" gadget worn as armor (Iron Man / John Henry Irons)
 * Speedster - with abilities based around movement (Flash / Northstar)
 * Weaponmaster - with expertise at using a particular type of weapon (Green Arrow / Hawkeye)
 * Sink - with primary abilities being drains or transfers a "Sink" can diminish, nullify or steal another characters powers, abilities or stats, either temporarily or permanently. (Rogue / Selene)

It is possible for a character to fall into multiple categories, such as Superman (brick/energy projector/speedster/Patriot), Batman (martial artist/gadgeteer), or Spider-Man (martial artist/speedster/gadgeteer). It is also common for characters not to fall into any easily defined category—these categories are simply to provide easy definition and really have no impact on normative game play and do not imply stricture nor benefit within the rules.

The Champions Team
The Champions superhero team is presented as an example of how to build a well-balanced team in terms of game mechanics. The members as presented in the Champions genre book in 4th edition are:


 * Defender - an inventor wearing powered armor
 * Jaguar - Werecat
 * Obsidian - Alien prince brick
 * Quantum - Mutant energy projector
 * Seeker - Martial artist
 * Solitaire - Mystic

In 5th edition the lineup changed to:


 * Defender - an inventor wearing powered armor
 * Ironclad - a superstrong and supertough alien
 * Nighthawk - a grim inventor/martial artist
 * Sapphire - a flying energy projector
 * Witchcraft - a sorceress

In 6th edition the lineup changed to:


 * Defender - an inventor wearing powered armor
 * Ironclad - a superstrong and supertough alien
 * Kinetik - a speedster
 * Sapphire - a flying energy projector
 * Witchcraft - a sorceress

Setting
Much of the game is set in Millennium City. After its destruction by Dr Destroyer, Detroit was rebuilt using the newest technologies and renamed.

Hero Comics
Starting in June 1986, a comic mini-series was published by Eclipse Comics based on characters from the first Champions campaign. After the initial mini-series a regular series was published by Hero Comics (later Hero Graphics, later still Heroic Publishing). Like the Villains and Vigilantes comic mini-series, the early issues printed character sheets which allowed readers to incorporate characters used in the comic books in their own Champions campaigns. Heroic Publishing still prints comics about some of the characters in 2007, although they have long since parted ways with the makers of the game.

MMORPG
A massively multiplayer online roleplaying game based on the license was announced by Cryptic Studios, who had developed the popular City of Heroes and the reinvented Marvel Universe Online to Marvel Heroes. The game was released in September 2009. The game takes place in the established Champions universe and feature classic Champions heroes and villains as NPCs.

Awards
The Champions product line has won awards for the following adventure books:


 * Silver Medal 2005 ENnies: Best Adventure for Villainy Amok
 * Gold Medal 2004 ENnies: Best Non-D20 Adventure for Champions Battlegrounds
 * Silver Medal 2004 ENnies: Best Non-D20 Adventure for Shades of Black
 * Inducted into the Origins Awards Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame (1999)