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Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
edited February 2010 in Champions Pen and Paper RPG
So, I'm curious about the original pen and paper RPG that started off Champions, and I'd like to know what books I should pick up for a better understanding of its backhistory. Any suggestions at all would be appreciated.
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  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Here are the main books as listed by Steve Long here http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/74717-The-HERO-System-6th-Edition

    Volume 1 (Character Creation):
    SKU: DOJHERO1001
    ISBN: 978-1-58366-120-8
    Price: $39.99 US

    Volume 2 (Combat and Adventuring):
    SKU: DOJHERO1002
    ISBN: 978-1-58366-121-5
    Price: $39.99 US

    Those are the main books. There's also Champions: The Super Roleplaying Game sourcebook which has just gone to the printers. It;s available as a pdf right now. You can buy the books via hard copy, pdf or combos here: https://www.herogames.com/browse.htm
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    If you don't mind digital copies, RPGNow.com has a bundle of the Hero Rules for sale. The Champions 6th edition rules are separate and do need the use of the bundle.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    If you’re interested in the Champions Universe you’d do pretty well picking up:

    Champions Universe, Champions Universe: News Of The World, Millennium City, and for the upcoming expansion, Vibora Bay.

    There is tons of additional character and background material to be found in the other, numerous supplements but the info in these core books should get you started.

    http://www.herogames.com/home.htm#
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    OK, time for a quick run-down on our products. ;)

    Since we published The HERO System 6th Edition last summer, we're in the process of revamping, revising, and publishing new editions of the key Champions sourcebooks. Here's what's out, and what's upcoming:

    Champions: This book has just been released. It's a "genre book" that shows how to use the HERO System rules to create superhero characters, campaigns, gadgets, powers, anything you can think of. It's your complete guide to the Superheroes genre for gaming! Check out the other thread I just posted for more info.

    Champions Powers: This book is currently in layout and should head off to the printer within the next couple weeks. It's a 384-page collection of thousands of pre-generated superpowers for Champions, organized into about 50 categories (like Animal Powers, Fire Powers, Speedster Powers, and so on). It's a handy reference source and time-saver for any Champions players, but particularly those who are new to the HERO System or have trouble thinking up nifty new abilities for their characters.

    Champions Universe: I'm currently writing this book, which will be published later this spring. It's your one-stop guide to the Champions Universe setting: the events, people, places, background, and more. Check out the "what do you want to see" thread I just posted to tell us what you'd like to see in the book! CU is planned as a hardcover, full-color book.

    Champions Villains: Later this spring I'm going to be writing a three-volume series of books containing complete information about the villains of the Champions Universe. Volume I covers master villains like Dr. Destroyer, Mechanon, and Teleios; Volume II covers villain teams like Eurostar, the Ultimates, and the Crimelords; Volume III covers solo villains like Foxbat, Grond, and Tachyon. All of these books are planned as full-color, hardcover books; they'll be released over the course of the summer.

    Champions Beyond: The last Champions supplement for 2010 will look at what's currently going on in the solar system and outer space in the modern-day Champions Universe. What alien species has humanity had contact with, and which of them have superpowered members? What are Malva and the Malvans really like? What's going on on the Moon, Mars, and other planets? Champions Beyond will tell you!

    For 2011 we have three major Champions supplements planned:

    The Martial World: This supplement will look at martial arts and martial artists in the Champions Universe. Within its pages you’ll read about the secrets of the fabled Yengtao Temple, discover what the insidious Dr. Yin Wu is up to, learn everything you ever wanted to know about the deadly Cult of the Red Banner, and maybe even find out how your character can compete in the legendary Tournament of the Dragon!

    Millennium City: The heart of the Champions Universe is Millennium City, a glittering, high-tech “City of the Future” built where Detroit once stood. This supplement is your complete guide to Millennium City, with information on its people, neighborhoods, politics, law enforcement, crime, and much more!

    The Book Of The Empress: In the Champions Universe, one of the greatest threats to humanity’s freedom is the extradimensional conqueror Istvatha V’han, Empress of a Billion Dimensions. The Book Of The Empress is your complete guide to this deadly master villain. In addition to discussing her history, powers, personality, and goals, it provides detailed information about her immense military resources — soldiers, weapons, vehicles, and more from a million planes of reality. It also tells you about her far-flung domain, with descriptions of some of the most important (or weirdest!) dimensions in her empire.

    Now, beyond that, there are literally dozens of Champions supplements written for the 5th Edition of the HERO System that are still perfectly usable with the 6E rules (though some minor setting details here and there may need to be changed to reflect Champions Online's revisioning of the CU). Some of these supplements will eventually get rewritten for 6E, but many never will, so you can't go wrong picking up a copy. ;)

    Hope that helps! If you have any questions about specific books, or where to find information on a specific subject within the CU, feel free to ask. ;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    And there's the Typewriter That Roared himself. Hi, Steve!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Hey hey! Always glad to answer questions (and plug some of our books!), so feel free to ask if you have any. We're also hoping to set up some chats in the Hero Games Chat Room with the CO folx so they can talk about the development of the MMO and its interaction with the PnP books and our plans, etc., etc. -- I'll keep y'all posted on that!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    That is great stuff Steve!! Do the books cover creating your CO toon in PnP or vice versa?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    The PnP game and the MMO use the same intellectual property but different systems, though some names of characteristic are the same. I don't know if there are plans for conversion info at this time.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Do the books cover creating your CO toon in PnP or vice versa?

    Initially I'd planned to put a whole chapter in Champions Powers re-creating all of the existing CO powers and showing in general how to play Champions "CO style." Unfortunately, that would have made the book balloon up to 500 pages or more, and that's just not feasible for a supplement of that sort.

    So, rather than putting that chapter in CP, we'll either put it in another book or publish it as a PDF. I still have to write it, and doing part of that means getting a bunch of info from Cryptic. Since they're kinda busy working on Revelations, I'll wait 'til that's out before I take up any of their time with my picky little questions about % chances for secondary effects to proc and how damage X scales under Y circumstances. ;)

    In the meantime, though, a few fiddly bits aside you should be able to find a pretty close equivalent to most CO powers in Champions Powers itself. You may need to tweak the special effects a bit, but that shouldn't be hard. And for power sets like Gadgeteer and Powered Armor, just keep in mind that in HERO System terms those powers function like ordinary powers, not powers built with elements like Focus and Charges. And speaking as someone whose main is a Munitions toon, I'm perfectly OK with that; I don't want anyone taking away my guns or forcing me to reload! :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Something to bear in mind for any conversion of MMO to PnP is that the MMO is a changing environment. So what maybe be equivalent when the PnP conversion is written may change further down the line. It's better to keep in mind the spirit of the game rather than the minutia.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    That's certainly true (though for major changes we could probably reflect them via a PDF update or something like that). But I think the major "rules" governing how powers work in CO aren't likely to change.

    F'rex, in CO, all area-affecting powers have Personal Immunity for you and your friends built in automatically, for free. That way you don't obliterate your friends with your Orbital Cannon or Mini-Mines. ;) OTOH, powers in CO don't do any Knockback unless that's specifically stated in the power description (and in HERO System terms, represented with an Advantage).

    Things like that are all part of working my way through the conversion process. The raw numbers aren't usually too difficult once I get some baseline assumptions in place, though they can't always reflect exactly what occurs in the MMO (since your computer can routinely handle millions of calculations that would slow the PnP game to a crawl ;) ).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Hi, I want to get into the hero system.

    I was looking on Hero Game site.

    I can't make up my mind if I should get the book bundle or books with pdf bundle.

    I would like some suggestions.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I prefer to have both hard copy and pdf versions. I like to have hard copy to flip back and forth through as I'm working on a character or a campaign. But I also travel a lot to game with friends, and with my laptop the pdf versions are much lighter and less space consuming. And they have the added benefit of being searchable for particular text strings if you're looking for something in particular. So put me in the 'both' camp.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Judging by sales, I think the "both" option does seem to be pretty popular, though hardcopy books as a whole remain our best seller.

    Troy, I think what you should ask yourself is:

    1. Am I comfortable reading rulebooks on-screen? Some people are, some aren't.

    2. How highly do I value being able to run searches of the text? That's obviously a major benefit of having a PDF.

    3. How strongly do I value having a physical book? Do I want to underline in it, make notes in the margins, stick my character sheets inside the covers to carry them, etc.? A lot of gamers like to do that, but others don't care.

    4. Do I plan to have my laptop with me at the gaming table? That, too, makes PDFs very useful.

    Hope that helps!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    HeroSteve wrote:
    Judging by sales, I think the "both" option does seem to be pretty popular, though hardcopy books as a whole remain our best seller.

    Troy, I think what you should ask yourself is:

    1. Am I comfortable reading rulebooks on-screen? Some people are, some aren't.

    2. How highly do I value being able to run searches of the text? That's obviously a major benefit of having a PDF.

    3. How strongly do I value having a physical book? Do I want to underline in it, make notes in the margins, stick my character sheets inside the covers to carry them, etc.? A lot of gamers like to do that, but others don't care.

    4. Do I plan to have my laptop with me at the gaming table? That, too, makes PDFs very useful.

    Hope that helps!

    Thought of a couple of other factors, Steve (great to see you back, by the way....)

    5. How immediately do you want/need the the book? You can DL PDFs right away while you have to wait for a physical book to ship....

    6. How clumsy/forgetful are you? One nice thing about PDFs is that you can usually ReDL them from that place you bought them from, should something happen to your computer. Lose or destroy the physical book and you have to buy a new one...

    I personally can't get past not having a physical book; but having a PDF back up is truely worth it...

    I'd go with the combo pack...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I've been to the herogames.com site a few times to look at what is offered, and all I can say is, it's a bit hard for me to motivate myself to make a purchase for the following reasons:

    1) Your prices are very high. I understand that this is a niche game, and that sales "volume" is probably not that high, comparatively, to things like DnD, however, my main issue with the pricing is also an issue with "knowing what I'm getting", see below....
    2) Further along the lines of "knowing what I'm getting", is there a way that some excerpts could be put up in PDF format? A page to represent each of the various ways information is presented in the book(s) would be nice, such as an example of how the images look, how the tables are arranged, how the lore is written, etc., would help quite a bit.
    3) Further along those lines, since the web site seems to be our main conduit for purchase of your products, it would be nice if you organized the site a bit better. This includes the fact that the link on your front page to the champions material still sends people to the "old" material, rather than the new PDF document. It's also not entirely clear, at first, that you need the hero system books to make use of the Champions books and some links go to the forum (some of the posts of which are quite old) while others go to pages about the products, and still others go to store links and in some cases you need to click through 4 or 4 times to get the simplest of information, which may not even be up to date.
    As a quick example of what I mean, the front page had your update about Champions and how the PDF was available in the store, I went to the Hero System Games and Products list on the left, chose Champions, and it sent me to the forum. The forum was an old post (Feb 8, 08), and the links "from" the forum were back to the store, and not to the "new" product, but the old. The only way to access the new material was to go to the store directly, which was a weird link in the upper right corner of the site, then I had to filter the categories to see what I wanted to see, only to get a "really" small blurb about the product.

    I tend to lose patience with jumping around and being given little to no information for a product that is essentially a 400 or less page book for $30 or more. There are very few stores locally that carry these products anymore (other than straight up DnD and a few others of note), it may make sense if you're going to rely partially on online sales, that you provide a bit more info/organize your site a bit better.

    Hopefully you won't take my criticism too hard, it's not my intent to insult you, I'm just interested in your product(s), but the site pretty much scared me off.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Im a little confused, more than most in this thread I guess. I've been looking at picking up the pnp champions game for my bro's b'day but i have no idea what I'm supposed to get?

    The Hero System and Champions books are seperate. To play a PnP game of champions do I need both (as a total beginner) or do i only need the champions one or visa versa?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Im a little confused, more than most in this thread I guess. I've been looking at picking up the pnp champions game for my bro's b'day but i have no idea what I'm supposed to get?

    The Hero System and Champions books are seperate. To play a PnP game of champions do I need both (as a total beginner) or do i only need the champions one or visa versa?

    From what I understand, Champions books are just the setting, storyline, specific rules/skills/powers for "superhero" type characters, in the Champions universe. To play the game you need the Hero System, which is two other separate books, although I'm not sure if you can "get by" and play a game with the "basic" version of the Hero System that is smaller and much less expensive (and less "expansive"). :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Im a little confused, more than most in this thread I guess. I've been looking at picking up the pnp champions game for my bro's b'day but i have no idea what I'm supposed to get?

    The Hero System and Champions books are seperate. To play a PnP game of champions do I need both (as a total beginner) or do i only need the champions one or visa versa?

    All you absolutely have to have is a HERO System rulebook -- either the Basic Rulebook or the larger and more detailed full Sixth Edition rulebook. Everything else we publish, every single book, is just icing on top of that particular cake.

    However, if you're new to the HERO System, the Champions genre book will definitely help you in terms of showing you how to create superheroes and superhero things; it also includes a Superhero Gallery that will let you generate characters in mere minutes. Our forthcoming book Champions Powers, which will go to print shortly, will also be helpful, since it contains over 1,200 pre-generated superpowers (and thousands more variants and options for them), thus doing a lot of work for you and giving you plenty of examples to study.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    So for someone like me, who wanted to add a little more flesh to CO Wiki, which books would you recommend?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Lohr wrote:
    So for someone like me, who wanted to add a little more flesh to CO Wiki, which books would you recommend?
    Start with Champions Universe. Looking at my PDF copy, the only HERO-related rules in it are in the stat blocks for the various heroes and villains. That's as far as I've read (so far), but your next step would probably be CU: News of the World, which is an update to the universe since the publication of CU. A new Champions Universe is in the work which should include more of what Cryptic has changed/added to the universe since they bought it.

    From there, you can find individual books talking about specific places and people. Dr. Destroyer has his own book. Likewise, Millennium City, Vibora Bay, and Monster Island all have source books. I think Champions of the North deals with the stuff you encounter in the Canada zone. You might have to look a little bit to find some things. Grond, for example, is in one of the villain compendiums (along with guys like Takofanes and Menton).

    Basically, go to the HERO Games website, search the store for Champions-related books. Then head to their forums and look them up in the HERO Games Product Line section for more detailed descriptions.
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