Reflections

So, we're coming up to the end of yet another year. Can you believe we are a full quarter of the way through the 21st century already? I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. And yes, technically that happened a year ago at the end of 2024, but let me process. In five more years, I will have spent more time in the 21st century than in the 20th. Which is wild.

So, 2025 was a busy year for us. The big news...well, there were two big news things. Three, maybe. The biggest was that our family business, Come to the Table PEI, got big here on the island. We started out with doing pop-up markets in parking lots in different towns, then settled down in the Summerside Farmer's Market by late February. Since then, we've busted our butts to make this business a thing, and it has done quite well by us so far. Much better than we had expected. And now that we have a new stone bake, triple-decker oven on its way, our production is going to ramp up quite a bit. I just hope we can keep up with the expected demand come tourist season.

The second big thing was my surgery. I knew in the back of my mind I would need it eventually; I just thought 'eventually' would be later. But it wasn't. The surgeon told me that if I'd waited another six months, I might not have made it. That was a sobering thought. But the surgery went well, and now I'm working on building up my strength and my endurance. After all, we're still on a farm, and there's work to do. It's possible I'll need to have the surgery again in a decade or so; we shall see what happens then.

The third big thing was that we went back to Ontario for a week, our first trip back since our move five years ago. In fact, it was five years to the day when we landed at Pearson Airport and went to see my mother. It was nice to see the people we saw, although we didn't see everyone; my sister was in Portugal, and our trip was split up due to the inconvenience of going to a baseball game right in the middle of the trip.

But that was an awesome game. My 55th birthday, and Tanner and I took the train to Toronto to go watch the final game of the season, which the Jays needed to win to clinch the AL East. And needless to say, they did, putting an absolute beat-down on the Tampa Bay Rays to secure the top seed in the AL on their way to a heartbreaking World Series loss to the Dodgers. Two outs away. They were so close...

Anyway, the trip was a bit rough; Garrett doesn't travel well, and Tanner had his own issues. But it was important for us to finally go back and see people we hadn't seen in five years, including some old friends as well as family. I'm not sure when we'll go back again, since it did take a lot out of us. And I caught something on that plane that hasn't disappeared yet. Three months, and I'm still coughing.

So, that's a brief look at the highlights of 2025. We're still raising chickens, although pigs are still off the table until my health is improved. But I can't wait to see what 2026 brings us. It's always an adventure, and anyone who's read my blogs knows that I love adventure.

See you all next year!

A New Challenge

So this was under the tree on Christmas. I must admit that I know very little about this game. I've seen it on store shelves, sure. But I've never played it. I've never even seen anyone play it. My wife said she'd play it once with me, so it's good she's willing to try something new with me. Mind you, it's a game for at least three players, so we'll need someone else as well. And if she's only going to play it once, then I'll need more than one someone else eventually.

So, here's what I do know about it: It's basically a simplified version of Sid Meier's Civilization computer game, except on a table. I'm pretty sure that is an extreme oversimplification, and those who have played this before are free to correct me or elaborate further. There are plenty of YouTube videos that explain how to play, so I'm sure those will be useful.

I just watched a 4-minute video on how to play, and yeah, it looks a lot like a simplified Civ game. I can work with that. I just have to be careful; there are lots of expansion sets, and anyone who has read my 25 Years Later... blog knows that I am a completist by nature. Which means that if we like this game, I'm gonna buy the expansions.

Anyway, I'm going to go take a look at the game and the rules and see what I can suss out. If anyone has experience with the game, let me know what you think of it.

Merry Christmas to All!

I wrote this little ditty at my wife's request last night, and I thought I'd share it with my faithful readers on this blessed day.

Twas the night before Christmas in the sourdough bakery.

All the loaves were sold out, both the sweet and the savory.

The dough hook was hung by the chimney with care,

with hopes that a big oven soon would be there.

Customers settled all snug in their beds,

while visions of sourdough danced in their heads.

And I in my apron and he in his shirt

Were wondering how so many body parts hurt.

When up from the kitchen arose such a clatter

I went down the stairs to see what had just shattered.

I flew to the pantry to see for myself,

And found there an animate Elf on a Shelf!

He stood by the mixer, a spoon in his hand,

Then stared at me sternly and made his demand:

"More everything bagel! More apple! More cheddar!

Make plain loaves and minis with spicy hot peppers!

Give me chocolate chip cookies, and brownies so good,

So they can be shared by the whole neighbourhood!"

His eyes--how they twinkled with ravenous hunger

as he smiled and said, "I'm not getting any younger!"

He threw in some flour, some water, some starter,

Then grabbed all the spices right out of the larder.

"Get baking," he said with a waggling finger.

"There's more stuff to make, so don't you dare linger!"

But as he kept stirring the dough bowl to mix it,

I knew there was only one way I could fix it.

I took a deep breath, then I shook my poor head,

Then I woke from my dream in my warm, cozy bed.

Safe and sound, with no orders for bread in my sight,

I said "Merry Christmas, and to all a good night!"

Well, she liked it. Merry Christmas, everyone, and have a blessed New Year as well.

Christmas Prep...

Running a home bakery is a lot of work, even for two people. And with Christmas nearly upon us, it's been even busier. We've been making cookies, specialty sourdough breads, waffles, and more. Now we're preparing special Christmas breakfast boxes to be delivered and distributed by Christmas Eve. So, I don't know how much I'm going to get to post over the next week or so. But I'm not disappearing; I'm just exhausted from baking.

If you're interested in learning more about what we're doing, check us at out Come to the Table PEI on Facebook. And if you're on the Island, come see what the fuss is all about.

Making a Hat...

One of the unfortunate things about living on a farm is that not all the animals that live with you are welcome. I'm not talking about the foxes and coyotes; they don't live here, they live way off in the woods and just come by when they are hungry for chicken nuggets. I'm not even talking about the raccoons, although we've had a few run-ins with them over the years.

No, I'm talking about one critter in particular. Or, in this case, three of them.

That's right, three of them. A couple of years ago I caught a skunk in a homemade trap and released it a couple of miles away from our place. But I learned that skunks will always find their way back to the home they have chosen for themselves. Which in this case was our barn. And so it did.

We hadn't had any issues with skunks showing up for quite a while, though. Not until a couple of months ago, that is. Our barn cats couldn't eat their own food without the big skunk showing up and scarfing it all down. So, I kept trying to move the food where the skunk couldn't get to it but the cats could. Eventually, I finally settled on putting the food on top of the empty rabbit hutch. The cats can get up there; we named the first one Spider-Cat for a reason. Her kids can climb as well as she can.

Now, skunks do serve one useful purpose: Predators stay the hell away from skunk-infested barns. So we haven't had to worry about foxes showing up like we did earlier in the year when a single fox came in and took out no fewer than eighteen of our birds before we chased it off. But in the end, I don't want my barn smelling like skunk. So, believing there was just the one skunk, we planned to get rid of it.

Over the past several months, we had someone coming over to help out with the chickens while I recovered from my heart surgery. She was very interested in having a hat made of skunk fur, and it takes three skunks to make a hat. So, we called someone we know from the farmer's market who is a professional trapper. She came over and set up the trap for us. It took a few days (and two misfires with extremely pissed-off cats being trapped instead of the skunk), but we finally caught the stinker. Off it went with our trapper friend; what she did to take care of the skunk is not anything I want to know about. All I cared about was that the skunk was gone.

Except that the next day, I saw the skunk. The big one, with the massive stripes down its back. I realized that the skunk we trapped was actually a smaller one; a younger one. Great. Now we had a family of skunks to deal with.

Since trapping costs a hefty sum, we bought a trap ourselves. I assembled it and put it out in the barn the night I saw the skunk in the chicken coop. In the morning, I checked the trap...and big momma was in there. Skunk Two, bagged and tagged. The trapper came out that day and took the skunk away. Sure enough, though...

Two nights later, I saw the third skunk. We got our trap back today, and I set it up this evening when I put the chickens to bed. I checked it a few hours later to make sure there was no cat in there, and I was rewarded with the unblinking stare of a trapped skunk. That's three. We'll call the trapper again in the morning so she can come and pick up the third one, and our chicken helper will finally get her hat.

There are those who might think I should feel guilt about trapping these skunks, knowing their ultimate fate. Well, I tried letting one off with a warning, and it didn't take. So, there are consequences to breaking my rules, and the skunks will now have to live (or not) with those consequences. Such is life on the farm.

Gilded Age Heroes: Bloodhound

Alright, this is a book I published quite a while ago and haven't gotten back to yet. It's a collection of stories linked together by a common thread: Steampunk superheroes. It's a mix of comic-book heroes and pulp stories, with people having strange abilities and powers.

The superheroes in our comics obviously didn't get started until Superman showed up in 1938; he was the first and original. But there are later stories such as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that take the idea of literary heroes with special abilities to an earlier time. I chose to set my stories 30 years before Superman, starting in 1908. The trigger for this sudden change in the world? Easy: The Tunguska event in Siberia.

Since I just completed a Let's Read of the 1st edition Champions game, I thought that this would be a great way to both show off the game's characteristics and hype up my book at the same time. Yes, I'm shameless that way.

So, today I'm going to write up one of these heroes in the 1e Champions format. I might do some of the others as well over the next little bit; we'll see what I have time for as we get close to Christmas.

BLOODHOUND

Val Char Cost

15 STR         5

18 DEX 24

15 CON 10

10 BODY 0

13 INT         3

15 EGO 10

15 PRE         5

12 COM 1

7 PD         4

6 ED         3

4 SPD         12

6 REC 0

30 END 0

26 STUN 0

Total 77

Cost Powers

9 +3 Enhanced Vision

10 Ultraviolet Vision

9 +3 Enhanced Hearing

10 Ultrasonic Hearing

15 Parabolic Hearing

5 Discriminatory Smell

15 Tracking

5 Climbing 12 or less

5 Detective Work 12 or less

10 Find Weakness 11 or less

15 Martial Arts (Street Fighting)

10 +2 levels with any PER rolls

5 Stealth 12 or less

123 Total

Pts Disadvantages

20 Hunted by Rasputin, 11 or less

15 Physical Lim: Sensory overload

20 Psych Lim: Disturbed by bright lights, loud noises, etc.

10 Psych Lim: Sucker for a sob story

15 Secret ID: Harold Douglas

20 Susceptibility: Flash attacks 3D6, Common

100 Total

Point Totals:    Char 77 + Powers 123 = 200 = 100 Base + 100 Disads

Background:

    Harold Douglas was one step up from a hobo, traveling from place to place across America looking for a big score, or even just a place to fit in. He spent a few years riding the rails, then working in various mining towns before settling down in the small but growing city of Los Angeles in 1908.

    In the summer of that year, however, his life changed dramatically. He grew incredibly sensitive to bright lights and loud noises, and the smell of the city was nearly incapacitating. He couldn't stomach the taste of beer anymore, and his clothes felt raspy and rough despite being made of the softest cotton. He found himself unable to work due to the constant migraines and overwhelming sensory input, and in desperation locked himself in his room for three weeks until he ran out of food and had to leave.

    Unable to handle the sensory overload, he collapsed in the street. Two young Mexican boys picked him up and drove him in a 'borrowed' car to a convent where a nun was known to have miraculous healing powers. However, Sister Juanita was unable to cure him of his affliction.

    Undeterred, the nun offered to help Harold get his senses under control; two months later, he was able to walk outside. Darkness was no barrier; he could see as well at night as he could during the day. He returned to Los Angeles and discovered a valuable use for his abilities, tracking down a kidnapping ring and returning a young child to his parents. The grateful father offered Harold a reward, and staked Douglas to sufficient funds to start a private investigator's business.

Powers/Abilities:

    Harold Douglas, aka the Bloodhound, is a fit but otherwise normal man who has seen and done it all. He learned to brawl in the mining towns, and got quite good at it. His extraordinary senses give him a tremendous advantage in many situations; he can hear conversations in a room a hundred feet away, can see in the dark, and can identify people by their smell and follow them for hours. He's not a trained detective, but his senses compensate for his lack of experience, allowing him to find clues that elude even elite investigators. However, his senses are easily overloaded, causing him pain if the input is too great.

*********************

Alright, there you have it, the first Gilded Age character writeup. If you're interested, please click on the picture above to go to the Amazon page where you can find the book. It's only in eBook format at the moment, but that will change soon enough. Take care, and I'll see you all later.

Book Review: The Last Spike (1971)

Alright, this is the sequel to The National Dream which I reviewed not too long ago. That book was all about the prep work over the entire decade of the 1870s that laid the foundation for building the Canadian Pacific Railroad, the longest transcontinental railroad in the world at the time. This book is about the actual construction and the political and economic machinations that went on during the four years that the railroad was being built. And it is a wild story.

A quick summary, taken from the Penguin Books website:

In the four years between 1881 and 1885, Canada was forged into one nation by the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Last Spike reconstructs the incredible story of how some 2,000 miles of steel crossed the continent in just five years — exactly half the time stipulated in the contract. Pierre Berton recreates the adventures that were part of this vast undertaking: the railway on the brink of bankruptcy, with one hour between it and ruin; the extraordinary land boom of Winnipeg in 1881–1882; and the epic tale of how William Van Horne rushed 3,000 soldiers over a half-finished railway to quell the Riel Rebellion.

Dominating the whole saga are the men who made it all possible — a host of astonishing characters: Van Horne, the powerhouse behind the vision of a transcontinental railroad; Rogers, the eccentric surveyor; Onderdonk, the cool New Yorker; Stephen, the most emotional of businessmen; Father Lacombe, the black-robed voyageur; Sam Steele, of the North West Mounted Police; Gabriel Dumont, the Prince of the Prairies; more than 7,000 Chinese workers, toiling and dying in the canyons of the Fraser Valley; and many more — land sharks, construction geniuses, politicians, and entrepreneurs — all of whom played a role in the founding of the new Canada west of Ontario.

That sums it up more succinctly than I could. Below is the famous picture of the last spike being driven in by Donald Smith.

I really enjoyed this book; it is a great read. Berton is a master storyteller who makes the most common of men look like extraordinary heroes in what they do, even if it's just laying track across the trackless wastes of the Canadian Shield or blasting holes in the side of a mountain to make a tunnel. And he doesn't stint on the big names involved, either; Sir John A. MacDonald, Prime Minister of Canada at the time, spent most of the four years of construction trying desperately to find funding to keep the railway afloat. Had he failed at any time, it was likely that the railroad would never have been finished, at least not under Canadian control. Berton makes you feel the desperation and stress the PM was under, as well as the triumphant relief when the railroad funding was finally secured.

For students of Canadian history, I heartily recommend both of these books. They were written over fifty years ago; some of the men Berton writes about would have still been alive when he was a boy, and it's entirely possible that he met some of them in person. If not, he certainly would have been able to meet their children and grandchildren to get further details. After all, Berton wrote this book exactly 100 years after the saga began in 1871. In fact, he refers to the '70s and '80s in this book with the implicit understanding that he's talking about the 1870s and 1880s, simply because the 1970s and 80s hadn't happened yet.

Next on my reading list is Berton's Klondike, which tells the tale of the last gold rush in North America. I've gotten a few chapters in so far, and it's just as interesting. Even moreso, I think, because Berton was actually born in the Yukon only a quarter-century after the gold rush, so he certainly would have encountered some of the people he writes about. When I'm done, I'll let you know what I thought of it.

Champions 1e: Reflections

Alright, that completes our read-through of the 1st edition Champions game. And now, some thoughts on the game.

First of all, it's interesting to see how many similarities there are between the 1st and 4th, and even 5th, editions. The core essentials of the game didn't change at all. Converting a character between editions isn't difficult at all, thanks to the consistency. That doesn't mean nothing changes, obviously; point costs for powers, skills and disadvantages did change from edition to edition, and Elemental Controls and Multipowers changed several times in an effort to get them right. But for the most part, a character created with these rules can be easily updated to a later edition with minimal effort. That is a good thing.

There are a few things that I felt were missing from these rules. Not just some powers and skills, such as physical illusions (which would appear later on as Images), or the ability to transform something into something else; these would show up later on as well.

But I'm talking about things that, for a lot of people, would be considered essential to a superhero roleplaying game. What about a headquarters? How do you build one? Does the team have a vehicle? There are no rules for designing one in this edition, and there wouldn't be until the Champions II supplement that came out after the 2nd edition rules.

What about your character's secret identity and their job? Are you a mild-mannered reporter? If so, how good are you at your job? The skills list is quite small, and mostly covers ways to simulate Batman and other street-level martial arts heroes. But it does nothing for your secret ID. Again, this stuff would show up in later editions and supplements, but it does feel like an important oversight.

There are a couple of references in the rules to Special Effects, and a reference to a section discussing them. That section is not in this book, anywhere. Definitely an oversight that they corrected in the 2nd edition the following year. Special Effects are different from the Actual Effects of a Power. For example, Starfire can blast cosmic energy from her hands. Human Torch can throw fire. Cyclops has eyebeams. Green Lantern has a power ring that can create a huge boxing glove. Iron Man's armor includes repulsors. Storm can throw lightning. All of these function as an Energy Blast attack, but they all have different special effects. So, the description of the power explains how it works; the special effects are what it looks like. It's a very elegant way to avoid including a long list of powers such as 'lightning bolt', 'ice blast', 'fire blast', etc. They're all Energy Blasts at their core. This is a great concept, and one that really helps the game shine. In the 5th edition, there would be rules covering the different special effects and possible advantage or limitations based on the real-world way the special effect would work, but that was never really necessary. 5th edition got very, very wordy on that sort of stuff.

Here, if the section on special effects had been included, it would have made this 1st edition close to perfect. It's still an excellent way to play superheroes, and it has stood the test of time as the cream of the superhero RPG crop.

Would I run a 1st edition game? Probably not, but then I've got the 4th edition books, all of them, so I'm more comfortable running and playing that edition over any other. But this edition is a great peek at what Champions would eventually become, an embryonic form that has incredible potential. Even though some powers are not yet included, the variety of possible characters with this ruleset is just about unlimited. You could create Superman (from the golden age, or the invincible 60s-70s version, or the Post-Crisis John Byrne version) from these rules. You could create the X-Men. You could create the Justice League or the Avengers, although it would require a much larger number of points to do these characters justice. However, considering how all of these characters got started in the comics, it's fitting that you could create the earliest versions of Superman, Batman, Hawkman, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, Captain America, and others with relative ease from this earliest version of the game rules.

Overall, it was a fun read-through. It was different from my earlier Traveller Let's Read, simply because unlike Traveller, I am quite familiar with Champions and have been for about 35 years. So it was more a case of 'what did this game I love used to look like?' rather than 'what is the game that I've never seen before?' And it's not 80,000 words or so like the Traveller one was, simply because there was only one book here, and only 56 pages (four of which were dedications, copyright info, and table of contents stuff). So of course it was going to be shorter.

What will I do next? I was thinking of creating a few characters (other than Nightshade) with these rules just to see how flexible this early edition really is. I remember some characters I created decades ago for a different game (Villains & Vigilantes), and it would be fun to revisit the ones I remember. So, maybe I'll do some of that. Otherwise, I've got other stuff to go over as well: Book and music reviews, for example. Who knows what tomorrow shall bring?

Until then, face front, true believers, and Excelsior.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pgs 55-56)

Finally! Two pages left, but both are short enough that I'm going to do them both today and get this done. I'll do a final entry talking about my overall impressions of these rules, but for now, let's just finish this off.

The first thing I noticed on page 55 is that we actually have art that fits one of the characters: Shrinker! Yes, we have a cool drawing that visualizes the Shrinking power. I mean, sure, it could be Growth, if you look at it the other way, but on the previous page there's a villain with Shrinking power, so let's go with the obvious. It's nice to actually see some character art that fits what we've seen.

Alright, there's one more character here, but it's not a villain or a hero; it's an agent. Specifically, an agent of VIPER, the bad-guy version of UNTIL. They are mentioned in the background of several characters, such as Crusader and Pulsar, but other than that we've had absolutely no information about this organization. So, here is one of their flunkies. He's almost the same as the UNTIL agent listed earlier; he's stronger, but not as fast or tough. He's a better hand-to-hand fighter, but not as good with his blaster rifle as the UNTIL agent. VIPER is an international organization of top underworld and espionage figures. They hire a lot of mercenaries, including villains, and also hire out their muscle to the highest bidder. VIPER is basically a combination of Hydra from Marvel Comics and SPECTRE from the James Bond series.

VIPER is a mainstay of Champions, existing in every single edition. However, it wasn't until the 4th edition book VIPER that they became something of an actual threat. In fact, once that book came out, VIPER disappeared from a lot of players' Hunteds because of how utterly dangerous the organization became. For now, however, they're just mooks to be mowed down by heroes when they are feeling down on their luck.

The last page is the Afterword. The authors promise to produce more items (a promise they would keep, on a somewhat irregular schedule, for several years) such as adventures, books of villains, and supplements. They also solicit artwork, including character pics and scenes from actual play. Not to mention, they invite new Powers, Skills, Disadvantages, Power Advantages, Limitations, Weapons, Armor, and anything else that might be viewed as necessary. I know that vehicles and bases were a missing piece of these rules, but they would eventually show up.

And, aside from one final piece of art depicting whom I presume is the hero Icestar (mentioned in the Dedications on page 2), that is it for this book. 64 pages, including the eight character sheets in the middle, and we have what is essentially a complete superhero roleplaying game. Imagine that: A complete game in a mere 64 pages. It can be done; many of the early RPGs were on that sort of a tight page count. Today, 64 pages doesn't even cover character creation in most RPGs, let alone combat or campaigning.

So, as I said, I'll do a final overview and collection of my thoughts on this book next time. Let me know what you thought of it, too; I look forward to your comments.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 54)

Okay, we're just about through this puppy. Today we'll cover the last two actual supervillains in the book. The first one is Pulsar. Another no-name Secret ID type, Pulsar was a VIPER agent (more on them next time) who was a volunteer for an experiment that went south. In the explosion, he became Pulsar and turned on VIPER for turning him into a supervillain. You would think he'd be grateful; I imagine the perks of being a supervillain working for an international criminal organization would be way better than being a rank-and-file agent, aka superhero cannon fodder. But some people just don't handle change well.

Pulsar is quick, tough, and difficult to bring down. He's got a powerful NND Energy Blast for 7D6 that is only stopped by Force Fields, and he's quite proficient with it (½ END, +3 levels). He's also a trained hand-to-hand fighter with Martial Arts, and can switch between villain and civilian identities instantly. He's ridiculously overconfident, and does not handle insults well at all; he might even go berserk if you hit him with a particularly good zinger. VIPER is hunting him, of course, and so is UNTIL for his work as a VIPER agent. He takes double damage from physical attacks, and suffers from a spate of bad luck (3D6 Unluck).

Pulsar is another one of those classic villains who has definitely been in every edition of the game. He's a natural skunk that players will love taking down. And in this version, he's actually pretty vulnerable; he doesn't yet have the Force Field power he would have in later editions, and with his vulnerability he's going to do down hard from being punched in the face. Still, every campaign needs a Pulsar.

Our last villain(ess) is the notorious Shrinker. This time we do have a Secret ID: Diana Whitworth. Another experimental transformation in a lab, she gained the power to shrink, and she can both fly and fire energy bolts when she's shrunken down. In a neat little twist, she used to be a hero and part of a New York-based team. The team had issues and temporarily broke up, and she fell into difficulties until she turned to crime to get out of her various jams. Now she enjoys making a fool out of heroes, especially the ones who used to be her teammates. Needless to say, she is hunted by that team as well as the FBI. She's very vulnerable to poison and chemical attacks due to her unique biochemistry, but it's almost impossible to even find her when she doesn't want to be seen. Her Shrinking is 5 levels, meaning she's at -10 to be spotted and +10 DCV. Her physical stats aren't all that impressive, but if you ever saw the Ant-Man movie and the stuff both Scott and Hank Pym could do, you'll know just how dangerous she can be.

So, that's our list of stock villains. Including the sample characters, there's Ogre, Armadillo, Dragonfly, Green Dragon, Howler, Icicle, Mechanon, Pulsar, and Shrinker. That's nine villains plus two heroes (Crusader and Starburst) to help get a campaign started. Not a bad place to begin, I think.

Okay, there are two pages left, and I'll cover both of them next time. Until then, keep the faith, True Believers!

Let's Read Champions 1e (pgs 52-53)

Yes, I'm going to cover two pages today and three characters, because page 52 only has one character ana piece of art that doesn't even match that character. In fact, it looks more like I would expect Starburst to look. A flying guy in a dramatic pose with a cape? Yeah, if it wasn't for the fact that I've seen future editions that included a drawing of Starburst, I would peg this as being him.

However, the character on the page isn't Starburst; it's Howler, our very first female Champions character. Like Dragonfly, Howler isn't given a civilian name even though she has a Secret Identity. She's a sonic energy projector; she can fly, has a Sonic Scream and a Sonic Shield, and her powers come from an alien amulet, Green Lantern-style. She's hunted by the FBI and the police, and she's vulnerable to bullets. She's afraid of guns and of aliens and other strange creatures. Unlike Green Lantern, she isn't a hero; her mind was twisted by the encounter, so she became a supervillain. I don't know if she made it to the 6th edition, but she did make it into 5th and ever other edition prior to that.

On the next page, we get our second female Champions character: Icicle. She's built on only 185 points, and aside from her DEX and CON she's pretty average in terms of her characteristics. Again, no Secret ID name given. Her powers are basically Iceman's starting suite, built in an Elemental Control; her three powers are an Ice Ram (EB), an Ice Slide (Running), and Ice Armor. She's hunted by a New York supergroup, and is vulnerable to fire and lasers. She's a teenage runaway whose father nearly killed her for the crime of being a mutant. So, they're going with the X-Men background in the core game. Well, I suppose. It wasn't completely overdone in 1981 the way it is today.

Ah, here we go...Mechanon. The ultimate bad guy in many campaigns, Mechanon is a robot who was originally supposed to be an LA superteam's security system until his programming went haywire and he decided that his goal in life was to exterminate all organic beings. Oops. Someone rolled an 18 on their Computer Programming roll on that one. Mechanon is a megalomaniacal robot with extreme paranoia that has tons of contingency bodies hidden away in case his current one is destroyed. And every time he is rebuilt, he is given a defense against whatever destroyed him. That's inconvenient. Anyway, Mechanon is build on a whopping 345 points, which is a lot for this edition of the game. He's got a 60 STR, 40 CON, 65 STUN, fully resistant 30 PD and ED, a SPD of 7, a 10D6 EB, flight, flash defense, and 2 Overall Levels. He's hunted by UNTIL and the supergroup that built him, and he's both overconfident and, as mentioned before, a megalomaniac.

Mechanon is built to take on an entire team of heroes by himself. It's funny to see this now, since by 5th edition, 345 points is a beginning superhero's point total (actually 350), and this version of Mechanon is a pansy by comparison. Of course, in later editions he gets plenty more points (4th edition has him somewhere around 770, as I recall, and his 5th and 6th edition versions are even more ridiculous). Still, as it stands Mechanon is probably capable of taking on a full team of 1e characters, assuming they aren't overloaded with Disadvantages to give them stupid amounts of points. I will note that Mechanon is the only character thus far that is given a special 'Villain Bonus' of points to enable him to buy all those powers and abilities without having to take crippling Disads for points. So, that is a handy device. I know we'll see it in other characters in other products, but I doubt we'll see them on the last couple of pages.

And there you have it. Two distaff villains and an uber-villain for your pleasure. Take them on if you dare. Well, the first two should be manageable. But Mechanon...yikes. See you next time.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 51)

Okay, we've got two more characters to meet today. First up: Dragonfly. He was an UNTIL scientist working on DNA experiments with insect genes, because every scientist in comic-book history was an absolute idiot when it came to doing DNA experiments. At least he didn't dose himself on purpose; an accident is responsible. Anyway, thanks to the magic of comic-book science, the experiment serum that got all over him during an electrical explosion didn't just dye his skin green or give him cancer; instead, he turned into a human insectoid with wings and an Energy Blast. He's hunted by both UNTIL and a Chicago supergroup, takes double the stun from Physical attacks, and otherwise is having a rough time of it. He ended up as a villain, to the surprise of no one. Although, in 3rd edition they actually gave all of the sample characters a 'hero option'. It didn't catch on past that edition, though. Too bad; there were some interesting ideas there.

Next up is Green Dragon. He's just a bully with exceptional martial arts abilities. And he has a SPD of 7, which will definitely get your attention. This dude is fast. He bought +3" of running, giving him a base movement of 9". With a SPD of 7, that means he can, if he so chooses, move as fast as 63"/turn, or 126 m. in 12 seconds. That's Olympic sprinter speed. That's Usain Bolt's level. So yeah, Green Dragon is fast. But he's also a deadly martial artist and a master of disguise. He's hunted by UNTIL, the CIA and the FBI; not a popular guy. He's Chinese, has a younger sister that he protects (despite her not wanting to be protected), and has a tendency to go berserk in combat. Here he is called 'Aaron Chow', whereas his later appearances his name was Deng Chow. And here, he's mixed-race (Oriental dad, Occidental mom), and his parents were killed in Hong Kong thanks to a bad villain's insidious plan.

So, that's where we are with these two; they're two iconic Champions villains that have lasted through multiple editions, although I don't know if Dragonfly made it past 4th edition. Green Dragon definitely did, though. And that's it for me for tonight. Next time, I'll be doing just one character, so I might actually do two pages to get it to three characters to make it more interesting. Until then, stay strong and fight on!

Happy Birthday, Peanut!

God help me, I have two teenagers in the house now. Happy Birthday to the sweetest boy I've ever known. Autistic or not, he is a bundle of unconditional love who is very much into Lego, puzzles, and coloring. He has certainly come a long way, and he has been one of the greatest blessings in my life.

Here he was at the age of three, before we knew about his autism. Big Brother Ashton was teaching him how to run a riding lawn mower. Actually, that's a tractor with an excavator bucket on the back. Ashton has always been into that sort of thing. Garrett always had fun with Ashton; they are very, very close.

I don't take a lot of pictures of my family, but the ones I do have are precious. Garrett means the world to me, and I am so grateful he's been in my life for thirteen whole years. I used to write a daily journal for him, but unfortunately our precious dog Raven ate the flash drive on which it was stored when he was only a couple of years old. Ah, well.

Happy Birthday, Peanut, and may you have many, many more as fun as this one was.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 50)

Okay, we're into the sample characters now. Or rather, the sample villains (with one exception). As I said last time, these are iconic characters that almost all made it through all six editions of the game relatively untouched. The fifth edition versions were given more comprehensive writeups, but overall these characters are stalwarts of the Champions game.

We start off with the one non-villain sample character: An Agent of UNTIL, the United Nations Tribunal on International Law. These are the good-guy agents, the Champions equivalent of S.H.I.E.L.D. The agent is a standard one, built on a mere 50 pts with improved DEX and CON and a SPD of 3. They get Martial arts and a skill level with guns. As normals, they don't have to pay for their equipment, so they are assigned a simple 5D6 blaster rifle and a 6 PD/6 ED bulletproof vest with an Activation roll of 11 or less. No disads required, and they're done.

UNTIL is, as mentioned, the 'good-guy' agency that can act as a liaison for PCs; they have a headquarters in the UN building in New York, and they fight against international crime organizations such as VIPER (a not-so-subtle clone of HYDRA). These agents are the basic squads sent to provide backup to heroes; they're combat types. Later editions would include more detail about the organization, but all we get here is their original purpose was to watchdog countries with nuclear weapons, and it expanded to becoming the super-spy agency under the command of Paraguayan ex-freedom fighter Major Martinez. So, they're a very useful group to have around.

Now we get our first actual villain: Armadillo. Randall Gordon was a junior Engineer for a contractor on the "Armadillo" suit; he saw the suit's potential quite rapidly, and stole it for himself piecemeal to hide the theft. The armor gives him a lot of characteristic boosts (he's basically useless without the armor) such as STR 50 and CON 28, as well as an Energy Blast, full Damage Resistance, an HTH Killing Attack, Tunneling and Life Support. He's hunted by a Chicago superteam, a Canadian superteam, and the organization he stole the armor from; he takes 2x STUN from Ego and Sonic attacks, has a secret identity, and is paranoid about the suit being stolen. Since pretty much everything is bought with his armor, he gets massive cost breaks on his point totals; he's built on only 223 points total. Even his INT is boosted by the armor, which is weird. But, it's there, so we'll roll with it. His most common function in a game is as an errand boy for organized crime, and of course fighting superheroes who try to stop said organized crime.

So, that's our two characters for today. Well, one character and a representative of a whole organization. Armadillo is a bit of a twit, to be honest; as I recall in later editions, he has a tendency to announce his every move, making it easy to counter him once you know what he's capable of. Still, a 50 STR and fully resistant 24 PD and ED makes him a tough customer for beginning heroes, so be careful around him. He might just take you down.

And that's it for now. Tomorrow, we have more characters, both with a dragon motif.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 49)

We're oh so close to the end of this, but first...Design Considerations. Back in the day, this was an important topic for some people, I suppose. Everyone who picked up a fistful of dice dreamed of creating their own RPG someday, so stuff like this was fun to read.

So, obviously comics were the primary resource for the game's inspiration. The powers were designed to enable players to emulate the comic books they read, and the characteristics were selected to give more opportunities to differentiate the heroes from the average people around them. The basic rule of thumb was that a 5-point bonus to STR or an additional die of damage was twice as powerful as the die before it. I'm not sure how that's supposed to work, though; 6D6 damage isn't twice as powerful as 5D6, after all. Maybe they just didn't word it the way they meant to.

Finally, there's a section on changing the game. Designing new powers is an obvious way. While the powers listed in this book are pretty comprehensive, and with Advantages and Limitations almost any comic-book trick can be duplicated, there are still a few things that GMs and players might want to do that really aren't covered. So, GMs might design new powers to compensate for those gaps. The rule is that 50 points in a power is pretty good, while 100 points is wonderful. I would say 'excessive' myself.

The idea is to build powers around the 1D6 per 5 pts. principle, and that powers should be more open-ended to allow for variations and nuances. If you don't think the power should be all that common, boost its minimum cost. Finally, any offense should have a corresponding defense that is much cheaper to buy.

Other ways to change the game (much simpler than just creating new powers) are to start with a higher point base. A 200-point base plus Disadvantages will create a much tougher character than a 100-point base, so this is more for the higher-powered heroes like the JLA or the Avengers. Of course, people have been converting those teams to Champions pretty much since the game was invented. I've seen Superman write-ups built on 2,000 points. Even Batman is over 1,000 points in some of the more ridiculous versions. You couldn't even do Iron Man with these rules without giving him gobs of points to cover all the things in his armor. So, higher base points will give tougher characters, but they still won't match up with the true heavy-hitters of the genre. And that's okay. The most popular characters were usually the mid-level characters like the Teen Titans or the X-Men, so that's what most people would consider playing. That, and Batman clones. Because everyone wanted to be Batman.

Finally, there's an option to just ditch Endurance costs altogether; all powers are automatically at 0 END without any cost breaks. Well, it's an option, and considering just how much END gets used in these earlier editions, it's not a terrible one. 4th edition changed the END cost from 1 per 5 pts. to 1 per 10, which made the END usage much more manageable, and characters weren't dropping from exhaustion fifteen seconds into a fight. In this edition, the 0 END option might be helpful, although it will ensure that fights will be much harder-hitting, since no one will be worried about conserving END.

Well, this entry is wordier than the page I'm reviewing. Yes, that's all there is on this page; the bottom half of the page is reserved for a very nice drawing of an Iron Man clone. So, we've now covered all the rules of the game. What's left? Sample characters, of course. And oh my, these are classics of the Champions game. I think they've all made it through every edition of the game thus far. I might be wrong about some of them, but there are definitely a few that have lasted forty-four years now. We'll start on them next time. Until then, may your dice ever roll true.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 48)

When last we met our dastardly villains, we were discussing their penchant for not killing heroes outright but rather sticking them in inescapable deathtraps that the heroes would then escape from before valiantly defeating the bad guys. The most important question about deathtraps is: Why?! Why put them in a trap that they are sure to escape from instead of just doing the smart thing and finishing them off right then and there?

Well, there are a few reasons. First, the villain may be grandiose enough that he truly thinks that the deathtrap will suffice to end the hero, and he wants to revel in his own genius. Of course, that one never works out well for the villain. Second, he might want to get a better idea of just what the hero is actually capable of; if he can't get out of the trap, so much the better. But if he does...the villain might have learned something about the hero's capabilities and weaknesses. Third, hostages are a tried and true villain tradition, too. Use the captured hero as bait to get more of them. Sidekicks are, of course, the ultimate hostage bait. Hi, Robin.

There's another reason that villains might not want to just execute the heroes; it tends to irritate the other heroes around, and having several teams of heroes looking to take you out because you killed one of their own is a good way to get yourself way in over your head. Sure, you can take down one mid-level hero, but when the Avenging Crusaders get wind of it, they'll be after you in full force.

Villains tend to be solo operators, not doing well in groups. Most solo villains should be a little bit tougher than normal, since they've got to be able to stand up to multiple heroes at once. Unless you're running a solo game, of course, with one hero taking on the underworld by himself. In that case, don't overpower the villains. Think of Spider-Man's rogues' gallery, or even Batman's. The villains are tough enough to challenge the hero, but not usually too much for him to handle alone (or with a sidekick).

Of course, some villains do run in packs. Maybe it's because they share an origin, or they're tired of getting beaten up by the hero and decide to work together to take him down. The first group tends to stay together longer than the second group, especially when egos get involved. But a well-coordinated supervillain team can be an absolute nightmare for a group of heroes. They compensate for each other's weaknesses, coordinate their attacks, and can form bonds as tight as hero groups under the right circumstances. Groups like this can be a great part of a campaign if done right.

So, that covers the villain stuff. Next up we have everyone else, the common, non-powered people that populate the game. In some cases, there will be just one or two of these people; for the longest time, the only civilians in Batman's life were Alfred and Commissioner Gordon. Superman had Lois Lane and George Taylor at first (Perry White's predecessor as editor of the paper); Jimmy Olsen came along later.

On the other hand, Spider-Man has almost as many civilians in his life as villains. Aunt May, Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy, Flash Thompson, J. Jonah Jameson, Robbie Robertson, Liz Allan...the list is lengthy, to say the least. But Spider-Man is usually a solo act, so having a strong supporting cast helps flesh out his stories. In a Champions game, DNPCs and (sometimes) Hunteds will be the source of these supporting characters. These people can be reporters, police officers, younger siblings, elderly relatives, or whatever comes to mind. They are invaluable to a Champions game because they will give the setting a more grounded feel. Not everyone is a super; ordinary people are important, too.

Finally, a game shouldn't be static. The world exists outside of the PCs, and the game should reflect that. Things happen that don't involve the PCs but still make the news; let them know about these things. They can provide hints for future adventures, or just background noise to make the world feel more alive. Either way, it's a good practice to have.

Alright, that appears to cover the rules of the game, but we still have more to go in the book and on this page. And what do we have her? The Origins of Champions! That's right, George MacDonald is going to tell us how this game got started. Turns out it got started because he was bored in class. I can relate to that, but unfortunately I didn't design an award-winning RPG when I was in college. Too bad for me.

Anyway, George fleshed out the basics of combat and characteristics, but developing the point system took time and a second person, Wayne Shaw. His system inspired George, although the system we saw in the previous 48 pages isn't much like Wayne's work at all. Still, Wayne gets a shout-out for his efforts, which is nice. It took a couple of years of development and playtesting for the game to finally see print. Several people get mentioned as being important in the game's development, including Ray Grier, Glenn Thain, and Tom Tumey among others.

There's a partial paragraph remaining on this page, but I'm going to save it for the next page since it's tied to what's on page 49, and it isn't a full page anyway. So, that's it for this one. We're nearly through to the end, which is exciting. Stick with it, folks; it'll be worth it.

Happy Birthday, Honey Bunny!

It's a day late, but we were out late yesterday celebrating my wife's birthday. So, I wanted to simply drop a quick note that Dannielle is the greatest wife, mother, friend, and woman I've ever known, and I am eternally grateful to God that He brought us together. I can't imagine what the last eighteen years would have been like without her, and I'm glad I'll never have to know.

She doesn't like to have too many pictures taken of herself, but I do have a few saved, so here are some of our favorite memories over the past few years.

Prepping for our first pigs, Aug 2022

At the playground with the kids, Sep 2016

Leaving port for our fifth cruise, March 2017

I really don't have a lot of photos on my computer, which is unfortunate. But I've certainly got a lot of memories. Again, I am totally grateful that I get to be her husband. And we're even growing old together. But not that old. She's still young and beautiful.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 47)

Let's continue with the World Building, shall we? The next note is that while many campaigns will be set in a single city, there's a fun variation where you can have multiple GMs in a group, and they all run their games in a different city in the same country. So, you might have one GM running a team in New York, a second on in Miami, and a third in Washington DC. This enables characters to easily transfer between campaigns; Mega-man's secret identity is working for a newly-elected Congressman, so he leaves the New York team and joins the DC team instead, still in the same campaign world but with a different GM. Villains and organizations can be across multiple campaigns, and the GMs can come up with a common background to fill in more detail than a single GM could accomplish. This can be a great way to run a set of games, although the GMs do have to ensure they don't do anything that will disrupt the other games (the New York team tries to stop a massive flood but fails, meaning Miami is inundated...the other campaign will have some serious problems to deal with based on someone else's game, which isn't good).

Alright, so the next section is on the Superhero Rationale. Why do they do it? What pushes a person who gains (accidentally or deliberately) superhuman abilities to put on a colorful costume and fly around helping people? The answer to that question goes a long way toward helping to define the character's personality. And a team of heroes can have different reasons, but the motivation ends up in the same place: Helping other people. Maybe one hero is seeking revenge on a supervillain who harmed a loved on; another one had a wise uncle who told him that with great power comes great responsibility. And some of them are doing it because it's fun, or because it's an ego boost to be the idol of millions. We also get a paragraph on the unwritten 'hero code'. Be better than the villain; capture them, not kill them. Of course, that leaves the possibility of villains escaping (which they do with depressing frequency). However, most law enforcement and even other heroes will generally respond better to the 'good guy' persona rather than the Punisher-types.

Speaking of other heroes, it's possible that you are running a game where the PCs are the only superheroes in the world (as in the latest Fantastic Four movie, First Steps). However, if that isn't the case, then you're going to have to populate the campaign with other heroes. You can certainly use Crusader and Starburst as NPC heroes if you want, but you're probably going to need more than just the two of them. The key to using them is to not let them overshadow the PCs; having Black Widow show up to help with an investigation is great; having Thor show up and pummel the villains that the PCs aren't strong enough to fight themselves is not. Let Thor fight his own villains, and make sure that the PCs at least have a chance against the villains they fight.

Another good thing about NPC heroes is that when they are put together as a team, they can serve as an example of what the PCs should be doing. Maybe the Philadelphia Patrol have a snazzy headquarters that the PCs would like to emulate, or the Dallas Dream Team are the standard by which all others are measured. Alternatively, you can have a team made up of PC and NPC heroes. This both gives the GM a chance to get in on the action, and allows him to have some subtle input into the direction the group takes in a scenario. This has to be done carefully though, so as to not make the 'correct path' too obvious through NPC fiat.

Agents and agent groups are a staple of comics. Everyone knows Hydra's motto: Cut off one head, two more take its place. Well, they are great opponents for heroes, especially lower-powered ones. But organizations might be looking to add some super-powered muscle to deal with those pesky heroes. Agent groups are usually normal, average characters with weapons and occasional special devices. They can be given more points to make them more competent (or give them a bigger gun), but this shouldn't be overused; if agents are too tough, then what makes the supers super? The occasional 50-pt agent would be a challenge, certainly, especially if played smart by a competent DM.

Last on this page we have Supervillain Rationales. Like the heroes, the villains have a tendency to have reasons for what they are doing. These are mostly covered earlier on pages 41 and 42, but this is less about what they are doing, and more with why they are doing it. Then we get the age-old question: Why doesn't the villain just kill a captured hero instead of monologuing and deathtraps? Good question. Maybe they hate the hero so much that a quick death isn't painful enough. So, into the Death Trap they go.

This section continues on the next page; we'll get to it next time. Until then, may all your dice roll high when you need them to.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 46, cont.)

Alright, now that we've learned how to play, it's time to discuss World Building. This is the last section of the book before we get the rest of the sample characters and the end of the book. This is less than half the page, but it's important stuff.

So, the first decision the GM has to make is where the campaign is set. Is it a major city, like New York, Los Angeles, or Toronto? Is it across the ocean in Tokyo or London? Is it even on Earth, or is it out in space? The possibilities are pretty much endless, so it's important to think about this before you do anything else. This includes not only where, but when the game is set. Maybe you're playing a steampunk superheroes game set in Victorian England (or the Gilded Age prior to the First World War). Maybe it's a Legion of Super-Heroes game set in the far future. Or you're going back to where superheroes began, to the Golden Age and World War II. Again, the possibilities are endless. Just remember that the farther from the current time you go, the less players will know about the setting, and the more work you will have to do to set up the campaign.

For this reason, contemporary campaigns are the easiest to set up and play in. Other than the existence of supers, you can basically assume that the world is the same as ours, and current events can play into the scenarios you create. You can also link character backgrounds to recent events, such as 9/11 or the financial crash of 2008.

Next up is 'how big will you go?' A Fantastic Four-style game can go all over the world, or even outside of it; in their first few years, the FF went to the moon and much further into space, as well as all over the world. Meanwhile, Spider-Man spent most of his time in New York, rarely expanding his adventures beyond the city that never sleeps. Smaller is easier, and requires less additional prep on the part of the GM. On the other hand, world-spanning superheroes like the Avengers and the Justice League might not do too well when confined to a single city, even one as big as New York.

Then you get technology questions. How close is tech to what we have now? In a society that's had supers for a few decades, it's likely that there will be higher levels of technology available simply because of all the Tony Starks and Lex Luthors out there that are always coming up with new gadgets and inventions, many of which would certainly hit the consumer market at some point. If your supers go all the way back to the Golden Age, it's even more likely that ninety years later, tech levels would be higher than anything we have today.

But it's not just modern tech to consider; there might be ancient tech buried in lost cities, or even low-tech stuff like swords and armor. And magic is a possible substitute for technology in some cases, depending on your preferences (and possibly the kinds of heroes your players come up with). Regardless, the GM will, of course, have the final say, not only in available technologies, but also character choices; you don't have to approve every character concept the players hand you, especially if they don't fit. For example, you're running a super-science style game and one of the players wants to play a supernatural ghost that possesses people. If it doesn't fit the game you want to run, don't allow it.

Alright, that's a short entry for today, but we'll get to more world-building next time. See you then.

And I just realized that this was my 600th post on this blog! Milestone reached! Next target...700.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pgs 43-46)

Alright, it's time for the example of play, which takes up quite a bit of space. It's a quick scenario that teaches the basic rules and gives examples of all the important concepts. All this in less than four pages. It's got an interesting beginning: The first thing the GM asks is 'what are your secret identities?' This actually makes some sense; if you go back to the character creation examples, you'll see that while both Crusader and Starburst have the Secret ID disadvantage, but they aren't actually defined or given names. In this case, the two players define their character's jobs, but not their names. Starburst is a scientist; Crusader is a newspaper reporter.

So, the scenario starts with Crusader's secret ID making a deposit at the bank; Starburst is just bored at work, so he's flying around. Sure, why not? Needless to say, he just happens to be near the same bank that Crusader is in. Just as coincidentally, Ogre shows up with three henchmen intent on robbing the place. The action starts with Crusader ducking into a glass-enclosed cubicle to change into his heroic identity. Meanwhile, Starburst is flying by just in time to see the idling parked truck outside the bank and hear the glass breaking in the bank.

At this point, the GM goes to combat time and uses the Speed Chart. Crusader has a SPD of 6, Starburst 5; Ogre has a 4, and his henchmen all have 2, being treated as normals with average stats. This is done mostly to save time; henchmen really don't need a lot of detail or complicated character generation. Crusader is the only one to go on segment 2, and flips over the cubicle and punches the nearest gunman (Martial Punch). He makes an Acrobatics skill roll and catches the gunman by surprise, reducing his CV to 2 and giving himself a 17 or less to hit. He knocks the gunman out with a single punch, because that's what superheroes do to normals.

Next segment, Starburst flies in and does a Move Through on Ogre from behind. He hits him and does 7D6 damage, which works out to 26 STUN and 8 BODY; Ogre's defenses are enough to reduce that to a mere 3 STUN. Ogre responds by throwing a table at the impertinent hero, which stuns him (he takes 24 STUN after his defenses, which exceeds his CON). Well, that didn't work out well, did it?

Meanwhile, Crusader continues to mow down defenseless henchmen. Before anyone else can react, he takes out two of them with a single kick, knocking one into the other and stunning the second one. Martial Artists are great at taking out mooks, aren't they? But there's still the big guy to deal with, and Crusader turns his attention to Ogre. His attack is about as effective as Starburst's was. Fortunately, he's more nimble than Starburst, and avoids the counterattack. An old lady with a purse knocks out one of the gunmen who is recovering from being stunned. Well, not everyone runs away when the fight starts.

Starburst tries to blast Ogre, which is more effective since the villain's ED is lower than his PD. But it doesn't knock him out, of course. Ogre is a tough cookie. Ogre throws another table, but misses. Realizing how tough Ogre is, Crusader pushes his STR to hit Ogre as hard as he possibly can; he then waits for Starburst to attack so they can strike simultaneously. The tactic works, and they knock Ogre into next week with a two-pronged attack; Starburst likewise pushes his Energy Blast to maximize his damage potential, so the attack is pretty tiring for both of them. But it worked, so who cares, right?

After a snappy quip on the last henchman, the cops show up and the two heroes bask in the glory of the adoration of the press. And they get 2 XP each for the brief scenario. Not a bad bit of work, is it?

So, that's the scenario example. It's a standard one through the first few editions of the game, updated for the changes to the characters over time. But it gets the point across, and has plenty of action to explain the rules. So, it's definitely a good way to introduce the game.

And that will do it for now; I'll be back next time with the rest of page 46, which is about World Building. Stay tuned.

The National Dream: The Great Railway (1970)

I know, I know...I've been laser-focused on the Champions Let's Read for a while, but I just remembered that this blog is about other things, too. A long time ago, I read a book by Canadian historian and author Pierre Berton on Vimy, the great Canadian triumph of World War One. It was a fantastic book, and I couldn't put it down. Berton was a great writer, and wrote a lot of books on Canadian history. I've collected quite a few, and I'm slowly making my way through them in the order that they were published. I'm not a fan of his social attitudes, but there's no denying his acumen for writing about Canada's past. This was not the first book on Canadian history he wrote, but it was the first time he set out to write a popular, narrative history.

The National Dream covers the period from 1871 to 1881 when the Trans-Canada Railroad was just that: A dream. It was the grand ambition of Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada's first Prime Minister. He had a vision of uniting British Columbia to Eastern Canada through a transcontinental railroad. He saw this as an absolute necessity to prevent America from expanding into the uncharted northwest, where Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the Yukon are today. It was no secret that America had a policy of Manifest Destiny and considered the entire continent to be their birthright. MacDonald believed that without a railroad and a string of settlements across the prairies and all the way to BC, Canada would not long survive as an independent nation, but would eventually be absorbed into the United States.

The problem was that Canada was still a very young country; Confederation was only four years old, and the country consisted of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, a tiny part of Manitoba (which was made a province in 1870), and the Pacific colony of British Columbia, which was admitted as a province in 1871. One of the conditions for BC's addition to Confederation was the building of a railroad connecting the new province to the East. And there simply wasn't enough money available to make the railroad happen. The Americans had completed their transcontinental railroad in 1869, linking the prosperous East with the Wild West and California at an estimated cost of $60 million dollars, equal to about $1.2 billion today., with a track that was just under 1,800 miles long. Canada wasn't anywhere close to being able to afford a track that would be even longer, stretching from Toronto to Vancouver, just over 2,000 miles.

The issue of the railway was the dominant one in Canadian politics throughout the decade of the 1870s. The Pacific Scandal brought down MacDonald's government in 1873, leading to the first Liberal government in Canadian history under Alexander MacKenzie. The first actual work on the railroad was begun in 1875, but very little was accomplished, and MacDonald was swept back into power in 1878. Determined to make the railroad a reality, he sought financing in London and even in America. Finally, by early 1881, all the pieces seemed to be in place, and construction began in earnest in BC, in Winnipeg, and in Ontario.

The biggest challenges for the railroad were finding the best and quickest route through the Rocky Mountains, and figuring out how to build a railroad through the forbidding terrain of the Canadian Shield in Northern Ontario. Many surveyors traversed the Rockies seeking navigable passes through which a railway could be safely built. Chief among them was Walter Moberly, who was the first white man to see vast reaches of the Canadian Rockies. Moberly's surveying suggested that the best route through the Rockies would be through a northern route and Eagle Pass. This would have brought the railroad through what is now Edmonton, and land speculators had a field day staking claims and selling them to would-be settlers.

Sandford Fleming, the government's chosen Chief Engineer on the project, preferred a different pass through the Selkirk Mountains, the Yellowhead Pass. However, politics got in the way (don't they always?), and Fleming was dismissed in 1880 by Sir Charles Tupper, a member of MacDonald's cabinet and a future Prime Minister himself.

By the time the 1880s rolled around, the railway was still a pipe dream; an entire decade had been wasted with bureaucracy, financing difficulties, and personality conflicts among the surveyors, all of whom insisted that they had the best route mapped out. In the end, though, the railway would take a different route from all of them, and Canada would be forever changed. By 1881, the government finally had the people they needed lined up and ready to make the Canadian Pacific Railway a reality. But that, my friends, is a tale told in the next book.

Obviously, my brief summary isn't going to do justice to Berton's work. His meticulous research and narrative style made this book and its sequel (The Last Spike, 1971) Canadian best-sellers and inspired an eight-part TV miniseries in 1974 that was the highest-rated dramatic programming in CBC history. The entire series is available on YouTube for free, so it's worth checking out if you don't feel like sitting down and reading (but the book is better).

Anyway, that's my digression into one of my favorite topics, history. I'll be adding a review of The Last Spike soon, which tells the dramatic tale of how the CPR actually got built in record time. Until then, may all your dreams come true.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 43)

Okay, we're continuing with some notes on running Champions games. Normals are pretty much all non-superpowered people. And they have a tendency to get caught in the middle of super-battles. Normals are quite fragile in comparison to supers, so players have to be careful when they are between the heroes and the villains. Of course, the villains might be totally fine with normals being on the battlefield; it gives them lots of targets or hostages. It's up to the GM how to handle this; do they all flee from the area, or do they mill about with their cell phones to take all the video they can?

Unbalanced characters can be a problem in Champions. Since players can create their characters any way they want to, it's entirely possible that you have a player whose character is basically a glass cannon: Awesome firepower, virtually no defenses. This can be an issue for some players, since they are trying to create balanced characters, and the unbalanced one can take all the spotlight due to their 20D6 Energy Blast that takes out pretty much every villain in one shot. Remember, all the players are there to have fun, not just one of them.

Some scenarios will be one-off adventures, one-and-done that are quickly forgotten. Others will be part of a long-running campaign. Campaigns are more like the comic book series in which there are many adventures, but there are consequences that carry over into future issues. Again, it's up to the GM to decide how games will be run; some campaigns will be extremely serial, with one overarching plot that carries the entire story. These are fine, but better as mini-series within a campaign rather than expecting the one plot to carry a long-term campaign. Still, as the game progresses, the heroes will meet NPCs, form relationships, gain long-term enemies...just like the comics. And that is a good thing.

Okay, so how do characters improve? This is where experience points come in. Every adventure, the characters will gain one or more experience points. Why so few? After all, other games collect XPs by the hundreds or thousands. Why does Champions have such low XP numbers?

Because, True Believers, in Champions, every experience point is an brand-new power point that you can use to buy more powers, characteristics and skills. You can increase your Energy Blast or Strength, buy a new Omni-Gun, or learn martial arts as your character gains experience. The question, then, is how many experience points to give out? Well, there's a helpful list of situations that can earn (or even reduce) XP for a session. Tougher opposition gains more points; longer adventures will tend to earn more points as well. Playing in character within your character concept is worth additional XP, while playing outside of it can actually reduce your reward. For example, if Spider-Man spends a session brooding and fighting like he's Wolverine or the Punisher, that would be out of character (unless he was really pissed off). Likewise, Batman bouncing around the battlefield dropping quips and pantsing mooks would definitely be out of character. If you're going to be Batman, be Batman.

A final note about XP: Each character earns their own XP in an adventure; it's not a party pool divided evenly. So, some characters may gain more than others depending on how they played.

Alright, the next part of the book is our example scenario featuring the characters we were introduced to earlier during character creation: Crusader, Starburst, and Ogre. It covers nearly three pages, so I'm going to give that its own separate entry next time. And so, once again we say farewell, until we meet again.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 42)

We are continuing with villain motivations today. There are four more here to go along with the four from last page. First up, we have Seeking Power. This is a lesser version of Conquering the World; the villain is power hungry, and is trying to control a nation, other villains, even a city. But they aren't world-beater villains.

Then there's the villains who are just having fun. This can be as innocuous as Bat-Mite's antics trying to get Batman to look good, or as deadly as the Joker's version of 'fun'. Or, it could be villains just getting thrills from beating up heroes, or stealing things, or causing property damage. This covers a wide range of things.

Some villains are treating this as a game, Matching Wits with the heroes. The Riddler, of course, is a classic version of this archetype. So is the Wizard from the Frightful Four, seeking to match wits with Reed Richards. These guys are usually not quite as deadly as the more serious villains, although they certainly don't have to be easy-going, either. The Riddler, after all, has amassed a bit of a body count of his own.

Finally, there's the catch-all motivation of 'Accomplishing a Goal'. This can be literally anything that isn't covered by the other motivations. Maybe the villain is trying to build a spaceship to return to his home planet, or seeking to recover something stolen by another villain (or even, unwittingly, a hero). This one covers a lot of ground.

There's a recommendation to borrow liberally from comics as well as pulp magazines, science fiction, detective stories, etc. Super-hero adventures can be as small as a mystery requiring problem-solving and clue-finding, or as big as stopping Darkseid from conquering Earth and subjugating every living soul on the planet. Each adventure is up to you to figure out.

Alright, now we get classic "bits" from comics, things that appear so often that they are basically superhero clichés. Things like deathtraps, where the villain captures the hero, but instead of killing him on the spot he cackles with glee about how impotent the hero is to stop his plans, monologuing about his greatness and placing the hero in an impossible-to-escape deathtrap to finish him off. Of course, the hero escapes and the villain gets some insight into his powers and skills. Deathtraps can be as simple as throwing the hero out of an airplane (assuming he can't fly or glide), sealing the room and filling it with water (this won't work very well on Aquaman), or recreating the Star Wars garbage chute scene where the walls are closing in. These are just a few examples; deathtraps are limited only by the villain's (and your) imagination.

Then there's threatening the innocent. Villains do this all the time; grab a hostage and use them as a shield or to warn off the hero long enough for the villain to escape. This can also involve more dramatic gestures, like toppling a building or throwing a car at a crowd of people. All of these things are sure to get the heroes to react in a way that let's the villain gain some advantage.

Some villains will play possum, pretending to be stunned or knocked out in hopes that the hero will be distracted by another villain or rescue situation. This can also be used to draw a hero in for a sneak attack. Whatever works; there are no rules for the villains.

Ah, soliloquies, or monologues. Yes, all villains are basically required to do this at some point. But they aren't the only ones; Spider-Man is notorious for his constant chatter during fights. Wisecracks, epic speeches (Hi, Thor!) and the like are just as important as the villain's step-by-step explanation of his evil Master Plan. Use them wisely.

Exclamations are a subset of soliloquies; this is just catch phrases uttered by heroes and villains to show how serious the situation is, or to express surprise at a sudden change. 'Great Caesar's ghost!' is an example from Superman lore; He-Man has 'By the Power of Greyskull!' to keep him warm, and of course, Captain America's legendary 'Avengers Assemble!' battle cry. All of these are examples of exclamations that characters can use to give themselves a bit of an identifying mark.

Okay, so that's some of the common 'bits' you can use to spice up the adventure. Next, there's the problem of getting the characters involved in the scenario. This is especially important for the first scenario, where it's entirely possible the heroes don't know each other at all, and maybe haven't ever met before. This can be as simple as superhero coincidence magic, where several heroes will just happen across the scene of a crime at the same time, or perhaps the characters are contacted and made to work together to solve a particular problem on behalf of the token Rich Guy. There are tons of ways to get them together; just don't use the 'mysterious stranger at an inn' routine. That's a whole different game.

Now we get some general notes on playing, or how to conduct the game. Since Champions characters can be rather complex (especially in later editions), it's recommended that players only play a single hero at a time. This not only gives them more screen time in the game, since they are only sharing the spotlight with one other character per player, but it also gives more time to develop that character's personality and history as they are the player's sole focus for the duration of the game.

Unlike Traveller, this game doesn't recommend a lot of players. Even a single character can get into all sorts of trouble on his own, so beginning GMs shouldn't run too many players. They don't give a target number, but considering the typical size of a superhero team is about six people, that would seem to be a reasonable number of players, as well.

It's also recommended that the GM take copious notes to keep track of the small details. Consistency isn't always going to be perfect, but it's something to consider keeping track of. Furthermore, those little details can end up being quite important later on. Besides, you know the players are going to be taking down notes on every odd thing they encounter, so give them something to play with. Plus, it's possible that in a future supplement, someone will produce a running record of their game sessions so people can marvel at a well-run superhero campaign.

Finally, on this page at least, we have a discussion of background information. If miniatures are available, they are recommended. If not, it's on the GM to describe not only the scenario, but also the scenery in case fighting happens. After all, it doesn't do anyone any favors if the brick hero doesn't know about the park bench just sitting there, waiting to be used as a club on a bad guy's head. So, give them some property to destroy.

And that's it for this page. Next time, we'll learn about experience points and how they work, and get our first example of game play. Can't wait!

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 41)

Today, we will finish up with the weapons and the last part of combat: Property damage. Then, we'll go straight into building scenarios for Champions games. Ready? Let's go!

So, we have weapons advantages to look at first. There are three of them, so we'll go one at a time. First, Weapon has a large number of uses. This is basically a Charges advantage rather than a limitation, since it has more than 15 charges and thus will be more efficient than a power that normally uses Endurance Pips. If the weapon has between 15 and 25 charges, it's a +¼ advantage; up to 50 is a +½ advantage, and up to 100 is a +¾ advantage.

Autofire: This is firing multiple shots at once. Each shot is hitting the same target; you can't split them up at this point. Your attack gets a +4 to OCV, and the range modifier is halved. If you make the attack roll, you hit the target once. For every 2 points below the target number you roll, you hit an additional time. For example, after all modifiers the target is a 9 or less. If you roll a 6, you hit the target once for beating 9, and once more for beating 7 (two less than 9). You then roll two separate damage attacks; they are not combined. Autofire uses 10 shots, and is a +¼ advantage.

The third weapon advantage is Selective Fire. This means you can either shoot single shots or Autofire with the same weapon. This is a +½ advantage.

Now, your weapons are not limited to these advantages; they can also use the normal Power Advantages from earlier in the book. For example, grenades have the Explosive advantage. A 'mind-blast gun' built by a super-scientist might have Based on Ego Combat Value, or a microwave gun uses the No Normal Defense advantage. Likewise, limitations such as Limited Uses (Charges) and Focus are very, very common for weapons.

Alright, now we get to the brick's favorite pastime: breaking things. Things are always being broken in superhero comics. Cars, buildings, lampposts, construction sites, nuclear power plants...everything is a target at some point. So, every object has a Body Pip score to show how much damage they can take before breaking. Their Body Pip score also counts as their Defense score, in case someone is hiding behind it. If an object takes twice its Body score, it's gone. Vaporized, destroyed, whatever; it's not there anymore. For example, Nightshade blasts a brick wall, which has 8 BODY. He rolls his damage and scores 9 BODY points. The wall now has a hole in it, but it's still standing.

We then get a list of examples of things that can be broken in the game, such as reinforced concrete, automobiles, light poles, fire hydrants, bank vaults, tanks, airplanes, helicopters, and more. Some of them can have higher BODY scores if they are extra-thick or heavy; some of them (machinery) are generally rendered nonfunctional if they take half their BODY. For example, an airplane is given a BODY score of 10; if it takes 5 BODY, it's not flying anymore. It's still physically intact, but its guts are scrambled and will need to be repaired.

And that's it for the combat section. Yay! Now, on to the scenario building section.

First of all, the scenario you are creating needs a theme. This can be as simple as 'beat up the bad guys', or stopping their goals, such as robbing a bank or conquering the world. Or, the characters could be working against nature (trying to prevent a flood, or minimizing the damage from an earthquake, etc.). A great way to find a theme is to use a character's Disadvantages, such as Hunteds and DNPCs.

We now get a list of possible motivations for the villains; some will apply to certain characters, others will not. It depends on the type of villain. Doctor Doom or Lex Luthor have much different motivations than the Joker or the Rhino.

Conquering the World is a classic for megalomaniacal epic villains; generally, it involves complex plans of blackmail to force governments to bow to the villain's invincible might. Perhaps the villain is threatening nuclear destruction, or preparing to unleash a plague, or simply becoming powerful enough to defeat anyone who stands against them.

But, as a wise old butler once said, some men just want to watch the world burn. These guys aren't interesting in taking over the world; they want to destroy it. Galactus is a classic example; he's just hungry, and Earth is on the menu. Or an ocean-based villain seeks to flood the surface world and end human civilization. Some plots can parallel the ones from the previous motivation; the difference, of course, is that the villain isn't trying to blackmail anyone; he's actually going to do the big terrible thing.

Revenge is a classic; the villain wants to get back at the guy who threw him in jail the last time they fought. Or, the villain feels that the hero somehow wronged him; maybe he failed to save the person's loved one, and thus he became an embittered villain. These are best developed in play; a villain's first appearance shouldn't involve revenge unless it's part of his origin story.

The last one on this page is one of the simplest: The bad guy wants to get rich. Whether it's just getting money for the sake of having it, wanting to really upgrade his lifestyle, or he's trying to finance a more grandiose scheme that will allow him to conquer or destroy the world, money is a necessary component of his plot. This can range from a simple bank robbery to stealing the value of the world's financial markets.

And that's it for this page. There are more motivations on the next page, but we'll get to them next time. Until then, up, up, and away!