Champions, 1st Edition Introduction

 

The original cover

A long time ago, I did a 'let's read' series of posts on the original 1977 Traveller boxed set, consisting of three booklets. It was a very interesting series for me, since I was completely unfamiliar with the game, so it was fun to learn how it was originally laid out. So, I decided to do something similar with the superhero equivalent to games like Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller: Champions.

The reason I say it's the equivalent of those games isn't because it's a three-booklet game like the other two originally were. Champions is a generic game, where the players can create their own comic-book heroes (or copy ones from the comics) and fight villains of the GM's concoction. Over a decade and a half, Champions did create a 'universe' that became the official setting, but it wasn't created on purpose. It just developed from all the various supplements, adventures, and rules updates that came out over time.

But originally, in 1981, it was just a simple, one-book game consisting of 56 pages of rules and NPCs, and eight character sheets in the middle. The reason there were eight is because they were all enhanced with an outline of a superhero that the player could fill in to match their character's idea. There were four male and four female, in different poses and body types. One of each was flying (or swimming, if you had an Aquaman-type); the others were standing in different action poses.

So, as I did with Traveller, I'm going to go through this rulebook one page at a time, describing what rules are included and my thoughts on things I notice. I'll also create a new character based on these rules once I'm done, just because I can. For this first post, I'll run through to the table of contents so as to have a bit of actual content to talk about. I've played Champions before, and I bought the 4th edition when it first came out in 1989, so I have plenty of experience with the system. But this is where it all began, and it's going to be quite primitive by comparison. So I'm looking forward to seeing where the differences lie.

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We begin with the cover, which is a wraparound in full color. On the front we see a red and purple-clad supervillain with a Cyclops-type eyepiece shooting a green eyebeam at a mask-less hero in grey and blue whose fist is glowing red as he prepares to punch back at his opponent. On the back are three more heroes (or are they villains?): An Iron Man clone, a woman with long white hair in a very skimpy navy blue outfit, and a monstrous green gargoyle-like create with batwings, spikes from its knees and elbows, and a long tail. There's action here, although it's not easy to tell who is who from the cover alone. Maybe the inside will give some more clues.

The title page tells us that George MacDonald and Steve Peterson designed the game, and Mark Williams did the cover art as well as some of the interior art. The company is called 'Hero Games', and the book is copyright 1981. Oh, and that gargoyle on the back? That's a superhero named...Gargoyle. Created by Mark Williams. So there you go.

On the next page is the dedications to a few people with superhero names in quotes as their middle names; I recognize them as players and characters that were long known to be the original Guardians team that George ran games for, although this isn't indicated on the page itself. The heroes are Icestar, Force, Marksman, Mind Maid, and Mercenary.

Then we have the almighty Table of Contents, which runs for two pages and just breaks down what's going to be showing up in the book. I see a glossary of terms will show up right away, and character generation will run about twenty-five pages or so. Man, that's a lot shorter than the fifth edition, which dedicated a couple of hundred pages to creation. Sixth edition just shrugged its shoulders and did the entire first book on nothing but character creation. So it's refreshing to see how much simpler the game was in its original form.

The main topics that will be covered are Building a Character, Skills, Powers, Advantages, Limitations, Disadvantages, character examples, Combat, Perception and Characteristic rolls, Movement and scale, Weapons, Breaking things, Building a Scenario, World Building, the origins of the game, a few supervillains, and an afterword. Again, all in just a mere 54 pages or so.

So, next time I'll cover the first actual page, which will be familiar to just about anyone who's ever picked up a role-playing rulebook in their life.