CHAMPIONS - AGE of CHAOS - Prelude

One of the games I was able to run over the holiday vacation was Champions 4th Edition, my favorite version of one of my all time favorite Superhero RPGs (probably my current favorite - sorry Mutants & Masterminds 3E. I still love you man). 

The sessions were designed to teach the game to a few friends who'd never played it before, as well as giving a refresher course to some ol' Hero System veterans who hadn't played in a while (or were more familiar with other editions). 

The group I ran for [Dan's Group] responded positively to the game so it looks like I'll be running a full on campaign with them. 

Running Champions always takes me back to our absolutely incredible high school campaign. It's one I have mentioned many times on this blog, though I don't feel I have ever given it the justice it deserves (pun intended). 

Consider this a prelude to a Campaign I Have Played. 

In order to tell the tale of Will's epic Champions game, the backstory of it needs to be told as well.

You see, my friend William started his campaign in 1981, with the first edition of the game. That first team of PCs and their campaign formed the early canon for the subsequent adventures William would run on his world of Champions Earth-Wilco Charlie-1 for over a decade to come.

Through middle school, high school, and early college, his campaign would cover an eleven year history in real time. In-game, it would detail Champions Earth-WC-1 from the pre-historic era to the distant future, across the stars, and onward and outward to parallel Earths and other dimensions.

The world was grounded in our reality, so there weren't any fictional cities as one would see in the DC Comics universe. Most of the action took place in New York City, New York and other real world locations. Just as in many comic book settings secret lands, alien civilizations, and even the occasional fictitious nation could surely be found.

Real world people and events also played a role, sometimes in an alternative history fashion. 

Each 'chapter' of the campaign was a mini-campaign onto itself. One might even say they were separate campaigns with a kind of 'meta-campaign' based on their shared world history tying them all together. The various campaigns emulated [sometimes on purpose, sometimes accidentally] different eras of comic book history as well and received titles based on said periods.

The Silver Age of Champions:

The Champions (of the Silver Age)

Left to Right:

a teenage Omni, Tachyon, Garrison, Tower, and The Legionnaire***

The first campaign was entitled Champions: The Silver Age, and lasted from 1981 to about 1983. It began thematically Silver but was very Bronze by the end of it. 

It featured a team of traditional costumed and code named superheroes who inherited their team name from their long defunct predecessors, the Golden Age* Allied Champions. The team consisted of...

Garrison (a Super Soldier created to deal with the Iran Hostage Crisis)
Legionnaire (Scientist who can swap himself with one of his parallel Earth duplicates)
Omni (An alien teen with mental powers who joins as a rookie/sidekick member)
Tachyon (Super Speedster who converts to an Energy Form, and can absorb Energy)
Tower (Team Leader - a man with growth powers)

As I understand it, there were a few other PC and NPC members of the team at various points that I sadly don't recall. 

They took on evil organizations such as VIPER and DEMON, as well as numerous costumed criminals and malevolent masterminds. Major enemies included Dr. Destroyer, Eurostrike, Sundown, and Kineto**.

The campaign's finale involved a feud between two supervillains (Sundown and Kineto) and the heroes stepping in to prevent their battle from destroying Manhattan. The heroes had intel about roughly when and where the fight would occur but were dramatically divided over how to proceed.

Garrison insisted that the only way to stop what could be a terrible catastrophe was to kill the two villains. The rest of the team refused to kill anyone in cold blood, even major bad guys. Unable to reconcile, Garrison quits the team before the final battle.

At the battle, Sundown prepares to unleash an attack that would certainly destroy most of the city. He kills the Champions' leader, Tower, when that hero tries to sneak attack him from behind. A number of Champions members are also injured in the battle fighting Sundown and Kineto. 

Tachyon uses his energy absorption powers to reduce the power of Sundown's attack, which unfortunately overloads his own powers rendering him unable to use his abilities ever again less they go out of control. Tachyon is aided by Kineto in the conflict. Kineto uses his inertia and kinetic energy control to deflect Sundown's remaining Solar Sphere attack into space. 

The conflict ends when an unknown sniper, making an impossible shot with an incredible projectile weapon, shoots Sundown in the head. He falls from the top of a tall building and dies. Kineto escapes. The Champions, crestfallen by the outcome, the death of Tower, the neutralizing of Tachyon and other issues, disbands.

The Bronze Age of Champions:

A new campaign kicked off in 1985 with the timeline forwarded a few years.  

Tachyon (now an NPC) had retired from active superhero work but served as a media personality and superhuman advocate. The events of the Champions' final mission, as well as several subsequent situations, had caused superheroes to fall out of favor. Few Supers were still active. Most superhuman crimes were handled by special forces of the police, the organization known as PRIMUS (in Will's campaign, 'ParaHuman Response and Intelligence Military for the United States'), and UNTIL (the United Nations Tactical Intelligence League).

One of the superheroes still superheroing was Omni, that former junior member of the Champions who was now one of the only costumed crimefighters to have the public trust. This was no small feat either as Omni was an alien and aliens suffer a prejudice in Will's universe like that of mutants in Marvel Comics. 

Thanks to Omni's continued good deeds and Tachyon's spin-doctoring of those deeds, the tide began to turn. More new superheroes began to come out in public view. After Omni and several other heroes saved the President of the United States and a group of UN Ambassadors, UNTIL decided it was time to implement a plan they'd been considering.

UNTIL contacted Omni and asked him to help organize and lead a new team of supers that would be available to respond to situations in countries all over the world. UNTIL would oversee the teams, each with its own leader. The US, experiencing the most superhuman crime, would get the first team, based in NY, and lead by Omni. Omni agreed, but nixed a plan to refer to the teams as the World Champions. Instead, he wanted the team to be referred to as Project: UNITY. 

The Champions (of the Bronze Age)
aka Project: UNITY

Left to Right:

Steel Hawk, Ice Queen, Pulse, Omni, and Vector

The initial line up for UNITY consisted of:

Ice Queen (NPC - Female Doctor and Medical Engineer with Ice/Cold Powers)
Omni (Team Leader - Psi-powered alien all grown up)
Pulse (Super Speedster with Electricity Powers - Popular Local NYC hero)
Steel Hawk (Winged Vigilante in Armor with a number of crime fighting Gadgets) ****
Vector (Physicist and Mathematician with (Extremely Cool) Teleportation Powers)

Legionnaire joins as a scientist for UNTIL/UNITY specializing in alternate Earths, fractured timelines, and extra-dimensional research. Although technically retired like his friend Tachyon, Legionnaire's powers still worked just fine and he lent a helping hand on several adventures. 

The team was very successful and public opinion was soon swayed heavily in favor of superheroes returning. Superhero fan clubs, dedicated news shows and magazines, and much more started to appear. The team expanded and teams started appearing in England, France, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere. 

Unfortunately, new villains (PC and NPC alike) started to appear as well and old ones came out of hiding. Major enemies of this campaign included a returning Doctor Destroyer (until his final defeat and apparent death), Prof. Muerte & Terror Incorporated, Genocide (an anti-Mutant group - with a twist!), Shark &  Viper, The Grand Scheme, and many more.

Just as anti-superhuman sentiment dropped, anti-alien notions were on the rise. Although Omni was still a beloved hero, alien villains and an attempted invasion made people very leery of strange visitors from other planets. This was further instigated by a well-connected conspiracy theory group called The Extra Solar Society that claimed aliens had secretly taken over the government. 

In one story arc, aliens scouting out the Earth for a possible invasion kidnapped Joseph Scaramangler, a reverend and the founder of the Scaramangler Foundation, an organization that helps super-powered people learn to control their powers and lead productive lives (imagine a global version of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters combined with the Red Cross and Amnesty International - one of my favorite elements of the setting). 

Joseph is killed accidentally by the aliens before he can be rescued. His son Christian, a metahuman with super-genius level intelligence in the field of technology, joins forces with UNITY to defeat the aliens. He is asked to join UNITY and accepts, but secretly does so in order to keep an eye on Omni, who Christian is convinced is secretly out to take over the world. 

IMPORTANT: Omni and Christian Scaramangler are both PCs. Imagine Superman and Lex Luthor are now on the same team - both members of the Justice League. They will fight side-by-side against supervillains but Scaramangler secretly hates Omni and tries to undermine him at every turn. 

It made for a fantastic dynamic but one that soon got out of hand. Scaramangler was often two or three steps ahead of Omni and his friends, none of whom knew Scaramangler was actually a villain in many ways. The game changed from a Superhero game to one focused on espionage where the bad guy was acting like the primary protagonist. 

This situation prompted Will and Dave to invite me to join the campaign and ushered in...

The Age of Chaos.

Stay tuned...

AD
Barking Alien 

*Although heroes, villains, and events of the setting's Golden Age (the late 1930s to the late 1950s) are referenced often during the campaigns, Will never ran a Golden Age specific campaign.

**Kineto is the big bad of The Silver Age - one of the biggest bads of The Bronze Age (although he occasionally acted heroically) - and THE biggest big bad of The Age of Chaos (while still sometimes coming off as heroic!). 

He is a complex, multi-layered villain with a long history dating back to being a kid Superhero in World War II. He has personality, charm, intelligence, gravitas, honor, and a ton of baggage. 

He is one of the most interesting, awesome, and frustrating villains I have ever encountered in a RPG and a primary example of why my buddy William C. is the best GM I've ever had the pleasure to play under.

***I don't recall Legionnaire's original costume at all. I put him in his later UNITY/UNTIL uniform instead. 

***I may have this character's name wrong. It might have been Steel Wing or City Hawk. I forget.

UPDATE: See comments below for additional information!

Don't Tell Me...You're From Outer Space

Picture this...

Everyone familiar with classic Traveller will know this refrain:

Oh no! The ill-fated Beowulf is done for!

Wouldn't it be awesome if this were followed up by:

It that...Starfleet? Thank goodness!

We're saved!

I've been putting some additional thought into this project, and more so than others I've worked on, I think it sounds great, but even I am a tad skeptical as to how it will be executed.

Don't get me wrong, it's a cool idea, and I am up to the task, but when all is said and done, I have to ask myself, 'Does this work better than what I already have?'

This is a common question we in the RPG hobby ask ourselves, or at least it should be IMHO. 

Does the newest edition of a game give my players, and I a superior gaming experience to what we already have, or have had? Often the answer is easy. Sometimes not so much.

In the case of many games, I prefer older editions. I still run Champions 4th Edition (though they're up to 6, or 6.1 with Champions Complete), Ars Magica 4th, Star Wars WEG D6 2nd Edition, and my preferred Mekton is actually Mekton II (trying desperately to get a copy of the first edition).

For Traveller, I tend towards classic, original Traveller with some additional material from MegaTraveller.

For Star Trek, the tendency (by a wide margin) is to go with Last Unicorn Games' ICON System. When I feel like doing something different, I go for the older FASA game. 

Do I need another Star Trek RPG? That question came up as I discovered the upcoming Star Trek Adventures RPG by Modiphius Games. I am very excited to see that game, and happy to be part of the playtest, but I think I am more interested in the new material it will present (adventure ideas, ships, aliens, NPCs, etc.) than I am about a new set of rules.

That brings me back to Star Trek Traveller. 

Can I not run the above scenario in a previous version of a Star Trek RPG? No, I can. There is nothing in the USS Traveller's attempt to rescue the Free Trader Beowulf that can't be done with FASA, LUG, Far Trek, Where No Man Has Gone Before, or any number of other RPGs.

So why Star Trek Traveller?

I'm not entirely sure. I feel part of my desire to put this together stems from my love of both things (Star Trek and Traveller), and part of it comes from my wanting to run Star Trek this year for a group of people who don't have quite as strong an attachment to Star Trek as I do. They do have a strong attachment to Traveller though, and that is 'my in' you might say.

What it all boils down to is that I just love Science Fiction. I especially love Space Adventure Science Fiction. 

I love the idea of a diverse, heroic, good natured, and well meaning (though not perfect) group of people banded together to explore, learn, create, grow, and defend their principles against the forces of tyranny, hatred, fear, and ignorance. 

I love Star Trek.

I want to live in that future. I want to investigate it. I want it to challenge me.

I want to pass that love onto others. 

This just might be the way.

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Barking Alien

Easy Does It

Before I go deeper down the wormhole of Star Trek Traveller, I'd like to tell you about a some great gaming experiences I had over the holiday vacation.

Between December 24th, and December 31st, I got the chance to run a lot of games. How many you ask? I don't even remember. A LOT.

While they all went over well, two in particular were really fun, and I can pinpoint why quite reasonably.

They were easy.

Now when I say easy, what I mean is that it required very little effort on my part to get the games set up, started, and going smoothly. The players displayed no resistance to the genres, nor to any of the details of the setting, story, or rule mechanics.

Basically, in a very zen sort of way...I wanted to run a game for my friends. I did. They wanted to play a game I was running. They did. It was fun.

Um...why aren't all games like this?

Because in order for me to run a great game, I need players who want me to run, and want to participate in, a great game. Furthermore, it would be awesome if they want a great game from me more than they want to get hung up on their various individual, er, hang ups.

Wouldn't that be grand?

The first of the two games was a DC Adventures / Mutants & Masterminds 3E game with my ex-wife, my friends Luke, and Lily, and a bunch of  'alumni' kids from the Tutoring Center. Inspired by the DC Comics Holiday Special issues over the years, the Justice League, and some of their Young Justice proteges went up against the Penguin, Sinestro, Bizarro, The Floronic Man, and the wicked warlock Wotan! All in a desperate battle to save none other than Santa Claus!

The Justice League of Earth-602!

Why 602? That's the address of the Tutoring Center, LOL

The most amazing thing about this session was how well the players took to their characters when the vast majority of them aren't comic book readers. I've noted before that this group, largely middle school and high school students of Chinese decent, have never read American comics in their lives. Their only knowledge of and exposure to these characters comes from the animated and live action shows on television. Add in the fact that only one of the adults in the group was a huge comic fan (and more well versed in Marvel mythos), and it repeatedly astounds me how well they all nail these well-established characters. 

Each person's interpretation of their character was very much influenced by the individual players' familiarity:

Green Lantern was very much the GL of Justice League Unlimited.
Aquaman was Super Friends style.
Flash and Kid Flash were a mix of the CW show and Young Justice.
Martian Manhunter was a mix of Justice League Unlimited and the Supergirl CW show.
Aqualad was totally Young Justice.
Superman was classic Silver Age, if a bit powered down (JLU also?).
Supergirl was straight out of the CW show.
Wonder Woman was Super Friends/Silver Age, complete with Invisible Jet.
Batman was pretty much Batman: The Animated Series.
Green Arrow looked classic but was really more like the Arrow TV series. 

If you are asking yourself, "Wait...were there actually 11 players?!", then I can tell you the answer is yes, most assuredly. 

The second awesome game I ran was MACROSS - Return of the Blue Dragons!

A sequel to the 1986 MACROSS - Blue Dragons campaign I ran in high school. Two of my old high school buddies, David Concepcion, and Eric Flores, were on hand to revisit my version of the Macross universe 30 years later (both in game and in real life). 

David played the son of his original character, while Eric played a bishonen character whose gender is never clear throughout the scenario. 

Numerous upgraded elements from the original campaign were added including the PCs' base of operations - The UN Spacy Odyssey II replaces the previous Odyssey, upgraded versions of the variable space fighters - the VF-3 series - and both of A.J. DeLorca's kids following in their parents footsteps and becoming Valkyrie pilots. 

The VF-3J Crusader

(Based on Shoji Kawamori's VF-3000 Crusader design)

With a thirty year gap between the last session of the original series and this one-shot, one would think it might have been hard to get back into the swing of things. Nope. Not one iota. 

For Dave and I it was really just continuing the campaign as if little time had passed out of game. As if we've been meeting to run this every month for three decades. Eric, for his part, merged into our lane with ease and contributed an interesting character with good tactical skills and even better social ones.

Snappy dialogue, fast paced combat, and a classic science fiction plot made this so much fun we were bummed when the session ended and we realized, 'Crap. This doesn't continue next week or even next month.' Sad panda.

Dave, as I have mentioned in the past, now lives in Boston. He is a working single parent and though he makes trips back to NYC one to three times a year, he doesn't always know if and when he'll be visiting. 

Eric is a GM regularly running his own campaigns.

I have work six days a week (my own Dog Walking Company and one day teaching), yet still manage to run or play twice a week (online and Friday nights), as well as once a month (my monthly group campaign, which is currently my homebrew Superheroic Medieval Fantasy setting using Ars Magica rules). 

Sigh.

Still and all, I am looking forward to more gaming like these two sessions this year. For my 40th Anniversary I want - no NEED! - to get back to gaming like I use to. I'm looking for that immersive experience with players that buy-in and embrace the setting and their characters. I can't wait to see what happens next. Additionally, I'd like to do so without the deconstructed, meta-viewpoint so prevalent in modern gaming.

Easy does it now. Baby steps. Baby steps...

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Barking Alien

Charted Space...The Final Frontier

I've come up with another one of my absolutely awesome, terrible ideas.

Heheh.

One of the biggest differences between my last few approaches to Star Trek gaming and my older approaches is that the more recent attempts have a tad too much 'meta' in them. 

I have delivered the pitch, and executed the adventures with an awareness that this is a game, based on a TV show franchise, in a universe that is not necessarily a living, breathing thing.

It has long been my goal to get back to Star Trek RPG campaigning as I originally envisioned, and ran it; a series of moments in the lives of people living, and working in a possible future.

To this end, I'd like to try to adapt the Star Trek universe to the slightly crunchier, often more 'gritty', and 'realistic' feel, and mechanics of Traveller. 

This is certainly not a new idea, and I am sure many gamers have done this over the years, but it is a first for me. I have toyed with the idea in my head every once in a blue moon (Blue moon? Andoria?), but never committed any real effort to making it happen. Certainly I've never put thought to paper (or screen as it were). 

Would it work? How much work is involved? Should I even bother?

Well, last year around this time I attempted to create a Star Wars Traveller. The effort had mixed results. It was fun to do, and I got some very positive reactions from readers of the blog. My one attempt to actually run it got a decent response, but my players didn't quite connect with the setting, or style I was hoping to produce.

In this case however...er...hmm. I fear the same thing might happen.

Traveller is one of the games that works with my mainstay, monthly group. That gives this project, and me, some hope. At the same time, it is definitely Star Trek, and if that isn't going to act as a draw then I may end up feeling like I'm doing a lot of work for nothing. 

USS Traveller - Insignia with Department Colors

Command, Sciences, and Engineering and Support Services.

As I have mentioned, 2017 is my 40th Anniversary in the RPG hobby, and as such I want to do something really special this year. Special to me that is. This idea fits that bill. Why? Because these are two of my favorite things, and I think that they might just go really well together.

What do you think? Worth a shot, or save myself some heartache?

Should I boldly go, and keep her in dry dock?

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Barking Alien

Celebrating The Old, The New, and The Next

Happy New Year Everybody!

Welcome to the first Barking Alien post of 2017, celebrating not only a New Year, but my 40th Anniversary in the RPG Hobby as well!

Holy Crap! Forty Years?!? Yes, you read that right - The Big Four Zero!

In addition, today is (unofficially) National Science Fiction Day (corresponding with the birthday of noted professor, and Science Fiction author Isaac Asimov! 

How awesome is that?

Well it's pretty damn awesome in this SF fans opinion.

What does it mean for my gaming plans in 2017? I'm glad you asked!

Another cool, unnecessary project? Why yes!

Wait until you see it...


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Barking Alien