Retrospective: Champions

Looking at its two-volume, nearly 800-page descendant, it's hard to believe that Champions could ever have been encompassed in a single, 64-page book. Released in 1981, Champions was not the first superhero RPG -- that honor goes to Superhero 2044, which debuted in 1977 -- but it was, for many years (and still is, according to some), the gold standard for the genre. The reason for that is simple: the underlying power rules for Champions, eventually known as the "HERO System," were "effects-based," which is to say, they provided mechanics for super powers on the basis of what they did rather than how they did them. This eliminated the need for multiple individual power descriptions for, say, throwing fireballs and projecting cold, as both were simply types of "energy blast," differentiated only by their in-game appearance and origin.

Well-written effects-based rules are very flexible and enable players and referees alike to create a near-infinite variety of powers. When I first encountered the game in 1982, when it was released in a boxed set, I definitely considered the rules of Champions to be well-written, covering pretty much every possible power I could think of. My friends and I enjoyed creating reams of superheroes and villains, doing our best to see if we could come up with a concept the rules didn't easily cover. We found a few, of course, but we also came up with ways to make the existing rules cover those marginal cases. It wasn't until we acquired supplements, such as Champions II (released the same year as the boxed set) and Champions III (in 1984), that we realized we were "doing it wrong" and had to change the way we handled certain powers and abilities.

I'm pretty math-impaired, so Champions was never a good fit for me, gaming-wise. Its points-based system always made me mildly uncomfortable, but its flexibility was attractive enough to me that I muddled through and enjoyed the game greatly anyway. Coming primarily from a background of D&D and D&D-inspired games, Champions really was a revelation to me. I admired how it compactly provided rules for almost anything you could imagine from a superhero comic book. I also thought its segment-based combat system, while a bit clunky, was nevertheless a very good emulation of the slugfests you see in those comic books. In short, Champions seemed to be, despite my misgivings, a near-perfect game, one whose rules had managed to capture exactly what I wanted out of a superhero RPG. My friends and I played the heck out of it for several years as a result.

Over time, as I mentioned, more and more supplements were released for the game and each one added to both to the game's depth and its complexity. After a certain point, I found complexity won out and I simply would have nothing more to do with Champions. My friends and I could have just ignored the supplements and perhaps we should have, but we were young and foolish and had a thing about keeping up with the latest releases -- too many years of D&D will do that to a person -- so we simply abandoned the game and moved on. Looking back on it, I think that was a pity, because we'd had a lot of fun with Champions.

I can't say I've kept up with all the ins and outs of Champions and the HERO System since the late 80s. Every now and again, my interest is revived and I take a peek at the Hero Games website. That rather quickly cures me of any residual interest I have in the game. It appears as if the game has gone down the road of becoming ever more exhaustive and "complete," providing rules for all those marginal cases my friends and I discovered years ago -- and many more we didn't even consider. There's nothing wrong with such an approach, I suppose, but it doesn't appeal to me, particularly nowadays. I like my games short and sweet, even if that sometimes means I have make things up myself, because I consider that part of the fun, just as I did back in 1982 when I first opened that 64-page superhero RPG.

Grognard's Grimoire: Termaxian Necrolyte

The stat block of this monster is hereby designated as Open Game Content via the Open Game License.

Termaxian Necrolyte
Number Appearing: 1
% in Lair: 90%
Alignment: Neutral
Armor Class: 3
Move: 6
Hit Dice: 7
Attacks: 1 touch (1d8), Spells
Save: M7
Morale: 10
Hoard Class: XVII
XP: 570

A Termaxian necrolyte is a magic-user of the cult of Turms Termax, who, by means of various secret rituals and enchantments, has become undying. Despite its skeletal appearance, it is not technically a type of undead, at least not as the term is usual understood. Clerics have no power over necrolytes and thus cannot turn them. Like true undead, though, a necrolyte is immune to sleep, charm, and hold spells. The cold touch of a necrolyte deals 1d8 points of damage and all of these creatures can cast spells as if they were 7th-level magic-users. Many are also equipped with offensive magic items, such as wands.

In return for the gift of immortality, necrolytes typically serve as guardians of locations of particular importance to the cult of Turms Termax. While acting as such, they are free to continue their researches into magic and occult lore, unfettered from the weaknesses to which all flesh is prone. Those who serve the cult well might one day gain access to more powerful rituals that set them further down the path to apotheosis.

On Being a Laggard

Once again, I've allowed my correspondence to fall behind. In my defense, things have been -- and continue to be -- busy for me, but I still ought to do a better job of answering email and responding to comments here. Unfortunately, today's going to be another busy day for me, so I probably won't get round to most of that till this evening at the earliest. So, if you've sent me something in the last week and I haven't responded to it, please accept my apologies for not having done so. I'm (probably) not ignoring you; I'm just a bit overwhelmed at the moment, owing to having so many irons in the fire at one time.

Thanks.

REVIEW: Gazetteer of the Canterbury Isles

The Gazetteer of the Canterbury Isles is the first expansion of the World of Arkara setting, which I reviewed last month. Like its predecessor, it is written by Charles Rice for OSRIC, but is readily convertible to any old school fantasy RPG. The Gazetteer is a 16-page PDF, which sells for the eminently reasonable price of $2. The product uses a simple, two-column layout with a high text density. I found it easy to read and noted no significant typos and editorial issues. Artwork is sparse, consisting of a couple of pieces of black and white line art and two maps, one of which is of the Canterbury Isles themselves (seen on the cover image) and another of the City of Bondaea. Both maps are certainly usable as rough guidelines in play but lack a scale, a problem carried over from the original release.

The Canterbury Isles are located in a frontier area to the northwest of the main continent. While this removes them somewhat from the conflicts on the mainland, that doesn't mean they're idyllic. Originally the home of elves and dwarves, the coming of humans has changed the complexion of the land. Once, there was an accord between all the races, but, two centuries later, it has all but evaporated and humans and elves look set to war upon one another, with the dwarves retreating into the earth to avoid being embroiled in such madness. Though perhaps a little clichéd, the political situation in the Canterbury Isles is nevertheless one ripe with adventuring possibilities, at least if one's tastes tend toward political and/or military adventures. Those looking for more "traditional" adventuring possibilities can certainly find them, of course, but the focus of the product is unambiguously on the tensions between elves and humans.

The gazetteer itself briefly details a few areas on the islands, generally giving each two or three paragraphs of information to each, with a couple receiving lengthier treatments. This is, I think, a good level of detail, especially considering the smaller focus of this product compared to its predecessor. Much more detail is lavished on the city of Bondaea, the largest human settlement. Sixty-one locations are at least named within the city and most of them receive at least a short description, although, again, some receive much more (and others much less). The map does number several buildings without keying them so as to allow referees to add their own sites within the city. I think this is an excellent idea, although many of these undetailed buildings are clustered together rather than evenly spread out the city.

The product provides four pages of NPC descriptions, some of them very lengthy, along game stats for the characters in question. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, good NPCs are worth a great deal to a referee when designing and running adventures and many of the NPCs here are quite well done, intelligently portrayed and suggestive of how they could be used in a game. On the other hand, many of the NPCs are quite important movers and shakers of the Canterbury Isles. That's to be expected, given the emphasis placed on political machinations in this region of the world of Arkara, but I do think the product would have been better served if at least some of its detailed NPCs had been lower level, serving as examples of how to use the political situation "on the ground" to spark interesting adventures. As it stands, the Canterbury Isles strike me as a place where characters might go after they've already been adventuring a while and are looking for a place to establish their strongholds and begin playing politics -- not a bad thing by any means but one that will hold appeal for every referee.

The product concludes with two new character classes, both of which seem to be NPC-oriented. The first is the guardsman, a fighter variant with the chance to see through illusions, detect poisons and traps, and hear noise. He can also become immune to backstab and interpose himself between an opponent and another character, taking the damage on himself. It's an interesting idea for a class, although I'm not certain it'll hold much appeal for player characters. There's also a cloistered cleric class, which is a more scholarly, less martial version of the cleric. I've always been fond of the idea of such a class, ever since I read Len Lakofka's version in Dragon many moons ago. Ironically, despite its medieval inspiration, I think the variant would probably be of interest to referees to make clerics more like swords-and-sorcery-style priests than the "fighter with magic" approach of D&D.

All in all, I'd say that the Gazetteer of the Canterbury Isles is marked improvement over the original World of Arkara in terms of its focus and presentation. It may be a little too focused for some referees, but that's not necessarily a flaw in the product itself. I continue to hope for better maps in future products, ones with scales if nothing else. And while I don't mind new game mechanics where appropriate, I still can't shake the feeling that new game rules are de rigeur in World of Arkara products, even when there's no compelling reason for them. I'll say again that I think there's a lot of potential in Arkara and I hope Rice continues to produce additional expansions for the setting. I fear that the piecemeal way it's being released doesn't play to its strengths, namely its bare bones approach, but that may change as additional regions receive their own gazetteers and we can better see how they fit together into a greater whole.

Presentation: 6 out of 10
Creativity: 7 out of 10
Utility: 6 out of 10

Buy This If: You're keen on political and military style adventures and campaigns.
Don't Buy This If: You're looking for something a place to set a low-level campaign.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Coming Race

These days Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton is best known for the opening lines of his 1830 novel, Paul Clifford, than for his later novel, published in 1871. Entitled The Coming Race, this novel tells the story of a wealthy traveler who, in the course of his journeys, finds himself in a vast subterranean realm ruled by a race of angelic humanoid beings who call themselves the Vril-ya.

The last survivors of an even more ancient civilization, the Vril-ya derive their name from Vril, a strange substance that can take many forms and is imbued with remarkable energy. In the hands of the Vril-ya, Vril can be used either to create or to destroy and many objects are crafted from Vril, thereby imbuing them with great powers of lesser types of matter, whether animate or inanimate. In short, Vril is a master substance and the key to the Vril-ya's remarkable underground utopia.

As described in the book, the Vril-ya are, in every way, superior to human beings. Through their mastery of Vril, they can achieve feats that others might consider magic: flight, telepathy, and healing, as well as the ability to destroy entire cities with a minimum of effort. The Vril-ya are a matriarchy, for among them the female is the dominant sex. Under the guidance of its women, the race is slowly expanding and conquering the world beneath the surface of the Earth. For the moment, mankind need not worry about them, but, in time, the narrator surmises, the Vril-ya will turn their attentions elsewhere and the even the mightiest of Man's empires will prove unable to withstand their assault.

Like a lot of 19th century novels, The Coming Race is difficult to read, as its style is somewhat ponderous and its digressions into various obscure topics render it hard to follow at times. Nevertheless, it's an important work in the "lost world" genre, one that proved quite popular in its day and influenced many later authors. So popular did it become that some 19th century occultists adopted many of its ideas, either unaware or unconcerned that it was a fiction. The term "Vril" is now firmly entrenched in the vocabulary of occultism and some even claim -- without much evidence -- the existence of a secret "Vril Society" that was involved in the rise of Nazism in Germany. Interestingly, "Vril" was also used in the late 1800s to describe a variety of medicinal "tonics," "elixirs," and even foods, all based on the use of the term in The Coming Race. One of these survives to this day, Bovril, which is still produced to this day in the United Kingdom.

The Coming Race is in the public domain, so it should be easy to find a copy of it online. I don't necessarily recommend it for its literary value, although it is an interesting read, but for its importance in establishing many of the convention of lost world/hollow world fiction and for its impact on pseudo-science and occultism, both of which have, in turn, affected the development of pulp fantasy, particularly in its formative years during the 1920s and 1930s.

Arduin Eternal Shipping

According to the Emperors Choice website, the Arduin Eternal Playbook is shipping at long last. For those of you not familiar with the ins and outs of Arduin history, this will be the third RPG derived from Dave Hargrave's legendary fantasy campaign. The first made its appearance in the Arduin Grimoire and its sequels, which were essentially hacks to OD&D. Later, there was a reworking of these books into The Compleat Arduin, which, as I understand it -- I've never seen the book myself -- was a little less quirky and made an attempt to step away from Arduin's implicit dependence on OD&D. Arduin Eternal is apparently a wholly new game based in the world of Arduin.

Arduin Eternal has been in development for a long time. I honestly didn't think it'd ever see the light of day. Now that it has, I'll admit to being intrigued, but, at 800+ pages and $74.95 -- a hardcover, admittedly -- I'm not sure I'm willing to take the risk. As I've noted before, my feelings about Arduin are ambivalent. I can't deny Hargrave's eccentric genius and there are many aspects of the setting I find pretty compelling. However, it's also a little too much of a mish-mash in places for my staid tastes. Hargrave nevertheless opened my eyes to the true potential of old school gaming, so I keep at least one eye on anyone who's taken up his banner in the 21st century to see what they've created and that's why Arduin Eternal interests me.

So, if anyone out there takes the plunge and buys this book, I'd love to know about it. The price is just too high for me to justify spending at this time and its length is certainly off-putting. I tend to prefer much shorter RPG products these days and, given that all of the original Arduin books, if combined, wouldn't amount to 800 pages, I'm curious as to what's actually in Arduin Eternal. Not curious enough to spend $74.95 sight unseen, but curious nonetheless.

This Sounds Familiar

"The new device is an improvement over the old device, making it more attractive for purchase by all Americans," said Thomas Wakefield, a spokesperson for the large conglomerate that manufactures the new device. "The old device is no longer sufficient. Consumers should no longer have any use or longing for the old device."

Buck Rogers Returns

Trollsymth recently reminded me of something I'd heard about some time ago: a series of web-based Buck Rogers films coming some time in 2010. Below is a teaser trailer for the series and I must admit it looks promising. I've always been more of a Flash Gordon man myself, but I wouldn't turn my nose up at a new series of Buck Rogers films, particularly if they pay proper respect to the source material. Here's hoping this initial look is a good indication of what's to come.

Hat's Off

Allen Varney manages, over at The Escapist, something I have thus far been unable to do: an interview with Paul Jaquays. I've been after him for months to do the same, but, obviously, Allen has some magic I lack. My congratulations to him on both an excellent article and his ability to land one of the greats of this hobby.

Outer Space

I've always been intrigued by the possibility of fantastic space travel, i.e. traveling to other worlds by means of magic or non-scientific/technological methods. I suppose I like Jack Vance's "Morreion" a little too much or something. In principle, I thought TSR's Spelljammer could have been cool, but, as it turned out, it was just silly. In my Dwimmermount game, for example, it's well established that elves are the scions of the otherworldly Eld, whose home planet of Areon once had more regular contact with the campaign world. The same is also implied about the Green Planet, Kythirea, but there's much less direct evidence of it. Nevertheless, "interplanetary" travel is a fact, even if it's a somewhat obscure one to all but the most knowledgeable sages.

Now, this hasn't yet come up in the game, but there's a distinct possibility it might in the future. Dwimmermount is full of gates to other places and (again) it's a known, if obscure, fact that the Eld invaded the world to acquire its azoth, large quantities of which can be found within the ancient mountain-fortress. Azoth is, of course, the liquid form of ether, which fills the space between the worlds. So I'm giving some thought on how I might handle space travel when it comes up and how it meshes with the overall cosmology implied by OD&D magic.

Once you add Supplement I, you get the Ethereal and Astral Planes and they both work somewhat like and somewhat differently than the way I'm conceiving of "outer space." That means I need to consider whether to include those two planes as written, eliminate them, or modify them. Each of those decisions has consequences; my goal is to think about those consequences beforehand, so that I'm not caught unprepared later.