Champions: the Super Hero RPG

The Oldest Game of Its Type and Still the Best

Sep 10, 2007

For those who want to imitate their favorite super hero or perhaps create their own, Champions gives role players the opportunity.

Role Playing in a Comic Book World

Super hero role playing games may not be as popular as their High Heroic fantasy counterparts like Dungeons and Dragons. While Champions and the Hero system may not be a name familiar to many people who are not table top role playing gamers, Champions, billed as the super hero role playing game, is the oldest and still the best way of capturing the elements of the comic book genre.

Champions' Rules Complexity

The name Champions might suggest a dedicated gaming system, but the Hero System that underlies the game is universal. Those who dislike complex rules or do not have a great love of math may be turned off by character creation in the Hero System, but a number of software packages are available to help the math impaired Champions player are available. Hero System Designer is the most popular software packages used to create Champions and other Hero System characters.

Champions does have complex rules, but the rules are not needlessly complex. In terms of elegance the game rules are ugly, but as far as functionality goes, the rules of the Hero System can be applied to any genre and work well. Because Champions tends to the be most popular of Steven Long's worlds.

Universal Role Playing Systems

While other universal systems such as G.U.R.P.S. by Steve Jackson games have their fans, and character creation seems to be somewhat in GURPS is somewhat less complex than in the Hero system, the special powers that can be drawn up for Champions or any other Hero system game are what gives the rule set its flexibility. Hero system rules have been set up in such a way that virtually any power imaginable can be drawn up with a player and all it takes on the part of the gamer is a little imagination and to be good at math or to have access to a calculator or a computer

Champions: the Super Hero Role Playing Game has been around for a long time, but even though it has a few competitors that have done well such as Mutants and Masterminds, but none do quite as well of capturing the mood and feel of the comic gook genre.

The copyright of the article Champions: the Super Hero RPG in Games is owned by Shawn Landis. Permission to republish Champions: the Super Hero RPG in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.