Character Creation: Champions Complete

Ah, the 10th character of the month. Doing great! 

The Game: Champions Complete
The Publisher: HERO Games
Degree of Familiarity: None, but it's pretty GURPS-y
Books Required: Just the one

Well, obviously this is a supers game, and it's pretty much a quintessential trad game. It's a point-buy character creation system very much like Silver Age Sentinels, there's not really much of a setting, but "four-color supers" is enough that if I wanted to run it, I could. I don't - if I wanted to run a four-color supers setting I can probably find a system that's a little less mathy, but besides which, there are some amusing fallacies in the text. To wit:

N...no. That's not how that works. You pick the tone and the genre you want the game to emulate and build the mechanics that help you do that. Well, whatever, let's make a character.

As I often do when I don't have a concept, I shall fire up the ol' iTunes and randomly pick a song!

That's "Still Learning" by Halsey. Like a lot of songs on this album (which I recommend), it's pretty self-reflective. The idea of having a kind of dual identity is pretty central to the superhero genre, and I like the idea that the character is in some way very public in his everyday life but still manages a superhero life as well. 

Cole Carson grew up rich. Like, hella rich; his parents were loaded from the jump, and Cole had a very public, very Paris Hilton-esque kind of young life. He formed a band when he was in his late teens, and basically bought his way into success. The truth of the matter is that he is pretty talented as a musician and songwriter, though he usually outsourced lyrics because his attempts to write moving songs just came across shallow (wonder why).

And then on a tour through Europe, he wound up getting superpowers in a freak accident (I'll worry about the particulars later). He was all set to reveal that to the world, but then he wound up in a city (let's say Belgrade?) during a crisis involving other superheroes. And he jumped into the fray kind of on instinct, kind of to curry favor, and overheard people saying that "that guy looks like Cole Carson - but c'mon, like he would ever help people."

Cole hates to admit it, but yeah, that's valid. So he's continuing to tour and perform, but also fighting crime and helping out in costume, and at the same time trying to make his real self like, less of a dick. And he's learning that the people around him kinda don't want him to be better, and that's another issue.

OK, good start, now let's crunch a million numbers. Let's assume we're in a superheroic campaign, and we're doing standard chargen, which gives me 400 points (jesus) and 75 in Complications, which I assume means that's how much I can take in Complications. 

I guess I should think about what kind of powers I want Cole to have, just because when I start buying Characteristics that's going to include strength, super or otherwise. I think Cole could be your standard Superman-ish sort of guy; flight, super-strength, invulnerability and so on. I don't mind that, but I do like to throw in some weirder power for spice. Let's look at the Powers section real quick.

OK, I think I'll lean towards Density Increase, making me stronger and tougher (like Vision, actually). But Characteristics first.

Let's say that Cole can lift a car, so he's got 30 Strength. Strength is one-for-one, so that's easy.

Dexterity is 2 for 1, so I'll spend another 30 and put Cole to 15. 

Constitution seems important, I'll put it to 20. Intelligence can be a little lower, let's say 12. Ego is willpower and mental strength, and I think it's appropriate for that to be a little lower, so I'll put it at 10. Presence probably ought to be high, given Cole's profession, so I'll put that at 25. 

So far: 30+30+20+12+10+25= 127 spent. On we go!

Christ, there is so much math in this game. Offensive Combat Value starts at 3, and is five-for-one to raise. I'll bump it to 5, I guess? Defensive Combat Value is the same, so I'll do the same (that's 20 points).

Offensive Mental Combat Value is three-for-one, same with the Defensive version, I think I'll leave those alone for the moment. 

Speed starts at 2 and costs 10 for one point, jesus. I'll put in 30 points and bump it to 5. 

Physical Defense and Energy Defense both start at 2 and are 1-for-1 to raise. Bump them both to 10, I guess? That costs 16 points. 

Recovery starts 4, one-for-one, I'll bump it to 10 (6 points).

Endurance is what I spend to do things. We start with 20 and it's 5 END for one CP. Well, what the heck, let's spend 16 and put him up to 100 END.

Body is how much damage I can take before I die. We start with 10, let's go up to 20. Likewise, Stun is how much damage we can take before being knocked out. We start with 20 and it's 1-for-2, so let's go up to 50 (which costs 15). 

Total check! 127 + 20 + 30 + 16 + 6 + 16 + 15 = 230. Doing fine. I think.

That puts us over to Skills. And...oof. OK, there are five different types of Skills (Agility, Background, Combat, Intellect, and Presence) and they all have different cost schema.

You know, this is the sixth edition of this game, and it's still this complex? I'd hate to see what first edition looked like. 

Well, let's just list out the Skills I think Cole should have and then I'll suss out costs:

Acting
Bribery (WHY IS THIS A SKILL)
Charm
High Society
Professional (Musician) (I'm surprised there's no performance skill)
Streetwise

I didn't list any combat skills because frankly I don't understand how they work. Looks like they add to your OCV and related alphabet soup? But...why? Very weird. 

(To give you an idea of how bananas this is, there's a $25 software package to help you make characters with this game and I seriously considered buying it for a second there, just because I thought it would make this easier. Again, this is the sixth edition of this game. Guys, there have been amazing advances in game design that you should maybe look into? Like, not mathing everything to death?)

Fuck it, I'm just buying those Skills. If I can figure out how. 

OK, Interaction skills are 3 CP each, and all of mine are. Oh, so is Background. Good. So that's 18 points. Moving on to Perks. These are your basic Edge/Advantage kind of thing. I suspect being rich is going to show up here. Yep, Filthy Rich costs 15 points. Anything else? Positive Reputation, but how does this work? Looks like 2 points per level for the type of fame Carson has. Let's take, I dunno, 5 levels? 10 points? 

Points check! 230 + 18 + 15 + 10 = 273. 

Talents! Oh, good, another way to simulate "shit I can do." Why not. At least they seem to have static costs. Let's take Perfect Pitch (3 CP) and Striking Appearance (3 CP). That's 6 points, putting me up to 279. 

Powers! FINALLY! I suspect this is going to be a nightmare, but whatever.

Yep, fuck this.

OK, like I said, I want Carson to have the basic "super hero" stuff - super strength (already covered), flight, some measure of invulnerability, and I like the idea of having some density control. Let's start with flight because it's probably the easiest.

Yeah, I was right, it's just 1 CP per 1m, where you can move Xm during a "Full Phase." Let's assume a "Full Phase" is like a round in combat in most games, so assuming I want to move like 50 feet during that time (because my brain works in Freedom Units, not these Commie Metrique things), that's about 15 meters. So fine, 15 points into Flight. Moving on. 

Let's do Density Increase. Every 4CP I spend here increases STR by 5, PD by 1, and a whole bunch of other shit. Screw it, let's dump 24 points into this. That puts STR up 30, Knockback to -12, and PD and ED up by 6. 

And just because I like the symmetry, let's buy Desolidification, too (also it's got a fixed cost so I don't have to fuck with more math). 

Points check! 279 + 15 + 24 + 40 = 358. Only 42 more points! Let's spend 8 and buy Ultrasonic and Ultraviolet Perception.

Now, normally I would consider Adders and Advantages, but I do not care so I'm gonna not bother. I do still have 34 more points, though. Well, let's see what's next.

Complications, and the only one I want is Social Complication because of Cole's secret identity. That gives me 15 points back, which means I have 49 points to fuck around with. Argh.

Well, I think it makes the most sense to throw them into Characteristic things. I'll put four points into Constitution (which takes me down to 45 points). I'll put 20 points into Speed and raise it by 2, to 7. And then I'll spend 20 each on OCV and DCV and raise them by 4, leaving me 5 points left. I'll just dump them into Presence, putting it up to 30. 

OK, there are a lot of blanks on the sheet I'm not going to bother with. This game annoys me, but I like the character. So!

I think Cole got power'd in Eastern Europe somewhere. He was at a party incognito, hoodie and dark glasses, took a wrong turn down a hallway looking for drugs/girls/whatever, and wandered into a meeting with some very shady individuals selling very shady shit. Cole doesn't actually remember what happened - he was pretty wasted - but he remembers crashing through the wall like the godddamn Kool-Aid Man and flying back to his hotel. 

Over time, he's learned to control the powers, and he's worked through backchannels to get himself a cool-looking suit. It's red with blue trim and a blue cape (yeah, yeah, "NO CAPES" but Cole can make himself intangible if he needs to), with a blue cowl. He's paranoid about keeping his face covered because it's so famous, and he rarely speaks when he's doing hero stuff for the same reason. He never gave himself a superhero name, but the press has started calling him the "Blue Veil", and it's as good as any.

Well, if I hadn't had to spend so much time doing math, I'd think about what kind of music Cole plays and suchlike, but I'm about done here.