Milestones

I ran my first campaign -- Earth Commanders, a superhero game using the Champions rules -- back in the summer of 1988. Although I don't have the specific start date, it was sometime after school ended, so maybe right about this time of year. Today's as good a day as any to celebrate thirty-five years of gamemastering Front Porch campaigns. I'm grateful to all the players who've joined me on this journey and shared their boundless imaginations to bring these games to life. Here's to 35 more years (at least!) of roleplaying fun!

There are a couple more milestones in 2023 that are also well worth mentioning. It's a big year for the Druid Cycle setting. Although, technically, I created this world in 1991 for the Fate of the Grand Duchy campaign (marking the first appearance of Tim W's Lwcus, one of the most important Front Porch characters of all time!), that storyline took place in the early history of the Druid Cycle world. The first campaign set in the "current" time period started in 1993 -- thirty years ago! -- with the rise of Jason's paladin Sir Roberts and Scott's cleric Stalker. If we skip ahead five more years, to 1998, we come to another milestone: the introduction of Tim W's wizard Cathbad and Kevin's cleric Senchan, who both helped shape the course of world events. A big shout-out to Scott and Jason on the thirtieth anniversary of their iconic characters, and likewise to Tim and Kevin on the twenty-fifth anniversary of theirs!

It's fitting, then, that 2023 is the year I brought my kids into the Druid Cycle setting. Why did I wait so long? Well, when the boys started playing D&D six years ago, I used my Shattered Realm setting for something a bit smaller and less complex than the Druid Cycle world, and they grew to love their characters so much that we just kept going in that world. Now I feel the time is right to get them into the big leagues, so to speak. Their first introduction to my largest campaign setting came a couple of months ago when we started an online campaign with their older cousins in Chicago. However, I have something special up my sleeve just for Matthew and Nathaniel: a second game in this world that will be a true sequel to the original 1993 Druid Cycle campaign. As the late lamented Sir Roberts might say, "Bring it on!"

Tiny Supers

As much as I want to give Champions its due, I'm struggling to muster the energy to slog through the rest of the rulebook. I need a system that gets to the fun faster. In the words of Comic Book Guy...

I'll see if Nathaniel, who enjoys reading highly detailed game rulebooks, might want to give Champions a whirl. In the meantime, I'm switching over to Tiny Supers, part of the TinyD6 family of minimalist RPGs. Lots of flavor and fun, with fully customizable characters. If I ever do run a superhero campaign for the boys, it's gonna be a Tiny one!

Spreadsheet Sold Separately

Matthew got up late last night to go to the bathroom and found me in the living room reading the latest edition of the superhero RPG Champions. 

"Tell me about Champions when you finish reading it," he said. I could barely stifle a laugh. It's going to be a while before we have that conversation. Holy hell! This game is complicated. 

I have a newfound admiration for my twelve-year-old self. How had I managed to keep all these esoteric rules in my head? How had I created countless Champions heroes and villains without Excel and formulas to crunch the numbers? 

Game design has come a long way over the past several decades. I know a few grognards who still yearn for the days when games had rules to cover every possible situation and the quality of a system was directly proportional to the size of its rulebook, but I've come to appreciate the elegance and adaptability of games that have light, flexible core rules with the ability to layer in complexity through exception-based mechanics. 

I'll finish reading Champions Complete -- I owe it to my younger self to get through the rulebook, at the very least -- but if I ever do run a follow-up to the Earth Commanders campaign or play any sort of superhero RPG with the boys, I think I'll keep my eye out for another system.

Full Circle

Matt and I have been exchanging emails about superhero RPGs, and it got me thinking about my first true RPG love, Champions. Long before the Druid Cycle world, long before the siren song of AD&D lured me into TSR's clutches, I was a dyed-in-the-wool Champions fanatic. In fact, the original Front Porch campaign -- one of only two that was actually conducted on my parents' front porch -- was Earth Commanders, which employed the delightfully fiddly Champions system to tell a tale of cosmic superheroes based (where else?) in Montreal.

Earth Commanders got me hooked on gamemastering, but my favorite Champions memory is unrelated to Front Porch stuff. Decades before taking part in the D&D Fifth Edition playtest, I was a twelve-year-old kid who somehow managed to get access to playtest materials for Champions and related HERO System products. I used to dial up a BBS (remember those?) based in Texas, and, as my parents fretted their long-distance bill with every bit that trickled through my 1200 baud modem, I downloaded drafts of HERO System books and read them with a kind of awed reverence. One day, I mustered the courage to email a fan letter to prolific game designer Aaron Allston -- a fixture on that BBS -- and he sent me a very nice note in response. (Sadly, Allston passed away a number of years ago.)

I think it's high time to share Champions with my own kids, so I've ordered a copy of the most recent edition of the game. With our Alien RPG campaign starting up again soon and our ongoing Shattered Realm stories to continue, I have no idea when we would actually play this game, but it certainly will be fun to share all my old stories with the boys.