November Q & A

Very meaty questions, good examples of highly specific topics which open up important levels of understanding, or so I hope.

  • The relationship map technique from The Sorcerer’s Soul
  • The Elemental Control from Champions

At one point I mistakenly said “powers” when I meant “attacks,” unfortunately, as that is a key factor in my reply to Alan. I put a note into the video to indicate it but if you listen without watching then you’ll be misled.

SEAN: I appreciate Alan’s question and your reply and it has me considering my own current play experience with Champions 6th. Although I have played a few versions of the game, one of the the phenomena I keep witnessing is version confusion. And its not the first time I have seen it in Champions play. For someone who is not as experienced with any version of Champions, it can be a cause for confusion. Not with this question specifically, though it has never come up, but with others.

ME: Although that kind of confusion applies to any long-running multi-version role-playing title, I think it has some unique properties for Champions. Almost by definition the early version(s) led people to adjust the rules and priorities distinctively at each table, in a way I liked to call “kicking the tires.” Once kicked, they stayed kicked for that group, so that adopting a later version usually meant retrofitting it into whatever purposes and procedures of play the group had settled on. The effect struck me as remarkably incoherent in literal verbal terms – in conversations about Champions procedures, people refer to what are clearly extremely local practices not only with deep conviction, but with a singular inability to describe them because “everyone knows that.”

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