Send me a PM, I'll give you my address, then you can mail the Champions book to me.  I'll make some Excel spreadsheets that should automate most of that stuff for you then mail the book back.
To be fair, the only people that Chef Ramsey criticizes seem to be the people who are rubbish.  For instance, if a person has bad hygiene, they're castigated.  Under/overcooked food or food that is otherwise foul, dangerous, or otherwise definitely not good is ripped to shreds.

But he's worked on a number of "theme" restaurants/eating places and he doesn't seem to have a problem with a variant place, as long as it has good food and good service.  That's my opinion, anyway.

I'd be more inclined to say that a gamer like that is the Jerry Seinfeld of gamers.

In reply to Genghis the Hutt (msg # 355):

I have never purchased a Champions book, much less read through it. I admit a prejudice with games that I don't understand. I do know the game had gone through multiple editions with retooling, similar to the D&D system. I could liken an RPG to a building toy set. If D&D are Legos, then Champions was an Erector Set. Lots of metal parts, nuts, bolts, and little tools like pliers and screwdrivers. Champions was very driven by its figurative nuts & bolts. It was different, but I know different doesn't mean mean worse. Maybe more functional in the hands of (myself?), or maybe not. I'm not sure either Champions or Erector Set are made anymore.

Sounds to me like a great idea to take Champions and port it into software. Let a computer do all the number-crunching, who knows how much easier it plays. It probably has been done before by someone else.

As for my Chef Ramsey analogy, I know that chef has more facets than just the Hell's Kitchen one. I admire him as an expert and an artist of cuisine, and a personality. Similarily, that old gamer I referred to, had a personality, an admirable range of knowledge, and was a temperamental artist--but way less temperamental than Ramsey. He was also a GM. I used to learn some gaming from him, but I had my disagreements with him too.  Another GM I met, amazingly skilled yet not easy to be around, seemed like The Soup Nazi.

The first time I'd heard about this book, written by both Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, read about it and how it came to be....I scoffed at it.

A "mash-up novel"? A work of literature from centuries ago (and in the public domain) left intact yet merged with a newly-written original story with subject matter that is mismatched on purpose. A hybrid comedy of mild manners / raw horror potboiler. An obvious cheat at writing, so simple any kid can do it. Who needs creativity when you've got a nifty gimmick? A technique of vulgar simplicity to make a fan fiction?

And a desecration of a classic. Mrs. Austen surely turned over in her grave.

But it is a published book that is a success, a bestseller, and a movie. Seth Grahame-Smith must be a lucky guy--or a genius. With a British sense of humor.

I realize that if I read PaPaZ, I might find it good enough to like. I'm not sure if this sort of thing is easy to write, or difficult in ways I haven't imagined. I'm not judging SGS one way or the other.

But the concept, this technique that I still find so preposterous. Yet, I might get used to it. I might even try it myself sometime.

In reply to Space27 (msg # 357):

I actually had a lot of fun rewriting the rewrite. >_> My copy of the book has been penned to death to help 'improve' the 'improvements.' Not that the new book isn't amusing, but I took it as a "Hey, SGS did it to someone else, I'mma do it to him."

Overall, it's not a bad novel in and of itself. It's a funny way to go about reading an old classic story that gets people interested in it. I have no idea how much sales of the original Jane Austen were affected (if they were at all), but I can imagine that since SGS only redid about "15%" according to some sources, that there was some effect to be had. I dunno, I consider it to be an interesting thought experiment. A collaborative work with an author no longer living. It's hardly a new idea, but SGS reminded us all that it's what we do.

I guess my final point would be that this is, more or less, what people have done for ages. 10 Things I Hate About You, The Lion King, a huge percentage of fan-fiction in the universe, and almost every episode of The Simpsons ever made, all are remakes and some use a lot of the original work. Rehashing and altering a popular/famous work, or even just something you like to make it your own, has been a staple of culture for most of history and still is today. People mod video games, edit photos, and, yes, rewrite classic novels to include supernatural themes. So... I suppose the only real difference here is that SGS went directly for the throat.

tl;dr Simpsons did it.

P.S. Pushing Daisies is an awesome show. It's not relevant to this conversation at all, but I thought I'd mention it because I'm always so upset that it ended after only two seasons. ;_;

In reply to Space27 (msg # 356):

A few chuckles at your expressed distaste of Champions.
As someone alluded to before; it is exactly what it is billed as: versatile.

However... when people get bogged-down in a ruleset or think it takes "5 hours to do a 5 minute combat" or whatever; they have failed to either follow one the various silver rules, or the individual running the game has horrifically failed to read the part section of all the "running the game" parts of the Champions books.

As someone who has run quite a few champions games (and played equally so) - I've never had a combat take more than 15 minutes in real time, unless it was a truly epic "chase scene" where the fight took place over long stretches of time gaps, multiple split parties and so forth.

Why?  Because one of the first aspects of game-mastering to handle is: where to place limits.

If the game is supposed to be a noir, pulpy detective game: you don't let people have clairvoyant super powers.  If the game is supposed to be a Silver age of comics game, you don't give people unlimited flight, regeneration and other "high end" golden-age comic powers.

Also - you set numeric expectations up front.

To put this into a DnD analogy.  I played DnD once with someone, who absolutely min-maxed the crud out of their character.  I couldn't figure out why.  When I asked, he thought it was completely normal.  I mean the cheez factor was through the roof.  IF there was a feat/skill/trait/whatever combo he could squeeze in for more cheese: he did it.

His character was so over-the-top, that it obliterated every encounter.

However, I was also invited to sit at his regular gaming table.  I soon realized, I had not brought an "expected" character.  I played a human.  Cleric.  It died instantly to the GM's - equally over-the-top encounters.

The point?  Set the expectations, and keep the boundaries to the topic and theme.  If the goal is over-the-top?  Great!  Set the expectation and it will be fine.

Yes - character creation in Champions/Hero can easily take 30 minutes.  Sometimes an hour.  And, yes there are programs that bring that time to like 5 minutes.  There are even existing spreadsheets that do the same thing.

I find any system can work for its billed purpose: it's just a matter of a whole new frame of reference.  I find most freeform "systems" impossible - but, that's because I have not taken the time to reorient the 'ole noggin' for it.  (save for Amber.)

In reply to GamerHandle (msg # 359):

LOL Your example of the character death reminds me on a conversation I had once with a person who also had not min/maxed his character to the extreme.  The D&D Epic level or something like that had recently come out, the GM was running a game using the new high level rules, and people had created a group of characters to play.  But this person was warned that his character was not going to survive, that all the others, and I assume the GM's side of it, had much higher stats, for instance.  But my friend wanted to role play, not roll play.

As for the 'real' D&D or whatever, unless you are playing in a large tournament or the like, rules are meant to be a guideline, not a prison.  Even for tournaments, there may be some allowed, some not, perhaps a variant or two, as long as everyone, including the GMs, are on a level playing field.

In reply to Tyr Hawk (msg # 358):

Ever heard of a certain episode of South Park, titled "Pip"? South Park is not one of my favorite shows, maybe I'm not all hip to it. It is a very funny show, even if I don't always care for its crudeness, edginess or style. Pip is an interesting episode, a mixed-bag, hit-and-miss, hybrid experiment, with a very British sense of humor.

The Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations is condensed into twenty minutes and reinterpreted, much of it faithful and respectful to the original, but then much of it different in amusing ways--including the direction of the plot. (Great Expectations and Great Killer Robots?) Since it pre-dated PaPaZ, there's a slight chance that it inspired the novel mash-up approach of SGS.

If SGS did very little alteration to Jane Austen's original, it could still make a very big effect that is interesting. A retrofit, making a dinosaur into a brand new species.

Agreed, on so many levels.  Frameworks - that's the term I love to use.  I can put whatever wallpaper on I want - but, I choose the general idea of a house.  This ain't Henry Ford's, "they can have it whatever color they want; so long as it's black"
*chuckle*

In reply to GamerHandle (msg # 359):

Well, my past distaste for my past witnessing of how gmaers and GM's used to play Champions. Okay, maybe my present distaste for all that.

I had gotten to play Champions myself, but very little. I did create some characters without too much trouble. But the games just did not work out for me. Most of what I knew about Champions is what I had heard from and talked about with many players and GM's. How to do it, what can and can't be done in it, how others were doing in it, and lots of negative opinion. Most of them had their personal complaints about the game, and about other players. Those who tried to entice me into playing failed sell it to me, what with all the circumstances. Too many rookie players and rookie mistakes, too many attitudes, probably some attention-deficit disorder in any number of people.

But then I also recall lots of second-hand news that Champions was mastered just good enough to have games that many played and enjoyed. I heard of games and characters in the spirit of golden-age comics, silver-age comics, the 4-color comics that were current then, the newer graphic novels, and non-superhero stuff, like noir, horror, war, Western, fantasy and space adventure. They tried to play everything on the hero system. It worked for some. Champions used to be popular for a while, maybe for good reason.

I had so many missed opportunities, not all of them anyone else's fault but my own.

The Amber diceless RPG by Phage Press. That's a bitter story for another time. I wanted to play it with a group, I did not want to play it the GM's own way, I never got to play. The GM was also the leader of That Must Not Be Named. What a cluster of debacles. (And I was a big baby about it....)

You'd think that a bunch of people who like a bunch of the same things would all be able to like eachother. But there are no guarantees.

But I'd still be mildly interested in trying out a diceless game.

In reply to Brianna (msg # 360):

And yes, I also was in that situation in a Champions game. I worked on creating a character that was/was not a superhero (depending on point of view), but was not a mere human, was not a minimum among a bunch of maximums, and I wanted to really roleplay and not just play. i got snuffed out. By a GM's pettiness, to say the least.

I would not mind it so much if it happened only once, or a few times. But my game characters have been killed off so often, this was one of several major factors that had held me back or kept me down and out in all RPG's. Not to mention the self-supreme snobbishness of gamers who say "I have more playing experience than you!"

That other vent thread really sometimes bugs me.  Yes, I understand that people sometimes just want to vent.  I do that.  But why vent in a place where, if someone has a potential solution to the problem, nobody will be able to respond to it?  It just bugs the heck out of me.  I get it, I do, you don't want to talk about the nail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg but still...

Edit: Another one.  Oh, a mechanical problem where something didn't work as expected for someone else and now it's causing you a problem?  Simple, just take tool X and ... but no, if you really don't want a solution to the problem then by all means go post in the other vent thread.
This message was last edited by the user at 20:25, Sun 28 Feb 2016.

You can't help those who don't want to help themselves.

In reply to Space27 (msg # 364):

Sometimes you need to realize that the common denominator across all those scenarios is you and then take a hard look at your own (possibly mis-) perceptions. You acknowledged at times that the fault is your own, but from the tone of your posts I don't hear that you're really owning it so you can do something about it. Verbal glossing over responsibility works well in a social setting, but doesn't solve your problems.

And I am a die-hard fan of Champions, but rarely get to play it outside my tabletop group. I my opinion it is far superior to every other system I've played, and I have played a LOT in the last thirty years.

Bananas. In case anyone is unfamiliar with them, they are bright yellow pieces of fruit (beloved by minions) sold by the pound at grocery stores (yes, some convenience stores will sell them by the each, but not the grocery store I was at tonight).

While shopping tonight I saw a woman come in with four kids. She walked right up to the bananas and grabbed a bunch of them. She broke four off, handed one to each kid, and proceeded about her shopping while they ate them!  What the fruit?!?  You can't pay for something sold by the pound after you've already eaten it!  I let an associate know what I saw, but didn't see the outcome.  I'm all for giving kids healthy snacks, but pay for the stuff first!

Weigh the kids.

The grocery store where i live gives each kid under 10 gives kids a free banana. That or a cookie from the bakery

cookies are the norm here.
but I to have seen people go in and take some 'by the pound' item and then eat them while shopping. Usually grapes but am not surprised by other fruits. These people honestly do not believe they are stealing anything. They think they have the right to eat something they are planning to buy even if by eating it they are reducing the weight and there by the price.
I worked stores and have confronted people about this in the past. They get really pissy if you inform them they are in effect shop lifting.

In reply to Mrrshann618 (msg # 370):

I've seen shops that make those offers, and I think it's a great loss-leader: families shop longer when the kids aren't griping about being hungry. This store wasn't one of those places, tho. :(

I noticed the last time I went in to one of the local grocery stores that they now have a bin at the front with free fruit.  I didn't look carefully, but I think they were the not-quite-perfect ones that probably don't sell well anyway.  Great idea!

All fruit is free fruit if you eat it before you get to the register. :P

In reply to GammaBear (msg # 374):

No, that's stealing.

I agree.

People who eat the fruit they pick up inside the stores are eating the fruit everyone else has been handling all day.

People just don't grab fruit and put them in the bag.  They grab and handle and inspect the fruit.

Now, I'm no germaphobe, but the idea of eating an unwashed grape that was last handled by a parent who, just moments before, was wiping the snot from a toddler's face...  or perhaps the toddler was the one handling the fruit...  maybe even licked it, put it back.  Very young children and irresponsible pop stars have been known to do things like that.

Bananas, of course, have their own natural sealed case.  This is why they are Most Perfect Fruit.  Coconuts come presealed in natural cases as well, but obviously they have issues bananas don't.

So I think simple enforcement of a Do Not Eat The Bananas policy would work.  A few photos of various shopper's children fondling the other fruit, strategically placed along with "Please Wash All Produce Before Consumption" signs, should reduce the rest.

In reply to Brianna (msg # 375) & OceanLake (msg # 376):

Not that it's really my place to say, but I believe GammaBear was kidding. Call it a hunch, but the smiley makes me think that his reply wasn't meant to be serious.

In reply to Tyr Hawk (msg # 378):

That is usually what it implies. ;)