When Becoming a Champion

[Maurice76]

I'm lucky my group is of the former one: cooperative and pooling their money relatively together. Well, besides the Dwarf, because we lack a player for that one ... so we all - me as Evil Wizard included - take turns playing him around. Being the EW, though, I leave all the important decisions to the other players. Although they've neglected the upgrades for the Dwarf the first few quests, they're now starting to see they should upgrade his gear too, otherwise he can't be an effective party member .

[wallydubbs]

For the 2nd group I'm more inclined to give a 500 gold incentive to upon becoming Champions (if they survive the Trial)... though they aren't great at teamwork, I'd hate to see them die continuously and grow disenchanted from the game.

They shouldn't be rewarded for bad play. They must learn to act as a team or suffer the consequences. You can tell them how the other team's Heroes got their reward ages ago!

Don't think I haven't thought of that, but there's no point in playing if they don't enjoy the game too. They often think the Emperor is a cheapskate, his rewards are too small (though I did modify the reward of Quest 7 based on performance. I did also make some changes to some of the quests: Quest 6 they don't find their gold with their equipment, that I move to the central room, where all the monsters are gambling their gold amongst eachother.
I actually enjoy this group, though, they unwittingly make it harder on eachother and thus easier for me... unlike group 1, where I have to add monsters to avoid being slaughtered myself, group 2 will barely escape at all. Plus, they're gonna need something to amp up supplies for Keller's Keep, where they don't get to visit the armory or Alchemist Shop.

[Kurgan]

Maybe this is too crazy an idea to ever work... but what if one day you recruit the "reckless" group to fight for the bad guys? Zargon has decided you have certain qualities he appreciates, and wants you to join him.

Then you could have a team deathmatch between the two groups, winner take all!

As to what happens after that, is anyone's guess. Maybe the bad guys win have learned teamwork and the good guys are taught some humility, OR you have failed me for the last time, flee from my presence before I get really angry! Or maybe they are claiming their reward from Zargon and decide THEY should be ruling the Chaos wastes and a big showdown begins... (or You DARE to challenge me? This will be your last mistake). Maybe the Empire will take you back? After all, you've gained valuable intel on the enemy from the inside... and maybe his desire to punish you will lead him to make a mistake we can exploit!

[Davane]

The FIRST EU rulebook had the rules for becoming a Champion, in which a Hero that completes THREE quests get a 500 gold coin bonus. Interestingly, the quests ONLY count from Sir Ragnar onwards, and Prince Magnus' Gold is the 2nd Quest in the series, and in the EU version, the heroes could KEEP Prince Magnus' Gold (worth 250 gold), but they wouldn't be able to become a Champion, so it's a really bad deal (250 gold now, or 200 gold now AND 500 gold one quest later... let me think?)

Later EU versions dropped the idea of becoming a Champion entirely. The US version saw Heroes become a Champion after completing the GS quests, but being a Champion didn't actually provide a reward at all.

For MY current campaign, I have included becoming a Champion, with a plus 500 gold coin reward, but you need to complete FIVE quests for the Emperor, which means the reward comes after they complete Legacy of the Orc Warlord...

[Kurgan]

Looking back, the deathmatch idea might really bruise some egos, maybe lead to an all out brawl for real (depending upon the temperments of the youngsters involved). But it would make quite a bit of theater otherwise! (assuming a TPK didn't force them to start over completely when playing solo)

Actually if the stakes were only bragging rights (or "you get to keep the other party's gold") it could be a regular thing. Like the grudge match every few fights in some of those old arcade brawlers (Street Smart, Pit Fighter). You go up against Zargon and play some quests every so often but then the challenge is accepted and you try to win the gold from the other team. I dunno, maybe it's too high stakes to maintain good relations...

As for the Champion thing, I love the idea of the 500 reward for completing quests. I made it in my houserules (added to the NA base) as "3-5 quests" at Zargon's discretion. So if they were particularly easy ones, here I'm assuming we are not necessarily playing from 1 to 14 in order, but freely picking from all available quests from session to session... then 3, if they're harder ones then 5. And I added a new rank after that called "Knight" which would be equivalent to the normal "Champion" you become after beating the WitchLord (so 10-14 quests total completed).

I wouldn't give them an extra gold reward at the completion of Knight but I would upgrade various things at Champion and at Knight. This makes the game easier, but I was thinking something to give them a sense of advancement AND a way to make it more tolerable to play the insane difficulty of the EQP/BQP without having to artificially nerf those packs as-is. To compensate, I would give increasing odds that new Monsters on the board would be extra powerful (rather than adding extra monsters or messing with the stats of existing ones).

I know many others have gone with their own version of advancement, leveling up, etc. (the Japanese game system let you gamble to level up your body points between quests even) but here's my system, I tried to keep it fairly simple, but it does involve use of colored dice, Combat Cards, and an extra chart or two.

Also, that little "Champion" symbol from the Adventure Design Kit is cool to slap onto your character sheet. I guess for the Knight it could add crossed swords or spurs or something.

HERE...