When I first came across Buddy he was running a Champions game at the FLGS, and it happened in the time slot just before my regular AD&D game. I had time to spare, so I asked (rather shyly, I might add) if I could join his game. He opened me with welcome arms, and said he would gladly make me a character during the week, and I could join in the next Saturday. To keep things simple, he asked me to pick a comic book character that I would like to play, and he would build me out a PC. I was on a Silver Surfer kick at the time (and he’s still my favorite comic book character), so I picked that character to go with. He asked me for a name, and I totally blanked. I didn’t want to just go with “Silver Surfer” because that name was already taken. I figured I would go original, and I spluttered out, “Silva.”

He was happy with the name, so I figured I hadn’t committed a faux pas early on in the game. He created my character during the week, and I joined in the group the following Saturday. I had an absolute blast with Silva. I’d swoop all over the place. One session I learned, the hard way, what an OAF (obvious accessible focus) really meant in Champions nomenclature. A Bad Guy took away my surf board, and I was reduced to walking/running everywhere for the rest of the game. I bemoaned my pathetic fate of being bound by gravity and played it up quite well. I still had my ranged blast, though, and no one could take that away from me. Life was good.

I still miss gaming with Buddy. Moving away from my home state was a hard thing to do, and leaving behind Buddy, Mike, Tiffany, Chris, Jason and the rest of the gang was the hardest part of moving away. I try to get a good Champions/Hero game going from time-to-time, but it rarely gets beyond the character generation phase of things. Everyone seems to love making characters, but doesn’t delve too deeply into the system when it come to gaming. *sigh*