Arkham is a game that challenges you, where everything's a risk, and you always play out the last turn because you never know. See the link to my design article for some images and further details. Deal two damage, thwart for 4, Champions is a game that aims to make you feel good. The book also comes with two complete campaign guides for the LOTR campaign, QR codes to useful tools for the game, and a collection tracker so that you can keep track of what expansions you own. They're not technically wrong - an action in Champions does what it does.
I've had in control games turn south fast because of an unexpected failure, I've had losing games where we throw desperate gambits on 20% success rates and pull it out, and I've had losing games where we manage to scrape together a great shot to pull it out only to have the bag dump on us.Ī lot of people will describe the bag as a "feel bad" mechanic. With the chaos bag, you never really know (again, outside a few cards). Quick look at the board, do a little math, and scoop it up because you know you won. When I played Champions we often wouldn't bother playing the last turn. That changes the intensity of the game dramatically for me. Almost everything you do has a chance of failure. Generally speaking, your clock will run out. Copy the base64 encoded data and insert it in you document HTML or CSS. In Arkham, there are very few ways to stop or remove doom. In Champions, a good Justice character can keep the villain from ever advancing. That time limit is another interesting point.
Arkham gives you three actions a turn and you have to use them wisely or you'll run out of time. Resources have an interesting balance with cards in your hand, but you can do as much as you can each turn. In Champions, you do as many things each turn as you can manage. The easiest comparison points to make to Champions are action economy and the chaos bag.