this sentence does not make any coherent sense.
The Variable Point Pool (gadget pools are a subset thereof) itself has no direct effect on the narrative state. It only affects the narrative state once put in use. In no small irony, it's often the least used of the cost-savers, because, to use it, one has to use the right power, etc., but there are 50+ pages of powers to know and find the right one
on the fly, in session If you use it for luck, it's very meta, but not very narrative in focus, as Luck in Hero is insanely meta. It's not required to take the powers used as requiring gadgets, even. It's how you represent borg adaptation and nanoprobes, Batman's gadget pool, a Kender's pockets, the D&D bag of Tricks, the 70's Television version of Green Lantern's Ring. It's only the limitations and size of pool that make them different. Bats has to either explain it as a gadget (usually OAF, but not always); Nolan's version, it seems like he's too skilled, so, just VPP a "Training pool" and put a charges limit on the pool control.
A Skill pool? Not very narrative. The requisite would likely be set by the GM to tell a flashback for the skill being trained; others would just let it be invisible, appearing only as a mechanic affecting the mechanical state of the character's skills.
Or an Attribute Pool. (Both skill and attribute pools are offlabel use, but Steve Long at one point pointed out that it is a good way to represent insanely over-competent characters.)
It's only once they do something visible to the setting's inhabitants that it becomes a narrative mechanic. Until that point, the pool's effects are entirely on the sheet, not in the fiction; utility belts aren't all VPPs.
I'm going to demand any explanation for what is on its face is a radical claim.
Why is Champions more narrative/story focused than the other games of pre-1982?
All the other supers games of the era that I've read are
buy the cause simulation-focused. about 5 or 6 games, tho' one is an official mod for
The Fantasy Trip, from an issue of Space Gamer
Hero, you buy the mechanics, and skin them however the player and GM agree works for the mechanics. Literally, every power has to have a description of what its special effect is, including which sense groups. It's emphasis on buy the mechanics, define the story look, and then that the GM is explicitly encouraged to fit interactions to the descriptions...
Also, 90% of the modifiers to power costs (to purchase) are open ended classes. Such as "requires skill roll" - you have to pick a skill and specify it.
The disads are very VERY broad, the modifiers to the disads equally so. You're required to define the various ones as specifics. For example: Hunted. Hunted in Hero has 3 levels (which can be, if desired, mapped to "shows on 15+, Shows on 11+, shows on 8+"), and 3 modifiers (Extensive non-combat influence? Only watching? Agents relative power to the PC?). TO actually use it in play, you have to say who, then answer the mods questions. (if not witten, the answer to NCI is no, and Only Watching is no. Sometimes (IME, usually), "Hunted - only watching" is instead written "Watched" - but there is no "watched" in the disad list. There's no "Bad SIght" nor "Lame" - both fall into "Physical Limitation" - so every PL is custom.
V&V, you buy the power, what it can do (besides damage or movement) is negotiable with the GM. And that old beastie is undergoing a bit of a renaissance... mostly within the OSR crowd from what I've seen.
TFT supers is buying powers like spells. Again, the power is very much a cause, and a damage, but other uses left to the GM.
the others were even less subtle.
As for the 1982 cutoff? Because new D&D Basic boxed sets switch to Mentzer Basic in 1983... and the OSR movement usually seems to be entirely hostile to Mr. Mentzer. it's also the cutoff for many Traveller "Old Guard" types, but most use 1984, when the 3PPs lost their licenses.
Edit: completing an improperly terminated Sentence in ¶1
