Coop/Solo Rules - Brainstorming

[MrNobody]

I think it would make sense to start development of the villains based around a campaign. So if we’re doing an X-Men campaign, work on getting the Brotherhood, Sentinels, etc working. Then of course more can be added from there. But even just 3-4 groups of X-Men villians would be more than enough meat to work with, I’d think.

[IAmBatman]

Yeah, I might have to dust off some of the X-Men campaigns to try the system out. I know one stalled because one side of it was declared unfun to play. That's probably a good place to start (and one good reason I want these).

[IAmBatman]

@Yodaking I'll try to work through your post in a while (lot of stuff there!). I'm not 100% sure that you were following everything in my proposed system, though.

For instance, you draw cards one at a time for each Order Marker placement at the start of each round. Only that card's initiative bonus would apply to the placement of that Marker, so you wouldn't have a bunch of 8+ bonuses in play for the same roll.

[Yodaking]

Yeah, I didn't get that at all. Easier to understand what you are proposing for a system this complex if I had it physically in front of me and was able to see it in action.

[IAmBatman]

For sure! I’ll revise for clarity later. This was mostly wanting to get a flash of inspiration down. I probably posted prematurely.

[Sir Yeshua]

Ooh, I'm intrigued... Let's jump in! (My thoughts in Red)

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

COOP RULES
Requires: 5 Tactics Cards, 4-sided die.

Enemy A.I.

Step One: Heroes place their Order Markers for the round

Step Two: Draw a Tactics Card and roll for Order Marker placement

So far so good, I'm gonna edit the order you say things to help it read clearer.

Tactics Cards:

Leader: Instead of rolling for initiative, place all Order Markers on the Army Card of whichever Army Card can activate the most figures during a turn. If there is a tie, roll initiative for all tied cards.

Assault: +8 to the roll of any figure in range to attack.

Lockdown: +8 to the roll of any figure close enough to move into engagement in a turn.

Champion: +8 to the roll of the highest point figure(s).

Reinforce: +8 to the roll of any figure in the start zone.

Roll D20 for “initiative" four times for each enemy Army Card in play. The Each initiative winner gets a random Order Marker (1, 2, 3, or X) placed on it. Repeat this process until all Order Markers have been placed. These may be viewed at any time.

Step Three: Heroes and Enemy Army roll for initiative

Step Four: On Enemy turn, roll 4-sided Die. 4 = X. Whatever number is rolled, find the corresponding Order Marker on an enemy Army Card and swap it with the correct Order Marker for that turn. (So on turn 1, if you roll “4,” swap the “X” Order Marker with the “1” Order Marker, then reveal the “1” and take a turn with that enemy figure).
If you roll a number on the 4-sided Die that has already been revealed for the round, simply reroll until you roll a number that has not.
It takes a few readings to figure out what you're actually saying here lol Lemme take a crack at it...

Less moving around OMs while still giving you the random factor. You could either choose to only play 3 OMs, or honestly I feel like letting them play all four OMs captures the feeling of enemies using numbers to overwhelm while also making up for the handicap of AI controlled enemies.


Step Five Resolving Order Marker-Related Powers: When you have to choose or affect an enemy Order Marker, simply choose an Order Marker on one of the enemy Army Cards., ignoring the number on it, and roll the 4-sided die until you roll the number of an Order Marker that has not yet been revealed. Swap the chosen Order Marker with the number of the Order Marker you rolled and affect that Order Marker according to your special power.

With my proposed OM system, OMs that have been used are removed. This runs into an issue with "stunning" powers, but I think this is something that would resolve itself if we had all 4 enemy OMs be "live".

Step Five: After revealing an Order Marker for an Enemy turn, use the Tactics Card to guide the play of that card.

Leader: Take a turn with as many figures as possible. If you could choose between two different figures to take a turn with, choose the one with the highest point value first, then choose the one able to attack the most enemy figures on its turn next. If there is still a tie, use the 20-sided die to break it.

Assault: Use this card to attack as many Hero figures as possible, whether with the figures on this card or any other figures they can activate.

Lockdown: Use this card to move as many enemy figures as possible into engagement with Hero figures. Attack normally.

Champion: Use this card to attempt to cause the maximum amount of damage possible on a single Hero figure.
How do we choose which Hero to attack?

Reinforce: Use this card to move as many Enemy figures as possible as close to engaged Enemy figures as possible. Attack normally.

Overall I love the ideas, but it feels like the OM placement needs to be streamlined. I could also see a system where each enemy army card is assigned a role, (as per the tactics cards), the tactics card drawn for the turn determines OM assignment bonuses, and then on the individual army card's turn they follow the tactics they're assigned. This helps avoid unthematic plays like the Hired Guns going on Lockdown. Granted, I also feel like the assigned roles would work better in scenarios/campaigns. I can't wait to see where this goes!

[Yodaking]

Reading it again and yeah, I took the tactics card to just be one card with all the rules you must use to augment your OM placement process. If you just draw a random card with one of those effects, then I think you are going to have problems with balance. If I've got an Avengers Army set up to face a MoE army and the MoE only places OM's on Zemo when the leader card is drawn, then his card isn't being used to it's max value. Since he just manages turns rather then bonds it's not as big an issue as say a Luke Cage army not drawing the leadership card. Batman should get the OM before Robin does, regardless of which one rolls higher on the d20. The tough part is when Luke gets down to 1 life, the same rules need to account for that and not have you place all your OM's on the leader when the leader is unlikely to survive the round. Maybe something like a leader card gets +10 to it's OM placement roll, -2 for each missing life. So a full life Prof. X gets a +10, but a 1 life Prof. X only gets +4 to the roll.

Same issue with the randomness of the X placement, Zemo or Wizard should have the X OM over say Abomination or Living Laser. The system at the very least needs a pre-OM placement rule that says the XOM is first placed on any figure that has an X reveal power.

On the issue of OM managers like Zemo, you would need to have in place a system for what happens after he gets an OM. Maybe after revealing one you randomize who gets that turn based on a priority system (engaged vs unengaged, remaining life, etc.) followed by a random factor when tied or something?

The suggestion of figuring out how to make it work for a specific scenario first (mutants vs. humans, X-men vs. Brotherhood, crime fighters/vigilantes vs. criminals/thieves, Avengers vs. MoE/Hydra, etc.) and then trying to expand it is a good one. It will help you identify specific issues that come up without trying to account for all the different cards at once. This could start feeling overwhelming if you try to tackle all 800 cards in one go.

[IAmBatman]

Some good notes there, thanks!

I think you're missing the reasoning behind Step Five (the first one - sorry about the typo!).

I'll give you an example to illustrate. Let's say Beast is adjacent to an enemy figure and wants to negotiate. I choose an Order Marker from that card, without looking at it. How do I decide what number Order Marker that was?

Also, I want the "X" marker to be on enemy cards not just for the bluffing, but for the numerous powers that use the "X" marker for special powers.

[IAmBatman]

Great stuff you slipped in there, Yodaking! I think you have more of an understanding of what I'm going for and what you're saying there makes a lot of sense to me.

I think there should probably be some base rules and some scenario (and thus army) specific ones to guide the interactions.

Maybe this can be done without the card/tactics deck at all, and more of a checklist? It seems like if there's a "Leader" available, they should always get the Order Markers unless they're too damaged, in which case they might go somewhere else.

[Qualizium]

I have a bunch of ideas but I'm not sure I can put them down in words in a forum post. I might just make up a simple demonstration scenario if I can find the time.

To put it shortly, I would use individually designed AI cards for each unit in a given scenario. The player(s) would still use order markers, but the AI would not. The AI would also use an abstracted form of movement based on zones rather than spaces. Basically if you've ever played any games in the Castle Ravenloft/Legend of Drizzt etc series I would use that sort of simple AI system.

The downside is this wouldn't simply scale to include any enemy and any map. A map would need to be divided into zones, and a unit would need it's own personal AI routine that accounts for its special powers and such.

[IAmBatman]

A system that abandoned Order Markers would definitely be simpler. But it would also not be Heroscape. Feel free to design such a thing. If I design and work on one, I prefer that it would include Order Markers.

[Qualizium]

I'm not entirely decided on whether I'd axe order markers on the AI side or not. I do foresee problems with players bringing units that e.g force the AI to decide if it wants to remove an order marker to avoid an effect. I don't like "roll the dice to decide for the AI" systems, that just turns into the AI routinely making boneheaded decisions on obvious moves. I also don't like going "choose the most optimal course of action for the AI", in my mind that's not an AI at all, that's just complicated soloscape.