GCF Design Discussion Thread - Parallax Play Test

[Grishnakh]

The intent of this thread is for us to post Superhero cards, Special Abilities, etc. that are currently in the development phase and that we are having difficulty finishing, as well as to discuss cards that we've already released on our main GCF thread that might need tweaking.

We go through several stages when we create our cards, and for the most part I think we've done a fairly good job. However, we sometimes simply hit a wall creatively. That's why we think it will be a good experiment to turn to the community and see what kind of input we might be able to get on these "problem" cards.

[Grishnakh]

We are back up and running!

[Drewman-chu]

I would be happy to offer ideas or help but your cards are always seem well thought out.

[Grishnakh]

Originally Posted by Drewman-chu

I would be happy to offer ideas or help but your cards are always seem well thought out.

Your input has always been both welcome and helpful Drewman-chu! Thanks!

[Grishnakh]

Our first question is somewhat appropriate since a character that we are currently considering is DC's the Question!

Viewers of Justice League Unlimited will be familiar with the character. If not here's some background info based on the comic version of the character:

The Question is Vic Sage, vigilante protector of Hub City. He is a great martial artist and detective, an investigative reporter in his civilian identity. The mask he wears to disguise his face is made of an experimental material called pseudoderm. Sage is driven by a deep personal quest for philosophical meaning, which has taken him through both Objectivism and Zen; in some versions he is portrayed as a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

Anyway, a Special Ability we are experimenting around with closely follows our guessing game version of the Riddler, and is very theme heavy. Here's a first, very rough draft of the SA:

DEDUCTIVE REASONING
After order markers have been placed, and before rolling initiative, the Question can attempt Deductive Reasoning. Choose an opponent. Then attempt to guess what order marker(s) are on which card, including the X order marker. The chosen opponent then confirms the correct number of guesses, without revealing which order markers are the correct ones, and without revealing any order markers. For each correct guess the Question adds that number to both his Attack and his Defense for that round.

Of course we are trying to model a character that is, in reality, gathering clues and making connections to arrive at important conclusions, in game terms their opponents order marker placement.

Obviously when an opponent gets down to one card it becomes fairly easy to deduct what order markers are on a card, making the Question stronger towards the end game.

This also hurts cards like Wasp and Martian Manhunter that have the ability to direct other cards. Usually you'd place all your order markers on those cards, but when facing the Question you might not want to. In fact this is one of the reasons we are looking at this character. Seems a good way to counter that kinda order marker placement.

The SA is kinda wordy at the moment. This truly is a first draft, just to see if this concept of a power is viable enough to pursue.

Is the reward good enough? In the end it just makes him a better fighter. Other things we considered got a bit too complicated, like somehow helping other team members with extra dice (with a name like INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING), or gaining auto skulls equal to the number of correct guesses that can be used anytime during the round.

Don't know if there's any precedent here to look at. It would be nice to possibly break new ground while staying true to the character. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[Tornado]

These are the hardest powers to simulate in Heroscape.
Is your bigger concern if it is too big of a nerf for 'leader' figures or that the reward is not big enough? Personally I think they are both really powerful aspects of the power with the edge going to leadership nerf(that is going to make him a go to counter draft).

My first thought was to use numbered markers, sort of like C3G's Mr. Sinister that you choose an opponent to place and then you guess where they are. The problem is that there needs to be some negative involved that would 'force' your opponent to choose where they go for strategic reasons instead of placing them randomly.
You could use symbols instead of numbers(like a briefcase) to be more theme-y.
Perhaps way too complicated but I figure you have two sides of the card for text so you could have a text heavy power like that.

[chas]

1. Unlike your Riddler power, the problem with this is that there is no way to enforce honesty on the opponent!

2. I agree with you that the benefit is not as thematic as you'd like.

Here's a run at these problems:

DEDUCTIVE REASONING

After order markers are placed, but before initiative is rolled, the player with the Question may indicate any one order marker of another player. The player must show that order marker to him but not anyone else. If the questioner guessed correctly, he may indicate one more and go through the same procedure, with another order marker being chosen each time a correct one is guessed. Guessing incorrectly ends the process. For each order marker guessed correctly, the questioner gets +2 to the upcoming Initiative roll.

[Grishnakh]

Yea, it's an interesting problem. Trying to put intellect into basically a punchy combat system.

As you might know we try to do everything we can power-wise with the basic game stats. From the very beginning of the project we've attempted to keep the d20 to represent IQ rolls. And we only use markers to represent three things: Energy, Power (like batteries), and Magic. (Ironman was one of our first cards and we named his markers Beam instead of Power. Never thought it mattered to change it. Besides, it may play into a future card that he doesn't run on Power. Who knows?)

Regardless we'd really like to stick to those parameters and not utilize markers if we can get away with it.

As to your comments Tornado I do agree with you that "they are both really powerful aspects of the power with the edge going to leadership nerf (that is going to make him a go to counter draft)." I think I need to create the base template of the card next and see how the bonus can tie into the SA. It's the way we've always created our cards in the past, concept first, then create a 1st version. So you're seeing a bit of our process here.

As for the honesty issue Chas, well, we only play with honest people! But that is a consideration and a good point. One that we hadn't really thought through yet.

Here's the theme in a nut shell: This is supposed to model the Question gathering information before hand (at the start of the turn). Then what does he do with that information? He is a reporter so he probably should distribute it somehow so others on his team can use that information and act with an advantage. So it's a two step power: 1. How does he gain knowledge of his opponents order markers and 2. how does he distribute his gains from that knowledge?

Today's a bit of a busy day for me but I will keep this in the back of my mind all day. Gamers multitasking right guys?!

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Question is a tricky one to adapt to Heroscape, I've been stumped on my Question card for months now. I do have one of his powers done, feel free to use it as inspiration/swipe it wholesale if it strikes your fancy:

Conspiracy Theory
If at least one order marker is on the Question's Army Card, before rolling for initiative, you may choose an opponent. You may add or subtract 2 to your initiative roll for each Army Card in that opponent's army that has at least one order marker placed on it.

Basically, the idea is he's good at seeing the hidden 'connections' and such, so he's better against wacky plans than straight up leaders. The initiative boost also makes it easy for him to pair with the people I wanted him to pair with*, my Huntress will have an 'if you win initiative' power for example.


*I design all my cards to synergize with certain 'teams', it's just not readily apparent since I don't have more than one member of any given team right now except team 'pseudo-pulp vigilantes'

[Grishnakh]

Originally Posted by Soundwarp SG-1

Question is a tricky one to adapt to Heroscape, I've been stumped on my Question card for months now. I do have one of his powers done, feel free to use it as inspiration/swipe it wholesale if it strikes your fancy:

Conspiracy Theory
If at least one order marker is on the Question's Army Card, before rolling for initiative, you may choose an opponent. You may add or subtract 2 to your initiative roll for each Army Card in that opponent's army that has at least one order marker placed on it.

Basically, the idea is he's good at seeing the hidden 'connections' and such, so he's better against wacky plans than straight up leaders. The initiative boost also makes it easy for him to pair with the people I wanted him to pair with*, my Huntress will have an 'if you win initiative' power for example.

That's actually pretty clever. Modeling "connections".

And thanks for the offer of the power. I think we want to pursue this whole guessing "game within a game" aspect for a while. We've really enjoyed playing with our Riddler card and we want to attempt to capture that kind of feel with our Question.

[Tornado]

For the honesty bit I think you will know if they are being dishonest when they reveal their order markers and then ban them from play.

What about a graduated reward system for correct guesses?

So maybe one correct is a bonus to attack or defense, two(or more) attack & defense, three(or more) an initiative boost/negative, four knocks down OM(s).

[Grishnakh]

Some great suggestions everyone. We read all of them over and it gave us a lot to think about. It also helped with the wording on the card. Thanks everyone!

So here's what we typically do next. After researching the character and coming up with a concept of what we'd like to do with him or her, our next step is to put together a rough card. For me it really helps to start seeing the card visually. That way we can start plugging in powers, removing them, tweaking them, etc. This is probably so totally different than the way most of the cards designers on this site work. But, as you can probably tell, both the way a card looks is just as important to what the card says. In our case card design and art is not secondary and done last. It's a total package for us and helps define the character.

With that said we've put together our first draft of the Question. Actually, what you are seeing is the third or four draft of the card since we are working very fluidly at this point. Powers have been added, and powers have been taken away. Since this is sort of an open design, we've decided at this point to share the card.

What we typically do now is to walk away from it a bit, theory-scaping whenever the mood hits us. It pays to walk away and come back to the character later, perhaps with a fresher view point. Sometimes we've sat on a card for several months. We've actually got unreleased cards at this moment that are over a year old.

Not only does the card have to work mechanically and fit in with our other released cards and special abilities, the other big factor with us is simply this: does the new card seem like it would be fun to play? If there's nothing really exciting or new about it then perhaps we're not capturing the feel of the character. That may be where I'm at at the moment with this card. I still wish there was a way for him to share his knowledge with his team that somehow helps them. Not too sure what that is at the moment though. We'd have to be careful that he doesn't add attack dice to someone like Superman. Anyway, the Question is not ready to test play just yet. That usually comes later for us anyway.

Regardless, we're open for suggestions at this stage of the Questions development.

And at the very least this is a bit of a sneak peak into our creative process!