The Book of Demona

[Lord Pyre]

Oooooookay. Here's my piece then I'm leaving this too.

The amount of text on cards has been growing, and we've addressed that it's a problem. The art dept has been mocking up cards in advance lately to help fight that, since it's been so prevalent.

Everything has a purpose, and I'm certain I've seen equal or greater amounts of text before.

Probably. But just because it's been done doesn't mean it should be again.

If this were a character people knew, there wouldn't be an issue, I swear. I'm just going to let the Gargoyles die now, honestly - I can see where Tornado's struggles with 2000AD came from now.

It would definitely still be an issue. Not sure what struggles 2000AD has had, those designs are generally way less wordy and solid cards. I'm not even going to touch the dying thing.

I have designed hands-down the most Indy designs. That's a fact. I'm not sure why you think you're being attacked. You have a handful of people who know the gargoyles too. Can a single person here recognize some of the stuff I've LD'd? I haven't had any problems with any of them, aside from normal mechanical debates. Check out Angstrom Levy's thread if you want to see some craziness. And guess what? We all worked together great. There's no witch hunt for gargoyles (Or you for that matter).

Oh, and I personally think that we should remove the "human" restriction from immortal hatred. Why? We need space, and if your opponent doesn't have a human it's useless. I'm sure she could find a reason to hate other people too. She's apparently vindictive. It's a game, not a simulation. Keeping things streamlined is way more appealing than having it perfectly
thematic.

And before you complain about the text again, you must realize that some of us are either getting older or just have bad eyes. I'm pretty sure most of us wear glasses. Small text sucks.

[MrNobody]

I do think this kind of thing should've been caught before we went into Final Editing. It feels weird to be trying to make mechanical changes this late in the game. But we are where we are now.

It also feels like losing the Human part of the initiative is a pretty major loss of theme. I guess I'm with some of the others in that if something needs to go (NOT saying it does, because I just don't know), it should be the Magical Defense stuff.

[quozl]

My attempt to shorten things without changing the powers at all:

Original:

ARCANE PLOT
Once per game, Demona may cast a Unique Spell as though she had the Magical Defense special power. While Demona is casting a Spell, whenever a special power on an Army Card or glyph refers to the Magical Defense special power, it refers to this special power as well. Figures with the Blind Warrior special power may not be affected by any spell cast by Demona. Immediately before that spell is cast, you may choose an opponent’s Unique Hero. That opponent must move at least as many unrevealed Order Markers to the chosen Hero's card as there are Order Markers on this card, up to a maximum of three.

IMMORTAL HATRED
At the start of each round, if an opponent controls at least one Human, you may add 2 to your initiative roll for each Order Marker on this card. Before rolling for initiative, if Demona is destroyed, you may roll the twenty-sided die. If you roll 15 or higher, place her on any empty space within one space of her previous placement and remove all but 3 Wound Markers from this Army Card.

CLIMBING AND GLIDING
If Demona would move onto a lower level, she may use the Flying special power for the remainder of her movement. Instead of moving Demona normally, she may move 1 space up to 30 levels up and she will take any leaving engagement attacks.

My take:

ARCANE PLOT
Once per game, Demona may cast a Unique Spell. While Demona is casting a Spell, she gains the Magical Defense special power and figures with the Blind Warrior special power may not be affected. Immediately before that spell is cast, you may choose an opponent’s Unique Hero. That opponent must move at least as many unrevealed Order Markers to the chosen Hero's card as there are Order Markers on this card, up to a maximum of three.

IMMORTAL HATRED
If an opponent controls at least one Human, you may add 2 to your initiative roll for each Order Marker on this card. Before rolling for initiative, if Demona is destroyed, you may roll the twenty-sided die. If you roll 15 or higher, place her on any empty space within one space of her previous placement and remove all but 3 Wound Markers from this Army Card.

CLIMBING AND GLIDING
If Demona would move onto a lower level, she may use the Flying special power for the remainder of her movement. Instead of moving Demona normally, she may move 1 space up to 30 levels up and she will take any leaving engagement attacks.

Also, we were going to do a gravestone marker to mark her placement where she died, right?

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Apologies. Since you don’t seem to follow context, I’ll abridge my statement:

Really, you don’t know what a clause is?

Really, when someone tries to help, you fabricate ways to attack that help?

Really, you’re still not acting like a Hero?

I’m going to do you the courtesy of unsubscribing from this thread. Apologies for the distraction and best of luck to you.

I do know what a clause is, but for some reason I thought you meant the whole first section. My apologies - I'm stressed to all hell right now. Life hasn't been great recently, and most days (yesterday more than most) are feeling like a struggle, for various reasons.

Originally Posted by Lord Pyre

Probably. But just because it's been done doesn't mean it should be again.

It would definitely still be an issue. Not sure what struggles 2000AD has had, those designs are generally way less wordy and solid cards. I'm not even going to touch the dying thing.

I have designed hands-down the most Indy designs. That's a fact. I'm not sure why you think you're being attacked. You have a handful of people who know the gargoyles too. Can a single person here recognize some of the stuff I've LD'd? I haven't had any problems with any of them, aside from normal mechanical debates. Check out Angstrom Levy's thread if you want to see some craziness. And guess what? We all worked together great. There's no witch hunt for gargoyles (Or you for that matter).

2000AD designs were generally neglected and, at least early on, workshopped to underpoweredness with savage efficiency.
It does feel like there's some issue with Gargoyles. Since this thread's been up, it's felt as though it's been treated as a second-class design. It wasn't considered worth taking into account for wave planning or given much importance in playtesting by the Heroes and Legends. Clearly no one cared about checking the wording before now, when for a design people cared about, they would have done. Several times I've called votes, I've got a skeleton response and it's gone through on time. I've asked before if I was the only one who's cared here due to a lack of responses - this isn't new. Comparing this with Invincible isn't really fair - most of the people here (Bats, Ronin etc.) seem to be really into that stuff. Trying to make Gargoyles work feels like swimming against the tide.

Originally Posted by quozl

My attempt to shorten things without changing the powers at all:

Original:

My take:

Also, we were going to do a gravestone marker to mark her placement where she died, right?

That looks good to me - thank you.

[MrNobody]

I think the idea was to do the Gravestone marker unofficially like Nitro. It’s just an optional thing provided as a memory aid, not an official part of the rules of this card.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by MrNobody

I think the idea was to do the Gravestone marker unofficially like Nitro. It’s just an optional thing provided as a memory aid, not an official part of the rules of this card.

Yeah - we definitely need one, though.

[tcglkn]

LO, I really hope you don’t feel like I was attacking you. Most of the time I look at things on my computer and the monitor is so wide the powers are only a couple of lines long. When I went to put it on the card I just kept having to reduce the text size until we got to a size where I thought I should mention it. I didn’t want to change the design, but I do want every design we release to be the best possible, that includes being able to be read. I’ll try quozl’s wording update as that trimmed about 4 lines off the first power.

I do understand how you feel. Since coming back I’ve felt like a few of my designs have been neglected and it is frustrating. I’m experiencing the same thing right now with the Power Battery.

[japes]

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

Can we not try to redesign the card when it's been tested?

I don’t think anyone was trying to redesign the card. We edit a lot to reduce text when necessary.

Originally Posted by MrNobody

I do think this kind of thing should've been caught before we went into Final Editing. It feels weird to be trying to make mechanical changes this late in the game. But we are where we are now.

Were would you recommend we tackle editing then if the Final Editing phase isn’t appropriate? I didn’t get the sense anyone was talking about mechanical changes...they were talking wording changes.

[tcglkn]

I've updated the card with quozl's wording and the text is a MUCH better size. So thanks quozl. SP still needs updating with his edits. I've also added a marker to the OP for her. I forgot that discussion.

[MrNobody]

Originally Posted by japes

Were would you recommend we tackle editing then if the Final Editing phase isn’t appropriate? I didn’t get the sense anyone was talking about mechanical changes...they were talking wording changes.

If you look through, the discussion I was responding to was about what minor mechanical snips we could make, such as removing the Human part of the Hatred power or some of the Magical Defense stuff. We found just regular editing cuts to make though, so sounds like it is no longer an issue.

[Yodaking]

I have some thoughts on thread neglect I'll post in the inner sanctum so as not to derail or clog up this thread. As for decrying heroes not testing Demona, that's a bridge too far. Japes, quozl, and Johnny are all not known for prolific testing, never have been, Soundwarp has been busy making the custom mini for this design, for Lexington, and a whole bunch of other threads so he's had his hands full, Arkham just recently came back and has been testing up a storm, but even he can't test every single design, while Karat has been under water at work yet still has managed to test here and there, just not this one design. Prowl sat untested for what felt like 2 months, but he did eventually get done, it is what it is. What I have seen is everyone pitching in to make sure this design, and the accompanying spell, makes the release date even though we've gone past the 3 weeks out deadline for design inclusion. Yet the Comic, Figure, Background stuff still isn't linked here, the Bio is still a disaster, there is no figure information (which is suppose to be posted in the public design thread when the design is posted there). Leadership starts at the top, you are the leader of this design thread, the one who sets the tone as well as one of 7 heroes for the project, yet the basics of thread management are still not done here 2 weeks out from release. If you feel as though others are neglecting your thread, maybe it's because the LD has been neglecting the thread.

[Lazy Orang]

The figure info wasn't posted with the tests because I was waiting on Soundwarp - I did what I could with what I had. The bio was me doing my best with a difficult character, and I do not appreciate you calling it a disaster. The Art has been placed in the SP as requested - I forgot to link it (I honestly struggle to remember that), but honestly, that can be done in 2 mins if I'm reminded and it's not all that hard to scroll down two posts.
I'll also note that the last three/four or so months have been really difficult for me and it's taken enough of my energy to follow this project/thread at all, to be honest.

If you want me to step down, tell me.