[Doctor Xaos] Mighty enough?

[Ron Edwards]

Now that the rules for Developed heroes are pretty well worked-out, and now that I've become pretty good at introducing those rules in an incremental way, players seem to be driving toward Development a lot more consistently than in previous games. (This leads to very tight four-person games, with two Developed heroes pretty close to the start, who remain in play, but that's OK as a feature of a smaller group.)

The trouble is that once some of this Development gets going, with players who understand the rules, and since I typically play the Lesser Villain as ready to flip to their side once Doctor Xaos starts losing ... well, Doctor Xaos hasn't been as mighty as he might be.

In the Hangout game I played in about ten days ago, things went this way and that, and it came down to a nosebleed turn in which he'd either win or lose, and thus either win or lose the whole Plan. That's pretty much what I'd like to see.

However, in the two Forge Midwest games, he lost both times, and in looking at the scores, he'd have a pretty good hand of six or so melds, and the heroes, with the lesser villain, would have eleven or twelve. That's not so good. That's not skin of their teeth. That means that Developed heroes + a turncoat lesser villain stomp him.

The intended design is that undeveloped heroes shouldn't have much chance against Doctor Xaos even with the lesser villain's help, and if the villain is under Doctor Xaos' thumb, then they should frankly be up shit creek. Development should help and the lesser villain's alliance (if present) should help, but even those shouldn't do more than level the field.

After the first Forge Midwest game, I added an initial-draw Mulligan for the Doctor Xaos player, at the start of each Episode. I was careful to make sure that everyone understood the unique card-drawing privileges, or at least, I tried, and mostly succeeded.

I've now instituted a further step in addition to the Mulligan, which is that a round of card-drawing starts with Doctor Xaos rather than ends with him. But I'm concerned that I'm correcting by adding, not actually fixing. After all, the best Doctor Xaos can do is seven cards.

It might have more to do with the whole additive properties - the heroes should have a chance to do that, not guarantee it. On the plus side, of four heroes in those games, they never got an Episode in which all four contributed to the final score.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Give the villains the privilege of holding an extra card (increasing their hand size) for each successful plot they're currently benefiting from. So either villain could have one or two extra cards for having been successful in the past. This should be pretty devastating in the early game, but the developed heroes will still be stronger if and when enough of them come on line, so it shouldn't mess with the end-game. Plus it's an easy rule to remember, and it's satisfying that the villains are being rewarded for past success.

If you're looking for a way to even the playing field in a hypothetical long game with lots of heroes, then something considerably heavier is necessary, either faster melds or larger melds, because e.g. three developed heroes working together should be pretty consistent in bringing in about 10-ish points each episode, which is pretty difficult to top even if Dr. Xaos has the support of the minor villain. This will only be more pronounced if there are four heroes in each episode.

One way to bring that drastic re-leveling of the battlefield mid-game could be to give Dr. Xaos an additional option for turning a hero into a minor villain as an episode goal - instead of working on his plan, or in addition to it, Dr. Xaos in this episode will attempt to turn a hero. This could only be done once in the campaign (maybe tried only once), it would be irreversible, and the player currently playing the hero in question would get "stuck" playing them from then on, just like the first minor villain player. For game balance it would be ideal to hook this option into some conditions that make it available mid-campaign, and only in 4-5 player games. Maybe you could only do this to advanced heroes, or if Dr. Xaos has at least one success from a prior episode; that would situate the option firmly in the mid-game.

A Dr. Xaos successful in turning a hero in a 5-player game could potentially hold the fealty of two other players, leaving him with an actual advantage of 3-vs-2 against the heroes, which would certainly give him the upper hand even against a fully developed hero roster, were all else equal. In practice aligning his resources in such an optimal manner, managing to hold onto both villains at once, would be pretty unlikely, and if he could do that then perhaps he deserves the win.

[Ron Edwards]

H'm. Thought-provoking. I'll be scribbling a bit for a while.