Well, I played, and then bought WGP over the weekend, and I'd like input on a possible variant of the standard rules.
Now, in the normal game, a player chooses one aspect as the strife aspect, and play continues with the GM making a devious plan to Transform that aspect into something else. This is all good, and makes for a GREAT game. However, in some comic stories, the villain is not trying to force the hero into something - instead, he seeks to prevent something that the Heroes want to achieve.
To simulate this, I would suggest allowing 1 (more than 1?) player to choose a quest aspect rather than a strife aspect - the one player is allowed to define what he is seeking to transform the aspect into - and it is the player's job to ensure this happens. There are a couple of rule changes to support this:
- Until the aspect has reached devastated, no one can make any changes that affect the aspect for more than one scene.
- Once the the aspect has reached devastated, the player may make one change that lasts until the end of the story arc, and the GM and the player share control over the aspect.
- The the player decides when to increase the stress of the aspect, but GM gets any cards for the increasing stress on the aspect. She may also discard cards to decrease the stress - though not below captured.
- The player has inking rights when the aspect's stress is being increased, but the GM has inking rights as the stress is decreased.
- Possibly: The cost of decreasing an aspect this way is increased by 1 - so moving from captured to overcome gives the GM 1 card, but she must spend 2 cards to move from overcome to captured.
As usual, until we reach once and for all, an aspect cannot be transformed. So, any thoughts?
This allows the Heroes to be a little proactive, rather than waiting around for villains to react to.
This idea was inspired by one of Perjury's plan elements from the con game I was playing in - the Armor of Truth would be transformed into Plan Old Suit of Metal. We didn't finish the arc, but if it had been transformed - I would have loved see the Stalwart going on a quest to reforge the Armor of Truth, while Perjury threw obstacles in his path.
Oh, and Mr. Miller, not only are you a great game designer, you ROCK as a GM. Thanks for the great game at Southern Exposure. Michael Hahn - the Expatriot.
HI, Michael. Welcome to The Forge!
It was great to meet you this weekend. I really enjoyed that rendition of "A League of Their Own" on Saturday.
Mentioning proactive heroes is an interesting point. Years and years ago, I read an article in a comics magazine about a villain being anyone with a plan. The idea stuck pretty deep in my thinking about superheroes. The closest thing I can think of to a "Quest" in superhero comics was Daredevil's crusade to remake his life after the Kingpin destroyed it. Still kinda reactionary.
It might have something to do with the American penchant for seeing ourselves as the righteous defender. It might play into the anti-intellectual slant of many superhero comics. I'm not sure.
For running such a thing in WGP, what I'd personally do is set it up as a "Duty: Reforge the Armor of Truth." Name it as Strife and let the GM concoct a Plan about Transforming it into "Origin: The Stalwart No More!" Meanwhile, the player has already decided that if the Aspect is Devastated and he redeems it, he'll rewrite it as "Power: The Restored Armor of Truth." Suffering still represents setbacks on the path to reforging the Armor, and Devastation probably means something very serious, like the plain old suit of metal falling into the wrong hands, or the wizened old armorer who might fix it being grievously wounded.
But if you manage to find some players and test out your version, I'd love to hear about it. Possibly in Indie Net-gaming (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/indie-netgaming/)?