Questions before tomorrow's game

[Jonas Ferry]

Perhaps it's easier for people to find questions and answers with a proper thread title, but I don't want to create multiple threads for just one question and an answer. I'll put them here instead, and will continue this thread if questions pop up.

Ok, my first questions are quite central to the game, since they concern claiming.

1. This I'm quite certain a get, but just in case. When you claim a side you keep the claim for as many pages as it takes for it to resolve?

2. Once you've claimed a side you can't withdraw the claim or switch side, right? If you're allied to a side, by trying to roll up one side or the other down, you have to claim the side you're allied to?

3. It says on p22 that you're not allowed to claim a side already claimed this page, but is it ok to claim the same side as someone claimed the previous page? Can you have more than one claim on one side and if you can, do the one that rolled the winning die get to resolve? What happens if you have two players claiming one side and both roll sixes and the other side a five? Do both players resolve?

[Vaxalon]

I'm almost certain I know the answers to these, but I'm going to hold off because I've been wrong many times before.  I would like to see Tony's answers.

[TonyLB]

(1) No, the claim lasts that one page.
(2) You cannot withdraw the claim during that page, no.  If you are allied to a side you may not claim a different side.
(3) n/a

[Jonas Ferry]

Luckily I only said that I was "quite" certain. Thanks a lot, I feel more confident presenting the game to my group now.

[Jonas Ferry]

And a question on gloating.. When you're about to violate the Comics Code you may turn dice to 1, starting with the highest. For each die you earn a story token. Do you keep turning down dice until you'll no longer resolve the conflict, or do you turn all dice to 1? There's the multi-gloat tactic where you get tokens for every die turned, but it seems like you wouldn't need turning after a while.

Example: The villain has 1,2,4 and the hero 3. Can the villain turn 2 and 4 and get 2 tokens, when just turning 4 would keep the comics code from being violated.

I would really like to use gloating tomorrow, since it's one of those things that feel right. The villains always try things that you understand they will never achieve, and it's great that the game encourages this.

[TonyLB]

You turn as many as you like.  Whether your total is less than the opposition, higher than the opposition, or exactly the same is no longer relevant to the rules at this moment.  The Conflict is not being Resolved this Page, no matter what the numbers end up.

So, to reiterate:  No matter how the numbers end up, a conflict that activated the Gloating rules does not resolve that page.  It hit the Resolve rules once, got termed "Gloating", and will now continue (with some set of values) into the next Page.

However, there are serious strategy issues around how many dice you want to turn down.

If you can claim the Conflict again next Page, you'd like to have numbers high enough to Gloat on this again.  So in the 1, 2, 4 example, I'd be tempted to turn down the 2 only (leaving you at 1, 1, 4, which is easy to get up) and Claim it again in the next Page.

If someone else is likely (due to the turn order) to be claiming this side next Page then you're encouraged to empty everything down to ones.  Sort of like an embezzler who, on the verge of being caught, no longer has any motivation to take a little money, and instead empties every bank account he can get his hands on, and retires somewhere with very lax extradition process.

But, if you want to leave the Gloating as a distraction for next Page, so that you (personally) can achieve some things while the heroes are battling other villains, then you may have an overriding reason to "leave some Story Tokens on the table"... essentially bribing another villain to take all the heat for you.

So... helpful?  More information than you really needed?

[Jonas Ferry]

So... helpful?  More information than you really needed?

Very helpful, and I want all the information on tactics I can get my hands on.