Tiny Teams and Arch-Villainy

[Gamskee]

Just a thought from ubering characters, but I wonder if anyone has tried this one.

Could you make a character, Name it V-Force, then make the five powers individual members of the V-Force team? Then take tropes for team tactics, like fastball specials, hitting in unison, etc. with one attitude per team member. I'm pretty sure this is legal, but I'm curious if anybody has thought to do this to represent lower power teams, like teen supers and rookies?

I think this might also be an appropriate way to represent comicbook style megacrossovers without everyone spending 7 story tokens to bring out an individual team to whomp on some villain.

On another note, if you wanted to represent a vastly more powerful villain or hero, could you just pay the story tokens to bring the character out multiple times? It seems to equate to a character with increased debt and extra actions each round.

In addition to the question of legality, do these sound like good ideas?

[Anders Gabrielsson]

Using one character to represent a team of heroes seems to be completely within the rules, since there are examples of one character representing a whole group of similar ones.

[Andrew Morris]

Yeah, I've seen Tony use a team of security guards as a single character in almost every game.

The only problem I see with your V-Force concept is that it's annoying as hell to the other players. You don't have to use any creativity at all to apply the abilities of the "character," which is frustrating to those using normal characters. I have to think (even if only for a moment) about how to apply "Preachy" to winning a dance contest. You don't ever have to think about how to apply "Team Member 1" or "Team Member 2." You see what I'm saying?

This is purely a social thing, since the mechanics (as I understand them) allow you make this sort of character.

[TonyLB]

Was it going to be "Team Member #1," "Team Member #2?"  Or was the plan for the powers to be "Tina, the Perky Martial Artist!" and "Dirk, the brooding sociopath?"

Because, yeah, I agree with Andrew that the generics would be sort of uninspiring.  But I think that the dynamics of the described team-members as powers would be cool.  "I need to describe something insanely violent... but I also need to roll a die with value 4.  Dirk is only a level 3 power, but Tina is level 5.  Hmmmmm...."

[Eric Sedlacek]

This works as long as you are only interested in the team members as parts of the team and not as individuals.  Of course, you could also have separate character sheets for the team members to be used in different circumstances.  Another thing that makes this interesting is the concept of team debt verses individual debt.  You can have a team that feels bad as individuals but feels good as a team or vice versa.

[Gamskee]

Kind of adapted the idea from the cardgame Overpower, where there were a few teams that composed a single character, like the X-Babies.

Or was the plan for the powers to be "Tina, the Perky Martial Artist!" and "Dirk, the brooding sociopath?"

Definitely this was what i was going for. While I realize that the ability to narrate might be enhanced by saying "Tina begins dancing, using her martial arts fighting styles to enhance her performance." its kind of rare that I would use a tiny team like this. More often, I would use it for setting based things. If all of our characters were the star heroes, with more power than anybody, representing a less powerful team we could defeat on our own with one character doesn't seem out of line.

This works as long as you are only interested in the team members as parts of the team and not as individuals. Of course, you could also have separate character sheets for the team members to be used in different circumstances. Another thing that makes this interesting is the concept of team debt verses individual debt. You can have a team that feels bad as individuals but feels good as a team or vice versa.

Actually, thats kind of cool. I'd never even thought about it. I suppose, you could even put together a team card for the characters you're playing to represent teamwork, team tactics, the team attitudes, and how well the team is doing. Heck, even in the comics a team can be on the rocks due to conflict even when the characters are not.

[Stickman]

With this is play, I think from a rules point of view you could have the 'V Force' Team as a character, then when you have some spare Story Tokens bring 'Tina' in as a character in her own right, while the team still battles away using it's own card .. that would give you chance to highlight one of the characters . I *think* this would work with a duo too, so you have the Caped Crusader character, the Boy Wonder character and, when you need a bit of oomph, the Dynamic Duo character which has some team work powers, styles where both characters interact and so forth.

Would a character that dealt with how two enemies interacted work? Can I make a character that specifies the rivalry or history between Firebow and Death Claw? Would the powers be a selection from both? Hmmm.

[TonyLB]

I think characters representing a rivalry would work well (and, I must admit, I'm thinking Ranma/Ryouga:  "Just shut UP! - 2," "Humiliation - 4," etc.)

The fun bit about the Dynamic Duo team is that it's available for anybody to play... including players opposing the individual members of the team.  There are, after all, ways in which teams stifle the individual needs of their members.

[Stickman]

Oh, I'm so using that next time we play :)

Regarding the arch villain question what you seem to be talking about is having one person control more of the story than the others. Looking at comic cases where Spidey is involved in a story with Galactus or the Beyonder, people vastly more powerfull than he is, it's the human elements that become important (ie Galactus uses Drain Life Energy From Planet and Spidey reacts by saving Aunt May).

If you've got Story Tokens you can add weight to your vision of how things work by taking extra actions or introducing more characters. You can always bring in 'Death Claws Irrepressable Desire For Victory' as a new character, or 'Death Claws Cybernetic Claws' as thier own character if you don't want your creative vision altered, or add in one of the history / relationship characters that were described above. You can always bring in someone's exemplar as well to work against them.

Just stacking repeats of the character would, I think, be a little .. uninspiring. But if you really want to have an archvillain control the plot for a while, what you need to do is convince a couple of the other players to back you up, playing lackies or non-character characters, that way you'll get a ton of advantage in both action terms and reactions, of course, you might have to sell your soul to get them to help out :)

[Gamskee]

Well, I think it boils down to a need on my part to make some fights tough on special occasion. If I have the story tokens to do it, then I must have been doing something right during the build up to this event right? Sure, there would be a lot of build up, but there might also be a lot of pay off. Challenge everything they hold dear, attack loved ones, try to undo justice, destroy the world, and gloat for the story tokens!!! Okay, so playing a villain of immense power is perhaps overwhelming, but only if the heroes are utterly outnumbered and outclassed. Besides, it provides an opportunity for a classic comic book moment, a fight of a magnitude worth remembering.

The emotional stuff is cool too, but it will take wisdom on both the player of the cosmic entity and the player of the hero to do that kind of stuff. I mean, technically, a Capes Spiderman could throw Galactus into space and web him into the sun (thiskind of reminds me of my Spiderman 2 as written by Akira Toriyama script).

Although there is an odd idea. I wonder how DBZ would run under Capes... probably awful, what with the lack of consequences and Superman syndrome running through it.

Eh, off topic. Anyhow, getting peopel to buy in will probably always be a good option. Really, I think I just miss prestige andam trying to see how story tokens let me recreate that.

[Stickman]

DBZ I think would work brilliantly as long as people were playing Capes as written :) If not it'll go all kinds of wrong (but so will Spidey vs Galactus if people are getting webbed to solar objects :) )

The intense challenge can certainly be there if you have a ton of Stoey Tokens. Extra actions are powerfull, but introducing a few extra characters of some sort (emotional ties, limitations on other characters, minions, sidekicks, terrain, situations) I think tend to give more bang for the Token, especially super powered versions with the extra debt available for stracking :)

Of course, with Galactus, you can introduce

Right Foot of Galactus
Left Foot of Galactus
Right Hand of Galactus
...and so on :)

[Eric Sedlacek]

It is also worth keeping in mind that while introducing multiple characters gives you more power, in practice, it's not as much additional power as you might intuitively think.