[Super Force Seven] Assassination Agenda

[mratomek]

Finally got a round to trying the new scenario generator for Super Force Seven--SF7 is a super hero tactical RPG.

To start, we just picked a conflict that sounded fun: Assassination Agenda.  We played with only 500 points, basically two Hero-level characters. The description of the scenario was basically that my opponent would attempt to assassinate either one of my heroes or an NPC. I wouldn't know who he had chosen. All I had to do to win was keep the target alive until the beginning of the 4th Round. Then I could flee the table if I decided to and win. My opponent, on the other hand, had to simply kill the mark.

I could also score a victory point by not allowing any of the would-be assassins to escape. So there was the potential for a tie.

Next we had to pick our teams. I selected Psycho Girl and Electro Max. Psycho Girl is not so good in the combat area, but I thought I could use here Telepathy to find out who my opponent was attempting to assassinate.

My opponent selected Skullface and 10 Skullz Mercenaries (Minions). I would have my work cut out for me.

The next phase of the game was the complications. Complications are random comic-bookish events that allow characters to use some non-combative powers in verbal, quick playing events that can result in a disadvantage or advantage for a player.

I chose Psycho Girl to play the complication. She rolled "Search for Clues". Next she rolled to see if the complication would be Simple, Difficult or Extreme. She roll Difficult. I thought it would be a walk in the park roll, until to my horror I remebered I switched out her ESP ability (Searching) for some other special abilites. At best, she would have a +1 added to her 2D6 and would have to score a 13 or higher.

She rolled two 6s to start, and scored 2 successes. So at least she wouldn't completely fail. Failing the compliation would have resulted in my opponent gaining 1 full Round of actions before I could move. On the other hand, if  I could score 1 more success, I would gain 1 full Round of actions. Needless to say, she did not find any more clues.

My opponent moved next. He chose Skullface and rolled "Trouble at the Office". Apparently, Skullface only moonlights as an assassin for hire. Similarly, he rolled a Difficult complication, TN 12, and a Leader power +10 that he could apply. Needless to say, he aced the complication and came away with a +2 bonus on all rolls.

With the scene set, we deployed out units for the final conflict. I had to set up first, followed by my opponent, who had the option of Ambush deployment--meaning all their initial attacks would be considered suprise attacks.

I rolled for initiative, but Skullface used his Leader: Strategic power to automatically win initiative. Things looked a bit grim, but I figured, what's the worse that cold happen. I will retaliate once it is my Turn.

My opponent unloaded on Psycho Girl with all guns blazing. Since the first attacks were surprise, my Telepathy: Conceal power was weakened to half of its full strength. Skullface setup himself with two Minions in support--to gain an extra D6. His other Minions were grouped to take advantage of their support capbilities as well.

Psycho Girl made a noble effort to remain alive, but they plain shot her to pieces. She was obviously the target.

My only choice was to try and even the game by taking out his team before they could escape. Electromax went right to work using a Electro Blast (Beam ): Blast to destroy one whole group of Minions. He used his remaining Action to fly around the back of the building where he could remain hidden.

At the start of the next Round, Skullface won initiative once again. He started moving his Minions into position to get me in a cross fire, so that there was no where to hide, but couldn't get to me that Round. During Electro Max's Turn, he flew out of hiding and destroyed another group of Minions--but left himself in the open.

My opponent relished the moment. I left myself exposed

His first shot was was a Critical. He decided to use 1 Hit to knock me out of the sky--which would immobilize me and reduce my Dodge power. He did 1 point of Damage with his other hit.

Before he could roll another attack, I used my Amazing Dodge, which would protect me from any other attacks for the rest of the Round.

Since there was nothing he could do, it was my Turn. I used 1 Action to stand up and decided to take my chances and use the remaining two Action to kill another group of Minions. Luckily, I rolled doubles and destroyed a group of Minions with a single attack. I used my last Action to once again move out of view.

My opponent had Skullface and 4 Minions left, spilt into two groups. At the beginning of the 4th Round he could escape and win.

The 3rd Round started, and he used his moves to position his characters near the edge of the gameboard to beat a hasty retreat. I swooped in and destroyed another group of Minions--but simply could not do enough.

I tried to bait my opponent with trash talk, but he though better of it. And when the 4th Round started, he simply walked off the game board and declared a victory.

I first I was a little hesitant about how quickly Psycho Girl got shot to pieces.  I asked him why he targeted her. He said he didn't know anything about Electro Max, but new that Psycho Girl was the weaker of the two. I guess that did make sense. Perhaps Iron Goliath with his Bodyguard ability would have been a better companion. Losing the Initiative didn't help either.

The game lasted about 25 minutes. It was short and to the point. The added complications did put some good twists and incentives to team selection.

[Valamir]

Sounds like the game mechanics are working pretty well.   Might need to tweak your scenario generator a bit.

In any game where its possible to eliminate an enemy unit in a single round and which has an Igo Ugo mechanic, that first initiative can be a game maker or breaker.

A standard solution is to make sure neither player can hurt the other until a couple of rounds in.  That gives some time to set up and so forth.

For instance you could make an added requirement to the assassination that it can't take place until some randomly determined event occurs (like giving a speach, or making a withdrawal from the bank, or whatever).

So the bad guys don't win unless they kill the target during the speech.  The good guys can't win unless they deliver the speech.  The good guys can't attack the bad guys until they're attacked first.  The good guys are relieved of the need to give the speech as soon as the bad guys attack. 

That way you have several turns of jockeying and extra "stuff" to do prior to the can of whoopass. 

[mratomek]

In any game where its possible to eliminate an enemy unit in a single round and which has an Igo Ugo mechanic, that first initiative can be a game maker or breaker.

A standard solution is to make sure neither player can hurt the other until a couple of rounds in.  That gives some time to set up and so forth.

The outcome is not always guaranteed. I mean, the first player to move will not always take out an opponent. If he had selected the character, Electro Max, he would not have been successful Had I been a bit smarted and selected a brick with a Body Guard special ability, he wouldn't have taken anyone out either.

Furthermore, there are several other powers and special abilities that you could select to ensure or at least increase your team's chance of moving first in a Round. So, there is a lot of jockeying that could occur before the game starts. What happened was a perfect storm--for the villains.

For instance you could make an added requirement to the assassination that it can't take place until some randomly determined event occurs (like giving a speach, or making a withdrawal from the bank, or whatever).
So the bad guys don't win unless they kill the target during the speech.  The good guys can't win unless they deliver the speech.  The good guys can't attack the bad guys until they're attacked first.  The good guys are relieved of the need to give the speech as soon as the bad guys attack. 

I like this idea to add a little more difficulty for the assassins. Having to hide for a few Rounds first.

[Valamir]

Understood.  As I said, in any game where that possibility exists and where initiative is an absolute Igo Ugo proposition initiative can be a game maker or breaker.

Take AD&D for instance.  At lower levels its entirely possible for your character to kill in one shot or be killed in one shot.  Initiative and Surprise is thus a huge factor in those battles.  At mid levels where both characters and monsters have more hitpoints and it takes some extensive attrition to kill or be killed, initiative and surprise become much smaller factors and actual tactical choices become more important.  At high levels where powerful magic and magic items become common it once again becomes easier to kill or be killed in one shot and so initiative and surprise become much larger factors in the game.

In my experience, the vast majority of AD&D players find the mid range to be the most fun and will quickly either fudge their way through the low levels, or just start characters out with some experience, and then start new characters when they get to the high levels.  That's because, as a general rule, having the game decided by who was lucky enough to get initiative is most often considered not very fun.

Its thus not a question of whether your game ALWAYS produces scenarios where its possible for initiative to have that kind of impact, but only a question of whether it happens often enough to impact players perception of your game.  Is a new player likely to be excited about playing again if they happen to unwittingly stumble into such a scenario?  Or are they more likely to assume the game is broken and just move on to play something else.  You only have 1 chance to make a first impression, and if that first impression happens to be "whoever wins initiative, wins the game" it doesn't matter how true that sentiment is or isn't.

There are only 2 ways of avoiding this as a problem.  Either a) come up with a variant initiative system that doesn't rely on Igo Ugo (there are lots of possibilities here), or b) make sure you establish scenarios whose parameters are such that that the Igo Ugo system has a much lower probability of resulting in the battle being decided by the winner.

My suggestion above was one way of doing option b for one of your scenario types.  You'd want to come up with similar possibilities for all of your scenario types.  This might involve starting combatants far enough apart that there are several initiatives before they engage.  It might involve having to spend several initiatives searching for an opponent, or waiting for a trigger before you can engage them.

Most options are going to involve delaying the real "start" of the game (i.e. the gloves off, slug fest part) for multiple rounds...using the first few rounds to average out the Igo Ugo problem.  This almost always results in a slower opening to the game.

If this isn't a desired feature...you'd rather have a game where the "gloves-off, slug-fest" starts almost immediately...then you'll want to consider overhauling the initiative system so that a randomly decided Igo Ugo isn't a problem.

Again, it isn't a question of it being a problem ALL the time...or even MOST of the time.  Its a question of whether the winner of the very randomized initiative roll will win the battle enough of the time to be a deterrant to attracting new players.  Veteran players might be willing to overlook that issue as an uncommon aberration or even as "my fault I should have set up differently to begin with", but new players are going to be more prone to just blame the game and not play again.

[mratomek]

Again, it isn't a question of it being a problem ALL the time...or even MOST of the time.  Its a question of whether the winner of the very randomized initiative roll will win the battle enough of the time to be a deterrant to attracting new players.  Veteran players might be willing to overlook that issue as an uncommon aberration or even as "my fault I should have set up differently to begin with", but new players are going to be more prone to just blame the game and not play again.

I appreciate the comments. The challenge of Assassination Agenda is that your opponent is likely going to have the upper-hand with a surprise attack. I could have spent points and used characters that would have had more defensive capabilities, initiative winning capabilities, etc. There were a lot of options available.

I understand what you are saying about quick and sudden ends. I wanted to enable the game to have perfect storms. It is improbable, but it could happen.

[komradebob]

Quick Tangent Question:
How do you deal with the death of a major character?

If I understand correctly, this is possible in your rules. With mooks and minor stock characters, that isn't such a big deal since you can recycle them. With more central characters, it would seem to imply that you wouldn't be using the character any more. Which is fine for strictly paper characters, but in a miniatures game, it means that a figure that you bought and took time wioth hobby aspects (painting, modifying, basing) is out of play after that point.

How do you want to deal with this aspect in repeated play? I do understand that it is unlikely, given thatwe're dealing with superheroes, but I think it is possible, so...?

[mratomek]

Quick Tangent Question:
How do you deal with the death of a major character?

If I understand correctly, this is possible in your rules. With mooks and minor stock characters, that isn't such a big deal since you can recycle them. With more central characters, it would seem to imply that you wouldn't be using the character any more. Which is fine for strictly paper characters, but in a miniatures game, it means that a figure that you bought and took time wioth hobby aspects (painting, modifying, basing) is out of play after that point.

How do you want to deal with this aspect in repeated play? I do understand that it is unlikely, given thatwe're dealing with superheroes, but I think it is possible, so...?

Character death varies by game. Elimination from play does not equal death, unless the game you are playing specifically declares that if a character is eliminated from play, he or she cannot be used in the next game.

However, even then the Immortality, Defy Death and Ressurection special abilities all allow a character to overcome the limits of mortality and return to active duty.

In short, take as much time as you like making your key characters look good, because you will be able to play them as much as you like.

But like I said above, a series of games might prevent an eliminated character from returning to play for the series only.