On reading alot of these posts, it seems really complicated...

[Nathan Herrold]

um Mike, Nate again.  Maybe this isn't the game for me. 
The "war" and "uno" seeming influenced mechanic seems just as distracting from story as rolling dice, and with as much player control.  Am I right in assuming this?  Are card drawn randomly?  Why not use tokens? 
What about if you'd want to do one story that has the heros first on the winning side , and later on  the story ending  with the villians gaining the upper hand?  What about cliffhangers?  Which is I guess what my previous sentence was saying. 
-Nate

[Kat Miller]

Hi Nate,

You start with a hand of 5 cards.  and there is much more player control in the game then just the card mechanic.

for one the Player sets the scene.  Then determines what stakes he wants out of the scene.  Then he has five cards to choose from in trying to win his stakes.  If He plays low then he wins what ever highcard the GM played against him, if he plays high then he wins whatever it was he staked against his card.  thats where some of the Control comes in. 

The card mechanic is simple enough that its not really distracing at all.  I've run and taught this game at conventions and have yet to play with someone who stopped the action to fuss with the cards. 

What about if you'd want to do one story that has the heros first on the winning side , and later on the story ending with the villians gaining the upper hand? What about cliffhangers? Which is I guess what my previous sentence was saying.
-Nate

Having the Heroes on the Winning Side-  1) Have the players make villians, and the GM play Heroes who's master plan involves ridding the city of the villians- This should eb done with group consensus from the begining of play.

Cliffhangers are the normal consequence of a player yeilding to the GM during a Page of Conflict.  Mudslide carries off the girl.  The media now believes debris is responcible for Tommy being crushed to death.  Purge gets arrested.  The cool thing is that during play this gets everyone excited and ready with ideas about how bad the cliffhanger looks.

hope this helps,
-kat

[Nathan Herrold]

yeah thanks Kat,
     it helps a bit.  um i'll probably give Scott the money and then hopefully he can get With Great Power from Mike at a recent con.   i'm a bit unclear about the whole yielding thing, and would be curious as to how setting stakes plays out.   well, i'll just have to check it out.   
-Nate

[Kat Miller]

i'm a bit unclear about the whole yielding thing, and would be curious as to how setting stakes plays out. well, i'll just have to check it out.
-Nate

Yeilding.
There are two types of scenes in With Great Power.  Enrichments and Pages of Conflict.  Yeilding happens in the Page of Conflict.  Pages of Conflict happen between the Villian and the Hero.  They are usually (but not always) about Physical Combat.
They can be initiated by a player or a GM.  If you think its time to have a fight with the villian, you say so.  A Player can initiate the fight,  or the GM will once enough enrichments have been done. 

In Enrichments where there is some subtlety in card play, you can throw a low card to loose your stakes,  Its a one flip, win/loose situation.

Page of Conflict will not be resolved that way.  This is a blow by blow card by card battle and it isn't won until someone either the GM or the Player Yeilds.  You can be forced into yeilding by playing all your cards.  You can yeild as a strategic manuver, enabling you to make the team stonger by your own personal failure.  You can play till the GM yeilds.  But someone is going to yeild.

What are they yeilding to?  Not just the hand that had better cards.  Before cards were put down Stakes were set as to the outcome of this battle.  "If I win this page of conflict, Mudslide gets away...with your girl!"  or "The Media is convinced by the destruction that Debris is responcible for the crushing death of Tommy" or "You are unmasked infront of a trolley full of stangers!"
the player have their own ideas of how the Page of Conflict should end. "Mudslide is knocked out and sent to jail!", "The Media see Debris as a Hero and not a threat," "I save the Trolley full of People, and the trolley severs Doc Oc's metal limbs!"

When a player yeilds to a page of conflict, the Cliffhanger is built right in to the situation. 
Peter's been unmasked in his battle with Doc Oc! Oh NO!

Fall out from Page of conflict set up the next round of Enrichments.

For me this is where the good stuff happens.
Mind you that there is the most card handling here, but you are describing each blow while playing a card.  So the role play stays in the front of whats going on.
-kat

[Nathan Herrold]

well Kat...um YOU'VE CERTAINLY MADE IT SOUND COMPLICATED!   I'm completely confused, if the rules are more complicated than the Game of Thrones boardgame...i'm not sure i want to try and make a story with it.  alot of the terms seem subjective.  maybe i should stick to something simplier.  i really like the idea of group story control, but i think like democracy, it can lead to arguements, and just more rules.  did Shakespeare write with a committee?  maybe, but he probably had simplier intuitive rules based on old stories/themes, human nature, and current views.   I'll have to get the book and see, but it throws me off a bit when jargon is just thrown out and it's supposed to be understood.   yeah, maybe this isn't for me.  i kinda thought this that when reading the old version, and came to the "story arc" layout, i freaked.  maybe in group play you need that much control...hmm.  good luck though, it's really cool you guys are doing something in this medium i so much enjoy, and sometimes become so frustrated with.  i think i should try some simplier group story games before attempting yours. 
-nate
     

[Thor Olavsrud]

The game is extremely simple to play, hard to master, like most great games. Imagine the game War. Now imagine that you are playing it with a hand of cards rather than simply grabbing the card off the top of the deck. That's about how complicated the game gets.

It's definitely nowhere near the Game of Thrones Boardgame.