[WGP] An error in judgement with conflict set up.

[WildElf]

So, I ran my first session of WGP and it sort of flopped.  At least, the conflicts did. I had the villains pick a fight with the two PCs, and ran them separately. I did this mainly because it seemed like the targets worked better in separate places, but also the players weren't gung ho with the idea of injecting their characters into the conflict. I figured it would work since the text basically talks about targetting a character.

But the conflicts took way too long for that. While one player was going with the conflict, the other player was completely bored and un-engaged.

I see two ways to fix this.  One is I could have run them simultaneous.  They took place in different scenes, though, so I'm not sure if that's a "proper" way to handle it. My resources as a GM would have been split, even though story-wise the conflicts were occuring in different places (maybe even different times). 

The other option would have been to force them into the same scene, which would have required more aggressive scene framing. Especially since the PCs weren't really any sort of "team" yet.

But both of these options might have forced me to yield. I was really surprised how handily the players were able to hold their own as it is. I had to bring all my villainous aspects (including a fourth I had to make up and add in) except the Plan to near Devastation (but I did cause them to devastate three aspects as well).  If they had been together, I probably would have had to yield at least one of them.

Are both of these good options? Are there any other options?

[Michael S. Miller]

I always run my combats simultaneously. Even if one character is battling Professor Squid's attempted jewelery store heist, while the other fights The Living Hunger at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy, I'd run both conflicts at the same time. Run one pair of panels (that is, one player panel followed by one GM panel) for the one character, and then switch to the other. Imagine that the one fight is happening on the left-hand page of the comic, and the other fight is drawn on the facing right-hand page. The rule that "the GM always goes last" was created to make this process easier to handle.

Here's why the GM will actually do better if you run them simultaneously, than if you run them one-after-the-other. At the beginning of a conflict, the players discard down to 7 cards, and the GM discards down to 7 cards plus 4 per player. With a two-player game, a difference of 11 versus 15 cards might not seem like a lot, but trust me, it is! With two pages open, you can make better use of your wider range of suits. Plus, make sure you use your wild cards to cancel (and, of course, steal a card from the player's hand when you do) enough to annoy the players. Then kindly remind them that if the yield, you lose those pesky 3s as wilds, and if they yield again, they get to choose what cards they give you when you cancel.

Your players Devastated three aspects between them in the opening combat scene? Awesome! You do recall that once they're Devastated they enter your sheet at Captive, right? You can assess them to Overcome, Beaten, etc. during your turn. Remind the players that the only way to stop you is to yield.

[WildElf]

Your players Devastated three aspects between them in the opening combat scene? Awesome! You do recall that once they're Devastated they enter your sheet at Captive, right? You can assess them to Overcome, Beaten, etc. during your turn. Remind the players that the only way to stop you is to yield.

Oh yeah, totally.  Although, in the second conflict, I didn't hit the first player's devastated Aspects (it felt unfair with them not in the scene), but yeah, I knew they immediately hit captive and started hitting them right away (I remembered mainly because Kat did this exact thing to me last GenCon). I got the first player's aspect. I even got a strife aspect out of it just before the second player yielded.

Hmm, good point about the 4 cards. I knew I'd get them, but you are right, I didn't think it would make that much of a difference.  Now thinking back to how the conflict went, I can see how it could have helped. The first player was really strong in one suit, and the second player really strong in another. I can picture how just a few more cards can leave me more flexible to play against their strengths or weaknesses as needed.

I did some reminding of yielding, but they were having none of it.  I could have probably done more.  Although this was also a test run for us all, and we had time for after play chat and I went over the story arc basics again, and things started clicking into place.

Luckily, it didn't flop so hard that they aren't willing to give it another go.  Thanks for the tips, Micheal!

Going back to slamming aspects, a question that I didn't see an answer to in the book, do non-strife aspects transform or redeem? I got really close to "finishing" one of them, but wasn't sure what would happen then (or if I couldn't get that last level until the 5th story arc space was "unlocked").

[Michael S. Miller]

Going back to slamming aspects, a question that I didn't see an answer to in the book, do non-strife aspects transform or redeem? I got really close to "finishing" one of them, but wasn't sure what would happen then (or if I couldn't get that last level until the 5th story arc space was "unlocked").

You can redeem or transform them, but only after the 5th spot on the Story Arc is filled. However, since they're not Strife Aspects, transforming them does not allow the supervillian to complete his plan. Their transformation/redemption is just an unintended side effect of the villain's nefarious deeds.