Hey Mike, crew. Got the playtest version on Sat, have been going over it lightly over the past few days. I was hoping to run a playtest of it this week, and to do so I need answers to a lot of really quick rules and flow questions:

1) Death, the risk of. You needn't portray this in comics, which is why I think the rules don't focus on it, but still- the group I want to run it with is big into "mortality", "risk of death", etc. I figure the comic we come up with will look like some Indie violence job. Anyway, do you have rules for mortality?

I was thinking that perhaps "Life" could be a relationship. Any enrichment scene where you are "expressing life", "desire", etc you can choose to give importance to life if you want to, but otherwise it exists solely to "burn". If you activate Life, that means you are putting yourself in physical risk/danger. If the GM manages to devestate your life, you're dead.

Though you can come back, perhaps. Look at "Superman Dies" (and returns as four dudes).

2) Enrichment scenes: +1 Importance for each character in the scene... but each character flips their own card... does that mean that stacking players in the same enrichment scene means that everyone gets more Importance no matter what they set themselves at?

What's to stop the players from including every character in every enrichment scene (aside from the classic "don't be a dick/hey guys, let's try to make a story worth telling here" rule)?

Finally, can you give me a very brief example from one of your demos of two characters sharing and enrichment scene?

3) How do you use the Wild Card Markers on the Thought Balloon page?

4) I remember that in our demo game you would draw cards from across the decks you controlled (one from the top of each, etc). How did you figure that? What was the impetus behind that? More wilds for the GM at first?

5) Can the Story Arc ONLY be affected by Yielding a page of conflict to the GM? It appears so, but I can't think of how the players can/should be yeilding to the GM at the end stages of the Story Arc? Or, well, maybe until the last Arc, but I just wanted to confirm this rule.
5A) Can you think of an instance where the players would not want to advance the story arc? Perhaps a playtest mini-story or other reason?
5B) What do you mean on page 22, top by "you may choose to play your ranking card to the appropriate space..." Which is the ranking card? Can you use one that's in your hand, or do you mean one that's out in a panel somewhere?

6) Pages/Panels. I'm totally lost (bottom of page 16 to 17). You have a handy visual guide to explain this a little better? :) Actually, I think I pretty much get it, but yet another visual example would be handy. Perhaps a sheet with "panels" for the player and GM to set their cards in to keep track of panels?

Also, have you thought about tweaking rules so that (kinda like a comic), a player-GM conflict stretches over X amount of panels before moving to the next character? Just a thought.

7) Changing Suit: Actually, this is more of a rules query towards the overall design, but have you thought about limiting the Suit Changes to X amount of times? It seemed that in our playtest session at GenCon every person in the conflict had to come up with 4-6 ideas for conflict shifts becuase the suit was thrown around so much... I can see it happening up to like 2-3 times, but if we really had a drawn out conflict, I can see 6 suit switches (esp if the GM has a lot of cards) happening, and perhaps the players/GM straining to come up with how the conflict changes?

Or does the nature of the rules (the amount of cards players/GM has, etc) prevent constant suit-flopping in the long run? Just wondering.

Do you find it hard to come up with valid Suit Shifts when they come up in succession? Just wondering.

I think I had one or two more questions, but the above is good enough for now.

Oh, I know!

8) Mooks or lesser characters? We always see the bad guy surrounded by his stormtrooper similarly-dressed cronies (remember the Redeyes from Mystery Men?). How do you handle play with those kinds of characters?

9) Sample villains- Got any?

-Andy

Hi, Andy.

Thanks for all the questions. I only have time for a few quick answers right now. I'll answer the rest as soon as I can.

Andy Kitkowski wrote:
1) Death, the risk of. You needn't portray this in comics, which is why I think the rules don't focus on it, but still- the group I want to run it with is big into "mortality", "risk of death", etc. I figure the comic we come up with will look like some Indie violence job. Anyway, do you have rules for mortality?

I was thinking that perhaps "Life" could be a relationship. Any enrichment scene where you are "expressing life", "desire", etc you can choose to give importance to life if you want to, but otherwise it exists solely to "burn". If you activate Life, that means you are putting yourself in physical risk/danger. If the GM manages to devestate your life, you're dead.

Though you can come back, perhaps. Look at "Superman Dies" (and returns as four dudes).

2) Enrichment scenes: +1 Importance for each character in the scene... but each character flips their own card... does that mean that stacking players in the same enrichment scene means that everyone gets more Importance no matter what they set themselves at?

What's to stop the players from including every character in every enrichment scene (aside from the classic "don't be a dick/hey guys, let's try to make a story worth telling here" rule)?

3) How do you use the Wild Card Markers on the Thought Balloon page?

8) Mooks or lesser characters? We always see the bad guy surrounded by his stormtrooper similarly-dressed cronies (remember the Redeyes from Mystery Men?). How do you handle play with those kinds of characters?

Found a few minutes. Add the following onto my advice for Question 1, above:
In a case where the hero's Self-Aspects are all going to be Devastated in order to know whether death is triggered, what "Devastated" means is going to be something like "no longer has any significant effect on the story." IIRC, in the Death of Superman, Doomsday keeps coming and coming and swats the Justice League aside, takes everything Supes can dish out without flinching until there's nothing left but plain old sluggin' it out. In this case, Devastated would be something like: "I've never poured on so much heat vision at one time before. If this doesn't stop him, all is lost!" Then the smoke clears and Doomsday just keeps walking, unfazed. In a case like this, we can still describe the heat vision in remaining scenes, but we *know* nothing will come of it. I'd suggest barring its description from Panels that are escalating the Conflict (playing a higher card) or Cancelling. Only for changing the suit.

more on Question 2:
Two heroes sharing an Enrichment scene is as easy as them both foiling the same jewelry store heist, or one hero meeting the Romance Aspect of another. A great way to get Importance for Convictions is have two heroes argue over things they believe.

Andy Kitkowski wrote: 4) I remember that in our demo game you would draw cards from across the decks you controlled (one from the top of each, etc). How did you figure that? What was the impetus behind that? More wilds for the GM at first?

5) Can the Story Arc ONLY be affected by Yielding a page of conflict to the GM? It appears so, but I can't think of how the players can/should be yeilding to the GM at the end stages of the Story Arc? Or, well, maybe until the last Arc, but I just wanted to confirm this rule.

5A) Can you think of an instance where the players would not want to advance the story arc? Perhaps a playtest mini-story or other reason?

5B) What do you mean on page 22, top by "you may choose to play your ranking card to the appropriate space..." Which is the ranking card? Can you use one that's in your hand, or do you mean one that's out in a panel somewhere?

6) Pages/Panels. I'm totally lost (bottom of page 16 to 17). You have a handy visual guide to explain this a little better? :) Actually, I think I pretty much get it, but yet another visual example would be handy. Perhaps a sheet with "panels" for the player and GM to set their cards in to keep track of panels?

Also, have you thought about tweaking rules so that (kinda like a comic), a player-GM conflict stretches over X amount of panels before moving to the next character? Just a thought.

Rock on, man! Thanks and keep em' coming. This alone has moved my platest from "maybe I'll do it" to "absolutely will do it". I'll have playtest notes for you this weekend.

And although I won't come back and repost "Thanks!" after every clarification you post, just pretend to copy-paste in your head a post of mine that says "Thanks for the Update!" at the end of each of your updates. :)

-Andy

Okay, finale installment. Face front!

Andy Kitkowski wrote: 6) Pages/Panels. I'm totally lost (bottom of page 16 to 17). You have a handy visual guide to explain this a little better? :) Actually, I think I pretty much get it, but yet another visual example would be handy. Perhaps a sheet with "panels" for the player and GM to set their cards in to keep track of panels?

7) Changing Suit: Actually, this is more of a rules query towards the overall design, but have you thought about limiting the Suit Changes to X amount of times? It seemed that in our playtest session at GenCon every person in the conflict had to come up with 4-6 ideas for conflict shifts becuase the suit was thrown around so much... I can see it happening up to like 2-3 times, but if we really had a drawn out conflict, I can see 6 suit switches (esp if the GM has a lot of cards) happening, and perhaps the players/GM straining to come up with how the conflict changes?

Do you find it hard to come up with valid Suit Shifts when they come up in succession? Just wondering.

9) Sample villains- Got any?

Excellent. Thanks!

1) If you have a sec tomorrow sometime (preferably before 3:30PST/7:30EST, but no sweat if you don't), I was wondering if you could give me a brief, VERY brief example (like 2 line summary is ok) of:

"Finally, can you give me a very brief example from one of your demos of two characters sharing and enrichment scene? "

2) Rock on with the Panel thing. That helps a lot!

3) Thanks on the idea of riffing a villain off of the players. Even with that in mind, i wondered if you had a sample villain in a file somewhere. If not, that's cool. I just was wondering what kinds of Relationships you had attributed to them (other than "thugs").

Thanks!

-Andy

HI Andy,

Michele and I were playtesters for the preveiw addition. Michele played the Amazon and I played the Cat a vigilante heroine. I think one of our shared enrichment scenes went like this. I was trying to break into this Crime lawyer's apartment uping my stealth.

I want to break into the apartment and find a file proving curruption.

I flip and lose which gains me points but means I don't get in

Mike ruled that just As I got to the balconie the Lawyer came home.

Michele wanted to share the enrichment scene improving a resource/relationship aspect and suggested that the Lawyer was accompanied by the Amazons male secritary.

Michele wanted her secretary to find out if the Client the Lawyer worked for was funding the Amazon Exibition at the Art Gallery.

She flipped and succeded, which meant the lawyer offering her secretary a drink and them having a lengthy discussion about politics and art while my character was stuck on the porch unable to get in or down without attracting too much attention.


So the way it worked out is that I started the enrichment scene and had my flip first and then as Mike was deciding how things were going to work Michele suggested how one of her aspects could be involved.

I can work where one player sets the scene and another asks if they can share it, describing how an aspect of theres is involved.

It can work where the player wants to enrich an aspect but is stumped for idea and asks the group, then the players can design a scene for the aspect and since their building it togethercan suggest how an aspect of their own might be thrown in. (the sketching phase I think)


-kat

Andy Kitkowski wrote: 1) If you have a sec tomorrow sometime (preferably before 3:30PST/7:30EST, but no sweat if you don't), I was wondering if you could give me a brief, VERY brief example (like 2 line summary is ok) of:

"Finally, can you give me a very brief example from one of your demos of two characters sharing and enrichment scene? "

3) Thanks on the idea of riffing a villain off of the players. Even with that in mind, i wondered if you had a sample villain in a file somewhere. If not, that's cool. I just was wondering what kinds of Relationships you had attributed to them (other than "thugs").

You're right that this does happen a lot. It's one of the primary ways that low-ranking cards remain valuable. At GenCon, I think we were trying too hard to fundamentally shift the nature of conflict each and every time. I think we should just tone down the requirements. In the rewrite, I'm going to remove the connotation that the change in the conflict must be very significant. I think getting thrown through a wall into another room, or changing one's target should be sufficient. If it helps, think of playing a higher card as saying "Yes, and"; changing the suit as saying "Yes, but"; and Cancelling as saying "No."

Works for me too.

It's kind of a Trollbabe thing - the conflict never changes until it's resolved; you're trying to get somewhere or defeat this guy or whatever. But shifting how you do it is part of the narration, and in With Great Power, that's neatly wrapped up in the card mechanics.

Conflict: defeat the Green Goblin, right here and right now (not get away, not save the hostage, not anything but defeat him!)

Doin' it by fisticuffs. Result: bad draw, no cards to match or exceed, must yield, gonna suck ...

Except I have a couple of paired cards I can use to shift. Cool!

"Oh yeah? What do you think Harry will think of his dad being a murderer?" (there's my shift)

"Gaahh!" says GM, role-playing poor bonkers Norman, now dealing with the new cards on the table and looking at his hand. (play continues, with whatever he puts down or doesn' t put down, Suffers or doesn't Suffer, etc)

It's still about defeating the Goblin, though.

Does that work, Michael? That example comes from an enthusiastic phone conversation between me and Paul Czege about WGP.

Best,
Ron

That's how it works now isn't it.

I think the point of Michael's comment above is to allow the change of suit without requiring a change of conflict that drastic (from fisticuffs to psychological ploys). That would still be acceptable, but you could also describe changes of a lesser scale...Fisticuffs failed, maybe gumming up the flying skateboard with a well placed web cast would work...change of suit...still a comic book melee brawl through.

Valamir wrote: That's how it works now isn't it.

I think the point of Michael's comment above is to allow the change of suit without requiring a change of conflict that drastic (from fisticuffs to psychological ploys). That would still be acceptable, but you could also describe changes of a lesser scale...Fisticuffs failed, maybe gumming up the flying skateboard with a well placed web cast would work...change of suit...still a comic book melee brawl through.

I see that, but I guess I really do want to see some kind of identifiable change.

OK, punching's not working, so I kick'im! Seems a little bogus to me.

But punching to cunning use of web-stickiness? Not bad. I guess where my lines would be ...

a) punching not working - switch to web-ball smack to the face. Not good enough in my book; just using webbing as another punch.

b) punching not working - switch to web-trick that pulls dumpster down on him from behind. That's about the minimally-sufficient tactic-switch in my book.

c) punching not working - switch to grapple, specifically to fall through scaffolding, possibly through floor into Daily Bugle office, completely changing physical space and who else is present in the situation. This is a nice solid switch, but wholly contained within the context of "still physically fightin'."

d) punching not working - switch to psychology. Extreme switch.

The trouble with (d) is that it carries the danger of changing the nature of the conflict (e.g. from "defeat in this fight" vs. "instill remorse" or something like that). I think some attention to not changing the nature of the conflict is a good thing, along with attention to (a) as well, having some minimal threshold for what constitutes a legitimate switch.

Definitely one of those customizable features of a comic-based game! In a highly fu-oriented comic, the differences among a punch, kick, or sweep might be significant enough for a switch. In a highly powers-oriented one, I'd be more inclined to lump all fisticuffs (kicks, even grapples, etc) into one non-switchy category.

Best,
Ron

Thanks for everyone's notes, last night's demo session went fine, just had a few issues and hangups, half which were my own, half which could be addressed in the full version of the game. I'll later be opening two threads, a VERY brief Actual Play thread and a thread here on more questions/issues/areas of clarifications/discoveries and problems.

Thanks!
-Andy

Hi, Andy.

Glad to hear that the session went well. Thanks for running the game. I anxiously await reading your AP posts and problems.

On the topic of playing out multiple panels with a single player before switching to another to improve pacing and handling time, I think WGP already has a couple possible ways to embrace cuts between players in a dramatic fashion. Rather than switching after a set number of panels, I'd recommend switching to the next player when the suit is changed by a player or the GM, describing what happens to change the conflict right before the cut.

Since a change of suit already denotes a shift in the conflict (whether drastic or simply the use of a new tactic), it seems like the perfect moment for a transition. It also allows a contrast between a quick series of consecutive panels with decisive action--a conflict page where the player and GM stay in one suit for a few panels until one yields--with panels showing a shifting battle that cuts away at key turning points to raise tension--a conflict page where a hero or the GM changes suits and cuts away. Changing suit becomes a tool that the player or GM can use to highlight a page of conflict in the overall story.

I'm hoping to playtest WGP in the next month or so, and I'll give this method a try.

Eric

Hi, Eric.

That is also an excellent suggestion! Switching suits then becomes almost central to the conflict resolution system. And, one's ability to switch suits is most likely to be enhanced by drawing lots of cards, encouraging players to increase Suffering. I like it a lot and look forward to playtesting both versions.

Thanks!