May the cards be ever in your favor!

General GTG General Discussion
1

The talk in the rule forum of making an Omni X & Friends sitcom made me think of other SotM-related crossovers. And while I didn't love the Hunger Games trilogy, the thought struck me to ask: who would win the Multiverse Hunger Games?

I was initially thinking within the universe, as if Christopher were to write a comic for it, but then the thought struck me: what if we were to play an 18-hero free for all death (incapacitation?) match?

Of course we'd have to draft up house rules, but who wins? What alliances would form (and be betrayed), whether they're lore-centric or strategic?

2

Well if Wraith = Batman, and Batman can beat everyone, then Wraith wins!

3

The Argent Adept would cry a lot. Also: I'm so in.

4

I think Ra would probably be one of the last ones around, unless everyone ganged up on him. Simply by reading all the cards as other heroes other than yourself are Villains, thus all other hero ongoings would be villian ongoings, meaning Drawn to the Flame would wipe the map. Sure it may only last that one turn, but it will be devastating.

 

I think Visionary would have the hardest time, as she has no damage power what-so-ever, sure she could play demoralization and her cocoon, but with all the ongoing destructions around. Though I see her being a prime target for people who want to join forces.

 

NightMist and Absolute Zero might be the heroes to beat. As there is very little equipment destruction. Unity and Omnitron-X are the first ones that come to mind. Most likely alliances would be formed to take out these two, at least that's what I wasn't one of them. The reason I didn't mention Scholar is for the fact he relies on ongoings, and they will probably be easily dispatched.

5

I can totally see the dust settling around The Scholar, who would be looking around at the carnage and saying, "I wonder what all that was about."

6

Scholar would be pretty hoss. I mean, that card that deals one target damage equal to the number of targets? That's gonna leave a MARK, early on.

 

Tempest would have problems just because everyone would be trying to take him out, with his damage-all-targets mojo. I'd probably want to get Tachyon out of the way, too, before she got going.

 

Argent Adept would have to be diplomatic. "Hey, you want two extra plays on my turn? Okay, hit that dude that's been hitting me."

 

Maybe each player can designate up to three other players at any given time as "allies", and they get the benefits of being "hero targets" for that players' cards and abilities, and everyone else is a "villain target"?

7

Well I do think we will run into problems, just becuase some are support characters, other damage dealers,etc. So why don't we setup a bracket and have the winnner of each match dependent on who gets more votes. Then we can have someone write up a narrative of each match.

8

Oh yeah, if Scholar would get an opening hand Grace Under Fire I feel sorry for whomever is going to be getting hit by that. That player might as well be counted out as there isn't any hero that could take a 17 damage attack and recover quickly from it that early on. Other than that, I don't see him being too much of a threat. He won't be the first target, but he certainly won't be the one that people will want to get to the final 5, as a lack of ongoing destruction might arise.

 

First to be targeted would be Absolute Zero, NightMist, Ra, Haka, Tachyon, Bunker, Tempest, Wraith, and Chrono-Ranger as they all get extremely deadly or near unkillable as the game progresses.

 

Unity and Omnitron-X would probably be targeted by equipment users as they become lethal with that. Just imagine Unity could play any card she wants and still destroy someone else's equipment to get her bots into play, though I see her keeping bots in play going to be a major issue. If Omnitron-X plays Singularity I mean that's a lot of equipment he'll be able to destroy, and that will deal a lot of damage to a lot of targets. Same as Unity, he won't be able to keep his components.

 

Argent Adept, Legacy, and Visionary may be ignored until they get to the point where they will be threatening. The moment Legacy plays Legacy Right or Motivational Charge I think a lot of people will start hitting him. When Visionary or Argent Adept plays their ongoing destruction they will be putting a target on their back aswell.

 

Fanatic is a tricky one. You don't really want to be the only one dealing damage to her as she may have a Wrathful Retribution she is eager to unleash on whomever caused her the most harm.

 

Fixer will be tough if he gets his Pipe Wrench and Driving Mantis combo out, he may be an early target as well or a heavy hitter will blast him when they see what he has done.

 

Finally Expat. She may just have to lay low and try to not draw too much attention to herself. I would probably use the Assualt Rifle over the Tactical Shotgun and spread the damage rather than deal 1 target a huge amount of damage. A submachine gun might not be too bad either, as no one will find that very threatening, then when the heroes start to fall you slap the Shotgun on and start clearing the fields. At that point even an unload will allow Expat to wipe out some of the tough heroes left leaving her with someone she knows she could overpower.

9

This could be interesting, but if it was played out table politics would decide all. Visionary, Lagacy, Argent Adept and other controllers/supporters would be selling their services to the damage dealer they felt they could take out. To me, that means at least one or two of them make the final five, because nobody wants the guy who can give multiple power instances and buffs to anybody he chooses mad at him, he wants that guy buffing him so he can take out the "real" threats.

In the end though, I feel Ra, Tempest, Haka, or Fanatic pulls it off. Biggest damage dealers and Fanatic can throw down End of Days to resset everyone but herself and Nightmist. I wouldn't count out Nightmist or Visionary's "turtling" abilities though, there will be a lot of ongoing destruction abounding, but do you take out the cocoon or the micro-targeting computer, or Fortitude or any number of much more immediate threats.

10

Micro-targeting computer is a equipment card though. Visionary in her cocoon is something that will be ignored. NightMist in her mistform probably not, as it allows her to get into all her cards while not taking any damage. We all know how deadly NightMist's cards and an Oblivion would just decimate the enitre field.

 

I also would think someone would end up destroying End of Days before it has a chance to go off, unless Fanatic is lucky enough to go slightly before the Environment turn.

11

Of course, another way of running it would be to have characters moving around a map, so it becomes more about dealing with (in either sense of the word) whoever you run into and less about mass damage. It's possible that somebody might try lurking in a corner and building up, but in that event we'd have a GM-type person doing the Hunger Games-like thing of summoning up environmental hazards to nudge them towards each other. It'd be quite a bit of work to run, but I'd be happy to do so if people were interested.

12

Yeah, the thought struck me that it could get very RPG-ish, though I feel like a few house rules would need to be put down. Perhaps cards that say "affect everything" only affect, say, 5 targets? That or double/triple all HP? Otherwise if 5 people hit their AoEs, just about everyone is at half health, depending on what buffs are out. With 18 heroes, I feel like turn order would be very significant, though I feel like increasing HP across the board would give everyone a fighting shot at having 2 or 3 turns.

Depending on how various house rules are adopted and various card draw, I feel like the self-healing heroes that are also capable of dishing out some damage have the strongest shot, like Nightmist, AZ, Legacy, Tempest.

Maybe there could be some mechanic of "run away" in lieu of your turn in case everyone ganged up on you. Or like at the start of every round, everyone declares if they're sticking around to fight or sliding back into the woods.

Fixer could be kind of nasty, since he can put out a DR and redirect damage. He wouldn't hit all that hard, other than pinging for 2-3 at a time the whole game.

13

Maybe each turn, heroes (or alliances of heroes) could be paired up with another random hero or alliance to represent them stumbling upon each other in the arena.  They could only attack each other for that round before they separated and ran into another random hero or alliance next time.  That way heroes who aren't big damage dealers don't get mauled by high-dps heroes round after round.  Worst case, Argent Adept stumbles behind a rock into Ra, catches a fireball in the face but manages to get away, all the while wondering why he didn't enter into that alliance with Bunker and Tempest when he had the chance...

14

I had an idea to start doing paired duels.  Random up the heros, give them a partner, and see how the fight pans out.  You could do brackets and have championships and stuff, much like the Villain Death Matches.  I went as far as to draw the first team, but was a little scared by the equipment-killing potential of the random draw of Unity and Omnitron-X.  (I have to think that Bot-Hack and Singularity don't work to kill your opponent's stuff, but the card says what it says...)  If I end up doing it, I'll write about it. 

15

I love Spiff's idea, but it leads to some rather odd stuff; namely, cards played next to enemy targets. What happens to someone Mind-Wrested who's in a completely different fight to The Visionary, and when if ever does Chrono-Ranger get his powers from The Ultimate Target?

16

How about something like this: at the start of every round, everyone has the opportunity to declare that they're fighting at the cornucopia. Everyone who chooses to run away then gets randomly paired (or grouped, if it's not an even number). Heroes declare alliances and then are permitted to roam together, however that doesn't prevent one hero in an alliance from attacking another on that turn. Shoot, you could probably also declare at the end of the round whether you're going to stay and fight the person fighting you or run away. If you both stay, there's a chance someone else happens upon you as well.

Oooo, how about this: all the people who did not fight at the cornucopia roll a d6. Everyone who rolls a 1 finds each other, etc. If you're the only one, you get to increase your setup or get a heal out or something. As fewer heroes elect to roam, switch to a d4, d3, coin flip if 4 or fewer.

As for aoe/ongoing stuff, I think that's part of the strategy. Chrono would want to either save his Ultimate Bounty until he knows someone's going to stick around and fight or save it until the end when there are a few heroes left. We could even consider the cornucopia to be a separate playing space from the random pairings, so if Chrono wants to take a bounty back from the field of play, he needs to wait until he meets his opponent.

Man, this is getting way more in-depth than I thought. I'm really tempted to actually draw up rules and suggest doing it as a demo at a con, where we could actually get close to 20 players. (Imagine Christopher being the Gamekeeper and throwing in random stuff. "Oh, everyone who rolled areas 1-3 take 4 fire damage, because you're running away too much and too healthy." Or he throws a random environment card into the mix of random runners. "Oh, you're the only one who rolled a 3, so you get a break this turn... JK T-REX'd!")

17

Yeah, running something like this would be wicked fun, for those of us who like drawing up rules and screwing with people.

18

I haven't implemented it yet, but I have been toying around iwth the idea of putting the character cards on stands and playing a game of heroscape with them. Still have to come up with each heroes' character card, but the idea might work for a death match or team games.