NPCs

General GTG General Discussion
1

Since my group typically plays with just three players, we’ve been adopting the excellent suggestion of someone here on the forums (can’t remember who it was right now) by adding in a couple of extra heroes into the fight in their incapacitated-only mode. Having that extra boost can often make the difference when playing against some of the tougher villains with only three heroes, especially if the three you picked to play with aren’t that tough.

Then it occurred to me – what would be even cooler than incapacitated heroes on our side would be if those cards were actual NPC-type characters who were helping in the titanic struggle against the supervillain. The fight against Omnitron could consist of not just three player-heroes, but also the Police Commissioner, the Head Researcher from XYZ Labs, and the beautiful beat reporter who always manages to find herself in the middle of the story. Others to choose from could be the Army General, the plucky young head of the Freedom Five fan club who’s always getting into trouble, and the wilderness explorer who shared adventures with the heroes in the past and can always be counted on to show up and help out when the going gets tough. The powers on the NPC cards could be identical to what you’d find on incapacitated heroes right now (meaning, no additional playtesting would be needed), but having new NPC characters with new art fighting alongside you could really add to the experience.

This would be a great opportunity for the SotM guys to flesh out the world they’ve created with the kinds of side characters that always appear in the comics, while at the same time giving the players more flexibility to play the game the way they want. Want to take on Citizen Dawn but you can only get a couple of friends together to play tonight? No problem! Just toss in a couple of NPCs and you’ll have a much more enjoyable evening.

But why stop there? If heroes can have NPCs to help even out a match-up that otherwise would have been overmatched, why not the villains too? You want to take on Baron Blade with you and four of your closest friends? Normally that would be a blood bath for the Baron, but not if he’s working with the evil archaeologist who’s always trying to beat Ra to the excavation, and the village shaman who’s still angry over the humiliation Haka handed out to him that one time back in the jungle, and the mysterious bald female from the future who may or may not be a time shadow duplicate of The Visionary. These wouldn’t be big enough villains for them to be able to operate on their own, but they could be working with the main villains to further their aims and in the process help give the heroes a slightly tougher fight than normal.

Of course, since there’s no player playing the villain, there will be no one to choose which of the villain NPC’s powers to activate when their turn comes around. You could have each villain NPC have just one power (which is a little boring), or you could give them each three and roll a dice to see which one is activated.

The point is that NPCs could be a great way for players to apply some fine tuning to a game that otherwise doesn’t really have a built-in scaling mechanism.

It would be easy to playtest this idea too – just post the NPC cards as downloadable content here on the SotM site. Since they don’t flip or really do anything except activate whenever their spot in the hero lineup comes around, there’s no reason why players couldn’t just print out the art and lay the pic next to them while they’re playing. If the idea turns out to really have legs, perhaps NPCs could be included in future expansions.

What do we think? Great idea, or greatest idea ever?

2

I love the idea of NPC “Allies” for the heroes. Like I said on the other thread though, I hesitate to give heroes more power without any detriment. However, 3 characters + Ally seems to be a possibly very balanced state of a game. I like that idea a lot.

But if you wanted to, you could add it in a 4 player game, possibly balanced out by Villan Minions?

I mean how cool would that be, Now I know that the best generals for each of the villans are included in their decks, (Tamar or Viktor for example), but it would be nice to have like another minor villan/henchman to counterbalance the strength of the allies.

You could also do it so that the allies were not all-that-helpful, I mean, Lois Lane is more of a detriment to Superman than she is an asset. And that pretty much applies to all superhero significant others. An “ally” variant could be used to increase difficulty for 5 player games, or for people seeking increased challenge.

3

You could have the ally card flip like the villain card. One side representing how they help the heroes the other representing them getting into trouble and needing rescued.

4

Like I said on the other thread though, I hesitate to give heroes more power without any detriment.

You can already add in a couple of incapacitated heroes into the mix if you think your team needs the help. This isn’t different in any way. Players who don’t want the help won’t use the NPCs.

5

I like this idea. I’d suggest implementing the ally NPC as follows.

I’d add a few “select an ally” cards into the standard hero deck that would allow you to select or revive one of your hero’s civilian allies. Allies would be classified as ongoing, limited so that only one could ever be in play per hero. You could put additional restricts on the ally’s ability by only having it come into play during certain circumstances (such as the hero is at 50% or less health). The ally would be considered a hero target, but the hero could opt to take the ally’s damage for him to protect him. If the ally became incapacitated, then the hero could play another ally card to either revive the fallen ally or bring different one into play.

6

Good idea spiff. Sounds similar to my sidekick idea but more streamlined and easier to implement.