by PaladinX13
re: High power super-villains last - I agree that it can be anticlimactic thematically, the potential issue is the same one the designers tried to stave off by making Ra's Al Ghul first... which is presenting a Super-Villain too powerful to take down early on. So if Parallax is second, then the game might feel slightly stalled while everyone builds up decks powerful enough to take him down, and then every other super-villain is quickly snapped up thereafter typically not being quite as powerful.That said, after a handful of games, I'm finding that if all players know that, then the deck-building prior to taking down the second high-power villain tends to be more deliberate and strategic, knowing there will be a rush shortly after. If the curve of super-villain power is just upwards then the natural progress of the game will get you there without any deliberate strategy.
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re: House rules - The main one we're trying to develop but haven't really settled on is a fair / elegant way to cycle the Line-Up without clogging your deck or making it a spiteful mechanism for denying others their cards.
The variable player powers make what is dross to you a treasure to another... and we don't want to turn it into something that denies another player that thing that makes their Super Hero special and fun to play. At the same time, with a two player game, the Line-Up can either stagnate or your decks grow immense and less intentional if you buy up everything just to cycle the Line-Up.
If players mutually consent to clear the Line-Up that would resolve it, except for the issue of timing... being the first person to a refreshed Line-Up is advantageous.
So some sort of payment must be involved. If destroying is involved, then you would want some sort of veto mechanism to preserve cards someone wants (but if there is a cost paid, then the veto too must have a cost to make it fair).
Going back and forth we had a convoluted scheme wherein:
- On one's turn you could declare all the Line-Up cards you wished to destroy.
- Those costing 6 or less had to pay full price to destroy.
- Those costing 7 or more could be destroyed for 6 each.
- AFTER paying the power for the cards marked for destruction, any other player could discard one card to prevent any OR all cards costing 6 or less from being destroyed for the rest of the turn (if you choose not to veto one of the cards another player could discard a card to save it);
- Cards costing 7 or more marked for destruction require one discarded card to veto.
- All cards destroyed in this manner get immediately replaced and can be purchased by the destroyer.
- If the destroyer wants to destroy again, the same rules, however if a 6-or-less veto was paid for earlier, it remains in effect.
Basically, you need the other players' consent to cycle cards. Destroying low costing cards gives you more access to new cards, but is easier for the other players to protect; destroying high costing cards as a denial mechanism is possible, but also can be prevented. If the players are consenting to have the cards cycle, then the player paying to have them cycle gets access to the new cards first and is penalized less for getting rid of a high cost card no one wants (paying only 6 to cycle the card).
In theory, this accomplished a lot of what we wanted, but in practice it tended to be a whole lot easier to simply let your deck get bloated. Another side-effect was that these rules tended to kick in when someone would have a huge power hand that would have otherwise been limited by the default rules. This was good, because players could use their full power, but bad because the level of player interaction could slow the game.
Essentially, despite fairness, the rules lacked elegance.
Our next effort will be to strip away the destroying aspect (which is where a lot of the back and forth in the rules comes from) and perhaps simply pay to add to the Line-Up? Maybe you can pay to add one temporary slot that refreshes immediately if purchased? It doesn't really resolve the issue of a Line-Up no one wants, but lets players side-step it temporarily in as much as that issue may arise. Having plenty of fun with the game as-is, but the armchair designer in us likes to tinker... any ideas?