Extrasode # 3: Story meets mechanics

Woohoo! My gloomweaver question got answered! I thought that had been forgotten!

This was neat, and I'm mostly proud of myself for remembering it was airing today. c.c

I still wish they'd answer my question about flavor text. D: Oh well.

The part I found the most interesting was the set of updates, after the podcast proper was finished.

Ladies & Gentlemen of GtG, I think that you may have managed to buy back some of the goodwill that had been lost elsewhere (though not from me) by deciding not to start any other Sentinel Comics-related kickstarter until you've managed to finish delivering OblivAeon. The question that I've got hanging out after that is how that will affect the planned Kickstarter for the second Spirit Island expansion. I can make a case for running it circa Essen as last mentioned, and I can make a case for waiting until the SCRPG Kickstarter has completed.

I actually found this slightly horrifying.  C&A fail a lot at conveying mechanically what they intend to, and often they're not even aware that they've done so.

Take their comparison between Dark Watch and the Prime Wardens.  They said that the Prime Wardens' main strategy is to hit things really hard, and then when the chips are down, hit them even harder.  But that's not how they operate at all.  They're an extremely versatile team, with a lot of ongoing/environment control, damage mitigation, and weird tricks that don't exist in any other deck.  Sure, Fanatic and Haka have some massive final blows, but that's it.  They even said that Fanatic is supposed to be dealing a lot of damage, but they even acknowledged that she only does so when given some damage buffs (which makes no sense, given how individualistic she is, and how much of a powerhouse she is by herself in the stories).

In contrast, they said that Dark Watch, not being as overtly powerful, has to think outside the box and be clever.  But again, that's not what they do at all.  Mister Fixer has Grease Gun, but otherwise basically just hits stuff.  Expatriette has RPG Launcher, but otherwise basically just shoots stuff (and thematically, RPG Launcher is also shooting stuff).  Nightmist uses a weird mechanic and has a few other options, but they mostly just involve damage and damage manipulation.  Setback has some unusual effects, but thematically they're not about being "clever," they're just him getting lucky (and he's still heavily damage-focused).  They also said that Dark Watch doesn't suffer as badly as other teams from Devastating Aurora and the like, but they really, really do--Fixer and Expat in particular get completely gimped and have a hard time recovering.

I kind of feel like they got lucky in translating story to mechanics--they ended up with a coherent story despite not successfully telling the story they wanted in a lot of ways.  Although they said both that they didn't regret anything, and that there are things they'd like to change.  At least they acknowledged that Spite was really unsuccessful at being what he was supposed to be.

This was exactly C&A's point.  Dark Watch don't have a bunch of tricks up their sleeve, so you (as the player) need to be clever when you come across a situation that they are ill prepared for based on their decks.  Expat isn't exactly swimming in RPG's, so you can't just assume you'll have one every time you need it.  Because they don't have the "standard" tools other hero teams have, you need to think outside the box to come up with a solution.

I'm not familiar enough with Fixer (or the rest of DW) to comment, but Expat?  Really?

Assuming her base charater card (with Load power) she can play 2 cards per turn.  Turn 1 after a DA she can lay out 1 gun and fire it immediately.  Or drop two guns and fire away on on turn 2.  Add in cards that let her yank ammo from the discard pile, and she's back to full power in no time.  Let's contrast that with Abs Zero, who'll need 3 turns to get his 3 key components out.  (If you just care about damage, you could do 1 whole damage on turn 1 by getting an Isothermic Transducer out, but that requires self damage and I'd rather a shotgun).  "Full power" Legacy (Legacy Ring, Inspiring Presence, damage reduction, plus at least 1 additional power card) would take 4 turns.  Wraith could match match Expat in terms of being able to throw down some equipment and start consistently dealing damage, but unlike Expat doesn't have the option to forgo a power in order to get set up again more quickly.

Maybe it's just me, but I have trouble thinking that Expat is "completely gimped" if she can either immediately resume dealing consistent damage (to one or multiple targets, your choice) OR instead fully set herself back up again twice as fast as the next hero.

One thing I think they did miss was in explaining Haka's Punish The Weak card...

In the Haka episode, they explained that the writers' frequently kept Haka out of the main battles by occupying him with masses of minions to fight.  This was done because otherwise Haka ex machina would simply punch out the big bad and solve the story, so he needed to be otherwise occupied.  So the card actually perfectly mirrors the story from the comics.  But instead of explaining that, they talk about Haka doing what's best overall for the fight, attacking Voss's soldiers since Voss himself has a bunch of DR (which is itself a mechanical abstraction), when they had already given a much better explanation for this card in the Haka episode.  Just thought it was strange.

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In order to not start a 3rd post, one thing I quite appreciated from the episode was the idea that each card play is a panel from the comic that you are reading/creating by playing each game.  Although they eventually get around to providing a more thorough explanation, this "comic panel" approach does a great job of explaining why heroes dont' start every fight "fully set up".  It's not that Wraith left home without her utility belt and is only now putting it on mid-way through the fight, it's just that the comic book writers only being having Wraith "use" the belt after things have started to get dire.

AZ only has two modules, so I'm not sure which third component you consider vital, but he's highly likely to already have them in hand after a wipe, so he's back up after just two rounds, almost guaranteed.  Legacy doesn't have to be "full power" to be highly effective--other than the Legacy Ring, every single card he can play and power he can use is great in isolation.  Wraith, too, is brimming with so many options that even if she loses one, she likely has another, and between Impromptu Invention, Trust Fund, and Infrared Eyepiece, she has little trouble getting something useful even if it's not the initial approach she had in mind.

In my opinion, the Prime Wardens being incredibly versatile is intended to show off how powerful they are. The motto "hit things hard, and then hit them harder" isn't so much literal as it's saying "If the situation is bad, we almost always have a thing in our arsenal of tricks that can make it better." The members of Dark Watch, on the other hand, are all pretty specialized, excepting Fixer, and while I'm not sure they "cover each other's weaknesses", they definitely come out of most fights worse off than the Prime Wardens. In fact, most games I've won while using Dark Watch are won because Fixer, Nightmist, or Setback managed some manner of shenanigans that kept the team in the fight for long enough to pull off a victory. Most games won with the Prime Wardens are won because the Prime Wardens dealt with the problems and beat up the villain.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that versatility is just as much of a mechanical indicator of a powerful hero as large amounts of damage, especially where a hero like Visionary is concerned. After all, you don't bring Ra when you need to blow up an ongoing card, but he is super good at burning stuff.

So, exactly when do the episodes usually go live?

I could not disagree with this more.  Maybe it's just a difference between how we play, but most of the time I play Expat I usually find myself sitting with a fistfull of guns in my hand, that I don't need to put out because she's already got what she needs.  Assault Rifle, Submachine Gun, and Shotgun are all limited, so you couldn't possibly have multiple in play to begin with, meaning you (or at least I) often have extra's sitting in my hand.  Expat has 11 gun cards in a deck of 40, plus 6 cards that help her to draw and play guns... 42.5% of her deck.  All other things being equal, if you have a hand of as little as 3 cards, statiscally speaking there's a gun or the ability to play a gun in that hand.  (Especially if you've been playing long enough to have gotten the guns you wanted out a few turns ago).

Sure, we could play the "but what if [insert hero here] has a crappy hand?" all day long, but EVERY hero suffers from that.  What if Legacy's hand consists of only 3 copies of Danger Sense?  Of what if Absolute Zero had no module cards in his hand?  Maybe they all got shuffled to the bottom of his deck along with the Modular Realignment and Onboard Module Installation?  (Yes, that's a highly unliklely scenario, which is my point).

Sure, it's possible to think up some situation in which a Devasting Aurora is extra bad, but (1) you can do that for every hero, and (2) the statistical probability of that occuring is kinda low.  So, removing playstyle and "what if" scenarios from the equation, let's just look at how quickly heroes can get set up at the start of the game (since a D.A. effectively resets the heroes to the start of the game).  Since Absolute Zero and Expat and among my favorite heroes to play, I can say with some confidence that it takes longer for me to set up with A.Z. than Expat, assuming I have the cards in my hand.  I also find that I more frequently don't [have the cards in hand] when playing AZ and need to skip turns, and that when I do I also have to more frequently skip multiple (>1) turns.

And if we assume instead that whichever 2 heroes we're comparing already have the spare cards in hand and just need to play them?  Expat can do that twice as fast.

Does D.A. suck for Expat?  Yes.  It sucks for everybody.  All heroes suffer from it.  We call it "That Card" for a reason.  But if I were going to be playing a game against Dawn and you guaranteed to me that an unpreventable D.A. would come up on, say, turn 5 or 6 after I had gotten my hero set up?  I would pick Expat over AZ 100% of the time.  (To go through the whole FV in that situation, I'd pick her 100% of the time over Bunker, ~75% of the time over Legacy, ~60% of the time over Wraith largely due to Expat's ability to play two cards per round, and ~40% of the time over Tachyon who doesn't overly depend on her equip/ongoings).

Expat has more guns than she needs/can play, which means she's likely got extras in hand, and has ability to play 2 per turn to get set back up more quickly.  Off the top of my head, if I knew an anpreventable D.A. was coming, the only heroes I would rather be playing than Expat are Ra [~60% of the time] and Tachyon.

Well, my experiences are just different from yours.  I frequently start without any guns at all, just Arsenal Access that inevitably gives me two ammos.  I might have Quick Draw, but having just Pride or just Prejudice isn't all that great.  I'll only end up with spares in a long game (and I usually play harder games, which mostly go faster). My problem with DA and other wipes is much more often not having replacement cards in hand, not with getting them out, and that's a problem that other buildup-dependent characters have things to help with.

Fair enough.

As an aside, it would be really interesting to know what percentage of Dawn games in which DA comes up result in a win or loss for the heroes.  (I'm NOT suggesting you add it to the Project, since that's already tracking plenty, but it certainly would be interesting.)

So, who wants to lean on Handelabra to give you the option to see the comic you've constructed from the card plays in a game?

The best instance of story meeting mechanics, in my opinion: Prickly Cactus.

Most Important Question:

Who will continue C&A Fanfic of Story/Mechanics? I want to know how their relationship grows and if Mechanic will stop being jealous of Themeing?

Maybe we'll find out in the shipping episode?

That's been on our idea list for a long time. It would be a lot of work. Maybe someday!