Mavel Dice

The dice used in Marvel Heroes are pretty cool for those of us obsessed with these kinds of things.

They are all 6-sides but heres what each side has on it.
0, !, 1, 1, 1+, 2

There are 2 different rolls made with the dice. A roll to determine the Trouble Level of a headline and rolls in combat. For combat the ! is considered a 0, for Trouble Level this is a 1. The 1+ is the best part though.

During either roll, different factors indicate wether "dice boosting" occurs during a roll. If it does 1+ means 1 plus roll another die. (No it does not continue forever, the 1+ is just a 1 on the second roll.)

The effect is that when dice boosting is in affect, a 6-sided die is providing a lop-sided flattened bell-curve to 4 possible results per die (0-3).

The Trouble Roll curves:


The Combat Roll curves:

Report on Proposed Rule Adjustments

I proposed a couple rule tweaks a couple posts ago. I've tested them in solo play, but I think the thinking is valid.

The 3-player game:
Having the troubleshooting player's nemesis draw 2 villan cards worked really well I thought to keep a good number of villan cards ready for any challenge. I wasn't sure about the number of headlines in play. I definitely think the number should be reduced from the game recommended 6, but wether 4 or 5 is the right answer, I'm not sure. I played both, but I think that certain scenarios may make the number appear different.

The 2-player game:
First, the good news. I think having only 3 headlines on the board at once worked well. With villan cards, I don't know. Sometimes it seemed that drawing 3 was too many. Sometimes drawing 2 seemed like not enough. I think I'd err on the side of drawing 3. Nothing so boring as an easy challenge.

However, I re-discovered / remembered a more difficult problem with the two player game: the story track really does not work in the two player game. The problem is that its too easy to end up with a story track that does not have any plot cards that match a team in the game. That makes story actions essentially, the chance to draw 1 resource card. With all the other options out there to do, I feel like that option is reserved for when you really have nothing to do. I'd often rather bring a hero back to the ready position so I can get an extra plot point next turn and have more options for positioning next turn then have 1 resource card.

In summary, I don't like the two player game. The 3 and 4 player games, however, I enjoy.

But, there's more. I also found one annoying thing about the scenarios. There are a series of scenarios that bring a super-headline into play near the end of the game, triggered usually by a certain point total. With the game ending at the end of the same round, this scenario goes almost always unused.

The problem is that, if I'm in a position to trigger the pt total I'm, by definition, winning. If that's the case, it does not help my cause to put a big victory point opportunity on the board. However, if I wait and deliver my coup de grace the end of turn 4 or during turn 5, then I don't have to worry about it, because people have to move to the headline and then trouble shoot it requiring at least 2 turns AFTER the point total has been reached to act on the headline.

I'd toy with the idea of allowing 2 bonus turns after the end of a round in this scenario. But the only actions that can be taken would be to move a hero to the super-headline or to troubleshoot that headline.

I did that once in testing. But have no real conclusions from the experiment. Most of these headlines are pretty tough and schemable and you can't have a supporting hero, so if you have to troubleshoot with only 1 hero its a long shot at best. You might even want to go with 3 bonus turns. Or maybe a whole bonus round but with that headline being the only one on the table.

Scotland Yard

Great, old game.

The basic principle is that you are either a criminal on the run or one of team of detectives trying to corner and capture the criminal. If the criminal out-maneuvers the detectives around London for ?? moves, they win. Otherwise the detective(s) win.

Obviously, I'm glossing over how the game works, but its deduction type game. The criminal is hidden for most of the game but is revealed periodically and leaves a kind of trail in what forms of transportation the criminal uses, but not exactly where they went. The detectives can then make guesses and cut off particular routes.

One issue I always though didn't quite work with the game was that you were supposed to have each detective play their own detective on the board. But the number of detectives on the board is probably the biggest factor in how easy or hard it is for the criminal. So I've always played the game with a set number of detectives and everyone who wasn't being the criminal put their heads together to collectively move the detectives on the board. In this way, the game becomes anything from 2-player to what ever size you think is workable as a detective group.

I've been playing with 4 detectives on the board lately because 5 detectives seems just way too hard. Even then, its been a long time since I saw a criminal get all the way to the end with out getting caught. Its more about how long can you last as the criminal then winning.

Despite the fact that the box says 3-5 players, I've played it 2-player very well. One thing that's fun is to play back-to-back games against one other player, alternating who plays the detectives and criminal. Then you compare how long you lasted as the criminal.

I actually think that would make a good tournament at a convention like the WBC. But I'm too busy running Speed Circuit for 4 days to do that.

Marvel Heroes proposed fixes

Something I forgot to mention about Marvel Heroes... like a lot of multi-player games that can be played with only two, it works much better with more then 2.

There are two things that seem most affected by multiple players.

1) There are only so many trouble shooting areas on the board at a time. Since that is the main way to win the game, that's pretty important. However, in a two player game there are still 4 troubleshooting opportunities (2 per) which is as many as you can realistically attempt during a single round. However, in a four player game there are 6 areas. That means not only that you may not get to attempt 2 trouble-shooting areas even if you want to, you may get your 4th choice on areas to troubleshoot if you go 4th that round. That's a decent difference.

Perhaps I should try restricting a two player game to only 3 areas to work with, that would be the same 1.5 per ratio as a four player game.

2) When you fight a villan, the villans come from the hands of your opponents. While the power of the villan you end up fighting will probably end up being the same regardless of how many people you are playing. If you are facing 3 hands of villan cards instead of only 1 you can see how that might make the villan a bit harder to handle. The way the game tries to adjust for that is to have your opponent draw 2 villan cards when a challenge starts instead of the usual 1. However, in a four player game 3 villan cards are being drawn every challenge (admittedly not by the same players).

Perhaps I should try having the opponent draw three villan cards in a two player game and have the nemesis player draw two cards in a three player game.

I'll report back when I get a chance.