How to do an Impossible Man story

I want to do something different and light-hearted from our very, very melodramatic and somewhat grim stories of the past, well, 2 whole collections.  

I have a character I want to use that is like the Impossible Man from Marvel or Mr. Mxyzptlk from DC.  I think it's a waste to make an actual villain sheet, as such characters can't be punched to victory.

I figure the scenario would involve escalating Challenges to Overcome, but I wanted to have some mechanical sense of what this guy can do.  Any ideas about how you would do such a scene aside from just arbitrarily adding Challenges as the scene goes on? Or is that the best way to do it? What do you think?

First, I'm totally not drawing inspiration from Wager Master in my following suggestions.

First, toss out some challenges at the very beginning of the scene. Maybe, one challenge for every two heroes. The 'Villain' snapping their fingers and things suddenly going wrong is a great way to make a first impression.

Second, if he doesn't have a 'Villain' sheet, then build him into the environment. His 'Attacks' don't have to be punches, but rather asking puzzling questions that confound the mind. His 'Hinders' are him twisting reality around the heroes in inexplicable (though ultimately surmountable) ways. Play into the soft mechanics of how he works heavily here, with the scene tracker being less a measure of time passing and more a measure of how much fun he's having.

Third, if you need something for the heroes to punch, spawn in... Say, 1 lieutenant and H-2 minions? They don't have to be actively attacking, instead just hindering the heroes and Boosting one another. Give the sense that they doing something, but it doesn't have to be obvious what that something is. 

I ran this scenario last night, pretty much stealing all of catDreaming's advice for how to do it.  It was difficult for the players but it worked, and I don't think it would have been as *mechanically* interesting in any other system.

I was worried because the players didn't express as much "mirth" *during* the Scene as I hoped (it was intended as a lighter filler story after some really bleak stuff), but that was because they were stressed out about how to get rid of him (Florida Man).  After the session, several of them said, "That was fun," and "it was a nice change of pace," so I guess I win.

Two things I'd change:

1) I'd make much more specific and clear "rules" for how they could get rid of him.  The way I wrote the scene was that the heroes basically had to endure him until Red, when I put up a Challenge, "Convince Florida Man to leave."  I think they should be able to figure out a way to get rid of him earlier, since I made him invulnerable to both damage and Hinders.

2) For an Environment, you have to be careful with the "Add a Challenge" Twist, especially in a Challenge-heavy scene.  One of my players rightfully complained that she completed one Success on a 2-Success Challenge, only to have a Twist that added a new 2-Success Challenge.  Technically, this is not a Twist "undoing" a success, but practically it is.

I'm going to eventually post the Environment in the database thread, but I think I would change the "Add Challenge" Twists to only Major Twists and have the Minor Twists be more Attacks and Hinders.

That's nice and all, but did you really inflict FLORIDA MAN on your players as a light filler story? That's some trauma in the making, there. 

LOL.  What does that say when that's *lighter* than what I've been doing?

Yeah, our grioup can skew dark and/or melodramatic.  Let;s just say our Florida Man story did not pass the Comics Code.

So how did they defeat him?