Missing Mechanics

I was looking at the different decks and looking for things that are in other games and compare and contrast

no coin flip mechanic  (maybe mister black and yellow nemisis of Kismet?)
no dice mechanic (see above)
Nothing that alters seating arrangement (the order in what heroes go)

What are some of the others people have noticed?


Edit :
added to the list
Counterspell: counter a card as its drawn
Redirection ( also known as take the red shirt) : redirect destruction of this card to another card
Revive: Flip a hero back over after incap'
The Multi-hero: a hero who has multiple base cards used in a game see Ben10 or Beast boy

I will just keep adding to this list as they come up
 

There's no retreat mechanic (ie no play/power/draw phase but you're withdrawn from the game until the start of your next round) - I've actually toyed with home-ruling this one, though there are a lot of ways to do it, both logically and mechanically. For instance, if you retreat, it makes sense to be able to draw a card, as if you're recuperating or hiding to buy time, though if it were a one-shot, it couldn't affect anyone other than you (not saying you'd have to attack yourself, but if it's "everyone draw a card," only you draw the card). The idea struck me in mulling ideas over the Multiverse Hunger Games, though I think it would get pretty difficult to implement (for instance, what if every hero chose to retreat for the first turn... some villains [Iron Legacy] you really don't want to give that extra turn of setup, but others might be worth the risk if everybody has a bad initial draw).

I don't know if I like the idea of superheroes retreating safely while a supervillain is running amok. 

Right now you have the option to do nothing and draw two cards, but you still take damage, which is the superhero thing to do. 

That thought did cross my mind, though it bugs me when I'm in a game and one hero is getting pounded (maybe lots of attacks on lowest HP and most cards in play or something) while the others are in good shape, and there's no Smoke Bombs or Lead from the Front or whatever available. It's like all the other heroes are like, "Man, that sucks," and then shrug and keep attacking. It just seems like a strategic withdrawal (to either try to get the right card or get an extra self-heal in or something) would make sense. Maybe call it Strategic Withdrawal instead of Retreat :-p

Like I said, it'd be crazy to try to balance (maybe only one hero can withdraw at a time, they have to be under 10 HP, and they can't withdraw two turns in a row?), and I'm not sure I'd even want it added, but the question at hand is not "What mechanics do I think should be added to the game?" but "What mechanics are missing?".

I feel like a cancellation mechanic is definitely missing from the game. You can stop the other decks from playing a card, you can move cards around, but there's nothing that can stop the card once it's drawn.

It would have to be a big deal, probably a one-shot that there's only a copy or two of in the deck and maybe it's removed from the game once you use it, but no one can tell me they didn't wish there was something they could do when Devastating Aurora is staring you in the face.

I’ve always wanted some effect which could prevent destruction of cards (not really a global destruction prevention, more like “If a card would be destroyed, destroy this card instead,” or even a “The first time a card would be destroyed each round, prevent that card from being destroyed”). I know Kismet has this, but that is the opposite that I’m looking for. I know Chrono Ranger had this effect, but I haven’t played him since release and I’m unsure if he still has this ability.

Chrono has lost that ability, as it was just too powerful, as it allowed Fanatic to play End of Days and instead of destroyed hero stuff you could choose his hat and it will prevent the rest of the destruction, then you could use ongoing destruction to destroy End of Days so it would not activate again. It would be nice of course, but it would be way too easy to take advantage of.

I wouldn't say any of those mechanics are "missing". In the games that I've played where there was a dice mechanic I usually preferred that there not be one. Same with coin flips.

The only game that I know of that changes seating is The Great Dalmuti/Dilbert.

I know of the Mad Magazine Board Game as well as BANG! with Wild West Show which allows seat changes.

I see your point although this makes more sense for some heros than others (the antiheros perhaps).  It might be something like only one hero can withdraw at a time.  So one person can hide out and recover while the others keep the villian busy since as Jagarciao said it wouldn't be very heroic to let the villian go completely unchecked.

Obviously I have no idea how the wording was or the specifics of how the card worked, but it seems odd that they couldn't have set it up so that end of days would destroy everything but the one thing that was indestructible.  That way it would wipe all the other hero'ss cards and all but one of CRs.  I'm very curious what the mechanics were now.

The wording on it was "When this card is destroyed prevent all other card destruction this turn" since the heroes choose the order of destruction they could destroy the whole lot of villain stuff then the Hat, which would mean nothing else could be destroyed that round. Pretty neat huh? Though Jim's Hat is still a powerful card and probably the ultimate card in his deck as it now lets you play more than one card per turn, so it's not like it is weaker by any means.

I'm always in favor of home rules, of course, but withdrawing might be an issue if all but one hero is incapacitated and that hero withdraws.  Might work better with a rule that a hero can only withdraw if there are (some number, like H-1) other heros that are not withdrawn or incapacitated…

As to dice, coins, etc., I honestly don’t think >G will go there. It’s just not in the flavor of the game. We have a template for handling things like that in a more appropriate fashion, with NightMist’s spell numbers. There could be some other, imaginative ways to handle this kind of need - and I wouldn’t be surprised to see >G come up with something really entertaining for Twitchy (nickname of Kismet’s nemesis), if it even fits the hero.

It doesn't (officially) have a mulligan mechanic.

A mulligan is a home-rule I'm strongly in favor of.

I don't call it a mulligan. I just say, "Shoot, I think these are the last 4 cards I had last game, so I must not have shuffled." My cohorts get suspicious when I do it 3 times in a row

 I love it

What's a mulligan?

If you don't like the starting hand you got, you can reshuffle and draw a new one. Normally there's a limit to how many times you can do this. Most other card games have it, like Magic and Lord of the Rings LCG.

certainly mitigates the luck factor.

I don't personally like doing mulligans myself, but I'm for it as a house rule as long as you do it before you've fully set up the villain.

Yeah, we trust each other enough to know we aren't doing it to try for the "optimal hand"; we aim for "enjoyable game". And we only use one, if we do it at all.

Having said that, it also depends on the group - one individual we play with doesn't agree with mulligans, so we just don't use them in those games.

(Rabit, are you referencing the few times I've gotten to play with you fine folks?)

Ok, that completely makes sense as to why it would be End of Days awesomeness.

On the topic of mulligans, the Vs system method was put the four cards you drew on the bottom of the deck in any order and draw the next four cards.  You can only do it once each game. 

I think the WoW card game is some thing like Shuffle your seven cards back into your deck and then draw a new seven once per game.

I think I played on game where you started with seven cards and you could shuffle back in and draw one fewer cards and you could do it as many times as you wanted though eventually you would start with 0 in hand if you took it that far.

SotM seems to do pretty well at not needing a mulligan rule, but I don't mind the idea of one.  A once per game limit seems like a good idea.

There's no "resurrection" mechanic for heroes (where an incapacitated hero can be brought back into play), although I realize there's a lot of potential for abuse there.

We don't really have a "capturing" mechanic, where a villain can basically remove a hero from the game until the other heroes rescue him/her.  Closest thing that we actually have would probably be Plague Rat.

Not sure if I've seen this in a board game, but I have in plenty of video games: "Chasing" a villain across different environments.  I'm thinking a Baron Blade-style villain that, when defeated, flips his cards, recovers some HP, removes all environment cards from the game, and brings a brand new environment into play at random.  I realize that Time Cataclysm sorta did this, but I like the unpredictable nature of bringing a whole new deck into the game halfway through.

I'd also like to see a mechanic that allows for "common items" that can be equipped by any hero.  Tomb of Anubis played around with this idea a bit, with the cards that gave a new power to the hero that defeated it.  I think Kismet has this too, haven't played her yet though.  It would be cool to expand upon this idea, possibly introduce a new type of deck into the game and allow heroes to "scavenge" by drawing and keeping the top card from that deck.  Or introduce a new hero that has a side deck of equipment that he can go through and hand out to other heroes (think "Q" from James Bond or Lucius Fox).

Last mechanic I'd like to see are achievements.  Mice and Mystics did this and I think it's pretty cool.  When a hero fulfills a certain set of criteria (deal X amount of damage in one turn, damage X number of targets in one turn, take X amount of damage in one turn, draw X number of cards in one turn, etc.), they receive a permanent buff.  Nothing major, just a nice little bonus perk.  This would only go to the first hero each game that fulfills each set of criteria.

I think I would like the idea of incap ressurection. Though it could be prone to abuse, I can't count the number of times new players have asked me if its possible to revive them after they get incap-ed. It would be messy, and potentially OP, but still, it would be nice. I guess we just have to find a good 'fix' for it.

Alternately, I would greatly appreciate a medic hero, one that really is just concerned with healing teammates.

Heh, actually, no.  I do (vaguely) recall we talked about mulligans, a long time ago, but I'm actually referring to arenson9.

And, to clarify my view on mulligans, while I like it to be available as a home-rule, I don't think it's needed very often. I honestly think I've actually taken advantage of it just once. I don't remember the reason (it was quite a while ago), but it was a pretty extreme hand.

Magic really needed the rule, as you could get mana screwed far too often. SotM (thankfully!) doesn't have anything like that, so it's generally not needed.

There is a character that can be revived when they would be incapped, and that would in Fanatic with her Aegis out.

A "capturing" mechanic sounds alot like Isolated Hero from Miss Information's deck. Though it doesn't remove them from the game, but that wouldn't be very fun for the player who has been captured.

I meant, reviving a fallen teammate. If you are familiar with the video game Left 4 Dead? A big part of the fun was having to choose between helping a fallen teammate out or, as the title suggests, leaving them for dead. It would be interesting, to say the least, to introduce a mechanic that let you revive a teammate, at great personal cost.

Maybe something like channeling 1HP from all other heroes for each 1HP returned to the fallen hero... but if anyone hero can't, or won't, then you can't do it. 

It could be an interesting mechanic, as long as it was maintained in just one character. Possibly a medic hero that could sacrifice their own HP in order to revive and even heal other heroes. Maybe at the cost of destroying or discarding their own cards? Giving them little to no hleaing ability to themself would make it a difficult decisions over to heal another player and risk dieing yourself.

Also a problem that arises with reviving a character is what would you do about their deck? Everything other than the character card would be removed from the game. Not sure how much text you could fit on the card before it runs out of room.

Perhaps a better option would be to leave the hero on their incapacitated side, but have a hero capable of activating one of the incap hero's abilities on their turn, at a cost.

Thematically, this strikes me as an illusion-based hero, bringing a shade of a fallen comrade into battle temporarily.

There was a fan hero on BGG where he had 1 HP and the whole point is he dies repeatedly but one of his incapped powers is to revive himself and his incapped powers were fairly useful. Never made printouts of it to try it, but it seemed like a really cool idea.

A cool concept I thought of, though I have no idea how broken it might get, is a chameleon like character who can could make himself, or his cards, act like environment or villain cards. Kind of like the ally who steals the guards clothes and just waits until the time is right to sneak attack the villain.

I don't think this is missing per se, I think that its more a different use of the existing mechcanics
This seems like it would be a 'mode' type of mechcanic which bunker already has
 

I was think about the same thing like a hero who gets different powers from different 'super suits' but this is what bunker does

 

I would be very interested in a resurection ability.  I think Christopher said they were against a healing based character because they didn't want people to think a certain person was necessary, so I doubt one will show up with a rez spell.  Still with certain hero's like scholar and NM they can really make a comeback in the right situation.

Maybe it would need to be like a hero can skip their turn, including start and end (I'm looking at you OX and Unity) to give an incapcitated hero 1 Hp.

Maybe when the hero is incapcitated the scoop up all their cards and shuffle.  When they get rezzed they draw four cards.

That leaves them pretty weak but it could be too much to leave them with a board setup.  Maybe get rezzed with more Hp?  You would have to consider if it is more advantageous to just leave them down and use their incap powers like in Left 4 Dead mentioned above. 

When I am feeling somewhat zen, I don't care as much about winning/losing so much as seeing what will happen with what we're given.

When I am feeling even MORE zen, I allow for the fact that if other people want to use a mulligan, it doesn't affect my enjoyment.

Yeah, I considered that too.  What if the "captured" hero gained a special set of abilities to try and sabotage the villian from the inside?

Alternatively, instead of "capturing" heroes, we could just separate them.  Have a villain that summons two strong minions (or dual villains like Chairman/Operative) that need to be fought by two separate groups of heroes (who can't help each other or damage each other's targets), until a point is reached that everything combines into one big battle.

I gotta be honest, I'm realizing that a lot of my ideas are inspired by my World of Warcraft raiding days, and that video games don't always translate well to the tabletop.  Still, it's fun to speculate

I think the only time I've seen a captured character be fun for their player in a board game is the mission where you rescue Lily in Mice and Mystics. She still has to defend herself from roaches, but she's stuck there until the other mice can make it to her with a spoon or tinkerer to pry open the trap. It's the whole scenario, so they're able to design special mechanics to make it fun.

That would be the trick with a captured hero: making it fun for everybody at the table.

I could see a villain that isolates one of the heroes, and there's a sub-game to get them free. You'd probably want to make it a core feature of the deck, though. Like the villain's modus operandi is they capture a hero. Maybe the captured hero fights a miniboss in a cage match to the death, and the other heroes can affect the match in various ways or break locks to gain entrance and help. The idea would be solo heroes couldn't take him down alone without a crapton of luck, but you need to buy time for the others to find a way in, at which point he flips and you get to fight the actual villain.

What about a mechanic where a hero genuinely switches to the villain's side? ie in order for that player to win, the other players must be defeated? (I'm totally thinking of Shadows over Camelot or Betrayal at House on Haunted Hill, where you can have a secret villain, and the villain can choose to act like a hero.)

Like just about everything else in the thread, probably impossible to balance (and again, I'm not sure if I'd enjoy the mechanic if it were in the game), but we're just brainstorming mechanics, not petitioning to Christopher which ones we want added :)

I personally wouldn't have much fun if I was forced to fight my friends.  Plus, >G seems to be cornering the market on co-op games, so I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Might be an interesting home-brewed villain or house rule, though.

This would be a very, very interesting house rule. I think I'll play test this with my friends, see how it works out. I think I'll increase the rezz HP to maybe 5, just so they actually stand a chance of getting back in the game. And I think they really should reset, do the whole nothing on the table, draw four cards bit.

Maybe I'll make a new thread when I've playtested this.

I would like a hero with actual forms. I know some heroes have forms that somewhat alter the gameplay like modes or the scholars forms, but they only tend to alter your strategy or play priority. I would like to see one that had entirely different card interractions. 

Maybe he actually has four character cards and they alter his base power, and his deck has cards that switch them.

Maybe his deck is full of cards that do X in form A or Y in form B, etc

Maybe his deck is actually split into four parts of ten and you use each portion based on the form you are in. But the deck as a whole could work in your "base form" but to a lesser degree. I release that is overly complicated and probably wouldnt really work, but I thought the idea was cool. 

In reference to world of warcraft.....I miss my druid. 

Awesome, I would love to hear how it goes.  5 Hp seems about right, they can at least take a hit, maybe two.

Interesting, sounds fun.  I could see a Beast Boy type hero where the cards say "Do X if in bear form, Do Y if in Bird form".    Maybe the base power is to change what form you are in?

I had an idea for a spy character that was loosly similar where you got different effects or better effect if you were undercover vs exposed.  (Attacking would expose you but you could go back undercover and then you got some better other effects for ongoing destruction, looking at decks etc.)

I like the idea of a character that plays their deck backwards or forwards (depending on an ongoing probably).

Clarification:  draw from their trash and discard to the top of their deck, for example.

A friend actually created a time-travelling villain that causes time to move backwards on his flip side, represented by drawing from the top of the trash and putting cards on the top of the deck instead of the trash. It's a pretty humorous villain, actually - lots of silly, imaginative fun like that.

I like the idea of doing your start, play, power, draw, and end in any order you want, but drawing from the trash and discard to the top of your deck is crazy amazing if you don't always have to do that since you could cycle a single card over and over.

What about something like this:

POWER - Infiltrate: Until the start of your next turn you are considered a villian target.

Maybe even add in: Increase damage by 1 against villian targets.

What would be the advantage of Infiltrate though? Just damage prevention from the villain? But you could still take damage from Heroes?

Also, since your power is activated after your play phase there wouldn't be too many chances to deal that extra damage (you'd need someone else to give you an out of turn play). 

While the concept is interesting I think it would need some kind intelligence payout, maybe looking through the villain deck and/or rearranging the deck. 

It would be potentially fantastic as part of an infiltration-based deck, but it also makes you basically unhittable, which is problematic.

You're right about the power. Maybe change it to "increase damage done to Villians by 2."

Anyways, part of the point was that there aren't enough cards that change the text of other cards. ONly one that changes end of turn to start, and another that changes low hp to highest.

This type of character does sound interesting and in all honesty, I could see them building a deck like this kind of like Mr. Fixer's styles.  For a bear style, you have this power, for a bird this power, etc.  The change base power would be useful for changing back and forth only if the animal went back to your hand and the other cards in your deck were possibly weapons you can only use in a humonoid form.  Of course if you have like 8 different forms and there is only 1 card of each in your deck (maybe 2) it would make discarding cards devistating if something caused you to discard your hand.

Could be like Argent Adept cards, where there are different abilities to be activated on a card, but in this guy's case, they're form abilities not songs. 

I have been thinking about that lately, that more could be done with AA set up

I would like to see something like heroic thing  power: use either offense or defense offense: power 1 defense: power 2

 

Welp, you got your wish, or at least 1/4 of it.  (There's a kid's story in which there's a magic half-nickel which gives you half of what you wish for, so presumably you read the story and wished for the item, which granted the wish in a fashion appropriate to itself.)

And we'll help by clarifying that the story in question is called "Half Magic," which I think turned out to be the first in a short series.