Getting to Know Your Demo Team pt 3: High Society

High Society didn't start out as a team of super villains. For the most part, it had always been a gathering of the most elite and wealthy members of Centennial City's social scene until the late '70's. United only in their spirit of one-upmanship, members of High Society were always led by whomever was the richest, the most powerful, or whomever had overcome the biggest obstacle to achieve their greatness. For many years, upstanding members of society such as presidents, governors, Centennial City mayors, even noteworthy citizens such as Dr. Kevin McCallister and Jonathon Grayson from McCallister Industries and the Pantheon Corporation respectively had found their way into this notoriously secretive organization that had its roots in the founding of the country itself.

But all that changed in the late '70's when the mantle of leadership for High Society fell on the shoulders of the young and cruel Prince Domus Nasirus of Khanth- notorious for his misdeeds as well as his tastes. After years in exile, Prince Domus used the resources at his command to retake Khanth by force renaming himself Lord Dominus, never relinquishing his hold on High Society.

Under the Direction of Lord Dominus, High Society began to change. No longer would the secret society's coffers be used for charitable works. Instead, Lord Dominus chose to use the surplus to fund his own personal and political agendas. Membership in High Society was no longer a simple matter of wealth and social standing; instead Lord Dominus chose to include only those that he found exceptional and like minded such as: the feared international terrorist known only as Tyrant, the Nazi war criminal General Disorder and the highly talented assassin called Recoil. It was a rare occurrence that High Society would act in concert. Usually, while Lord Dominus was in control, the society still remained a venue to show off the exploits of its members. If Tyrant was able to defeat Lightray, this was where he bragged. When Dr. Mindcrime planted the "seed of evil" that would eventually convert the victim to true villainy and insanity in his patient, the son of the famous hero Thunderbolt, this was where he could lay out the plan.

But when Lord Dominus left Centennial City to return to his castle in Khanth, leadership of High Society fell to General Disorder and a new day dawned. General Disorder had very different plans for High Society starting with organization. General Disorder brought in criminals and terrorists like the crime boss Pavement and the french liquid metal killer Guillotine and united High Society for high profile criminal activity. With the sheer amount of criminal talent available to him, General Disorder knew he had the type of team he could use to take over, destroy, or wreak any kind of havoc he could possible imagine.

And so they did.

Game Concepts and Changes

Wow an Update!!!

Yeah, sorry about that. I'd give you a snarky excuse, but I don't have one. Truth is, I've been so busy working on other projects such as the upcoming Smallville Role Playing Game for the awesome people over at Margaret Weis Productions that I haven't updated the blog. That is not to say that work hasn't progressed on Superhuman, ho no.

In fact, playtesting is a funny thing. you get to see where many of the weaknesses of a game are that you never noticed before. For example: Melee Combat.

Previously, Each player's turn ended with a Melee Combat Phase. In this phase, as you can expect, models in base-to-base contact engaged in hand-to-hand combat. This is all well and good. However, there is a rule in the Melee phase I am very fond of called Knockback.

Knockback is very steeped in comic shtick. When you hit someone and are able to do damage to them in hand-to-hand combat, you throw them in inches equal to the amount of damage dealt through walls and other models directly away from your model. I love this rule- it reminds me of every panel I've ever seen of the bad guy thrown into the brick wall by Superman's fist. However, it proved problematic for a while.

Both players had a Melee Combat Phase, but all combat phases happened after both players' Movement phases. Why did this matter? It meant that for the most part, the second player never got a Melee Combat Phase. Knockback usually caused the models to break apart by several inches and without the benefit of certain powers, that was a gap that could not be filled until the following turn. And I am not a fan of anyone losing a turn.

The easy solution was to drop Knockback. Hell no! That rule is the spirit of Superhuman and is one of the rules that separates this game from every other mini game out there (there are other factors of course, but I can wax ecstatic if I wish). No, I had a simpler method: Phase restructuring. I like the staggered turn sequence we use presently (Low initiative Move, High Initiative Move, High Initiative Combat, Low Initiative Combat) but a tweak could solve all the issues entailed.

So here it is, the new turn sequence:
1 Initiative
2 Low Initiative Movement
3 High Initiative Movement
4 High Initiative Ranged Combat
5 Low Initiative Ranged Combat
6 Melee Combat Phase (all engaged models)

In the end, we've found that having a single Melee phase did a few things. Yes, it allowed Knockback to be suitably effective but more than that it slimmed down turn length and seemed to concentrate the focus on that last phase in the turn.

Next up...
Power Pools by Faction and why different Factions have different Powers
and then (or maybe before) Getting to know Your Demo Team: High Society (villains)

Cheers,
~Dr. Mono