“When a villain gets hit hard, make them mark a condition as appropriate.”
What counts as getting hit hard? I mean for a normal person or a superperson without super-toughness, obviously if the villain is super-tough it will take quite a bit more to damage them.
Does the villain get hit hard every time a hero successfully directly engages them?
Yes but it’s not the only time it can happen. Also consider that a hit could be emotional as well.
Yes, you mark a condition every time a hero succeeds at directly engaging a villain. Doesn’t make sense for Robin punching Darkseid, because Darkseid is a god and Robin is decidedly not? Easy answer: if you look at the Conditions, they’re not things like ‘broken leg’ or ‘blinded,’ they’re emotional states. Robin directly engages Darkseid and succeeds, so now Darkseid is Angry at his impudence, or maybe Insecure because a mortal whelp managed to get through his defences and Judo throw him, even though that throw didn’t hurt him physically.
Dialing out, directly engage isn’t the only way to inflict conditions. Provoke can get under their skin and into their head, so it might do the trick. Unleashing your powers can reshape the environment in s way that harms villains. And so on.
Okay, so how do the condition moves work? Specifically, do they clear the condition in question? Because if not, that would mean your “average” villain only needs to get directly engaged four times to go down (3 to fill up conditions, and a fourth to finish them).
I know most villains will flee before getting beaten like that, but if I go around the table with a normal-sized gaming group, it sounds like they could win in the first “round” before the villain even has a chance to flee. Is that how it’s meant to be, or am I missing something?
From what I can tell, no, the Condition Moves don’t clear the condition — they just ensure the villain gets to punctuate every Directly Engage with a bit of escalation driving the fiction forward. Yes, Darkseid just got punched by Robin and is furious… and then he lets loose with the eye-beams and levels the nearby orphanage, and hopefully the team will spring into action to deal with that.
Sebastian Baker If you are thinking in terms of initiative or going around the table, you are missing the way that the system works. When a villain is hit and marks a conditions, he/she immediately makes of of the hard moves that they have, which then need to be responded to. So if a villain has a move that they call in reinforcements, they will do that directly after marking a condition. As well, when heroes directly engage, they also get hit unless they roll really high. That back-and-forth with conditions and the villain making moves is the only way to keep up pressure on your players.
Your players should quickly learn that when a villain marks a condition, some serious crap is about to come down on them. That’s why a 5 condition villain is so dangerous.
In a 4 player game I had villains go down because of all conditions marked maybe twice.
Also remember that not everyone is good at Directly Engaging.
Alfred Rudzki Joel Pearce Okay, gotcha. That makes a lot more sense than the way I was thinking of it. And that hard move might give the heroes something else to deal with so they can’t or won’t directly engage right away? I like that, it fits right in to the classic villain trick of causing some disaster to distract the heroes while you make your escape.
Yep, you’ve got it! On the subject of clearing conditions, though, remember that between the panels your villains are taking the same kinds of actions as the heroes to clear their conditions, I.e. breaking things if they’re Angry or making sacrifices if they’re feeling Guilty and so on. Use that to inform your thinking about their actions, especially for villains who have their Hooks in your heroes.
I tend to run it a little differently–When robin punches Darkseid, that doesn’t count as “hitting hard”. He’ll still get the directly engage options, like impressing or taking something–just not the raw damage. That’s not to say robin can’t inflict conditions, though–he just needs to be a little bit more round about. Pierce the mask and provoke both provide routes to influence, which can be spent to inflict conditions. Assess will let him ask “what here can I use to beat Darkseid”, and he can use his very capable abilities to otherwise assist characters that do pack that kind of punch.
Alan Scott Honestly, I think that’s also a pretty valid treatment.
Alan Scott That method sounds perfect for villains who have invincibility, regeneration or other “defensive” powers.
Yeah. Don’t use it for run-of-the-mill badguys just because you want them to be tough. It’s not. “Well, Metallo can handle a punch from superman so a punch from robin should do noting”. It’s “This is darkseid, he can sometimes shrug off a punch from superman”
It also ends up being moment-of-truth bait. In the first campaign I ran, I’d put in a godlike power–with no expectation that the PCs would do anything other than run away–and instead the Lecacy popped a moment of truth to beat him into the ground. It was suitably epic.
My personal view is that if the character just flatly does not have the ability to inflict conditions by directly engaging, then that move doesn’t trigger and you need to handle their intent some other way. You’re not trading blows if one of those blows doesn’t count.
On the flipside, I think it’s perfectly valid to directly engage with words instead of fists. Provoke lets you manipulate someone into taking action, but if you’re just using words to mess with their head and possibly inflict emotional trauma then directly engage is a valid way of handling it. Note that this doesn’t oblige your opponent to restrict themselves to words; sometimes, Deadpool making the Hulk angry with his snappy banter just ends with Deadpool getting punched in the face.
James Etheridge , my feeling is that even if they can’t inflict conditions, the options from the “directly engage” move are still very useful–So if Robin hits darkseid with a bunch of fancy snap kicks it may not even make him shrug, Robin’s still in his face long enough to grab his motherbox. Or if superboy is fighting Mongul in the arenas of War World, a punch that isn’t powerful enough to hurt Mongul may be close enough to impress him with warrior’s skill.
I dunno, James Etheridge — the text explaining Directly Engaged is pretty loaded towards not triggering on smacktalk. At least with following through on Directly Engaging someone you can’t hurt, you’re still meeting the letter of the trigger: you’re exchanging blows, your blows are just kind of garbage.
Though, really, if you want to take something from Darkseid — or do any of the other options from Directly Engage — and you can’t physically hurt him, you probably (mechanically) ought to be Unleashing Your Powers, I guess. Hmm.
EDIT: Ah, ya know what. The text does say both sides have to get in some “good hits.” Yeah, I mean, Robin can’t really get in a good hit on Darkseid, when Darkseid doesn’t care. If Robin wants the motherbox, he’s probably Unleashing some madcap gadgets and flips on that guy.
It says explicitly: “When you trade blows with an NPC threat, the GM marks one of the NPC’s conditions, and tells you whether to straight up mark a condition on your PC or to roll to take a powerful blow, depending on the fiction”
But then under the option “Resisting or avoiding their blows” it says “This ensures that you come through unscathed, but it doesn’t get you anything else—it means all you’ve done is struck the threat and most likely inflicted a condition on them.” (“Most Likely” being the sticking point)
I’d be tempted to handle their first attack without triggering a move – describe that the PC makes an attack that should do something, show that they were unsuccessful, and have them “narrowly” avoid taking a powerful blow themselves. Then if they chose to attack directly again, I’d clarify to the player that they’re not going to be able to hurt them like this, and success would only give them the “pick one/two” options, and if they’re okay with that, let them proceed.
I’m not sure if that’s sufficient…. thoughts?
tildex4 I assume you intend this for invincible/regenerating villains that the PCs simply can’t hurt normally?
If so, yes, giving them a “warning shot” like that seems very fair. Depending on the preferences of your group, it might even be too generous to the PCs.
I think Robin trying to punch Darkside does not trigger Directly Engage. Samething as Trueshot firing a normal arrow at the dreaded plasmamonster of Gh’ib.
Sundragon spewing flame at a firedemon also wouldn’t do anything.
They need to find other ways.