Don't forget to paint the PETA logo on the back of Ketch's leather jacket for extra effect . . .

Don't forget to put Big Figure on there as well.

You just don't want me to have any friends at all, do you?

(Folks are already a little tired of my band of rodents as it is.)

I can see the battle report now.

"See...what had happened was... a skeleton, a midget and a bunch of squirrels walk into a bar..."

See this, two pages of questions because of a seemingly simple power like Penance Stare. You be the judge of whether this was thought through or not. To think it through means to break down each sentence and consider all the different scenarios that may occur.
"Ghost rider deals penetrating damage to opposing characters" - that's straightforward enough.
"that have damaged a friendly character"
on opponent's turn:
scenario 1 - attack deals 3+ damage and imperv roll is not made by friendly
scenario 2 - attack deals 3+ damage and imperv roll is made by friendly
scenario 3 - attack deals 2 damage or less and imperv roll is not made by friendly
scenario 4 - attack deals 2 damage or less and imperv roll is made by friendly
scenario 5 - mind controlled friendly deals damage to another friendly
scenario 6 - incap caused your friendly to take pushing damage
scenario 7 - force blast caused your friendly to take knockback damage
scenario 8 - force blast caused your friendly to be dealt damage but toughness absorbed it.
scenario 9 - poison caused your friendly to take damage
scenario 10 - poison caused your friendly to be dealt damage but toughness absorbed it.
on your turn:
scenario 1 - you mind control a 100+pt enemy fig and took damage
scenario 2 - you pushed to take damage
scenario 3 - you took mystics feedback from an opponent
scenario 4 - you took bag-man feedback from an opponent
scenario 5 - you crit missed.
and so on...

some of them are easily answered but some of them (dealt damage vs caused to take damage) are ambiguous. The point is if scenarios are thought out then some of these things could be better stated.

Let me preface this with saying I am about as critical of the poor wording in the game as you will find. I think the overly-complicated rules are, and will continue to be, the biggest thing holding the game back. the second being the playtesting process (playtesters?).

That said, what makes you think they haven't? Whether Knockback damage is caused by a character or virtue of Knockback is explained in the rules. Not being facetious but do you really think the power should read:
PENANCE STARE: Ghost Rider deals penetrating damage to opposing characters that have caused the dial of a friendly character to turn clockwise, excluding damage caused by Knockback, Mastermind, Incap. or special powers that duplicate these powers, since your last turn? Really?

Also, the number of pages devoted to a topic does not in anyway provide evidence of poorly worded powers. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. Looking at the first page of the Rules Forum I see a 6 page topic (Nico vs White Lantern) that is answered, and fairly obvious, I see a 2 page topic (Reign of Superman) that really couldn't be anymore obvious, and even 4 pages (Giant Multiple Elevated Terrain) on something that is very clearly spelled out in the rules, not even a special power. I'm not trying to be demeaning but I think a lot of times the trouble isn't the language used, it's the language skills of the players.

Ok, fair enough. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. You did the scenario thing, so give us better wording that will solve all those questions. Should be fairly easy, right?


Cheers,
Jon Id Schultz

This is not complicated at all. Did an opposing character damage one of your characters? Yes or no. And, yes, it means the opposing character... not some secondary, non-character related effect like pushing or knock back damage. And, no, damage reducing powers do not make it any more complicated: If they clicked the dial, they were damaged. If they didn't click it, they weren't damaged. Simple as that.

And some of those things (like Mind Control damage, critical miss, etc) are not even stuff an opposing character can do to your characters... why are they in your scenarios?

The whole point is to come up with scenarios, (doesn't matter how obvious the answer) to hopefully flush out possible problems. For one, it could have specified whether it's damage dealt or damage taken. Some are easily answered, some are not. But, in the playtesting process, on the first pass, possible scenarios should be listed out.

On the second pass, it could be to remove the ones that are easily answered:
"that have damaged a friendly character"
on opponent's turn:
scenario 1 - attack deals 3+ damage and imperv roll is not made by friendly
scenario 2 - attack deals 3+ damage and imperv roll is made by friendly
scenario 3 - attack deals 2 damage or less and imperv roll is not made by friendly
scenario 4 - attack deals 2 damage or less and imperv roll is made by friendly
scenario 9 - poison caused your friendly to take damage
scenario 10 - poison caused your friendly to be dealt damage but toughness absorbed it.
on your turn:
scenario 1 - you mind control a 100+pt enemy fig and took damage
scenario 3 - you took mystics feedback from an opponent
scenario 4 - you took bag-man feedback from an opponent

and so on...

As a former video game tester, it is IMPOSSIBLE to come up with every single contingency. I worked with 10 guys on a game, and glitches STILL made it into the final game. This is why we have patches now that can be downloaded.

That is the nature of the software industry. No program is ever bug-free. But if you come up with enough scenarios, you will be able to catch and minimize errors.

Excellent. Now you have the scenarios, please give us the improved wording.

Cheers,
Jon Id Schultz

I know that you need to be as creative as possible to test a variety of situations. My point, though, was several of the scenarios you are posting have absolutely nothing to do with an opposing character... why even bring those up? All this power is concerned with is opposing characters; we're not talking obvious answers, we're talking completely irrelevent situations.

lol, I'm not taking your bait... let's just go with your sarcastic but improved wording:
Maybe you're missing my point. In order to design less problematic powers, one should consider all the different ways it can be misinterpreted. That includes ones that are easily answered such as "what if damage was caused by pushing from incap, or force blast?", etc to the slightly less obvious ones like "is it damage dealt or damage taken?"

Sure, it's possible GD already does this but based on their track record, it doesn't seem like it.

And yes, the number of pages of questions in a thread don't fully indicate how problematic a piece is because threads get derailed all the time but there are those problem pieces out there that do generate pages upon pages of questions.

Take Larfleeze and his objects... seemed like a simple thing to call those things objects but it looks like no one considered that objects have certain properties, functions, and procedures associated with them. If someone would have laid out the scenarios with those objects then maybe Larfleeze would have been less problematic.

See what I mean? This is all just my opinion. I'm not trying tell the world how things should be done and I apologize if that's how it sounded... just my opinion on how designing powers could improve.

I see what you mean. I brought up those scenarios because they have to do with damage so in a way it is relevant by that one tiny connection. And although it may seem obvious that they have nothing to do with opposing and shouldn't be on the list, it is still good to take a look at them rather than dismiss them and later on find out that there was relevance there after all.

I can't remember but people in the thread did ask about force blast and incap didn't they? Although it was fairly easily answered, it shows that it did have to be considered when creating scenarios.

Critical Miss? MC feedback damage? Literally anything that a character would do to itself and was not done (even indirectly) by an opposing character?

Those scenarios are the ones I was talking about.