Eh, I think you'd either have to:

1. Get militant with it. "You can read. You know what the spirit of this game is. If you don't, ask someone and they'll clue you in. If you can't toe the line for this one game, GTFO."

2. Set parameters, and don't waffle on them (ala. the DHC).

Maybe I should be more specific. Changing the way actions work, as well as arbitrary stat bonuses do not tend to work well in my opinion. Build restrictions work fine. You can see in my original post I advocated that. Map elements also can work, provided they are done intelligently.

I like the idea of a "major" casual tournament. I think participation prizes helps with this a lot. As for a few of your points:

- For team composition, make them be keyword theme teams (non-generic) or bring a comic in which the characters are all teamed together. I don't think this option works for more competitive events, but it can add some fun to a more casual event. Either way, I really like the "no theme bonuses" idea.

- Regarding fellowship, this is the only one where I really disagree with the OP. I would have a big prize for Fellowship. Sure the participation prize helps keep it casual, but having a prize that is awarded to someone just for playing casually will take it even further to fostering a casual atmosphere. It also would encourage more participation.

BTW, the Bag of Lemons can totally suck if the figures really suck.

Really bad Clix should never be played. They should be thrown into Lava.
Or kept as an example of how bad a figure can be.

Rookie Puppet Master.

The Bag of Lemons should be more like Lemonade. Inexpensive figures everyone has ten copies of which has many superior versions of that figure.
Figures who are decent, not overpowering.

Like GG Adam Warlock.

I assume that the goal in heroclix is to win the game. Maybe other people don't see it this way, but for me, games have winners and losers and why try to play if you aren't trying to win. Now, winning can be secondary to having fun, you can play a goofy comic accurate team, you can be hyper casual about it, but ultimately you want to win the game. Otherwise you would never make a combat action.

Under this premise, knowing I am trying to make the worst possible team possible for my opponent to play, why would I ever give them access to powers and abilities they would not give me?

Yeah, back in the day in a house format we played with Outwit, Perplex and Probability control based on the characters range (or a default of 5) and after a couple games, my friend and I thought wow this is how it should be. A couple years later, it was an official change and now the game plays better.

That being said, I can understand your hesitation to a degree.

Thanks for the good feedback. I've gotten a lot of good ideas. I see the single use of a power won't work. To much heat has come from that concept. I've gotten some good enforcement ideas. I think that universe locking would be maditory. If you recreated the comic there would have to be some guidelines.
I think the militant enforcement at the door is only a last resort option.

So far the format would need to have a main tournament with brackets and advancdement. While something similar to Push to Regens common justice like event for the side.

The question is whatshould be the cost of the event? How far would people travel for such event?

Thanks for the awesome ideas. I'll look at more stuff in the morning.

they only way to stop people from breaking whatever game you make is for them to not know what game they'll be playing when they build their team. Sooo... random scenarios!

Whoa whoa...Et Tu, Brute? Lol. C'mon man, banning someone for playing the team THEY want, is flat out WRONG, IMO. Now logos needs to really spell out the rules here, though. I.e. he says, "No characters above 150" and someone tries to weasel in Galactus, then yeah, I can see cause for banning. But logos says, "500 points, non-generic theme team," and someone brings Heroes for Hire, then I say, Ya got Ghost Rider? Sweet! Love that sculpt, dude! See my point? (Obviously, if a dude has a bad attitude and brings a meta team, well then yeah, I see another reason to ban someone.)

Other people's fun should not be my problem. Everyone should try to have fun in their own way, as I've said before, whether that be making their own team, KO a certain figure, blah blah blah. (I'm personally really good at having fun, IMO.)

Honestly, I think this is the crux of the whole meta/casual argument. There are so many different types of "fun" to be had within this game and defining what you are going for with your event is the most important thing. Even with restrictions like only single based, non-colossal characters there are still powerful interactions that can ruin the spirit of what should be a fun event.

As an example, I have 2 guys at my venue that will always find a way to bring something powerful to the table no matter what the build is. Finding and using these combos is what is fun to them, and when we face each other and my idea of fun is a comic accurate Maximum Carnage team, I get absolutely squashed. They aren't playing anything that would have been banned or watch listed, just really powerful synergies because that's what they enjoy. Our definition of fun just isn't the same.

In order for any of this to work, you have to pre-define what the fun is for your players. That's why I think scenario play is where it's at for casual fun. You can move the focus away from winning and on to achieving other objectives and having a good time with your figures/characters. The problem then becomes how to manage the collection. Unless you have tons of figures to make multiple teams of generics and bad guys for your player/hero's to fight, logistics get messy.

Here is my take on a casual scenario you could run one night:

Clean up the Streets

300 pts. Modern Age - 2 judges/administrators

Only single and peanut base characters allowed with the following exceptions - No colossals or vehicles (No relics, resources, team bases)

Characters must be "street level" heroes. No flight, Power Cosmic, Quintessence, or similar abilities may be on your team. Stay away from keywords like Cosmic, Mystic, and Deity (unless with plausible explanation - have a backup in case the group rules against you).

Characters must have weapons in order to use ranged attacks (no constructs or laser beams) though they don't have to be shown on the sculpt.

Maps - Please only bring maps that show cityscapes or places you would find in a city.

Tournament structure - You may bring a team of heroes or villains to this event. There will be 3 rounds of pairings. We will try to pair heroes vs. villains as often as possible. At the end of 3 rounds, the top hero team will play a Judge in a special scenario against a pre-built villains team and the top villains team will do the same against a hero squad. These special squads will be played by the administrators for a special prize. Everyone gets a participation prize for attending. There will be a 3rd special prize for Fellowship that will be voted on by all attending players. This will go to the team and player that was the most fun to play against throughout the tournament.

To determine the cost you will prolly need to start establishing your prize pool. Hopefully your host venue can cut you a discount on some product (they should make it up by having people in the store). And then allow you to purchase product as needed so you can buy a couple boosters and FF packs to cover the attendance as needed.

If you are just doing the tourney for the sake of fun obviously charge enuf to cover expenses maybe 10-15 if you want to profit or it is to benefit the venue or a charity 15-20. 25 would prolly be the absolute tops id go but youd need a some great prizes to draw me
to that.

I personally dont generally travel to far for events simply because i dont have the time, but if the format and prizes intrigued me enuf i might travel up to 2 hours.

1. I forgot that you were talking about Bag of Lemons. Let's put that aside for a minute.

2. To the bold, same reason you play pick up basketball with buddies out in the yard. If we're playing 2-on-2, is it a "game?" Yeah. Will there be a "winner?" Yeah. Is anyone on the court concerned with who wins or loses? Eh, not in my experience.

You'd probably hate some of my friends. We'll play wiffle ball games and folks will just up and leave the game, saying "Alright, I'm set with sports for now." Other folks who just want to swing at the ball will fill in for them. Scores fall by the wayside.

Sometimes you just want to step up to the plate and swing away at the ball.

3. Most of the casual crowd I've met aren't overly concerned with winning (if at all). Usually they're pursuing sub-goals (EXAMPLE: Me with my Worldbreaker KO list), or just playing because they want to use Doomsday to take out a bunch of JLI folks.

I think that'd be the point of a casual tournament. Winning would be almost a tertiary pursuit for most, I'd wager.

Yep, this.

And other folks feel that a tournament of this sort should be fun for EVERYONE who participates. That'd be the point.

It isn't so much an "other people's fun shouldn't be my problem" thing as it is an "I see what the spirit of this event is supposed to be, so maybe I won't be a total dick and knowingly violate that spirit" thing.

Also, I got the impression this would be run alongside a competitive tournament. More options is never bad.

Ok, possible dumb question. What would be the benefit of underbuilding?

In a perfect world that is exactly how this would work, but there will always be people who will find a way to break the game. We had a "pauper" commander tournament ( That's Magic for the uninitiated ) last week. Only commons w/ an uncommon commander. You would have thought that kind of format would have cut down on the shenanigans but you would have been wrong. I was completely shocked at some of the janky stuff people were able to do with commons. The spirit of what Logos is doing here is awesome and I would definitely support it. The "Devil" however, is going to be in the details.