Week of the 10th of August

This week we finalized some changes we made to our card file by printing out the new cards and swapping them in for the ones they replaced.

Here are some power cards we took out, and how we replaced them:

• "You can manipulate the weight of anything and everything" became "You can manipulate the weight of anything you're holding."
• Reject Squad used to be a competitive game, where having an absurdly powerful hero was a little bit of a liability. That's not true anymore, so we have to be on the lookout for powers like this which need some toning-down.
• "You can accelerate or reverse the age of things" became "You can accelerate or reverse the age of nonliving things."
• Same deal here.
• "You have Wind Breath" became "You have Tornado Sneezes."
• This was a phrasing issue. Tornado Sneezes gives a better visual than Tornado Breath. Also, sneezes are more peculiar and more specific, and that's the tone of reject squad's heroes: peculiarly specific.

And here are some restriction cards:

•  "But with the restriction your opponent discarded" became "Pick a restriction off the top of the restriction deck."
• Like I mentioned above, you no longer have opponents, so this needed to be changed to make sense
• "But you have to be at work in five minutes" became "But you can't be away from work for more than 5 minutes."
• This restriction left a bad taste in our mouths. It basically only gave the hero 5 minutes to work with, and made the hero seem uninterested in helping. Now it seems more like the hero is bouncing between responsibilities.
• "But only at the top of the tallest thing around" became "But your power scales with how high up you are."
• This was a fun rework. The former restriction had been in the deck forever, but it's just not quite that interesting. It doesn't conjure much of a visual and it's very binary. Having the power scale with altitude is more dynamic and makes the thrust of the restriction easier to understand: my hero will work better if they can get up high somewhere.
• "But only in a sterile environment" became "But only over disinfected surfaces."
• This was done to clear up any confusion about "how sterile is sterile?" I always imagined like, a clean room in a laboratory. "Disinfected surfaces" is a much less restrictive, much more clear, much more specific, and much funnier restriction.
• "But everything you touch sticks to you forever" became "But everything you touch sticks to you for an hour."
• This is one of our favorite restrictions, because it's so extreme and so funny. However, it always leads to players needing to explain how their character can feasibly live. Lessening the duration gets the restriction across just fine, without having that additonal distraction.
• "Every time you use your power you shrink a foot" became "Every time you use your power, you shrink a little."
• A whole foot is kind of extreme. It put a little too harsh of a limit on power use. We wanted to lessen the measurement while leaving it kind of up to the player.
• "Every time you use your power you grow a foot" became "Every time you use your power, you grow a bit."
• Same as above
• "But you are made of ice and are quickly melting" became "But every now and then you become encased in ice"
• Kind of like the "back at work" restriction above, this gave your hero a time limit, essentially. Additionally, we wanted this restriction to mirror another restriction we're fond of, "But you tend to burst into flames." It's funny, weirdly specific, conjures a great visual, and has a surprising breadth of interpretation from player to player.

We're now all but done with our Gen Con to-do list! And it's a good thing too, because Gen Con is next week!