Secret Origins: Jeff Donais
Today, Jeff Donais put me on his back and carried me across the office. It wasn’t like a fireman’s carry, or like anything else that might have been remotely dignified. No, I was hanging in space, his shoulder digging up into my stomach as co-workers tittered, giggled, and guffawed. Was I laughing or crying? It wasn’t like he was trying to make some kind of point. You know, like his carrying me around was a symbol of our team unity/solidarity/fraternity/whatever. Nah, it was more of a, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny to carry Danny around the office?” kind of thing. My favorite part (and by “favorite” I mean “least favorite”) was when he said he wished I was about forty pounds lighter. (Does that mean he’s a weakling, or I’m a fatling?) When he finally set me down, one thought flashed through my mind like the red numbers of an alarm clock you still haven’t figured out how to set: Do I have internal bleeding?
What I’m trying to illustrate here is that we take our jobs very seriously. (We do, actually, my getting carried around like a sack of potatoes notwithstanding.) It’s just that sometimes things can get a little light-hearted around the office, especially on Fridays. Or other days. As in most cases, the ground troops tend to take their cues from the general, and our general happens to be the kind of guy who brings ninja stars to work. (Yes, real ninja stars.)
I wrote an “Introducing R&D” article a while back, but I neglected to mention Jeff. So this has probably been long overdue.
Jeff Donais was born in a tiny igloo in the province of North Canada, Canada. His mother was a shopkeeper and his father was an android sent from the future to collect chicken eggs. Jeff dreamed of coming to America his whole life because, as he’ll tell you, Canada smells like crayon. He was 13 when his mutant powers emerged. At first, he tried to hide what his mother called his “little differences.” He kept his glowing eyes covered by dark glasses and his spike-covered arms wrapped in a heavy cloak. Sadly, he never noticed the seventeen tentacles dangling from his back. It was the third week of summer camp when, in the changing room adjoining the ice skating rink, shouts of “Tentacle-back! Tentacle-back!” would be forever etched into his fragile mind. So, how did Jeff go from being a mutant child in the wilderness of Canada to First Violin of the New York Philharmonic? That’s something I still haven’t figured out.
If Mike Hummel is my lord and master, than Jeff Donais is, like, his lord and master. If one were inclined to judge “in charge”-ness by pants-wearing, then one could say that if Mike wears the pants, Jeff wears the larger, more dangerous pants. Here’s an easy analogy. Remember Superman II? Remember those three Kryptonian bad guys? Well, let’s say they beat up Superman and took over the world. When dividing up the world, Jeff would be General Zod, whereas Mike would be the big dude who doesn’t talk and can barely use his heat vision (just like in real life). As for the Kryptonian lady . . . I guess that would be Humpherys*.
Tales of Suspense: Amusing Spider-Man Design Anecdotes**
I figured I’d start off today’s article by rambling on about Jeff, and then transition to a couple of Spidey stories. Then I’d finish up with a little making fun of Humpherys. You know, pretty standard. So yeah, time for Spider-Man stories.
Rocket Racer (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Geography)
The Vs. System has geographic elements. What I mean by that is that a card’s physical relation to other cards actually matters. I don’t just put my Spider-Man down on my side; I put him in my front row, to the left of Iceman, to the right of Firestar. From a design perspective, one nice thing about geography is that it allows a game-based way to class cards. For example, in addition to the on-the-card descriptors we use when describing a character (like its team affiliation or its ATK), we can also refer to it as protected/unprotected, front row/support row, adjacent to another character, in the same row/column as another character, and so forth.
Rocket Racer was a card that just kind of came together. I forget who actually designed it (it was probably Matt Hyra—he has lots of good ideas when he’s not in a drunken stupor), but I know we all wanted Rocket Racer to fly around the board. Hence the cheap endurance cost to move him around. The reinforcement thing was something we threw on there to try out because we were exploring a “reward protecting characters” theme for the Spider-Friends. We realized immediately not just how efficient the two powers were together (especially when combined with the sustainable board presence evasion provides), but also how funny it looked to have him flying back and forth down your support row offering reinforcement to your team.
So yeah, I guess this is the part where I admit that I wanted to leave the reinforcement part off of him. Although I did think he should activate to let you reveal the top four cards of your deck and put all revealed Sentinel characters into your hand. Ah, well . . . I was out-voted.
My Hero (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Protection)
Speaking of a protection theme, the inspiration behind My Hero is pretty clear. That’s right—he’s big and fat and doesn’t let you attack support row Brotherhood characters . . . it’s Blob! Yay!
When we decided to give the Spider-Friends a Blob-like plot twist, the big question was whether the support row characters should be un-attackable (like from Blob’s power), or whether they should just be protected (so that characters with flight could still smash ‘em).
We went back and forth on it. The argument for making them protected was that if the card turned out to be really strong, at least players could get around it with fliers and flight-enablers like Flying Kick. The argument for making them completely un-attackable was that protection should only be something bestowed by board positioning, not by a card effect. To illustrate, let’s take the counter case:
You would never want to make a card that read “Target character is unprotected this turn.” While it could work within the rules of the game, it would be a tracking nightmare to have a character in the “protecting” position and yet not actually have it providing protection. (Besides, there are other ways to effectively take away protection without explicitly taking it way.) This is similar to having a card read “Target character is not ready this turn.” Rather than create a continuous modifier like that, we would just say “Exhaust target character.”
Okay, so we’re not going to make a card that takes away protection. The question is, should we make a card that gives protection? Obviously, we went ahead and made My Hero, but my question to you is, how do you feel about protection not being based solely on board positioning?
Carnage and Shriek (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Worrying)
While these cards are extremely powerful in the right deck, there are some players who really don’t like them for a reason that I have a hard time understanding. Basically, the argument is that Carnage and Shriek shouldn’t just help other characters—they should help themselves, as well. Well, I don’t know exactly how to say this, but they do help themselves. Take Carnage: 
Once we decided on his balance, we felt we had two choices.
- Make him 10 ATK/8 DEF and have his (non-boost) power affect only other characters.
- Make him 8 ATK/8 DEF and have his (non-boost) power affect all characters including him (effectively making him 10 ATK).
The reason we went with option 1 was because we felt it would be easier for players to not have to remember the constant +2 ATK he was giving himself. Also, the number 10 just looked more impressive . . .
It was the same decision for Shriek (make her a 1 ATK/1 DEF that affects everyone, or a 2 ATK/1 DEF that just affects other characters), except that actually giving her the 2 ATK also helps protect her from Overload.
In retrospect, it seems like some players would have preferred to have Carnage and Shriek affect themselves. What I’m wondering is, what do you think?
Obligatory Making Fun of Humpherys Section
In the tradition of Hyra’s power/name/etc generator . . . I give you the
Make-Fun-Of-Humpherys-O-Tron 5000
It’s easy. Just roll a die and consult chart A. Then roll another die and consult chart B. Put your entry from Chart A into the blank on Chart B, and there you go.
1. cheese
2. crappy
3. goat
4. socks
5. friendship
6. elbow touch
7. sad and alone
8. Ireland
9. elephant
10. stupid
1. Humpherys is __________.
2. Humphery is the __________.
3. Humpherys is a __________.
4. Humpherys likes __________.
5. Humpherys eats __________.
6. I’m sad that Humpherys is so_________.
7. Humpherys, why are you so crappy? __________!
8. I’m sorry you have no __________, Humpherys.
9. Humpherys, you are the __________!
10. Please leave me alone, stupid, __________ Humpherys!
Okay, that’s all I’ve got. Tune in next week for a look at the last dog of Krypton.
Send questions—questions that need answers—to dmandel@metagame.com.
* The big dude’s name was Non, or so IMDB tells me. And the lady’s name was Ursa, like the bear constellations. I like bears.
** Well, amusing to me, anyway***.
*** Not really.