Original News Post | Stream Link
September 28, 2022 – 2PM ET
Attendees: Caleb Grace, Tony Fanchi, Josh Massey
Official winners
Stream recap
FFG Chat: “We had over 100 submissions. There will be PDFs of the campaigns on our website. Due to the number of campaign submissions we received we did not play through any of the submissions…yet. We will post on our social channels when they are available on our website.”
Intro
Josh: “For anyone that did submit a campaign, feel free to share it. If it isn’t one of these top five we talked about today, feel free to share it on social media. “These will be shared by us in the future. There are steps we need to take. Just a heads-up, there might be some story elements we can’t really talk about when we post them on our own websites.”
Caleb: “The top five are in no particular order.”
Tony: “So when we posted the announcement article we listed some criteria…I gave everything a score from 1-5 in each category, and averaged out the numbers.”
Josh: “36% of submissions had The Hood as one of the villains. 34% used Kang. Rhino was in 30% of them. Green Goblin was 29% (Risky Business). Following that Ultron with 26%. Mutagen was 25%, Klaw was 25%, Mysterio was 23%, Wrecking Crew at 22%, and Taskmaster at 19%. One and a half from every submission had scenario packs. 81% had core set, 78% from Red Skull, 69% from MTS.”
First winner: What If…? – Amanda S.
Caleb: “It starts modest. Risky Business is the first scenario. At the end when you get to victory, ‘what if’ happens. You choose a trait. You get access to cards with this trait [across aspects] after the campaign. Spider-Man becomes the Sorcerer Supreme, Miles becomes Thor. Some of the titles were great. Scenario 2 was Tower Defense, but the title was ‘I feel like we defended this tower before.’ There were cool setup things. When setting up TD, you choose an aspect one of the other players is playing…and depending on the aspect you choose it changes the additional setup. If you choose aggression each player chooses a minion and puts it into play engaged with them at the start. Save the shawarma place is here.”
Tony: “Scenario three is Taskmaster, and you start with your hero-specific ally captured. Scenario four is The Hood. Four of the modular sets that were selected were based on the trait you picked at the start of the campaign. Ultron with the infinity gauntlet is the next scenario.”
Second winner: Entropic Ascension – Carl W.
Tony: “This one has two different scenario two options. You can only play one of them.”
Caleb: “I did it with a ton in LOTR, designing these branching paths. I do it visually, I’m the same way. Every scenario begins with a choice during setup, choose these modular sets. You can choose Tombstone and try and protect the journalists, and you shuffle the running interference set…or Electro is threatening the power grid in the city. You can’t do both. So whatever one you don’t do it comes back to haunt you later. That was a neat touch.”
Tony: “You start with Taskmaster, and you make a choice, what are you going to do. That first choice also impacts which modular sets you include. Your two options for scenario two are Rhino and Mysterio.”
Caleb: “The next one is Oscorp: you can shuffle in Iron Spider Sinister Six, or Crossfire.”
Tony: “Going into scenario four we have The Hood. All the choices you made dictate the mods The Hood is going to use.”
Third winner: Awesome Campaign Volume 1 – Steel Hull
Caleb: “This was possibly my favorite. Every scenario the name has been changed to be a title of the song [a song from the first Guardians movie]. You can’t choose a Guardian traited hero this campaign. The story is you’re teaming up with the Guardians. Scenario one is Ronan, Ronan has a reputation for being a challenging scenario. With MODOK. You start with honorary guardian attached to your hero, start with a Guardian ally in play. You get a card from the market.”
Tony: “I think they’re all the ship mods. Upgrades you start in play.”
Caleb: Scenario 2 is Aint No Mountain High Enough. It’s Absorbing Man. I thought this was a slick use of Absorbing Man. Including the Frost Giants. Heroes can’t be readied by player card effects starts out in play. Each player starts out stunned/confused/exhausted. Here we have Ronan which is notoriously difficult…then we have Absorbing Man which is deemed to be on the easier side.
Scenario 3 is escape, this is a Wrecking Crew scenario. Only the active villain can take damage, and only the active villain side scheme can be thwarted. This one actually has one of my favorite flourishes. One complaint I heard is that it didn’t allow for you to modify the deck. You take the four card experimental weapons set, then shuffle one card into each deck.”
Tony: “Next we have Cherry Bomb with Red Skull. You include both the Wrecking Crew and Children of Thanos modular set. Scenario five is Spirit in the Sky. You have Thanos coming down…if you didn’t defeat MODOK he comes out, if you didn’t defeat the Sleeper he comes out. The Guardians then make their return.”
Fourth winner: The Crimson Cowl Conspiracy – Kurt H
Tony: “You’re tracking down the Masters of Evil. There’s the assembled Avengers, so every time you have an Avenger in play at the end of the game, it gets cheaper to play in future scenarios. It uses the SHIELD tech upgrades from Sinister Motives.”
Caleb: “During setup for the first scenario you have to choose an aspect all of them have to be different. Those get referenced throughout during setup. A Leadership player draws an additional card during setup, and each non-L player puts the Quinjet in play.”
Tony: “Scenario 2 we take on Klaw. Aggression puts a free card into play. Each other player gets the counterattack upgrade. Every Masters of Evil minion shows up that didn’t get defeated in the first one.”
Caleb: “Scenario 3 is Absorbing Man again.”
Tony: “Everyone not in Protection is getting the anticipation upgrade. Then you take down Wrecking Crew. For all the minions you put away, you add their scheme together which becomes an intel level, which comes into play.”
Caleb: “Then there’s Ultron. You have this intel value, and when you setup, you have this throwback to all the special setups you had. If you have seven or greater you do all of the special aspect setups. If you get to nine, you get a tough card.”
Fifth winner: Going Viral – Henry B
Tony: “Ultron is trying to spread a computer virus to all the cybernetic heroes and apply it to other heroes as well.”
Caleb: “Taskmaster is first…this campaign adds several more heroes for hire allies. Ant-Man Hank Pym. Tony Stark, Jocasta, Vision, Wasp. All the people connected to Ultron’s lore.”
Tony: “There’s a Pym anti-virus tracker. You move up for good things, bad things, like threat on main scheme, it moves the tracker. The more Ultron moves toward his goal of infecting the planet. We go to an interlude, like the Arkham Horror card game, leading into a choice of scenario 2 again. This takes a different angle. Three scenario 2s, with choosing the order to play them…and it matters.”
Caleb: “You fail forward, like Arkham Horror. You have three different threats where Ultron is expanding his goal, and you can’t get to all three, and you choose two of the three, and each one you fail to stop, increases the difficulty of the final showdown. The first option is Zola [2A]. I designed Zola a long time ago, thematically, it makes sense. Zola is the expert with his bio-engineered creations.”
Tony: “If you chose Zola second, a minion gets an attachment.”
Caleb: “Yeah, some scenario setups are different [and impact other scenarios based on the order]. If there’s a copy of MODOK or the MODOK side scheme in play, you record that MODOK got away. [After the extra scenarios] You move onto interlude 2 and Ultron.”
Tony: “Scenario 2B is Sinister Six. They’re working for Oscorp, helping Ultron.”
Caleb: “Both Doctor Octopus and Scorpion have tech in their kit. Ultron has already invaded their minds. Then we move to Nebula [2C]…who is vulnerable to Ultron.”
Tony: “You need to remove all evasion counters from Nebula, otherwise she gets away, even if you defeated her.”
Josh: “You have another interlude. Depending on the log there’s different story beats going on. Capturing Zola, defeating the Sinister Six…”
Caleb: “Ultron makes a great final villain.”
Wrap-up
Josh: “So after looking at this and seeing other design processes, give other people an idea of what’s similar to what you might do.”
Tony: “Probably the first thing I’d point out…the comic panels in the rulebooks. Those are a very important part of Marvel Champions, it gives the game that comic book feel. Those are great but they can also be a little restrictive with what we can do with the campaign structure, so we’re limited. So all the branching stories…AH does a fantastic job of those, they don’t quite fit the structure of Marvel Champions campaigns.”
Caleb: “Yeah people reach out…have you thought of branching paths and failing forward…we only have so many cards we can put in the box, and only so many pages we can put in the rulebook. So far we haven’t cracked that code. We’re under some restrictions the people are doing this aren’t. We’re designing new scenarios. Space is a premium, we’re figuring out…we want all these different modular sets…so in order to fit this thing we need to share sets between scenarios. It’s a little bit like Jenga.”
Tony: “Another advantage the contest entrants have is they can combine many different products…whereas we make every product standalone, except for the core. As I was thinking about how I’d approach this contest, the scenarios that exist have story elements you need to kind of tie in, like Hela, she didn’t show up a lot, maybe that’s due to the story elements.”
Josh: “The people that we chose today will be getting a copy of Mutant Genesis. Look forward to that very soon. A huge thank you and shoutout to everyone who submitted to this contest. We appreciate you for doing that.”
If you have a campaign, please send it to hallofheroescontact(at)gmail.com, preferably with a GDrive link, and a name you would like to be credited with.
A list of other Marvel Champions Campaign Contest entrants (those that are hosted directly are hosted with permission):
- What If… – by Prymaul
- Streets of Mayhem – by William D
- The Kang Paradox – by VillainTheory
- Punisher War Zone – by Jonathan G
- A Tangle with Kang – by Andy N
- Time A’int on Your Side – by Nicholas M
- Criminal Conquest – by Daniel C (Campaign Log | Insert)
- Secret War – by Joe Solomon @ Spider Cents Reviews
- Inner Demons – by Patrick O
- The Coming Darkness – by KarmikazeKidd (Campaign Log | Insert)
- Duel Across the Multiverse – by Thomas A, “Al Puccino”
- What If…Guardians of the Multiverse – by Anthony C
- Revenge of the Green Goblin – by Raonne B.V.
- Master of Villains – by Curtis S
- The Lost Infinity Stones – by John H
- Mayhem Through the Multiverse – by Jared D (Campaign Log | Insert | Hero Track)
- The Goblin King (aka Dark Reign) – by jjxanadu
- Rotten to the Core – by Swaggy_P_03 (Campaign Log | Insert)
- Avengers Assemble – by OwnResearcher3206
- Once and Future Conquer – by BananaCrapshoot
- Red Dawn – by ThommyDrake
- The Rogue Gambit – by P21ME
- Malevolent Ascension – by jimbotherisenclown
- The Criminal’s AIM – by Scott L
- City in Panic by Mugiwawa
Hall of Heroes 
