My Introduction - JohnL

[JohnL]

It was suggested I write a short introduction. I’ll start at the beginning…

In the early 1990’s Cherie and I were getting into comics. I’m not sure why, neither of us had been comic fans growing up but we were both in our early thirties and were getting into the Fantastic Four, Spiderman etc. Picking up lots of comics in 25c bins and frequenting comic stores.

I think we read about OverPower just before it came out in 1995 and thought it sounded fun. We picked up two starter decks but were pretty disappointed by how poorly designed the decks were. It was pretty obvious to us how you could make a better deck. We then discovered you could buy booster packs…

Cut to 1996. We’d decided to go down to San Diego for ComicCon. At the time we were living in Santa  Barbara so it wasn’t a long trip. We heard about the Overpower Regional tournament somewhere – perhaps on a newsgroup? Neither of us had played in a tournament before and weren’t sure what to expect. We didn’t even know if we were playing correctly. We had a decent collection by this point but didn’t have enough cards to make two strength decks. I decided to go with a Galactus deck just for fun. This deck was rather fragile but could unleash huge teamwork attacks.

We both made it to the final 8 but then I got knocked out by one of the Hemet crowd. But Cherie kept going, and going, and going… And then she won.  As well as some cool prizes they actually paid for her to go to Nationals.  Where she kept winning, and winning and winning. Eventually bringing home a big glass trophy and $2,500 as the 1996 OverPower champion.

We kept playing as the expansion sets kept coming. There weren’t any local tournaments but we did drive out to Hemet once for a tournament. Most of the time we just played against one another. Although there were websites at this time most information was still traded on the newsgroups so although we didn't play against other players a lot we were aware of what was going on.

1997 rolled around and the West Coast Regionals were in Hemet this time. I have no recollection of how I did but Cherie came 4th and again went to Nationals.  This was a huge affair. Given that chance plays a not insignificant role in the game it’s amazing that she managed to fight through to the final rounds and then prevail again. Bringing home another big glass trophy and a check for $5,000 this time as the 1997 OverPower champion.  This time instead of just banking the money we bought a sweet hot tub. What? It was California…

In 1997 we moved up to the Bay Area as Cherie got a faculty job at UC Berkeley. We got married and I quit my job in the UK and moved to the US permanently. Sometime around here we started running small tournaments ourselves at Dr Comic and Mr Games in Oakland (DrDeath was a regular). These tournaments were a blast since we had some of the best players (Matt Fell, possibly one of the most inventive deck designers, was another regular) but they were also very mellow. It was a fun crowd to just hang out with.

Around this time I started making homemade cards using a literal cut and paste method that worked quite well. I put some thought into the specials and didn’t restrict myself to existing codes. Before our tournaments I’d usually play a game with my homemade cards against Matt Fell who also made a lot of inventive home made cards. This was always a blast since we never knew what the other person would bring or what their cards would do.

In 1998 they had a couple of tournaments at San Diego ComicCon – an Image pre-release and a standard tournament that for some reason they called the Tournament of Champions.  As a prize for winning the standard tournament I got a piece of original art. I thought this was a cool idea and had never really considered the art before, let alone the fact you could own it. I started buying OverPower art, partly on the internet and partly at conventions – both at San Diego ComicCon and also Wondercon in Oakland. I bought a lot of art and sold as much as I could to afford to buy more art…

In late 1998 or 1999 as OverPower sped towards its demise I got a call from Norman Barth asking me if I wanted to join the ‘Reserves’ – an unpaid group of advisors on set design and mechanics. I agreed and signed a sheaf of confidentiality agreements.

Unfortunately I did not get the keys to the big vault of OverPower secrets but I did get to spend a weekend at Norm’s house playtesting Marvels. They even accepted one of my homemade card ideas – Spiderman’s ‘With Great Power’.  Possibly others but this is the one I am proud of.

In the final hours of OverPower the MegaPower set escaped from the wreckage. They needed a picture of the OverPower Team for the Team OverPower card. By this point there virtually was no team so Ron got to sketch anyone who was hanging around the office plus the reserves. And that’s how I got my picture on an OverPower card (I’m the guy at the back in a hat and dark glasses on team OverPower).

Then a decade or so passed and I didn’t think much about OverPower until Richie reminded me.

Good times.

[Onslaught]

Around this time I started making homemade cards using a literal cut and paste method that worked quite well.

I feel compelled to expand on this, because it is kind of mind boggling how good some of these turned out. I've become pretty heavily involved in making nice reproductions of cards for various alternate Magic formats that require numerous $1000+ cards, so I wanted to make high quality proxies of them and see if I could spruce them up with foil patterns, alternate art, and so on. I'd like to think I got pretty good at doing this, and now I can churn out an art template, print a flawlessly matched image at 600 DPI, and meticulously layer it on an acetoned card within a few hours. Yet, I'm holding up one of the Magic cards I've made right now next to a Dr. Doom negate you gave me, and the difference in quality is negligible...I guess I've been wasting my time with all these newfangled methods! 



I remember reading your old tutorial on your process of physically creating cards as well, fun stuff. Aaron and I tried making a bunch of our own as entry prizes at our local tournaments. As for the rest of your post, I don't know why I'm so tickled by the thought of buying a hot tub with prize money... 

[BigBadHarve]

Unfortunately I did not get the keys to the big vault of OverPower secrets but I did get to spend a weekend at Norm's house playtesting Marvels. They even accepted one of my homemade card ideas – Spiderman's 'With Great Power'.  Possibly others but this is the one I am proud of.

So that was yours? Very nice indeed. I do have a question about it and I guess you're the one to ask!  My understanding of the card is that once you choose your card and reshuffle the draw pile you are to put 'With Great Power' back on top. The idea being that you get it back every hand.

But the way it's worded in all the versions I've seen, the instruction to reshuffle comes after the instruction to put the card on top, which would indicate that you'd just reshuffle the card into the draw pile.

I just wanted to be 100% - Was the idea to put 'With great Power' as the first card of your next draw, or just reshuffle it into the draw pile?

-BBH

[NickW]

We realized that the current wording meant it would be reshuffled back into the Draw Pile, which didn't make any sense to us.  We were going to suggest that it be changed so that you reshuffle first, then put it back on top.  But, well we all know what happened...

[BigBadHarve]

We realized that the current wording meant it would be reshuffled back into the Draw Pile, which didn't make any sense to us.  We were going to suggest that it be changed so that you reshuffle first, then put it back on top.  But, well we all know what happened...

I thought as much, given the way it's worded. If the card was meant to be shuffled back into the draw pile, why would it state place on top?

It's how I've been playing the card, but I thought I'd ask.

I would be curious to know, if you can remember, what were some ideas for cards that got tossed around but ultimately rejected. Any juicy fun stuff?

-BBH

[JohnL]

I just looked up my original homemade card and my text was:
"Spider-Man may look at the top 8 cards in the draw pile and exchange this card for any 1 of them."

No shuffling at all. The shuffling was added, possibly due to concern about how this card would interact with other cards, but the wording clearly needed work!

[rucker73]

So one day Onslaught says this.....

Yeah the alternative is much better. (My personal fave char) has a Draw 3, a 9 or less, and an 11 multi. So does every other character. This is so fun! A card has an effect instead of being an attack? Add "draw a card" to it so there is no tactical decision to make whether or not you should use it. Homemades are great, how could anybody just play with the existing cardpool that still hasn't been fully explored....simpletons.

and the next day he says this....

I remember reading your old tutorial on your process of physically creating cards as well, fun stuff. Aaron and I tried making a bunch of our own as entry prizes at our local tournaments. As for the rest of your post, I don't know why I'm so tickled by the thought of buying a hot tub with prize money... 

so if simpletons make and use home mades....  and Onslaught made and distributed home mades....  then that means what exactly?

[drdeath25]

Rucker, how did you get your name blacked out?

Reading Onslaughts quote I don't think he is referring to homemade cards in general being simple, but rather some of the homemade cards he has seen around here lately being rather simple. Add a little creativity, and some of the idea's that started as homemade cards, could have turned into some great unique concepts for specials cards (See: "With Great Power..."). I think almost all overpower players have created homemade cards at some point, its part of a way to make the game more fun, when you are looking to just have a good time, instead of always playing competitive matches.

Your obsession with following around Onslaught (and to a lesser degree myself) and posting about him, instead of contributing to the discussion about the game, is really strange, I wish you'd stop.

[Onslaught]

_{Hopefully his name being blacked out means that he has been permanently banned instead of just temporarily like last time? Or it's some sort of scarlet letter for repeated lack of reading comprehension, since the thing he quoted was mocking people who think that anyone that doesn't use homemades is "a simpleton" rather than saying "lol people who use homemades are dumb!" Also, I was poking a bit of fun at unoriginal homemades, compared to something interesting like the Any Hero that searches power pack or discard pile for three level 1 powercards.}

Anyway more cut and paste method examples I dug out today:



Eventually I'll find some more, because I remember an Any Hero written in the old flavor text style (like "Spurned by the Black Cat!") that did something to placed cards. Or the one that negated inherent abilities...always fun against Beyonder.

[JohnL]

Well it always varied. Different strokes for different folks. Remember Martin Maenza? He made a ton of homemade cards for DC characters. He must have made in the high hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cards for DC characters both famous and obscure. But he restricted himself to existing specials. His cards, his rules.

I always went in the other direction - if I was going to make a homemade special it was going to be something I'd use. I dug out my homemade cards binder. I'll try to find some scans tomorrow [found them] but here is some text for your amusement. I think these are the ones you are referring to:

Any Hero: Swarm - Exchange this card for any three level 1 power cards in the power pack or draw pile. Keep duplicates.

This was such an annoying card. Only 3 venture points but very dangerous.

Any Hero: Graydon Creed - Negates the effect of all inherent abilities for remainder of game.

One thing I wanted to do with Any Heroes was to move away from the situation where they were either good or bad and have more cards you might use but only in a specific deck. This was one of them. It costs you a card and zero venture points but against some decks it would be well worth it.

Any Hero: So Says Stegron - All Placed cards mussst be played thisss battle. Any placed cards not played thisss battle musst be dissscarded at end of battle.


This was mainly for fun, Stegron spoke like that, but again it was an Any Hero you might only use in certain decks.

The text on the ones you posted is:

Mephisto: Number of the Beast - If opposing team has exactly 3 level 6 hits on front-line characters then opponent must choose one front-line characacter to be immediately KO'd.


This would be hard to pull off, I prefer Demonic Transport which is probably too powerful:

Mephisto: Demonic Transport - Chose one of opponent's front line heroes, move that hero to reserve and reserve hero to front line.

by the way Mephisto was 8-3-5-7 and his Inherent ability was 'May play any card containing the word 'evil', 'devil', or 'demon'. must lie when declaring attacks.'

The Wolverine card you posted was:

Wolverine: Feral - Opponent may not concede. Draw one card discard duplicates.

Not as exciting as Wolverine's 'Killer' - Opponent must immediately KO one hero. Wolverine's team must move 4 mission cards to defeated missions pile.

Try it. This is actually a fun card. Moving 4 mission cards to the defeated missions pile is a huge cost and puts you a hand or two away from defeat. First few times I used this I lost on Missions (ie 7 mission cards in the defeated pile). When was the last time that happened to you?

Looking through my homemade binder I just noticed a Galactus card that, for some reason Ron Perraza has signed. This must have been at a tournament - perhaps the San Diego Image pre-release? He has written 'OK for your living room - RP'. You have to know that Steve Domzalski used to sign cards and make them, allegedly, 'legal' for tournament play to find this funny. Actually it's a cool Galactus card:

Galactus: I hunger - At start of each hand opponent must discard 2 cards from battlesite or move 1 mission to defeated Missions pile.

I made Galactus very powerful but his inherent ability was that he could only have one teammate (duh, a herald).

And some cards were just silly. This one made me laugh:

Milk and Cheese: Gin makes a man mean - Tear up one of your opponent's cards. Opponent may avoid this effect by moving 1 mission to the defeated Mission's pile.

As you can see I was into mixing venture manipulation into the special effects. Using ventured missions as a cost of playing a card was something that had been barely explored. Even though making your opponent move all their missions to the defeated missions pile was a valid way of winning I don't think I ever saw this happen in a tournament. It was a concept ripe for exploration.

[Onslaught]

Remember Martin Maenza?

It was cool how he made it all the way out to San Diego for that last tournament, and I still remember his deck for some reason: Spawn, Cable, Ice-Man: The Ice Man, 3 stat Morph.

Any Hero: Swarm - Exchange this card for any three level 1 power cards in the power pack or draw pile. Keep duplicates.

This was such an annoying card. Only 3 venture points but very dangerous.

Yes! This is the one. The thing that I like the most about this is that it forces you to have the downside of running three level 1 power cards. I guess this feeds into your next point of...

One thing I wanted to do with Any Heroes was to move away from the situation where they were either good or bad and have more cards you might use but only in a specific deck.

Theoretically if the game continued on and they just kept making no brainer "must include" Any Heroes, they would have to stop making playable ones at all or you would be able to make decks that almost never duped. Having more situational stuff like this would have been a great design decision. 

must lie when declaring attacks.

Hahaha.

Try it. This is actually a fun card. Moving 4 mission cards to the defeated missions pile is a huge cost and puts you a hand or two away from defeat. First few times I used this I lost on Missions (ie 7 mission cards in the defeated pile). When was the last time that happened to you?

As you can see I was into mixing venture manipulation into the special effects. Using ventured missions as a cost of playing a card was something that had been barely explored. Even though making your opponent move all their missions to the defeated missions pile was a valid way of winning I don't think I ever saw this happen in a tournament. It was a concept ripe for exploration.

Thanos was based around moving all of the opponent's missions to the defeated pile, wasn't he? Using missions as a resource (do something bad to your missions and gain good effect X, or do something good to your missions and hurt your characters Y) always seemed like fertile ground for design exploration. I used to really hate the cards like Daemonite Voodoo's OPD (or Trickster's), but now I think they are some of the more fun and secretly powerful effects in the game.

[JohnL]

Thanos: Mad God -  Both players must move 1 mission card to defeated missions pile. Draw 1 card. Discard duplicates.



NOT a OPD. How low can you go? Imagine playing 2 or 3 of these over a series of battles and both players are now teetering on the edge of defeat. Concede? I don't think so...

[Palatinus]

These are some really neat card ideas.  It really makes me wish we could have seen Overpower go on a lot longer or even to this day.  So, anyone here who might be able to get some of the big names in players/developers from back in the day to join us here that would be amazing.  I feel like we have such a nice collection of people already, but I know that there must have been thousands of people playing this game when it was in production.

[JohnL]

I added in images of the homemade cards referenced above but I'll post further homemade images to the Custom Cards section. All the cards were hand made made by cutting and pasting. The only time I used a computer was to print out the text on clear acetate sheets for overlaying onto the cards which were made from trading cards and actual OverPower cards (hence the cutting and pasting) and then photocopied on a color copier. This technique gave great resolution but needed a steady hand with the scalpel! DC and IQ ended up being the best borders to use.

[Hot Rod]

These are some really neat card ideas.  It really makes me wish we could have seen Overpower go on a lot longer or even to this day.  So, anyone here who might be able to get some of the big names in players/developers from back in the day to join us here that would be amazing.  I feel like we have such a nice collection of people already, but I know that there must have been thousands of people playing this game when it was in production.

I've tried calling Marcel's business line but it just goes to a machine (if you can receive a call/message reliably, feel free to try calling him!).  My dad was too chickenshit to call him because he sorta blew him off unintentionally about 5 years ago.   

I know BBH said he got a hold of Ty Bertrand a couple of months ago, but I don't know if he's talked to him since.

When my dad has some time I can mention to him that people would like to hear about the action behind the scenes.  He'd probably be happy to share.