Doubles Overpower

[Steino]

Growing up my friends and I have enjoyed multiplayer games.  We took games that traditionally weren’t designed for multiplayer and played them that way. Overpower and Magic being the primary examples.


I’d like to share Doubles Overpower.

Deck construction is very similar to normal Overpower.  We’re just working with two decks, eight characters, two mission sets, up to two homebases and up to two battlesites.


* Sum limit is applied to the entire team and not an individual player. 

Ex. Both players have 16-Rank teams – Then Sum limit is 152
      One player has a 16-Rank team and the other has a 15-Rank – Then Sum limit is 148

* Same rules for choosing characters apply to Doubles.
-Can’t have two of the same characters on the team.
-If a character is being played by either partner then they can’t be used as an activator.
-In order to use a homebase all of one player’s characters must be on that location.

* Players sit across from their partners and take turns in a clockwise manner.
- At the start of a battle after cards are drawn, events have been played and before placing the team going first decides which partner will start first.

* Either player may defend a character that is being attacked.
- Power cards are still dependent on the grid of the character being attacked.
- Any Character Specials and Activators may be used to defend any character.

* Either player may follow up on Teamwork and Ally cards.


*** Special House Rule

When the game turns into a 2 v 1 situation the discard duplicates rule is modified.
- In the battles to follow after one player has been KO’d their partner may keep one additional duplicate of each card.
This modification is no longer in effect if the game turns into a 1 v 1 situation.


Hopefully these rules seem logical.  Our special house rule is to give us some sort of balance in the format.


Things to keep in mind:

Both partners are not required to play the same mission set.

One Per Decks only apply to a single player and not the team as a whole.

To keep things organized both players on a team venture the same number of missions.

Cards like BG – Team gains +2 to all actions apply to both players since they are one team.
Cards like CM – Opponent’s characters are -1 to all actions also applies to both players.

Specific character specials may be used to defend a partner’s character if the character being attacked could use that special to begin with.
   Ex.  One player is playing Team X and the other player has Wolverine.  If Team X is being attacked and the player with Wolverine has a Wolverine: Avoid 1 Attack they may use it to defend their partner’s Team X.

If one player no longer has a character with an 8 on their grid, but their partner does then they don’t have to discard level 8 power cards as unusable.  They can use it to defend a partner’s character with a 8 on it’s grid.

If a card says opponent then a single player must be chosen.
                Ex. OC - Opponent must discard 3 cards.
                Ex. Devourer of Worlds

Games usually last us around an hour and a half.

I hope some of you get to try this format.  I’d love to hear feedback.

[Nate Grey]

Hey Steino,

Thanks for posting up your Doubles Overpower. I've been hoping someone would come up with a system since my friends are always asking me to develop this format. Will be a bit tough to produce 4 playable decks with my collection but I think I can manage. We tend to play BBH's 3-way play a lot which has proven to be very fun. I'll let you know when I meet up with them and give feedback.

[BigBadHarve]

I'm always curious about people's homemade multiplayer rules, I think ideally you'd need a set of rules that doesn't involve specifically designing a team for a 4 player match... something that players could just use with an existing deck... but I like a lot of what you've presented... if I can get some testers we'll try and put them to use.

-BBH

[Steino]

@ BBH

I know what you mean about being able to just show up with your own deck and have a fun multiplayer game.  So far this is the best idea we could come up with that doesn’t deviate too much from the original game design.

On the positive side it offers another way to designs teams.  Playing with 8 character teams gives a more epic battle feeling.  The format still tries to maintain the balance that a two player game has.


@ Nate Grey

Originally, we would just take the “best” 8 characters we owned in a given power type with the “best” specials and make a (tournament legal) team out of them.  Split up the 8 stat characters and the characters that have a bull’s-eye on them so no one player is the single target.

Play a few games and get a feeling for it then start changing things up.  I can tell you that events have a huge impact if chosen correctly.   



We’ve also toyed with the thought of a 6 player match, but have not gone through with it since we’ve only had 5 players available at a given time.  That would be interesting. 

I hope you guys enjoy it.



Example of teams

Department H – Homebase
Deadpool, Alpha Flight, Maverick and Savertooth R

Madipoor – Homebase
Wolverine, Elektra, The Hand and Omega Red R

We ruled both opponents’ teamwork bonuses are +0 and Since Department H IA refers to Team both players get the bonus.



Not finalized: (working on team allocation – Beast and Dark Beast are on different sides)

Donald Pierce, Beast, Dark Beast, Lex Luther, Mr. Fantastic, Mr. Sinister, Shi’ar and the kicker is Puppet Master.

This deck is based on the idea of HB – Sort through opponent’s Power Pack and remove any 3 cards that we choose and discard them into the dead pile.


Taking advantage of Marvels

Iron Man, Juggernaut, She Hulk, Hulk R
Colossus, Beast: the Brute, Heroes for Hire, Thing R


Energy Team - teammate protection and negates

Invisible Woman: Malice, Spawn, Holocaust, X-Man R
Phoenix, Inhumans, Scarlet Witch,  Ray R

[thetrooper27]

8 characters?  Wow.  How many cards in a deck?

[Steino]

8 characters?  Wow.  How many cards in a deck?

Each player still only has 4 characters, but the team as a whole has 8.  Deck size rule is still the same. 

[gameplan.exe]

it's remarkable that you guys came up with this! 2 of my brothers and their 2 friends came up with this: partners-play! (2-vs-2) while they were camping! When we were getting together to play regularly, about 80% of all our games were in this format. It's certainly fun, but after awhile, I started missing the traditional 1 on 1 play