A Closer Look at Terrain in Marvel Crisis Protocol

[@miscrits6438]

Rules are meant to be broken. I would rather play with more immersive, cool looking terrain than limit it based on the rules. If the opponent is such a stickler I’d rather not play them but the donut or HVAC unit can just be ignored.

[@rattius23]

I normally agree with stuff in your videos, but definitely off here. Tournaments yes. But in my games it's always going to be rule of cool

[@TheGamersGuild]

Thanks for the feedback. And I agree with you the rule of cool should always come first in the casual settings. I did a poor job distinguishing my thoughts for an event at a store or convention vs a casual setting. My hope was to draw attention to some of the difficulties that some terrain can present like my Wakandan ruins, but obviously I missed the mark. :-/ Again, thank you for the feedback and I will try and make sure that I better organize my thoughts in the future.

[@rattius23]

@@TheGamersGuild no worries, it happens. I definitely agree with some of what you said just think it came over a little strong :) keep up the good work man.

[@ghostbear1]

Whoever painted that donut is probably both smart and handsome.

[@TheGamersGuild]

And a very gracious individual to boot!

[@ghostbear1]

@@TheGamersGuild fun fact. with regards to ingame use of the donut, we run the building as non-interactable, but the donut as throwable, because seriously, who doesn't want their Hulk to throw a giant donut at Crossbones?

[@TheGamersGuild]

That’s a great way to play with it. I can only see crossbones restrained by the donut now. Which makes me think a really fun homebrew could involve special conditions when terrain is thrown or removed from a collision.

[@LohnPondai]

Hey Nate. I love your content. I follow you here and I follow you on Party House Protocol. You seem a bit too radical here. "The rules dont seem to be equipped to deal with this situations which makes me think they shouldnt exist on the board". While technically true, this is only a concern for tournaments I guess (and nitpicky players). In my LGS, 90% of the games are between friends or even parents and sons, and there shouldnt be a problem if you just settle rules for it. F.e. I dont see any problem with stuff like the donut shop. Make it a size 4 terrain. The donut is just a size 2 piece that can be thrown individually. It violates the "too close scenery rule?". Does anyone have any problem with that? Ok lets take out the donut. Just make a special rule, like you do with your immovable wakandan circle of stone. My point of view is that the rules is just a part of the hobby and being nitpicky about terrain is a recipe to drive people away. People that take their time doing cool stuff and scenery. Not everyone comes for a competitive game. Of course, if you are talking exclusively from an official/competitive/tournament standpoint, then yeah you have to restrict a lot of terrain (sadly I must add, as I find LoS rules simple but unintuitive). But I dare say that most of MCP games are friendly games, and Id rather have ppl try to include all kinds of scenery in their games than play all the time with the same Daily Bugle kiosk. ;)

[@TheGamersGuild]

Thanks for the feedback! And for watching and listening. I can see myself coming off the wrong way in this one and I really don’t want to take away from any of the awesome stuff other people are doing and creating. I was hoping to bring attention to some of the problems that different styles of terrain might bring up in a game, and I agree with you in that I don’t think I communicated that part very well, and over emphasized the wrong parts here. I will keep this in mind going forward. And again thank you for your well thought out feedback.

[@scottwallbank4794]

Agree with the key things you pull out there. I take the video discussion here as personal guidelines for good balanced and fun games. Terrain layout is going to be more important for tournaments to make sure its fair to both players (particularly as number of throwers may vary). For casual, as long as both players are happy and fine with any house rules, rule of cool will generally prevail because the spectacle is more important than a perfectly balanced board.

[@machinegundevildog5097]

You need to remake this because of the new apartment building amg came out with

[@jeffblye7913]

The terrain rules are by far the weakest part of the game. In fact, other than nit-picking power levels of a few characters and such, terrain is the only part of the game that I absolutely do not like. The rules for how to interact with characters that are on top of terrain features are weak and unclear. You end up with situations where a character (Hulk, for example) is clearly not visible to another character behind the Daily Bugle stand, but rules-as-written he can not only be seen but doesn't even get cover, and so on. Oh, and let's not forget the classic punching someone on top of a tall building from the street. It's like they designed a system more like a board game with flat, 2D terrain, but then wanted to have their cake and eat it too by letting you climb on and interact with the terrain in a 3D way. It just doesn't work. There is a reason most miniatures games use some sort of true line of sight, or line of sight to bases, or some such. I will be playing my Crisis Protocol games that way. I think as is, the terrain rules are borderline unplayable.

[@zenkinet1]

party pooper

[@richardrussell7082]

Just remember, the core set only includes 9 terrain pieces and 4 of those are street lights/traffic lights. 10 at best if you count the trash can.

[@drewbakka5265]

I totally understand your logic in the context of a competitive environment, but in friendly games I feel these outliers might be ok in the name of having an interesting board

[@TheGamersGuild]

I 100% agree. I’m actually working on video for custom terrain rules for more casual tables at the moment.

[@richardguth6829]

The donut shop sign is part of the donut shop not a seperate piece.

[@TheHongKongHermit]

The rules I always played back in the day was that the person who makes/owns the terrain piece sets the rules for that terrain piece, briefs opponent on how it works when they arrive at the board. You're right that the gas station has a ton of questions attached to it, but the owner would have had hours to figure out how *they* wanted it to work while painting it up. If I rocked up to their board, first thing I'd ask is what I needed to know about their terrain.

[@Slurgical_3D_Terrain_Channel]

This is great, thank you for making this. I am considering creating terrain for the game and hoping to pick it up soon,

[@TheGamersGuild]

Do it! It is definitely limiting in some regards, but in doing so it makes for some super clean gameplay situations

[@SWIFTO_SCYTHE]

This is getting a little "Beard--y" this isnt warhammer 40k where if i can see your foot sticking out i can attack you. I do not see why throwing the HVAC Unit off a rooftop isnt a rule of cool. Or the donut.

[@TheGamersGuild]

Thanks for the feedback. And I agree with you the rule of cool should always come first in the casual settings. I did a poor job distinguishing my thoughts for an event at a store or convention vs a casual setting. My hope was to draw attention to some of the difficulties that some terrain can present like my Wakandan ruins, but obviously I missed the mark. :-/

[@albertoroche9831]

I've always loved the idea of making a "Danger Room"-esque map and terrain pieces that are marked with something denoting their size or classification. Something like a Tron grid that has buildings with neon highlights that can each represent something different. Red barriers might be unmovable or unbreakable while yellow light posts are easily thrown around. Buildings could be blue (matching the game board) but some structures are made in orange or yellow to denote their strength and flimsiness.

[@TheGamersGuild]

I would love to see pictures if you end up doing something alone these lines for some terrain. The idea alone sounds amazing.

[@albertoroche9831]

@@TheGamersGuild I'll happily post pictures for all to see. Took me a while to find inspiration for the idea so I had thought it wasn't a good one but I've quickly learned that no idea is a bad idea (except microwaving a hard-boiled egg...learned that one the hard way)

[@redviego6714]

For something like that, taking some cardboard boxes or small containers and spray painting it the color you want + white for edges can easily make that danger room/tron style design

[@iamweapon]

Me looking at the gas station i just 3d printed in the thumbnail :(

[@TheGamersGuild]

😂 hey as long as you talk to your opponent before hand on how you want to deal with the rules interactions you should be fine.

[@samuelthibodeau8272]

very informative video. I never really liked the terrain cannot be within size 2 of each other rule. I have dumpsters on the back of my buildings all the time. For fire, hydrants and newspaper dispensers, and other small size one terrain we just rule that they don’t block movement.

[@mrmarvel9309]

Did you do this video because of the post one one of the M:CP Facebook groups where someone had said gas station?

[@TheGamersGuild]

It was actually already in the works, but I did see that discussion and I think it did shape my thoughts a bit.

[@Lunkanize]

Those Trees look awesome. Do you remember where you got them? Would like to get my hands on some if possible. And great videos by the way, just getting into MCP after drooling for a long time. Half off a starter can do away with a lot of “do I need or afford another miniaturesgame?”. 😅

[@JoeBossRedSeven]

I most definitely play as I see fit and boy it sure is fine.

[@TheGamersGuild]

Yeah I don’t think I communicated well enough that the rule of cool takes precedent in casual games as it should.

[@JoeBossRedSeven]

@@TheGamersGuild You did fine I am just aggravated with AMG some after seeing how crap the Ant & Wasp are... they just can not make all of the models look great and that makes the entire range SPOTTY and look bad on the table. But I am here and I LOVE CLASSIC Marvel before it went and got WAF. Keep making great content Brother! kzbin.info/www/bejne/r3LLaqala8-XqLc kzbin.info/www/bejne/pnrEeoeGm6iahNE

[@BreezingThrou]

Few issues we had with terrain. Movement, Flight should be size5, Wall Crawl is slower so should be s4, can not see how someone able to fly should be same speed as someone that climbs... but Wall crawl does use use M if L movement, rather then S,. Edit: we added Web Slinger to movement which should we treat as size5 this had been a discussion several times. Line or sight with terrain is easy, great, but sometimes does not make sense. The issue where someone on size 5 roof can be punched by someone on ground.We use the measure tools to see if reachable and if ranged then use cover rule if greater then 3 size difference, and no line of sight if melee attack greater then 2. So can not punch someone on roof 3 or higher if on ground. Only two issues we seen so far, using this where someone insisted on being able to Strike Spiderman on top of CP truck terrain, other where they argued s1 character like Raccoon, can not reach top of car... but have been testing many house rules. Not 100% with this yet. One HouseRule we use now in all games is when terrain is thrown, It now has an AoE. 1 colision damage with size 2+ items when thrown, those affected by AoE near character that got hit, make dodge roll if not already been activated, take 1 damage if already been activated (collision rules apply for skills mitigation), AoE size is depending on the terrain thrown, s1 none, 2 is a1, size 3 is a2, 4 is a3, Size5 is size 4, this damage feels more realistic when throwing a building, truck, or Kiosk at some one that those near them take some damage.

[@tylerwellman8252]

Good stuff right here. I love the game, and being able to use the terrain as a weapon is just awesome, but the design team took some lazy shortcuts that are obvious. I like your take on attacking up and down elevations and might have to suggest something like that to my gaming group.

[@ForcesOfTheAbyss]

It helps if you imagine a combat as an engagement between the two models over the intervening terrain. They're using grappling hooks, doing parkour, punching through floors or stomping the ground causing a fall or any number of other suitable comic book tropes...

[@AnythingButOnes]

Do you have any recommended 3d printed solutions? Love this series! Like legion has a great number of designers

[@TheGamersGuild]

Corvus Games is where I have gotten quite a few of my STL’s from for urban terrain. But past that it will just kind of depend on what kind of a board you are looking for.

[@AnythingButOnes]

@@TheGamersGuild thanks!