Optional Rules; Hero Ball, Idiot Ball, Villain Ball

The Idiot Ball

The idiot ball is when the character misses an obvious clue, falls into a villains obvious trap, goes along with the villain when he's being villainous because he claimed to be a good guy, etc. This mainly involves the PCs being non-genre savvy for the sake of the plot. Letting the hot girl tie you to the bed (where she can leave you there to steal your stuff), or taunting a villain, or letting him escape so you can rescue the hostages when you could specifically do both at once (by splitting up the team or using time travel or whatever).

The idiot ball is represented by a physical ball passed to the player character. He agrees to act not like a moron, but not to break the plot either. For example, in one session you had to repair a time machine to go back in time because you were trapped in a dystopian  future.  Obviously such a machine would be very useful in your own time. Why not take the time machine schematics back with you and build your own? Well, because you took the idiot ball.


In many cases, the idiot ball means that a villain trying to get away will do so, because despite your ability to teleport, fly, and telekinetically trap him at a distance- you try to foot race him and he escapes. You then give up, instead of searching for him with postcognition. It may also mean using suboptimal tactics in combat which are still effective, but not instant wins. Despite having an area snare power, you still charge the big bad for the brawl, letting your party members kill the minions (even though you could wipe them all out yourself with one power use).

Going back into the exploding base to try to recover your artifact, offering to trade the MacGuffin to the villain so that he will leave your friends alone, etc can qualify for the idiot ball.

The idiot ball has several uses:

1) You may hand the idiot ball back to the GM at some point, removing it's benefits, but having him give it to the villain in the form of the villain ball (below).
2) While holding the idiot ball you get 1 free hero point per session: though that hero point can only be used to power the inspiration feat, the ultimate effort feat, for inspiration (see use of hero points), or to reroll a failed saving throw.

The Hero Ball

This is a variant of the idiot ball. The hero ball happens when a PC refuses to do what is effective if it is not "right". The villain should go to jail rather than being murdered (even if he could escape- let's try to make a better jail). The hero will drop his weapons when the villain has the gun to the damsel's head, even though he'll probably shoot her anyway. The hero is excited to banter with the villains and will accept an honorable duel (even if the villain ends up cheating- the hero will not).  He will keep his word as long as the villain keeps his (which he usually will not). The hero will not simply let the villain escape and can be smart, but he'd rather the villain escape if he can prevent immediate casualties by doing so, which the villain can exploit by putting others at risk.

Holding the hero ball has the following effects:

1) You get 1 free hero point per session to be used to recover from extra effort, for the leadership feat, for the ultimate effort feat, or to reroll an attack roll.
2) When the villain defeats the heroes the villain must make a will save at the hero's power level. Failure means that he leaves the heroes there (rather than finishing the job). If he succeeds he must make ANOTHER save. Failure means he captures the heroes and puts them in a a cell or something rather than killing them. Success on that roll means he will kill the characters. He must make a third saving throw to kill the characters there instead of putting them inside some kind of death trap.
3) Losing the hero ball requires the character to work in an un-heroic fashion. This gives the enemies 1 free hero point to use every encounter for the rest of the session.

The Villain Ball

Jafar would have won if he just paid Aladdin for the lamp. Many villains put the heroes in situations where if they just kept their word they would win forever, but they instead throw it all away for vengance, to display power, or just to be a dick. If the green goblin had not been taunting Spider Man, he would have killed him, but instead he got spiderman pissed off, and lost. All these happen when the villain holds the villain ball.

The villian ball is generally given to the villain by giving him the idiot ball (above), but some villains can come WITH a villain ball- they must act in this non-optimal way, but they get benefits for doing so.

The villain with the villain ball gets 1 free hero point to use against the party each time they battle. However:

The villain is very likely to monologue, or be tricked into it by the party.
The villain will almost always go back on his word and betray the PCs.
The villain may claim the hero as "his kill" and insist on doing it himself instead of letting a henchman (who's already beating him) finish him off.

Basically he acts more comic book like instead of genre savvy. He's easier to be tricked or goaded, and he's more likely to fall into a special trap.