I've been watching the Boards and a lot of posters have concluded that the Vampire Queen pretender is overpowered, to the level that one poster reported multiple nations picking that chassis. Since otherwise in this game practically everything has a (sometimess very nation-specific) counter, if people are deciding that the only way to stop a VQ is to have one yourself, this is a very serious problem. Here are a couple of solutions (these may be totally unworkable but I'm
trying to help, ok?)
1. The Switcheroo: The players are asked to design a pretender for a (randomly drawn) nation. Then after that's done, the players receive notice that they are now playing someone
else's nation/pretender combo. Result: You
know there's a VQ out there-- you have the receipt-- and it ain't yours. Now go beat down on your own creation.
If you can... (Oh and players must design to less than say 15 design points remaining. We don't want players ending up with
crippled pretenders, although the punishment would likely be getting one back... so maybe this is self-policing)
2. (simpler, don't have a name for it yet): This assumes the Game-master can look at the creations. If it is noted that two (or more) nations have selected the same chassis,
all of them
must redesign to a different avatar. If they match again (haven't decided if it's a problem for landing on a previously innocent one-- some nations don't have that many choices) they have to switch again. If they match a third time the still-matched players have to design
each other's pretender as in #1 above.
Is this Completely Off Base, Unworkable, or Just Too Obvious?
Or something else?