On Teamwork

Teamwork is one of most basic advantages a character can get for being part of a team.
It can be a big help to give that +1 to a character at the right time.
But what does teamwork mean, beyond being a team name at the bottom of the card?

Teams are not just random collections of characters. The Justice League, the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Teen Titans are not just heroes who thought "hey, I'd like to hang with some buddies," while 'teams' like the Defenders... not so much.

What makes a team different from an ad hoc group? Why do they get an advantage in combat?

The answer is training. Team members train together: they run mock combats against each other; they work to develop their powers individually and working with others; and they do their best to ensure that the team, as a unit, gets the job done.

Some teams have an easier time of this than others, IMHO. The X-Men were created as a school; training is in their day to day routine, even long after successive classes graduated. WetWorks, a government special ops team gone rogue, is likewise grounded in military drilling and discipline.

Some have a harder time, for various reasons. The Suicide Squad, comprised of criminals drafted into a black ops unit, often has terrible discipline and fights among its members. Gen13, made up of five teenagers, sometimes has trouble getting serious about doing what they're supposed to do. And Power Pack struggles with the interpersonal dynamics of being siblings.

The game mechanics don't have a lot of nuance when it comes to things like this. By the rules of WSCCG, a character is or is not part of a team.

Should we adjust that? I'm not sure but I'm open to the idea. As it is, we have plot twist cards that affect teamwork bonuses, and maybe that's good enough for now. A card that sparks friction between team members is a pretty good card-based solution to this issue. (Right, Chris?)

Who makes up a team, then?

Most of the time, teams exist regardless of who is on active duty--like the Avengers, the Justice League, StormWatch, et al. Consider how many iterations of different groups there have been over the years just among the Avengers, Justice League, and X-Men.

Meanwhile, other teams would not exist (or would be radically different) if the founding members were absent--like Power Pack, the Fantastic Four, Batman's "family" of heroes, etc.

Which brings us to another kind of team: the hero- or villain-centric "family." Heroes like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Hulk, and more act as coaches, mentors and sometimes surrogate fathers to heroes of all kinds. Batman has had enough Robins to field a softball team, while Superman has a basketball teams' worth of Superboys he could call upon, and that's not even getting into the female heroes they coach as well. While these aren't traditional teams, these collections of heroes work together often enough to know each others' moves and back each other in a fight. On that basis, it's entirely possible to have a team based around a major hero (or villain). And that isn't even getting into literal families like the FF and Power Pack.

So you see, teamwork covers an awful lot of ground. It's useful to think about this stuff as we build new things for the game, because anything that affects teams can affect a whole lot of characters too.