More Words, Deeper Hole

I think I agree with you, but on looking at the rules (because this game frustrates the heck out of me: I don't seem to get out of it the results that should be possible), I see something important:

I'm not spending doom dice.

Essentially, anything the players can spend Plot Points on, the GM (er, Watcher in their terminology) can accomplish by spending Doom Dice...for most things, any die in the pool will do, but for other things, the die has to be a particular size (bigger than the relevant power if you want to interrupt a player with special senses or speed, create assets, resources, or complications).

I've been concentrating on getting high dice in the pool (partly because there's a rule that says the GM can have the villain escape by spending 2D12, though each player gets 2 XP for that...any time the GM spends a D12, the player affected gets 1 XP), but I think that's the wrong thing to do.

Build up a couple of dice, yes, because sometimes you have to interrupt Spider-Man in the order, but generally the GM should spend doom dice regularly. It's still true that the players should do their healing or resource creation at the beginning of an act when the doom pool is guaranteed to be low, but it should be lower than I've been having it.

(If the GM actually needs doom dice, the villain threatens something other than the heroes so they have to go rescue it or them; that's grandstanding, and it lets the GM add a d6 to the doom pool or step up the lowest die. They call it "grandstanding.")

So I have not been holding up my end of the bargain. I have not been presenting enough cool dramatic play on the part of the villains.

I'll try differently next time.