Hello Again,
While thinking about the whole narrative control thing, I remembered a condition of gameplay that *does* really irritate me. I call the condition Goal Sniping. Goal Sniping happens when a player uses their Claims at the top of the page to claim the side of a conflict that's clearly going to win and then narrates an outcome totally counter to the position that the player who has been rolling that side up the entire time.
This happens a lot with ambiguous Goals like: Destroy the Hero's Headquarters and you have two villains who each want to win this conflict on their own terms. So what happens is Villain X rolls up side A and Villain Y rolls up B and it's clear that they both want to Destroy the Hero's Headquarters but that the players want to make sure they're the one who decides the terms. So these two villains battle it out while Hero N watches. Then if Hero N can tim his claim right, he can jump in and claim either side of the conflict (because he never touched it). He claims the one most likely to win, and then because the claim is his, narrates how neither villain succeeds. This effectively turns Villain X's mechanical success into narrative failure.
This gets extra extra weird when Villain X rolls up his side for the page clearly bent on Destorying the Hero's Headquarters and Hero N rolls up the SAME side clearly bent on stoping BOTH Villains from achieving the goal at all.
I understand that the "creating a third side" rule is there for this reason but since "sides" don't 1-to-1 correspond with success and failure there's no need to create a third side if you can time your claim correctly.
Is there some rule I missed that says, if you Ally with a side you must be trying to achieve the SAME thing as that side?
Jesse
Quote from: jburneko on March 15, 2006, 07:12:59 PM
Is there some rule I missed that says, if you Ally with a side you must be trying to achieve the SAME thing as that side?
As far as I can tell, there is no such rule.
However, I think its fair to say there's a fairly straightforward strategic response to Goal Sniping. Since Claims reset to null at the bottom of a Page, clearing them off before the Claim sequence at the top of the next, the only time the Claim can be Sniped is if the Hero (in your illustration) is earlier in the sequence than the two Villains. At which point its very much in the best interest of the two to agree to oppose the Hero on the same other side
without Claiming it.
Odds are very good two Characters versus one can use Actions and Reactions (to say nothing of Inspirations) to change the balance of the Conflict entirely. Since they left it unClaimed, it doesn't resolve at the end of the Page and they can continue to wrestle over it, having made the Hero expend some effort to retain control of the Conflict during the turn. Alternately, one of them can Claim the other side and have an out-of-band agreement with the other Villain to jointly narrate the results. At the end, the Conflict resolves and they proceed apace.
This is a pretty sequence-sensitive strategy, and as such is vulnerable to sequence-disrupting methods. Now, if the two Villains can't agree to cooperate briefly ... its a traditional "Villains bickering opens it up for the Hero" moment!
I agree this is very turn dependent and I suppose becomes less of a problem as the number of players diminishes. I, however, was playing with five which means two people fighting over a goal had up to three people between them to completely claim lock the two people invested in the conflict out of the conflict. Also, it was very common for this to happen once a clear winner emmerged (i.e. debt staked, dice split, but no fruitful claims just yet). Then a player jumps in Claims the winning side and narrates, whatever, without any regard for what the person on that side was fighting for.
This was WAY WAY more of a problem then the whole "I can narrate anything I want on my action" problem that some percieve. Those free narration were never a point of contention, where this whole Goal Sniping thing cropped up more than once. It was very irritating.
Jesse
Way way?
hrm.
Quote from: jburneko on March 15, 2006, 07:12:59 PM
Is there some rule I missed that says, if you Ally with a side you must be trying to achieve the SAME thing as that side?
Nope. "Trying to achieve the same thing as that side" is one of those fluffy, undefinable things that seems like it should be obvious to legislate, but in fact turns into a ball of snakes when you try to enforce it objectively.
That having been said ... why would you want to snipe someone else's claim? Don't you, the moment you do that, radically reduce the odds that they'll be giving you Story Tokens? I mean, you've just turned their side into something they're not interested in, so I don't think they'll be staking Debt. And I
guarantee you that your Inspirations are better when you win a three-sided conflict than you can ever get by sniping a two-sided conflict. Three-sided you get to match up both of your enemies against each other, which is absolutely aces. I guess I don't see, given such a lovely setup for a three-sided conflict, what the mechanical benefit is to sniping.
Are you doing it purely for the chance to narrate the outcome?
Quote from: Sindyr on March 15, 2006, 08:43:07 PM
Way way?
Yes, because people, in practice, don't narrate paragraphs of situation shattering details on their turn. The general format for a turn is a sentence or two of action plus a sentence or two of dialogue. This turns out to be natural and obvious and it rarely occurs to anyone to do anything more.
Your typical turn narration looks like this:
"The Raven uses Mind Control to force Mr. Orange to let go of Cindy. 'Unhand, that girl you brute!'"
with a typical reaction narration looking like this:
"Mr. Orange shakes off The Raven's control and with a ferocous bellow, "You DIE NOW!" uses Massive Strength to lift up and throw The Raven across the room."
No one really cares if they get tossed around or beat up or put down or even humiliated with a given action. It's just one turn and whatever was thrown at you can just be narrated around on your next turn. I once had an "And Then..." narration have a bus come through between me and my intended target. On my next turn I just described my character vaulting up onto the bus and crouching down all Batman-style and leaping down on my opponent.
However, it is extremely, extremely, extremely frustrating to spend Pages and Pages and Turns and Turns staking Debt, spliting dice and then have another player who hasn't even been involved in the Conflict up to that point Claim a side and then resolve it or roll up the side in a manner that doesn't even coincide with what that side has, up until that point, clearly been about. People mostly did this to control and be eligable for the Inspiration and Story Token distribution.
In fact the only house rule I would ever DREAM of adding to Capes is this:
The first player to roll up a Side sets the Agenda for that side. The narration which accompanies any attempt to roll up or resolve that side must accord with that Agenda.
Want a different Agenda? Stake Debt and make your own side.
Jesse
Can you give a play by play example of your house rule?
Quote from: jburneko on March 15, 2006, 09:06:25 PM
However, it is extremely, extremely, extremely frustrating to spend Pages and Pages and Turns and Turns staking Debt, spliting dice and then have another player who hasn't even been involved in the Conflict up to that point Claim a side and then resolve it or roll up the side in a manner that doesn't even coincide with what that side has, up until that point, clearly been about. People mostly did this to control and be eligable for the Inspiration and Story Token distribution.
We're clear that you can still use the debt you staked and split off of previously to split a third side, right?
Like if you've got three debt, and dice with 3, 5 and 6 on your side, and somebody you don't like claims it, you can split into four dice (1, 2, 5 and 6) and take three of them (2, 5, 6) to form a new side. You have to leave them the one "free" die that comes with the side, but in most cases you lose one, maybe two points of effectiveness, and they're left clutching the empty air.
Quote from: TonyLB on March 15, 2006, 08:54:49 PM
Are you doing it purely for the chance to narrate the outcome?
In some cases, yes, but in others it was because the Page had been particularly brutal with Debt Staking and Dice Spliting and multiple actions bought with Story Tokens. Because the resources were fairly exhausted, there was usually a "safe bet" for the winner. So, the player would jump in and claim that side.
1) Yes, to get the Inspiration. Making a third side on a conflict so heavily invested in makes no sense at this point. Why do so, when you can just steal the Inspiration that's already on the table?
2) To control the Story Token distribution and make sure that players favorable to their overall agenda get more. (In some cases, I saw a Hero roll up a Villain's side in the conflict but narrate something that was clearly trying to make the villain lose but wanted to be Allied with that side so they'd be eligable for Story Tokens because it was clear that no matter how well they improved the side, that side was still going to lose. However, this was rarer, than the whole Claim, something I'm not invested in to control the Inspiration and Story Tokens strategy.)
3) Yes, just to make sure the narrative turned out the way they wanted.
Jesse
Quote from: jburneko on March 15, 2006, 09:15:41 PM
2) To control the Story Token distribution and make sure that players favorable to their overall agenda get more.
Uh ... what? How does claiming give you any control over the distribution of Story Tokens?
Quote from: TonyLB on March 15, 2006, 09:11:39 PM
Like if you've got three debt, and dice with 3, 5 and 6 on your side, and somebody you don't like claims it, you can split into four dice (1, 2, 5 and 6) and take three of them (2, 5, 6) to form a new side. You have to leave them the one "free" die that comes with the side, but in most cases you lose one, maybe two points of effectiveness, and they're left clutching the empty air.
Oh, holy crap! No, I did not know that! I thought if you were going to split off to a third side you had to do it WHEN you Staked the Debt. I didn't realize that you could take the debt you have already staked on other Turns and Pages and just go, "Neaner, new side." Can I do that repeatedly? Like if a player claims that third side, can I do it again and make a fourth side?
Dude, that might totally fix the problem. Or at least reduce the damage done by it.
Jesse
Quote from: TonyLB on March 15, 2006, 09:23:12 PM
Uh ... what? How does claiming give you any control over the distribution of Story Tokens?
Uh, doesn't the person who Claims and Resolve a conflict distribute the Staked Debt as Story Tokens to the losers? Like they do with the Inspriation?
Jesse
Quote from: jburneko on March 15, 2006, 09:25:12 PM
Oh, holy crap! No, I did not know that! I thought if you were going to split off to a third side you had to do it WHEN you Staked the Debt. I didn't realize that you could take the debt you have already staked on other Turns and Pages and just go, "Neaner, new side." Can I do that repeatedly? Like if a player claims that third side, can I do it again and make a fourth side?
Yeah, only when you're splitting away from the third side you don't even have to leave
one die. It's your debt, your dice, you can pull them out from under someone if you want to. 'course, if they've staked their own debt on your third side then that's a different can of worms.
Quote from: jburneko on March 15, 2006, 09:26:38 PM
Uh, doesn't the person who Claims and Resolve a conflict distribute the Staked Debt as Story Tokens to the losers? Like they do with the Inspriation?
Nope. Winners distribute their own stakes. So if I staked two debt, I'm the one who distributes those two debt no matter who resolves the conflict.
Quote from: TonyLB on March 15, 2006, 10:24:58 PM
Nope. Winners distribute their own stakes. So if I staked two debt, I'm the one who distributes those two debt no matter who resolves the conflict.
CRAP AGAIN! That would have fixed one of the most bitter and resentful moments in my play experience in Capes. Here's what happened.
Myself and Dave were fighting Patrick tooth and nail, Page after Page, Turn after Turn, over a conflict. It was pretty clear we were going to lose. Earlier in the conflict Meghann had rolled on our side, ONCE, so she was Allied but she quickly moved on to other conflicts on the table. Amy Claimed Patrick's side of the conflict SPECIFICALLY to award all the Story Tokens to Meghann because she was angry at Dave and I for something we did during another conflict.
Jesse
>sigh< I have got to do more independent play-testing on my next product. There are all these little things that I know, which made it into the book, sorta, but which I only realize after the fact need to be put in all caps, double bold somewhere. Sorry about that, Jesse.
Quote from: TonyLB on March 15, 2006, 10:24:58 PM
Nope. Winners distribute their own stakes. So if I staked two debt, I'm the one who distributes those two debt no matter who resolves the conflict.
Note for future: Probably a bit that needs some more clarification and possibly an extended textual walk-through with commentary. Conflict Resolution is the stickiest part of the
Capes mechanics.
Quote from: TonyLB on March 15, 2006, 10:21:50 PM
Yeah, only when you're splitting away from the third side you don't even have to leave one die. It's your debt, your dice, you can pull them out from under someone if you want to. 'course, if they've staked their own debt on your third side then that's a different can of worms.
As a side note, this seems confusing to me. Are you saying that the two initial sides are somehow "special", in that they always have to have a die attached to them, while sides created later enjoy no such protection?
adam
Quote from: Adam Biltcliffe on March 16, 2006, 09:23:39 AM
As a side note, this seems confusing to me. Are you saying that the two initial sides are somehow "special", in that they always have to have a die attached to them, while sides created later enjoy no such protection?
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
Quote from: jburneko on March 15, 2006, 09:25:12 PM
[Oh, holy crap! No, I did not know that! I thought if you were going to split off to a third side you had to do it WHEN you Staked the Debt. I didn't realize that you could take the debt you have already staked on other Turns and Pages and just go, "Neaner, new side." Can I do that repeatedly? Like if a player claims that third side, can I do it again and make a fourth side?
Dude, that might totally fix the problem. Or at least reduce the damage done by it.
Jesse
Jesse, this is a great technique, but it only reduces the damage, just to warn you. In most circumstances, you are still going to have to fight tooth and nail to get your third side up above the other two to prevent the conflict from resolving that page. It sounds like the particular situation you were describing was one where a LOT of debt was staked by you, but in most circumstances that may not be the case. I have seen people try to do this, and its not easy.
Tony: This brings up a question related to what Jesse is describing:
Player 1 has 3 debt staked on Side 1, with three dice on them.
Player 2 has 2 debt staked on Side 1, with two dice on them.
Side 1 also has its free die.
Now, lets say Player 2 suddenly realizes that Player 1 is going to screw him over. Player 2 wants to split off and form his own side. Which of the following things can he do?
* Stake another debt, split one of his die, then split all of his debt to a third side (certain this works)
* Take his own two debt, without further staking, and make his own side with those two dice. (almost certain this works)
* Take only one of his debt, and start a new side with one die, leaving one of his debt staked on Side 1 (almost certain this works, although it seems stupid to leave your debt and its associated dice on side 1)
* Take all the debt staked, two of his, and three of his opponents, and create a third side with five dice and five debt. (not certain this works, since he is moving someone elses debt)
* Take five dice and his own two debt, leaving 3 debt and the one free die on Side 1. (pretty certain this doesn't work, since there would be more dice than debt on the new side)
Your intuition is right on. First three yes, last two no.
What is not clear in the rules (mea culpa!) is which dice you're allowed to split away. Can you split away the six and the five, even if the other guy did "most" of the work on rolling them?
When we've got "strange bedfellows" situations that have not yet schismed my group tends to stack dice on the debt itself. We've never had a situation where (to the best of my knowledge) it ended up mattering which dice were on which debt tokens, but we've occasionally had some chuckles and grins with people saying things like "Oh, no! I'm not rolling up that die! I'm rolling up this die! Nice try though!"
That could theoretically be an important issue, but in my groups I've never yet seen is practically become an important issue. Far more often, when two people are both staked debt-in on a conflict, they get so excited by the intersection of ideals ("You got your Justice in my Obsession! You got your Obsession on my Justice! Hey ... Justice and Obsession taste great together!") that you couldn't force them apart with a pry-bar. If you find it coming up, I'm afraid you really will have to house-rule a solution (like the one above) because the formal rules give you no guidance.
Quote from: TonyLB on March 16, 2006, 11:18:43 AM
Your intuition is right on. First three yes, last two no.
Thanks. I will use the house rule, I think, that as long as the debt and dice match up AFTER the split (i.e. no more dice than debt) it doesn't matter which dice you take, because I like the idea of taking all the 6's when the third side forms and cackling over it with malice.