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I'm going to paraphrase rather than quote a whole bunch.  If I get a detail or point wrong, please feel free to correct me.  In this (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19520.0) thread a peculiar situation was addressed:

What happens when every player involved in a conflict chooses to Gloat rather than resolve it?

The answer given was that this is legal and legitimate. This will continue for exactly as long as everyone at the table is willing to allow it to continue, just like pretty much everything else in Capes.  As soon as a player is tired of Gloating going back and forth, that player is welcome to split off a new side, then take control of the conflict and resolve it.  Until that happens, everybody is getting the story they want.  As soon as somebody's unhappy with it, it gets handled.  This is a feature of the game.

The response was that this isn't good enough, that everyone at the table can get involved and rather than resolving, always chooses to take the Tokens despite wanting to move on.  What is needed, it was suggested, is a way for a player to both take the Story Tokens and get the goal off the table so that the game can continue.

Quote
I get you, but I was left with no uncertainty that my group wants a way to deal with this that doesn't require a player to choose to not get story tokens to make the goal go away.

My thoughts on this:

This sounds like crap.  This sounds like misplaced priorities.  Nobody cares enough about the outcome of this conflict to want to resolve it.  Nobody cares about this conflict's effects on the story.  Nobody wants to narrate the resolution, the just want the conflict to go away.

The players are only jumping on this conflict because they recognized that it's gloatable and they want to suck some Tokens from it.  This isn't a situation of players opposing each other, this is players each separately opposing the Comics Code with no regard for the ramifications upon the fiction created.  I'd really love to hear the narrations going back and forth over this.  I'm curious about exactly how much narrative passion in invested in each exchange after the tenth Gloat.

This is like a game of D&D where two players have their characters kill and resurrect each other over and over for a net gain of experience points each time.

You don't need a rule to stop this.  You just need one person at the table to decide to say "Hey guys, this isn't fun and I'm putting a stop to it."  Every time you choose not to resolve the goal, you're choosing instead to say "Hey, this story we're making by Gloating every time is great."

Quote from: Matthew Glover on April 17, 2006, 02:48:00 PM
You don't need a rule to stop this.  You just need one person at the table to decide to say "Hey guys, this isn't fun and I'm putting a stop to it."  Every time you choose not to resolve the goal, you're choosing instead to say "Hey, this story we're making by Gloating every time is great."

I think what we're seeing is a side effect of the competition aspect of Capes.  SIndyr seems worried that his group might not be saying "This story is great", they might be saying "This story isn't great, but I don't want to take the responsibility for stopping it because I will miss out on my 2-3 Story Tokens because of it."

Part of that may well be a hoarding mentality - "gotta get Story Tokens, Story Tokens are what I'm supposed to get, he who dies with the most Story Tokens wins" - and forgetting that Story Tokens are only worth anything when they're used.

I think it also reflects a mentality of Story Tokens being cool and Inspirations being wimpy.  The strategic argument for breaking the gloat-fest is very strong.  Not that the story argument isn't (it is) but even if you are going pure strategy, no story, I don't think the gloat-fest is the natural outcome.

I'm starting to wonder if a gloat-fest would also result in more and more debt being generated while fighting over the conflict, and that debt being staked on the conflict to get it off the characters, meaning that whoever finally does resolve has to hand over a zillion Story Tokens to the others.  Of course, I'd love to be the guy who gets to shove a double-zillion Debt back at the other players.

Quote from: Matthew Glover on April 17, 2006, 02:48:00 PM
The response was that this isn't good enough, that everyone at the table can get involved and rather than resolving, always chooses to take the Tokens despite wanting to move on.  What is needed, it was suggested, is a way for a player to both take the Story Tokens and get the goal off the table so that the game can continue.

"Stop me, for the love of God!  Someone please stop me before I Gloat again!  Story tokens are the crystal meth of Capes, and I must have my FIX!"

That being said at least in a game where humour has a central place, I could see "Goal: Villain shoots the hero dead" being milked for a some laughs, as each person tries to come up with an even more outlandish way the hero someone manages not to get shot.  Could be funny the first four times or so. 

I really think the boredom angle of this cannot be stressed highly enough.  Remember that the Goal only resolves at the end of a page.  So every Gloat involves a whole new page.  As soon as there is only one Goal left on the table, and no one plays a new one in the next page, that means people are done and want to move on.  I have seen people avoid playing new conflicts, even though they were fairly excited about them, simply because it was already 10 PM and they wanted to try to get another scene in before the end of the night.  Sure, Story Tokens mainlining story tokens into your veins gives a buzz, but how many hours do you want to spend earning them? 

Boredom is not necessary as a factor to stop the cycle.  The simple fact is that it is strategically poor to allow it to continue.

Story tokens are not xp.  Story tokens are an economy.  They are like money.  What your story tokens are worth are a factor of how many you have and how many everyone else has.  When everyone is a millionaire, millionaires aren't rich.

Here is a scenario I've seen more than once.  Sydney and I have large piles of tokens.  Tony has less, not because he doesn't earn a whole bunch but because he is constantly spending them.  Sydney and I are more picky.  Then, inevitably, since Sydney and I agree on virtually nothing narratively, we hit one conflict we both want to win really badly.  So Tony gets to sit back and laugh his ass off while we whittle our piles down to nothing.  (Dollar Auction!)  Note that me recognizing this pattern does absolutely nothing to help stop it.

So, with this in mind, say you've just gloated, do you want to feed gloats for all the other players in the hope that it gets back to you again?  Hell no!  If the other players are foolish enough not to claim the non-gloating side of the conflict before it gets around to you, claim it and win it.  It's pretty easy to do since you just turned all the dice you are now opposing down to ones.  Serves the suckers right for letting you gloat in first place.

Situation: A gloatable goal is on the table.

• Fact: ANYONE can gloat it.  Heroes, Villains, Mortals - any player that has claimed a side that is in control at the end of the page can elect to either gloat, or resolve it in a non gloating way to get rid of it.
• Fact: Story tokens are very good to have.
• Fact: Any resolver of this goal is faced with a choice - get one or more story tokens and leave it on the table, or resolve it, do not gain a story token, and it goes away.
• Fact: Under normal circumstances, if someone will pay me one or more tokens to leave a goal down, I will.  The rest of my gaming group seems to agree.  Apart from unique circumstances, the best gaming theory choice is to gloat the goal instead of resolving it.

Problem: Under these conditions, a gloatable goal will hang around for much too long and the game will get stagnant as people fight over who gets to milk it this page.

Answer:  No answer has yet been offered, apart from the advice of "don't play that way", which I cannot take seriously.  (Because rules and game systems exist for a reason and many excellent essays on the forge make this point far better than I can.)

Ideas:

• One has to declare when one claims a gloatable goal whether one intends to gloat or resolve if one has control at the end of page
• Once a conflict has been gloated on by one player, no other player can gloat that conflict and must instead resolve it in a non gloating way.
• One has to declare at the start of the scene whether one is narratively allied with heroes or villains.  Those narratively allied with heroes can't gloat.

While I like the idea of modal narrative alliance, and think some sort of mod like that could be useful, especially in games where one wants to promote poetic justice and four color gaming, the idea is to complex and undeveloped at present to serve as a fix.

How about fix number 2 though?  Any real problems with that?

Or, perhaps, an alternative to that:  Conflicts can only be gloated on by their creator.

Which is better?  Do either have unintended side effects?

Quote from: Sindyr on April 22, 2006, 10:58:45 AM
Fact: Under normal circumstances, if someone will pay me one or more tokens to leave a goal down, I will.  The rest of my gaming group seems to agree.  Apart from unique circumstances, the best gaming theory choice is to gloat the goal instead of resolving it.

That last one is not so much a "fact" as an "error."  The strategically smart thing to do (as Eric and I, among others, have pointed out) is to break the gloating cycle and farm the inspirations.

Quote from: Sindyr on April 22, 2006, 10:58:45 AM
Answer:  No answer has yet been offered, apart from the advice of "don't play that way", which I cannot take seriously.

Again, not so much a "fact" as an "error."  Several answers have been given to you.  You choose not to pay attention to them, but that's not the same as their not having been offered.

I stand by what I said as accurate.

Do you have any argument for why the gloat-fest is good strategy?  Or are you just going to ... y'know ... stand by it?

That's a valid question. ;)

If a gloatable conflict is on the table and I have claimed it and am in control of it at page's end, I can either:
>Take a story token for each die I have involved.
>Resolve it and take an inspiration of some kind.

Just for sake of argument, and because it actually happened in game play, let's assume a goal of Havok, in trying to find the Malignite, unintentionally gets one of the heroes killed.

I rolled up a side of that to 5 (i think), the other side was a one. (no one else was acting on it, they were working on other things)  I claimed it next page, and at the end of the page I had two choices:
Resolve it without gloating and receive a 4 Insp, or turn the 5 back to a 1 and get a story token.

Which is better, a 4 Insp or a Story Token?  I am sure that one can manufacture several cases where a 4 Insp is more useful than a story token, still, all in all, over the course of all possible uses, in terms of averages, it seems self-evident that a single story token is more useful than any single Insp (with the possible exception of a 6 Insp, since it can't be rolled down).

I guess that's a place to start.  Let's compare a 5 Insp to a Story Token - while we can come up with created examples in which the Insp is more helpful than the token, or vice versa, overall which is more useful more of the time, and has a greater effect?

It seems to me that gaining a Story Token is preferred over gaining a 5 Insp.

Now, if someone agrees with the above assessment, than that explains why Gloating is the preferred strategy of anyone trying to plays as tactically and strategically as possible - in general anyways.

One other point.

As I understand it, a gloat explictly leaves the conflict on the table - that is, if I gloat a conflict, it will be here next page.

If there are strategic reasons to gloat a conflict once, the same strategy applies the second time, and the third, and so on.

If on the other hand the third gloat somehow can be shown as bad strategy, than so can the second, and so can the first gloat as well.

Bottom line - if it gloating is a strategy - that is, if people are *supposed* to gloat in Capes at all, exactly the same reasoning why the should gloat once is the reason to do it again. And again. And again.

Now, one other question: Should I split off my proposed gloat mods into their own thread?  I am looking for critiques on ways to prevent unlimited gloating and end the cycle - or prevent one from starting.  I offered a couple of choices above.  Is this thread only for discussing if there should be limitations on gloating, or can we simultaneously discuss what those limitations should be *given* that my group wants one and will have one?

Quote from: Sindyr on April 22, 2006, 06:44:11 PM
Now, one other question: Should I split off my proposed gloat mods into their own thread?  I am looking for critiques on ways to prevent unlimited gloating and end the cycle - or prevent one from starting.  I offered a couple of choices above.  Is this thread only for discussing if there should be limitations on gloating, or can we simultaneously discuss what those limitations should be *given* that my group wants one and will have one?

I think it would be better keep this thread being about gloating as the rules stand right now.  Otherwise it gets awfully confusing.

So ... let me get this straight.  You're pushing Gloating as the best possible strategy, and you're only gloating on one die?  Why not two or three?

Is that important?  I mean, to the fundamental issues we are discussing?

For the record, I gloated on one die because it was the first time anyone gloated in our game and I wanted to see how it worked.

But the principles are the same aren't they?

Whether we are talking about getting one token versus one 5 Insp, or multiple tokens versus multiple Insps - it all rests on whether Insps or Tokens are generally more useful, right?

So lets look at it.  Which is overall better, more effective, in more varied situations - a 5 Insp or a Story Token?

Quote from: Sindyr on April 22, 2006, 08:00:30 PM
For the record, I gloated on one die because it was the first time anyone gloated in our game and I wanted to see how it worked.

Huh?  You said that you had actual play of people gloating, back and forth, over and over.  So ... you did gloat more than once, right?  The first time you were testing the rules.  How about the second time?

Quote from: Sindyr on April 22, 2006, 08:00:30 PM
So lets look at it.  Which is overall better, more effective, in more varied situations - a 5 Insp or a Story Token?

A story token is more useful when you have very few story tokens.  The inspirations is more useful when you have very few inspirations.  If you have neither, I'd go for the 5 inspiration.  I think it's generally the stronger thing to have, on its own.  But they work well in synergy, so you don't want to load up on just one or the other.  Hence, the more often people have gloated, the less motive they have to do it again.

Quote from: TonyLB on April 22, 2006, 08:27:56 PM
Huh?  You said that you had actual play of people gloating, back and forth, over and over.

Where did I say that?  I don't believe I did.

Quote

Quote from: Sindyr on April 22, 2006, 08:00:30 PM
So lets look at it.  Which is overall better, more effective, in more varied situations - a 5 Insp or a Story Token?

A story token is more useful when you have very few story tokens.  The inspirations is more useful when you have very few inspirations.  If you have neither, I'd go for the 5 inspiration.  I think it's generally the stronger thing to have, on its own.  But they work well in synergy, so you don't want to load up on just one or the other.  Hence, the more often people have gloated, the less motive they have to do it again.

OK, this may simply be a result of my inexperience then.  If you already have nine ot ten story tokens and no Inspirations, and if getting Insps are strategically more useful than getting more tokens, than I can see there being a cap game theory wise on how many time a gloatable conflict will be gloated on.  Perhaps the economy is more complex than that.

On the other hand, here's another thought - the more debt you invest into a gloatable conflict, the more you want to gloat as opposed to resolve.

Do you think the above is true?  Let's say you have 3 debt invested.  you have three dice.  Let's say no one has claimed the other side yet.  If you resolve now, you get, perhaps, 3 high Insps - but you also get back doubled debt, or 6 debt, correct?

If your choice is either

• Gloat, turning all dice to "1"'s, gain one token each, and maybe more later.
• Resolve, taking three high Insps and SIX debt

my question is are the 3 high Insps really worth both the SIX debt you had to get as well as the 3 story tokens you gave up? Really??

To put this another way, is getting one high Inspiration worth sacrifcing a story token for AND gaining 2 debt?

I feel in my gut that this is a very bad trade - can anyone demonstrate to me that this isn't?

Quote from: Sindyr on April 23, 2006, 10:02:10 AM
Do you think the above is true?  Let's say you have 3 debt invested.  you have three dice.  Let's say no one has claimed the other side yet.  If you resolve now, you get, perhaps, 3 high Insps - but you also get back doubled debt, or 6 debt, correct?

Why would you get your debt back?  Usually when you resolve the side as a victory, you don't take the debt back.

Brain fart - you wouldn't - my mistake.

For some reason I have trouble remembering:
1) You give away debt as story tokens if you win
2) You gain double debt if you lose.

So the trade off is really:
1) Resolve and gain an Insp and lose a debt (potentially) per die.
2) Gloat and gain a story token and gain a debt (potentially) per die.

of course, if no one has staked debt, than its just one die versus one die, and it comes down to do you wanta token or an Insp.

I am going to have to play more to understand the comparative worth of Insps versus Tokens.

In noone stakes debt, do you get a story token for losing?  I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

QuoteJust for sake of argument, and because it actually happened in game play, let's assume a goal of Havok, in trying to find the Malignite, unintentionally gets one of the heroes killed.

OK, this statement is amorphous, how can a goal get someone "unintentionally" killed?

Surely either the goal states that someone gets killed or it doesn't?

"Goal: The Malignite uncovered by Havok kills a hero" or "Goal: Havok uncovers the Malignite"

Did your goal include someone getting killed?

In my perception of Gloating, the first goal is gloatable as "resolving it will breach the Comics Code", but as the second goal is resolvable without breaking the CC how can that be eligible for gloating? I always thought that you could only gloat if the resolution of the actual wording of the conflict would break the CC. Is my perception flawed?

If narration of a conflict, which does not breach the CC, can be used to breach the CC and then gloated on then surely that would mean that any Goal could be gloatable if the player decides to narrate a CC breach during the resolution and that opens up the gloating mechanic for extreme abuse, which I don't think the mechanic was either designed or intended for.

Quote from: Tuxboy on April 24, 2006, 09:09:04 AM

QuoteJust for sake of argument, and because it actually happened in game play, let's assume a goal of Havok, in trying to find the Malignite, unintentionally gets one of the heroes killed.

OK, this statement is amorphous, how can a goal get someone "unintentionally" killed?

I just noticed this.  I too am completely confused by unintentionally in this context.  Havok might "unintentionally" get someone killed, but Havok's player (or anyone else) must INTENTIONALLY describe the killing, so there is not such thing as an unintended death in Capes. 

Quote
Surely either the goal states that someone gets killed or it doesn't?

"Goal: The Malignite uncovered by Havok kills a hero" or "Goal: Havok uncovers the Malignite"

Did your goal include someone getting killed?

In my perception of Gloating, the first goal is gloatable as "resolving it will breach the Comics Code", but as the second goal is resolvable without breaking the CC how can that be eligible for gloating? I always thought that you could only gloat if the resolution of the actual wording of the conflict would break the CC. Is my perception flawed?

If narration of a conflict, which does not breach the CC, can be used to breach the CC and then gloated on then surely that would mean that any Goal could be gloatable if the player decides to narrate a CC breach during the resolution and that opens up the gloating mechanic for extreme abuse, which I don't think the mechanic was either designed or intended for.

I agree completely with Tuxboy.  In our own Capes game, we are generally pretty intentional when writing conflicts to make it clear which ones are gloatable and which ones aren't.  As an example..."Event: The Tidal Wave Hits".  In and of itself, its not really clear whether this is gloatable.  Is the tidal wave a 7 foot high swell or a 500 foot hight civilization killer?  Is it targeted at uninhabited Antarctica (where it could only be gloated on if your code includes "Penguins cannot be killed") or at Southern California?  The only way you know is from context, and because someone says "this is gloatable when it is played."

QuoteAs an example..."Event: The Tidal Wave Hits".  In and of itself, its not really clear whether this is gloatable.

Which sparks another point, is an Event gloatable? As Events are definites, they will happen, can they be phrased in a way that would break the CC? I'm not sure they could and not get vetoed straight out the box.

Lets consider "Goal: The Tidal Wave hits"

QuoteIs the tidal wave a 7 foot high swell or a 500 foot hight civilization killer?  Is it targeted at uninhabited Antarctica (where it could only be gloated on if your code includes "Penguins cannot be killed") or at Southern California?

As you said i think this depends on the context of your CC, but as the wording stands I would lean toward it being ungloatable given a standard CC as it could be narrated with no loss of life but lots of major property damage.

I think I'll stick with the concept of the wording of the goal actually having to breach the CC to make it gloatable. It should stop any possible misunderstandings and arguments.

Quote"Penguins cannot be killed"

Not in my game! As the victim of an unprovoked penguin attack as a child I consider the black & white b@stards fair game (no seriously I was) *L*

Quote from: Sindyr on April 22, 2006, 06:35:41 PM
Now, if someone agrees with the above assessment, than that explains why Gloating is the preferred strategy of anyone trying to plays as tactically and strategically as possible - in general anyways.

This is completely true...and utterly fails to make your point.

Gloating is, in fact, the best tactic when you can do it.  It is a nice influx of story tokens.  It is always a winner.  The thing is, the endless gloat cycle requires more than everybody choosing to gloat.  It requires that everybody lets all the other players gloat.  Stopping the gloating cycle is quite easy because the dice on that side reset to ones every page.  If anyone chooses to stop it, it will likely stop.

Letting other players gloat is always a bad move.  There is no way I can conceive for there to be a possible net gain for you in doing so. 

The argument you keep making is "gloating is good".  You get no argument from me there, but the argument you need to make to support your position is that letting other people gloat will benefit you in the long run more than you benefit them.  I don't think a cogent argument for that position exists.

Which do you think is a superior result for me?
1.  I get 100 story tokens.  All other players get 100 story tokens.
2.  I get 1 story token.  Everyone else gets nothing.

I'll pick option two every single time.  All the first option means is that the next time I really want to win something and another player does too, we each burn through 100 story tokens.  Option two means that the next time I really want to win something and another players does too, I have a one token advantage I would not otherwise have had.  100 story tokens means nothing in and of itself.  If I have a single story token more than you have, that is power I have over you.

Quote from: Eric Sedlacek on April 24, 2006, 11:40:42 AM
Stopping the gloating cycle is quite easy because the dice on that side reset to ones every page.  If anyone chooses to stop it, it will likely stop.

I believe Sindyr is proposing a situation where both sides are being gloated alternately.

Like, you've got "Goal:  Kill Comet Boy dead, dead, dead!" at Red 5, Blue 4 ... the person resolving the Red side gloats.  Now it's Red 1, Blue 4.  Next turn it rolls up to Red 2, Blue 6 ... and the blue side gloats.  Now it's Red 2, Blue 1.  And so on, and so forth.

Still a stupid plan, for many reasons, but not the actual stupid plan you were rebuffing.  Make sense?

Quote from: TonyLB on April 24, 2006, 11:47:48 AM
I believe Sindyr is proposing a situation where both sides are being gloated alternately.
.
.
.
Still a stupid plan, for many reasons, but not the actual stupid plan you were rebuffing.  Make sense?

Maybe it's not the exact same plan, but it is still a cycle which can be broken with relative ease by any involved party, so it is still gloating by collusion.  This means that aside from some small mechanical details, it is essentially the same thing.  The silliness is the belief that I am somehow winning by keeping the endless fountain of story tokens flowing over everyone...or at any rate a subset of everyone that includes me but it not only me.  There is always at least one person participating in the collusion who is not benefitting (and therefore making poor decisions) and it is highly likely that no one is.

I don't understand why I am not being understood - I must not be being clear at all.  Let me try again.

The entire chain of reasoning is based on one essential assumption.  Tony has remarked that the assumption is incorrect.  If the assumption *is* incorrect, then the rest of the reasoning does not follow.  However, given the assumption, the conclusion is unavoidable.

Assumption:  In general, getting story tokens is more desirable than getting Inspirations.

Given the above assumption:
1) At the end of a page, if a gloatable conflict has been claimed and the claiming party is in control, then the player has but two choices:
-Resolve the conflict, collect Inspiration(s)
-Gloat the conflict, collect the Story Token(s), reset his dice to 1's

In general, given the above assumption, the second choice is better.

This means that *anytime* a player could choose to resolve a gloatable conflict, their best play would be to Gloat.  If all anyone does is gloat, then the conflict will never be resolved until things external to the Capes rules are brought to bear, such as weariness, social pressure, or some other factor that somehow makes a player choose Resolution over Gloating even though Gloating pays better.

Since their is no restriction on who may Gloat - *any* player is allowed to gloat equally on a gloatbale goal - then there is no escape from this loop without the aforementioned external to Capes influence.

What this means is that unless one acts to one's own detriment, gloatable conflicts will never be resolved.  But if all the players at the table always act in ways that are tactically and strategically advantageous for them, then in general Gloatable conflicts can't ever be resolved - because the resolver sacrifices his chance to get a story token while all that came before him do not - therefor he is at a disadvantage - therefor if made aware of this, he too would choose to Gloat rather than resolve.

Now if story tokens are not better than Inspriations in general, then all of the above is moot and not accurate.

But if any of you think that story tokens indeed are better than Inspriations, than the above chain of logic is flawless.

I cannot tell you if I believe that Insps are equal to story token's without a lot more play under my belt.  But I can tell you, without hesitation, that if story token's are (in general) better than Insps then the Capes rules on Gloating break Capes.

And that is all I was pointing out.

Quote from: Sindyr on April 24, 2006, 01:17:51 PM
Assumption:  In general, getting story tokens is more desirable than getting Inspirations.

You make the secondary assumption that everyone will always make the "best" choice while playing.  That's fine - but when you put that together with your first assumption above, you see that you won't get into an "endless gloat" situation, because at some point there will be a time when gloating is not more desirable than getting Inspirations.

So, when would it be more desirable to stop the endless chain of gloating?  By shutting off the Gloat Machine, you accomplish the following things:
1) You get rid of any debt you have staked on the conflict.  This might be important if your strategy doesn't involve being Overdrawn.
2) You get inspirations.
3) You stop the other people from continually getting story tokens and you double their debt.  This in turn has these effects:
     a) They might become Overdrawn, and thus less able to oppose you on other conflicts in this scene.  (If the character isn't seen as "disposable" this could last into later scenes as well.)
     b) They are a great big chunk of debt to mine for even more Story Tokens.
     c) Your Story Tokens are worth more.  (Just like any other economy, inflation can exist with Story Tokens.  Someone who has 10 story tokens when everyone else has 3 is going to be able to dominate.  Someone who has 100 when everybody has 100 is only going to be on equal ground.)

And all this without even contradicting your assumption above.  Now, consider this: for some uses, Inspirations are better than Story Tokens.  A Story Token will get you an extra action, sure - but using an Inspiration effectively gives you an extra action where you know the outcome of the die roll already, and it doesn't give you debt or cause you to check off an ability.

Read over the strategy section again, because Tony puts in some great stuff with Inspirations in there.

J

Quote from: Sindyr on April 24, 2006, 01:17:51 PM
The entire chain of reasoning is based on one essential assumption.  Tony has remarked that the assumption is incorrect.  If the assumption *is* incorrect, then the rest of the reasoning does not follow.  However, given the assumption, the conclusion is unavoidable.

Assumption:  In general, getting story tokens is more desirable than getting Inspirations.

Whether or not that assumption is correct is irrelevant.  Your problem is with your strategy.  You can't say "A is better than B, so players should always do A."  The issue is not "getting Tokens" versus "getting Inspirations."   That is a misunderstanding of the situation as well as an oversimplification of the issues at hand. 

In this Gloatfest, when you choose to Gloat and get tokens you allow the other players to do the same thing.   When you choose to resolve it and take the inspirations, you prevent other players from farming Tokens.  Your choice is "get Tokens and allow them all to get Tokens too" which is horrible, terrible, extra super bad strategy (for reasons other people have mentioned but which can be reiterated for clarification if necessary), or "prevent everybody else from getting all those Tokens and while you're at it, get some Inspirations" which is good strategy. 

This is completely separate from the other reasons that the Gloatfest is bad.  If the conflict never resolves, you never get to move on.  You're stuck doing the same crap on this same conflict all night long.  If I were playing with you and this came up, I would put an end to this Gloatfest just to get the damn thing off the table.  Never mind that it's strategically terrible to let this continue, it's actively preventing me from moving on with the story.

Quote from: Matthew Glover on April 24, 2006, 04:27:22 PM

In this Gloatfest, when you choose to Gloat and get tokens you allow the other players to do the same thing.   When you choose to resolve it and take the inspirations, you prevent other players from farming Tokens.  Your choice is "get Tokens and allow them all to get Tokens too" which is horrible, terrible, extra super bad strategy (for reasons other people have mentioned but which can be reiterated for clarification if necessary), or "prevent everybody else from getting all those Tokens and while you're at it, get some Inspirations" which is good strategy. 

And if they have already gloated that conflict?  That means they get the story token but because you reolved it, you don't.  IF tokens > inspirations, then you lose by resolving the conflict. On the other hand, if preventing other people from gloating was super important, extra good tactic, than why would anyone gloat in the first place?

Game theory says that is gloating is worth doing once, it very well may be worth doing multiple times.  And if it's not worth doing multiple times, it very well may not be worth doing once.  The two facts are not independant.

Therefor if either gloating is worthwhile and people will do it endlessly, and the gloating rule is therefor broken, or gloating is not worthwhile and people will not do it, and the gloating rule is useless and should be removed. (IF tokens > Insps)

QuoteThis is completely separate from the other reasons that the Gloatfest is bad.  If the conflict never resolves, you never get to move on.  You're stuck doing the same crap on this same conflict all night long.  If I were playing with you and this came up, I would put an end to this Gloatfest just to get the damn thing off the table.  Never mind that it's strategically terrible to let this continue, it's actively preventing me from moving on with the story.

So the rule is even more broken.  IF tokens > Insps, and if I know you will want to resolve a conflict rather than gloat because even though the Insp is worth less than the token (accorinf to our IF above) you are willing to take it to get the bloody thing off the table.

In other words, I can count on you to not gloat the conflicts while I gloat them as long as I can.

So, it's broken. (IF tokens > Insps)

Just going to repeat once crucial bit that I thinks does sum up the issue:

Assuming that tokens > Insps

If gloating is worth doing once, it's probably worth doing repetitively.
result: looping through gloats over and over.

If gloating is not worth doing repetitively, then it's probably not worth doing once.
result:  no one gloats, and the rule is useless.

This is all in general, one can come up with certain specific and uncommon situations to be the exception to the rule.  Once in bridge, I actually tried to lose a game, because it won us the match.  These strange examples exist, which is why I say the above is true in general and of course only if tokens > Insps.

Quote from: Sindyr on April 24, 2006, 09:06:19 PM
And if they have already gloated that conflict?  That means they get the story token but because you resolved it, you don't.  IF tokens > inspirations, then you lose by resolving the conflict. On the other hand, if preventing other people from gloating was super important, extra good tactic, than why would anyone gloat in the first place?

If they gloated it once, the strongest play you can make is to ensure that they don't do it again.  Sure, they got some Tokens for it.  You seem to think that if you also Gloat you even the score.  This is incorrect.  You seem to think that if they Gloat and get Tokens, then you resolve and get Inspirations, you "lose," that you've made a bad play.  This is incorrect.  Discard these ideas.  They are wrong.

Quote
Game theory says that is gloating is worth doing once, it very well may be worth doing multiple times.  And if it's not worth doing multiple times, it very well may not be worth doing once.  The two facts are not independent.

]Practical application of Capes shows that Gloating is worth doing once, worth doing multiple times, and worth preventing depending on the situation.

If you're Gloating, farm that conflict for Story Tokens for as long as it's fun for you to do so.
If your ally is Gloating, let him farm that conflict for as long as you think you can trust him.
If your opponent is Gloating, stop him.

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Therefor if either gloating is worthwhile and people will do it endlessly, and the gloating rule is therefor broken, or gloating is not worthwhile and people will not do it, and the gloating rule is useless and should be removed. (IF tokens > Insps)

Look, man, forget the whole deal with Tokens being better or cooler or more useful or more important or whatever than Inspirations.  That's like saying that a tire iron is better than an apple.  They do different things.  They serve different purposes.    The entire Token/Inspiration comparison is a big part of the problem you're having with this Gloat issue.  If you will just let that notion go you will be taking a biiiiig step forward in grasping what all these people are trying to say.

Quote
So the rule is even more broken.  IF tokens > Insps, and if I know you will want to resolve a conflict rather than gloat because even though the Insp is worth less than the token (accorinf to our IF above) you are willing to take it to get the bloody thing off the table.

In other words, I can count on you to not gloat the conflicts while I gloat them as long as I can.

So, it's broken. (IF tokens > Insps)

Tokens aren't greater than Inspirations.  Tokens can't be compared to Inspirations.  Stop that, you're hurting yourself by holding on to that idea. 

That's not broken, that's how the rule is supposed to work.

What is broken is your strategy.  I want you to explain to me how a Gloatfest is a good idea.

Look:

There's a goal in play and I Gloat it because I'm playing a bad guy. I narrate my bad guy saying mean things rather than blowing up the world. Then Tony Gloats it because he's playing a bad guy too.  He narrates his bad guy laughing scornfully at all the good guys. Then Eric Gloats it because even though he's a good guy he wants some of those Tokens like we got, and he narrates my bad guy saying some more mean things about his own character.  Now you've got control of the conflict, Sindyr.  You're playing a good guy.  You decide to Gloat, getting the same number of Tokens that I got, that Tony got, that Eric got, and you choose to let each of us do it again.  Every time somebody has the opportunity to resolve, he chooses instead to Gloat.

We'll keep going all night.  Each of us narrates my guy saying mean things and Tony's guy laughing scornfully over and over and we're writing the worst comic ever dreamed up by mankind.  This scene never ends.  We skip work and keep Gloating. 

We're stacking up thousands of Story Tokens.  We ran out of poker chips, so Tony wrote us a Flash application to keep track.  We all used up our Blockable abilities in the first hour, though, so we're pulling in mountains of Debt for using Powers to keep rolling up those dice to Gloat.  Nobody cares about being overdrawn, though, because we're all Gloating so there's no dice to turn down at the beginning of the page.  We do realize, though, that staking Debt will get us more dice, which means more dice to turn down, which means more Tokens when we gloat, so there's oodles of Debt on this goal.  Shit, now we really don't want to resolve it, because if I resolve, I have to give all that Debt to you as more Story Tokens. 

Let's say, though, six months into it Eric gets tired of this and he resolves. He takes some Inspirations.  Everybody who staked Debt except Eric gets back double Debt.  All Eric's Debt that he staked turns into Story Tokens that he distributes evenly, because really, everybody has six billion Tokens now, so what does he care that everybody else has another six hundred fifty apiece?  He's never gonna run low now.

The scene's finally over.   Somebody starts the next scene.  Oh, wait.  Everybody has six billion Story Tokens and we just spent six months Gloating a single conflict.  Capes is ruined for me, I hate all you guys, and I never want to read a comic again.

Sindyr, tell me how allowing a Gloatfest is good strategy.  Tell me how it lets you manage your resources better than the other players.  Tell me how it creates an interesting story.  Tell me how it's good for the short term.  Tell me about the long-term benefits.  Tell me what possible good you get out of letting it keep rolling around rather than stopping it hard and early.

The alternative to the Gloatfest, you ask?
When you spot your opponent Gloating, you shrug because he got two Story Tokens, then you shut down the Token farm, resolve the goal, take your Inspirations (which are not comparable to the Tokens, by the way) and move on.  Maybe you consider it a temporary setback.  If you're smart, though, you play well and get some big Inspirations off of it.  You narrate something powerful and cool and engaging and show your character being a total badass and your opponent's character (wasn't he just gloating about his ultimate power?) being a weak and sniveling chump. 

How is that not better for everyone?

Quote from: Tuxboy on April 24, 2006, 11:05:05 AM

QuoteAs an example..."Event: The Tidal Wave Hits".  In and of itself, its not really clear whether this is gloatable.

Which sparks another point, is an Event gloatable? As Events are definites, they will happen, can they be phrased in a way that would break the CC? I'm not sure they could and not get vetoed straight out the box.

Lets consider "Goal: The Tidal Wave hits"

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me, Tuxboy (btw,the name now makes much more sense in light of the penguin thing...).  Take "Event:The bomb reaches 0:01".  To my mind, this is HIGHLY gloatable.  The key is that gloating does not resolve the conflict, it postpones it.  So I narrate something like "Bad guy's bomb continues to tick away beneath the street, as little children, so close to death, play above" and grab my story tokens.  I'd be interested to know what others think about events being gloatable or not.  Even more obvious would be "Event: Hero is about to kill an innocent".  If that can't be gloated on, I don't know what could be (assuming the basic CC from the rules).

I do agree, though, that the more specific a goal is, the more obvious its gloatability will be. 

Quote from: Matthew Glover on April 25, 2006, 01:11:00 AM
You narrate something powerful and cool and engaging and show your character being a total badass and your opponent's character (wasn't he just gloating about his ultimate power?) being a weak and sniveling chump.

By the way, I'm reading through the manga of Dragonball Z for the first time (yeah, I know, it's a sad gap in my education which I'm laboring to fill) and I am amused by how incredibly stark this pattern is in those books.  I mean, seriously ... the moment when somebody has effortlessly defeated every enemy, and gets up on their high horse to explain how they're the greatest fighter in the universe is the moment you know "Next page he's going to get his ass handed to him by a twelve year old girl in a frilly dress or something equally humiliating." 

Every.  Single.  Time.

Y'wanna know why Son Goku always wins in the end?  Because, reckless as he is, he's a gracious winner.  He doesn't Gloat.

Quote from: Hans on April 25, 2006, 09:23:31 AM
I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me, Tuxboy (btw,the name now makes much more sense in light of the penguin thing...).  Take "Event:The bomb reaches 0:01".  To my mind, this is HIGHLY gloatable.  The key is that gloating does not resolve the conflict, it postpones it.  So I narrate something like "Bad guy's bomb continues to tick away beneath the street, as little children, so close to death, play above" and grab my story tokens.  I'd be interested to know what others think about events being gloatable or not.  Even more obvious would be "Event: Hero is about to kill an innocent".  If that can't be gloated on, I don't know what could be (assuming the basic CC from the rules).

I do agree, though, that the more specific a goal is, the more obvious its gloatability will be.

Events can be harder to gloat, because the Event (pretty much definitionally) is something that can happen under the comics code ... it's just a question of how you narrate it.  So you can't make the claim "Oh, I have to Gloat that, there's no possible way to narrate my side that wouldn't violate the comics code."

You basically have to step into the theoretically gray (but, in practice, usually pretty clear cut) area of saying "Well, yeah, but my side of the Ticking Bomb event is the one where the narration involves blowing everyone up ... we all knew that, because I drove the point home with brutal candor in every single action that I took toward advancing my side."

Here's an example I actually considered in writing the rules:  End of the Spiderman movie, after Goblin threatens Mary Jane, there is a conflict "Event:  Green Goblin is killed."  Spiderman's player rolls like crazy cakes on that conflict.  Blow by blow, spidey is pounding Goblin to a pulp, ready to tear his freakin' head off!  There is no question in anyone's mind that if spidey resolves that conflict then he is going to kill Goblin with his own bare hands.

And that's why it's gloatable, because having a hero kill someone would violate that movie's comics code.  That's why, even when victory is unquestionably within Spiderman's grasp, he can't reach forward and sieze it.  Instead, he has to pause and moralize, and realize that he's not a killer, and all that jazz.  And that's why the Goblin gets to resolve "Goblin is killed" next page, and pile a huge heaping load of love debt right back in Spiderman's face.

But, theoretically, there is absolutely nothing to stop spiderman's player from narrating the "Goblin is killed" event by the goblin killing himself (or a small child with a thrown rock killing him).  It's the (admittedly non-objective) network of established expectations that helps groups agree what is gloatable and what isn't.  Events put more pressure on that network of expectations than Goals (which often come with a built-in "X or not-X" division), and so they can put a bit more strain on the gloating rules.

QuoteI'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me, Tuxboy (btw,the name now makes much more sense in light of the penguin thing...).  Take "Event:The bomb reaches 0:01".  To my mind, this is HIGHLY gloatable.  The key is that gloating does not resolve the conflict, it postpones it.  So I narrate something like "Bad guy's bomb continues to tick away beneath the street, as little children, so close to death, play above" and grab my story tokens.

But the event doesn't specifically mention any breaching of the CC, it is only your narration that has done that, and if you use narration to gloat on that then that means that any conflict, event or goal, could be gloated upon using narration, which we previously agreed was seriously bending if not breaking the gloat mechanic.

Consider "Event: The flower is about to bloom"...I narrate "The flower's petals quiver, it's full pollen sacks almost bursting as Mightyman signs autographs nearby, unaware that his extreme pollen allergy is about to toll his dead knell." Could I then gloat as my narration breaks the CC or do I get popcorned...I suggest a highly justified latter and although an extremely silly example I suggest it is mechanically no different to the bomb example, but I, like you, would like to hear other people's opinions on this, especially Tony's, maybe we should split it of to another thread?

QuoteEven more obvious would be "Event: Hero is about to kill an innocent".  If that can't be gloated on, I don't know what could be (assuming the basic CC from the rules).

This one is more of a grey area...I suspect if it showed up on my table I would not consider gloatable as the phrasing does not specifically state a breaching of the CC, just a "possible" breaching of the CC, and it would be the narration that does the breaching, but can see your point as to the possibility.

*L* Tuxboy is an obscure Bloom County reference...but it does refer to a penguin.

*crossed post with Tony*

Thanks Tony, that's the kind of thing I was looking for...

I just noted that the my post above is not on the original thread topic.  Therefore, I was going to withdraw the question, but four posts piled on to it before I could.  Thanks Tony, for helping.

On the original thread topic:  Sindyr's REAL question is in all of this is...are story tokens always better than inspirations? A few posts back he made it clear that if story tokens AREN'T better than inspirations (one assumes either that they are equal, or, as Matthew suggested earlier, so different in kind as resources as to be incomparable) then his concerns about a gloat-fest would evaporate.  That is the question to answer, not whether a gloat-fest is a good or bad idea.  For me, I agree with Matthew.  Story Tokens and inspirations are like peanut butter and chocolate.  Sometimes you want the one, sometimes you want the other.  Both are good in different ways, and you need both to make a Reeces. 

As evidence of the fact that story tokens are NOT better than inspirations, I suggest we take the evidence of the what by now must be hundreds of sessions that have occurred of Capes since its release on planet Earth.  Has anyone ever actually seen a "gloat-fest" occur?  If one had, I think it would have been posted by now.  Capes players are, by and large, pretty smart people; they had to figure out the rules of Capes, remember.  Therefore, if game theory made tokens better than inspirations, than that flaw in the game design would have been found long ago.  It WOULD be a flaw if it were true, I think; it would destroy the equilibrium between winning and losing. 

Therefore, I would say this is quite solid empirical evidence that for whatever reason, players of Capes do not judge Story Tokens to be universally more valuable than inspirations.  Actually, step back a bit.  Its better to say that this is convincing evidence that players do not judge gloating to be universally better than resolving, since there are non-tactical reasons (want to narrate something cool, its late and you want to go home, have a good idea for another scene) that come into play.  However, any theory of Capes must take into account this evidence.

On a side note, the fact that all claims are cancelled at the beginning of a page is the single biggest pitfall in the way of keeping a gloat-fest going, not splitting off a third side.  After the first page of a gloat-fest, there is ALWAYS at least one other player who could claim your side out from under you and prevent you from gloating again.  However, this does not counter Sindyr's concern; all it does is make it clear that a gloat-fest can only occur as a consensus activity on the part of the whole table, not just two people. 

If it helps, here.

I like Inspirations better than Story Tokens, and here's why.

First, they are tools for supporting the game continuity.  If I get inspirations from a challenge, I get to write them, and that means me saying "this was important, this is going to come up again."  I'm getting to shape the game continuity significantly.  Cool!

The other reason I like inspirations is because I like winning conflicts.  I tend to play high debt, which means that I need to to some serious staking from time-to-time.  Inspirations let me stake, split, inspire, and win, usually generating the same inspirations right back at me.

Story tokens ... give me another character.  Or maybe an extra action.  Extra actions are generally not as helpful as inspirations.  Secondary characters are fun, but not *that* fun.  One from time to time is more than enough.

yrs--
--Ben

Och, Ben stole my topic!

Which was, of course, that while I have little experience with the game, I find Inspirations SO cool. They're much cooler than Story tokens. The latter tell me nothing of where they come from, but Inspirations.. they're part of the crafted history of the game. They're there because of the story we made. As somebody said, you could just pump out Story tokens with a little collusion with the other players with nary a trouble, hardly touching the fiction. But to get a cool Inspiration, you actually have to play.

So yeah, I like Inspirations more for many situations.

But yeah, Ben pretty much said it all already. Damn him.

Quote from: Matthew Glover on April 25, 2006, 01:11:00 AM
Sindyr, tell me how allowing a Gloatfest is good strategy.  Tell me how it lets you manage your resources better than the other players.  Tell me how it creates an interesting story.  Tell me how it's good for the short term.  Tell me about the long-term benefits.  Tell me what possible good you get out of letting it keep rolling around rather than stopping it hard and early.

I hear you, Matthew.

Let me respond by first saying that Hans is correct - if tokens are not more effective in general than Insps, than I can say with some certainty that the gloatfest issue will evaporate.

But I think one of the things you are saying, Matthew, is even if tokens are significantly more effective than Insps, and therefore more desirable, you do not see the problem that I do.

Let's assume, to better ask the question of whether infinite gloating cycles occur if tokens > Insps, that a group of player are playing Capes with one important change - Inspirations are never awarded and indeed do not exist in their games.  (Note, I am not interested in the effect of this house rule, nor am I proposing seriously as a way to play Capes, I am simply constructing a thought experiment to illustrate the problem of the unavoidable gloatfest given that all people want are tokens and not Insps.)

If a player gloats a conflict, and gets a token, that ultimately puts you behind a token.  Assuming that you have claimed a side of the conflict and have control of it at the end of the next page, you can choose to resolve the conflict, narrating it how you see fit, force your opponent to take back double debt, if he stakes any, and give away your debt as story tokens to your opponent.

Well, the most he is likely to stake is 3 debt, because each player can only stake debt from one drive, and only as much debt as that drive's rating.  Let's say you both have three debt each staked on this.

[FYI, you can't invest millions of debt into a conflict, you are limited to usually at most 2 or 3, depending on what yoru highest rated drive is.  You can of course spend as much debt as you like rolling up dice. in general, out of every 6 debt you spend you can expect to reap 5 tokens through gloating as you have a 5 in 6 chance on rolling something higher than a 1.]

The options are:

• Resolve this conflict.  Your opponent gets your 3 debt as tokens, he gets back double his debt, for six debt total coming back.  He also keeps the tokens he got last page(3).  No one gets any inspirations, because this group doesn't use them.  Net effect from that conflict: You opponent gets 6 debt and 6 tokens.  You lose 3 debt.
• Gloat this conflict yourself. You get 3 tokens.  Your opponent gets nothing.

Without Insps even in the mix, does it not become clear that the person who blinks, and resolves the conflict will be at a tactical disadvantage?

It's a game of Gloat chicken in a way - the first person to resolve loses.

If people are tired of the conflict or tired of the scene, there may be added incentive to be the one that blinks, but being the one that *doesn't* blinks is more tactically rewarding in terms of resources.

There people who play tactically will tend to keep these gloatfests going.  People who just want the gloatfest over will sacrifice their tactical advantages in order to make it go away.

Therefor, for someone that wants to gain resources, playing with people that are willing to sacrifice their tactical advantage in order to stop the gloating are a gold mine - as someone who plays more tactically can simply bring a gloatable goal (or ten) into being, and then farm the non-gloating players dislike of gloatfests for a tactical advantage in tokens.

So I still feel pretty confident that if we are just looking at tokens, if people are not making tactical errors, then a gloatfest results.

Maybe it's not worth discussing what would happen in the absence of Insps, though.  As Hans says, the entire above thought process is inapplicable if Insps are as desirable as tokens.

So I should probably just table this whole discussion until I have enough experience to come back and say whether or not I think Insps are that desirable vis-a-vis tokens.  Enough people here have said that they are to make me willing to go with that for now.

So I will tell my gaming group that the folks here on the forums believe that gloatfests are not a problem because in equally many circumstances Inspirations are more desirable than Tokens.

If they still want some other safety to short circuit their fears of gloatfests, I will offer up the following optional rules:
HR-1: Once a conflict has been gloated on, no other player may gloat on it, and must instead resolve it.
HR-2: Only the conflict's creator can gloat on it.
HR-3: If a conflict is not tagged as gloatable on creation, than no one can gloat on it.
which they can use or not use as they see fit.

Perhaps even if they require some gloatfest preventing rule, like training wheels they can be removed if and when we all see that Inspirations are equally desirable as Tokens.

Thanks

All right, now we're getting somewhere.

Quote from: Sindyr on April 25, 2006, 11:31:03 AM
But I think one of the things you are saying, Matthew, is even if tokens are significantly more effective than Insps, and therefore more desirable, you do not see the problem that I do.

This isn't exactly true.  I think we're both on the same page about Gloatfests.  I think we both agree that they're bad when they happen.  I think where we disagree is that you think that it's good strategy to participate in (which is to say, allow) a Gloatfest, so a rule to stop them is necessary.  On the other hand, I am convinced that it's terrible strategy to allow or participate in Gloatfests, which means that no such rule is needed.  I think several other people feel as I do, based on their posts.  I think that if we can just show you why Gloatfest strategy is bad, we can put paid to this thread.

Before I get into talking about Gloating, I want to address this:

Quote
Well, the most he is likely to stake is 3 debt, because each player can only stake debt from one drive, and only as much debt as that drive's rating.  Let's say you both have three debt each staked on this.

[FYI, you can't invest millions of debt into a conflict, you are limited to usually at most 2 or 3, depending on what yoru highest rated drive is. 

I'm 99% sure that this is incorrect.  You can only stake debt from one drive, yes.  However you can stake as much from that drive as you like.  Undifferentiated characters may only stake up to three Debt on a given conflict, though.  (pg. 74)  If
I'm wrong or if this requires further discussion, let's split off a new thread so we can stay on topic.

Here we go with the Gloatfest strategy stuff again.

I asked you to explain to me why you think participation is good strategy and I think you did so.  I think the heart of it was this:

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If a player gloats a conflict, and gets a token, that ultimately puts you behind a token.

This is sort of true if you're using Story Tokens as some kind of scorecard.  Don't think of them that way.  Story Tokens are a useful resource.  If the other guy gets one, you haven't lost anything.  Getting one of your own will not cancel out the one he got, either. 

You say that when the other guy Gloats and gets a Token, the smart thing to do is to get some too, which also allows the cycle to continue.  If everyone at the table plays this way, you get a Gloatfest.

Here's a major component of my strategic thinking:  A Gloatfest leads to Story Token inflation, by which I mean all involved accrue a large number of Story Tokens which will have the net effect of reducing the value of each Token.  Do you see why?

Token inflation means that players have a large bank of Tokens to spend, allowing a player to spend them freely rather than having to carefully shepherd them.  When an important Conflict comes up, players will be able to spend exponentially more Tokens for extra actions or even extra characters.  Rather than an extra action or two on a Conflict, you could realistically go into dozens of actions per page.  This is going to amass piles of Debt, which is going to either savagely Overdraw characters or get fed back into the Token inflation problem.  Do you see how getting into this situation will be bad for the game as a whole?  Do you see any other conclusion to a Gloatfest? 

Another component:  Both the original Gloatfest and subsequent hotly contested Conflicts require a great many cycles of narration on a given conflict.  It's possible that players may be able to handle keeping this fresh and interesting and involving, but I have doubts about this.  I suspect that very quickly the many cycles of narration of Actions and Reactions (as well as the repeated Gloat itself on the initial Fest) on a Conflict will grow stale.  That makes for boring play.  Do you disagree?

Extrapolating on that last part:  Boring play may reduce the emotional investment that players have in the game.  Emotional investment is an exploitable resource.  You can exploit my emotional investment (by threatening or rewarding it) to get me to engage, which gets you resources.  I can exploit my own emotional investment (by showing passion) to get you to engage, which gets me resources.  It is to my benefit to keep every other player engaged.  Anything that reduces the emotional investment of any player is a strategic mistake.  Do you disagree?

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If people are tired of the conflict or tired of the scene, there may be added incentive to be the one that blinks, but being the one that *doesn't* blinks is more tactically rewarding in terms of resources.

There people who play tactically will tend to keep these gloatfests going.  People who just want the gloatfest over will sacrifice their tactical advantages in order to make it go away.

At best, this is short-term strategy.  It places too much value on individual Tokens, believing that a marginal difference is a significant advantage.  This belief leads to a situation where the entire Debt/Token economy is Inflated to the point of ruination.

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Therefor, for someone that wants to gain resources, playing with people that are willing to sacrifice their tactical advantage in order to stop the gloating are a gold mine - as someone who plays more tactically can simply bring a gloatable goal (or ten) into being, and then farm the non-gloating players dislike of gloatfests for a tactical advantage in tokens.

What you describe here is actually the way that Capes is intended to work.  You bring in a villain with goals that are contrary to the Comics Code.  You persue those goals, Gloat, and get a couple of Tokens for it.  I, using my hero, defeat you and maybe you get a couple more Tokens for it.  Together, you and I, we have written the Fundamental Comic Story.  I get to be the triumphant hero (and I get some Inspirations).  You get a few Story Tokens that you can use to advance your own favorite character, be it hero or villain.  You seem to say that the Smart Move is to keep coming up with Gloatable goals so that you can reap the rewards from the sucker heroes who keep resolving the goals.  Please, I say to you, please do this.  This is the model for comic books.  The bad guys keep trying to rule/destroy the world, but the heroes win.  (At one point, you were pushing for extra rules to accomplish exactly this situation, weren't you?)

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So I will tell my gaming group that the folks here on the forums believe that gloatfests are not a problem because in equally many circumstances Inspirations are more desirable than Tokens.

That's not why, at least not for me.  Sure, the Inspirations I get for resolving your Gloated goal are great incentive but the real reason is that the Story Token or two that you got off that goal are marginal.  I'm not worried about that.  It's not the significant advantage that you seem to think it will be. 

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Perhaps even if they require some gloatfest preventing rule, like training wheels they can be removed if and when we all see that Inspirations are equally desirable as Tokens.

Please don't do this.  You don't need it.  Instead, I'd like you to try this experiment:  Using the stock rules for Gloating, go play some Capes.  If you see a Gloatfest cycle starting, stop it cold.  Resolve the goal the very first chance you get.  Be smart about it, match up resources so you get some good Inspirations.  If you can manage it, split off a third side and match Side A dice against Side B dice so that lots of your dice on Side C are unmatched.  For a capper, narrate a resolution that is an absolute gutting defeat for every player who Gloated, especially the players who are just Gloating for the tokens. 

Do this every time a Gloat comes up.  If you're the first one to Gloat and the others continue the cycle, when it gets back to you, don't Gloat again, Resolve the goal, take the Inspirations, and narrate something utterly savage.  I especially like seeing a villain ripping on heroes for failing to do their job and then doing it for them. 

Play a game or two like this and then tell us whether you still consider the Gloatfest to be a good strategy.  My money says that you (and all your players) will change your minds.

Quote from: Matthew Glover on April 26, 2006, 01:03:24 AM
This is sort of true if you're using Story Tokens as some kind of scorecard.  Don't think of them that way.  Story Tokens are a useful resource.  If the other guy gets one, you haven't lost anything.  Getting one of your own will not cancel out the one he got, either. 

Here's another thing you can do: let's say you shut down the gloatfest and the other guy has more story tokens than you.  What do you do?  Convince him to spend them.  Throw down a conflict that he wants to win, oppose him on it, he spends the story tokens to beat you, and you get story tokens from being defeated.

J