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Just a though that occured to me.

Does anything in Capes forbid me from creating a "character" which is nothing more that a list of attributes?

For example, what if I create:

Powers:
Blinding Light(3)
The Impossible is Possible(4)
Luck(3)
Strange Time Shifts(2)
Strange Mood Shifts(1)

Styles:
Man That was Cool(4)P
An Unexpected Surprise(3)
Screw the Rules(2)
Karma(1)P

Attitudes:
Pride(3)
Optimism(2)
Hope(1)

Drives:
Justice:1
Truth:2
Love:3
Hope:3
Duty:1

So here's this character sheet - what if I *don't* associate it with and in-game persona or entity?  Is there anything in Capes that prevents me from gaming the system itself in a way?

The character sheet represents my ability to win conflicts, stake debt, etc.  I can do all of that with no central in game persona or entity.

This is a radical shift, I think, but not a rule breaking one.

So, for example, if Fred has a conflict out "The bad guys escape with the loot" , he has claimed the red die which is a 5.  I have claimed the blue die which is also a 5.  I am going last this round.  I announce that I am using "Blinding Light" (and acquiring debt) to roll down his 5.  I roll, and get a 2, which I keep.  I can narrate this several different ways:
"A Laser Beam security system shoots off a blinding light that vaporizes the bad guys."
"The sunlight reflecting off of a mirror makes the guy carrying the money bags trip, and the money bags fall down the the stories of stairs back down into the basement."
"The SWAT team has arrived and set off their 10,000 watt flash bangs, rendering the robbers immediately unconscious"
"Upon exiting the bank, a blast of divine light shoots down from the heavens, turn the robbers good, and they drop the money and go turn themselves in"
or maybe the divine light incinerates them.

But I hope you get my point.

You can have a character sheet, with all the influence that can bring to bear on the resolutions of conflicts, without ever having any kinds of persona, character, or entity in game.

What do you think?

Quote from: Sindyr on July 13, 2006, 05:29:53 PM
You can have a character sheet, with all the influence that can bring to bear on the resolutions of conflicts, without ever having any kinds of persona, character, or entity in game.

Sure you can.  "Entityless" characters are completely appropriate in Capes.  They are not usually debt-bearing characters, but there is nothing that says you can't make one that is.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 13, 2006, 05:29:53 PM
What do you think?

This particular character seems very lame to me at first glance, but who knows?  Maybe in play, it would knock my socks off, and I would have to go get a shovel to hand you story tokens fast enough.

Clearly you have an "entity" if it has drives! 

Don't worry, though, having this name "entity" attached doesn't prevent it from being a very valid charater even if it doesn't have a name or body or even presence except in the vaguest sense...

You could do the same character with the same list of abilities as a ghost, an angel, an astral being, a god, or just (like you said) just a list of attributes. 

That last bit does make drives very confusing...  What do they represent if you do not have a cohesive name to your character?  There must be some kind of perceived consciousness if there are drives, wouldn't you say?

This particular character was one I made up in two minutes for the sake of example, I would not be playing it.

"What do you think" = "What do you think about Capes players choosing to play an entity-free character"

Because, ultimately, if I have a character called "Superman" he can have loved ones to be threatened, weaknesses to be exploted, and I the player may care about his reputation.

If instead I have the exact same set of stats, the exact same character sheet, but associate it with no particular entity in game, this would seem to give me an advantage in that since I am not strongly connecting to any *particular* character, I will become a ton harder to manipulate and force tokens out of. While *still* have the same amount of influence in game - even more potentially.

Abstract metacharacters ftw! ;)

Quote from: LemmingLord on July 13, 2006, 05:58:22 PMThere must be some kind of perceived consciousness if there are drives, wouldn't you say?

Could be the universal drives of Hope, Duty, etc - the impersonal and overarching drives of the cosmos being tuned into, eh?

All that's really required I think is that

QuoteThey may Stake Debt on any number of Conflicts that provoke the character to prove themself in the relevant moral Drive.

and

QuoteBut when they Stake Debt, it must be on a Conflict that is morally charged for that particular character and Drive.

Who decides if the Conflict is "morally charged" or if it "provokes the character to prove themself"?  The character's owner does.  And I don't think any other player can gainsay the owner.  I could simply say, "this character IS this collection of Powers, Styles, Attitudes, and Drives - in other words, this character sheet and the info contained within it, and no more besides what fancy is in my head.  I will let you know when a Conflict is morally charged or provocative from time to time for this character (sheet) by staking debt appropriately - if I stake debt, then you know it's morally charged for this character (sheet)."

It's an unusual approach, but not as far as I can see, an invalid one.

If it is a spotlight character you can do that with impunity probably; but there's nothing to say other otherwise players can't give such a vague character more shape.  If I don't like the way a story is going with your superman collection-o-powers concept, I'll make sure during narration to give it form and substance.

On the other hand, I believe capes defines characters in certain classifications (characters, places, phenomenae, etc.); but as you said, you can just say "yep, this conglomeration of attributes is a character" and the rules gives you full power to do so. 

If someone ever uses this or any other tactic and it  isn't fun, I will make sure to 1) come up with a foil strategy so that it becomes fun; 2) suggest a house rule against it OR 3) stop playing with that person! (going through those options in that order until the game is fun again!).

Quote from: LemmingLord on July 13, 2006, 06:35:14 PM
If it is a spotlight character you can do that with impunity probably; but there's nothing to say other otherwise players can't give such a vague character more shape.  If I don't like the way a story is going with your superman collection-o-powers concept, I'll make sure during narration to give it form and substance.

On the other hand, I can simply say, that's sounds interesting what you are describing, but it isn't my character.  You can build anything you like,  but you cannot make it link with my character sheet unless I choose to buy into it.  Of course, what you built may have been so cool I will be persuaded to anyways, or not.  After all, my character has no body, no form, no description, no presence in the game at all.  The only things it has a presence on are metagame actions like conflict resolution, which only indirectly influence the game.  If I narrate a lightning bolt coming out of the heavens striking a bad guy as the result of me winning a conflict, you are free to introduce a mage that threw it.  But I do not have to agree that the character I am playing is the mage, it may instead be some unquantifed and unquantifiable things that caused the mage to throw that bolt.  Maybe it was simply the act of throwing the bolt.  When one is playing something as ineffable as karma itself, I don't know how you could force an embodiment on it that I could not simply say is a lower form of something which is itself higher and formless.  Shades of possible Buddhist or Hindu thought here?

QuoteOn the other hand, I believe capes defines characters in certain classifications (characters, places, phenomenae, etc.); but as you said, you can just say "yep, this conglomeration of attributes is a character" and the rules gives you full power to do so.

This truth floors me still, and in many ways is a testament to the uniqueness and flexibility of the game.

QuoteIf someone ever uses this or any other tactic and it  isn't fun, I will make sure to 1) come up with a foil strategy so that it becomes fun; 2) suggest a house rule against it OR 3) stop playing with that person! (going through those options in that order until the game is fun again!).

I do not enjoy violent storylines, storylines with suffering or abuse, and gritty, brutally realistic storylines, although all are as valid as my formless bodliess persona-less character.

Still, valid or not, I would probably follow the same three steps:
1) Try to find a way to make it fun (unlikely, as it's highly distressing to me.)
2) Suggest a house rules against it.
3) Stop playing with that person.

It is very interesting to me the parallels of these two situations.  No holds-barred offense and shameless coercive manipulation have been seen as very valid and proper tools of achieving relatively more narrative control than your opponent(s).  For example, knowing that I find stories with graphic suffering in them disturbing and painful, many Capes players would see this as an oppotunity to take advantage and coerce me in some resource producing ways.

This idea of a persona-less character in many ways seems an ultimate defense - as with no in game persona, you take really no ego risks - no player can threaten your persona or their loved ones, no player can threaten failure of your persona's goals, no player can threaten to make your persona look bad - none of these are possible because there is no persona.  In short, this approach seems like the perfect defense.

However, please take full note that the other players STILL have a way to get me to stake debt, to get story tokens off me.  But only through enticing, only by creating a conflict that I want to win, they have NO way to threaten, coerce or bully me.  And, or course, I can also still create conflicts for them that they care enough to stake on.

The only real thing that has changed is that they can't be lazy anymore - they can't just throw my character or what he cares about into danger to try to reap rewards - because my *character* can't be put in danger and has no cares at all.  What they have to do is what the Capes book itself says:

QuoteThe Teaser must arouse the interest of the players, not by forcing them to be interested (by, for instance, threatening their character) but by showing them the many options that they will have to control the outcome of the story.

In other words, do some homework, find out what the other player wants, and then sell it to him, one story token at a time.

That strategy, in my mind the only *proper* strategy, will work equally well with me playing this persona-less character.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

I think I have found the reaction to Cape's players' blunt attempts at coercion and duress.  And it's very cool.

Goal: The mysterious entity becomes trapped in a human body
Event: The mysterious entity sacrifices itself for humanity
Goal: The mysterious entity falls in love.

Yeah, I'm not seeing any problems with this.

Quote from: Ben Lehman on July 13, 2006, 11:17:32 PM
Goal: The mysterious entity becomes trapped in a human body
Event: The mysterious entity sacrifices itself for humanity
Goal: The mysterious entity falls in love.

Yeah, I'm not seeing any problems with this.

What mysterious entity?

You see what I mean?

Quote from: Sindyr on July 13, 2006, 11:55:12 PM

Quote from: Ben Lehman on July 13, 2006, 11:17:32 PM
Goal: The mysterious entity becomes trapped in a human body
Event: The mysterious entity sacrifices itself for humanity
Goal: The mysterious entity falls in love.

Yeah, I'm not seeing any problems with this.

What mysterious entity?

You see what I mean?

If I win the conflict, I get to narrate.

Are you *really* willing to risk me narrating?

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  You can always play themes and locations (just like in the book) but those aren't powered.

Quote from: Ben Lehman on July 14, 2006, 12:32:09 AM
If I win the conflict, I get to narrate.

Are you *really* willing to risk me narrating?

yrs--
--Ben

Maybe I would want to get involved on that conflict, maybe not.  But my motivation for getting involved would be whether or not I wanted to influence that piece of the overall story, NOT based on thinking you were doing something to "my" character - because as decribed no one can do anything to "my" character, but my character only exists within the narrative as a series of potential unexplicable indirect effects with no given central entity behind them that ties them all together, except at the metagame level.

In other words, "Goal: The mysterious entity becomes trapped in a human body" might as well become "Goal: *A* mysterious entity becomes trapped in a human body" because my character sheet is not represented by any persona within the narrative.  No player can ever narrate something or create a conflict and make me agree that what he is talking about is what my character sheet represents - because I have specifically designed this character to be no more (and no less) than the sume of its metagame effects.

So you can invent a new mysterious entity.  I never did.  But you cannot in the metagame make my character sheet linked in any significant way with this entity you created.  Perhaps you narrate this entity you have created admitting to being behind all the phenomena that I have narrated  using my character sheet.  Perhaps you win a goal that shuts this entity down.  And yet, somehow, even with this entity shut down, the phenomena continue (since you cannot prevent me from using my abilities).  When I use a "Blinding Light" coming down from heaven to stop the next group of bank robbers, you may look at me and say "how is this possible?  the entity responsible for doing this in the past has been shut down."  My explanation can simply be that that entity that you thought was responsible was really the pawn or unknowing agent of what my character sheet represents. Especially since I started the game informing everyone that what my character sheet represents is soemthing ineffable like the persona-less force of karma itself.

This is a perfect solution.  It can never be abridged, by it's very nature.  And it can never be abused.  Playing this character, I will be like a force for narrative control, hovering over the story, never coerced or forced to get involved, only ever choosing to when so enticed.  My character cannot be threatened because my character is eternal.  My character cannot have loved ones threatened because my character has no ego and has no emotion or sentiment or even thought.  My character is nothing more and nothing less than a force of Destiny itself, using who and what methods it must to accomplish whatever it must.  It's nature is essentially unknowable.

Which all means that other player's *cannot* operate on my character to get tokens from me.  My character is untouchable, period.  They have to fall back to telling me stories that I am eager to pay them story token for.  They can't use the stick, they must use the carrot.  And in my opinion, this is how Capes shold be played anyways - always with the carrot.

So, create a conflict that draws *me*, the player in.  A conflict that is part of a story of hope, or accomplishment, of growth and success, and ultimately not of loss, suffering, surrender, or conflicted moralities.  And I will reward you richly.  Just don't think you will be able to make a quick buck (or token) by throwing my character's loved one on the train tracks, because that is not possible with this character.  You have to aim higher, you have to be more creative than that, you have to stop relying on using the stick to get tokens out of me and start relying on using the carrot.  You have to get to know what I want out of the story.  And that's good.  After all, I have already committed to doing the same for you. :D

Quote from: Sindyr on July 13, 2006, 06:10:49 PM
Could be the universal drives of Hope, Duty, etc - the impersonal and overarching drives of the cosmos being tuned into, eh?

I would just like to pause a moment to say that having a debted character to represent the overall state of the universe is a really damn cool idea.  Where did I put my shovel?

Quote from: Ben Lehman on July 13, 2006, 11:17:32 PM
Goal: The mysterious entity becomes trapped in a human body
Event: The mysterious entity sacrifices itself for humanity
Goal: The mysterious entity falls in love.

Yeah, I'm not seeing any problems with this.

And having the spirit of the universe come to life in physical form is another really damn cool idea.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 13, 2006, 07:43:49 PM

Quote from: LemmingLord on July 13, 2006, 06:35:14 PM
If it is a spotlight character you can do that with impunity probably; but there's nothing to say other otherwise players can't give such a vague character more shape.  If I don't like the way a story is going with your superman collection-o-powers concept, I'll make sure during narration to give it form and substance.

On the other hand, I can simply say, that's sounds interesting what you are describing, but it isn't my character.  You can build anything you like,  but you cannot make it link with my character sheet unless I choose to buy into it.  Of course, what you built may have been so cool I will be persuaded to anyways, or not.  After all, my character has no body, no form, no description, no presence in the game at all.  The only things it has a presence on are metagame actions like conflict resolution, which only indirectly influence the game.  If I narrate a lightning bolt coming out of the heavens striking a bad guy as the result of me winning a conflict, you are free to introduce a mage that threw it.  But I do not have to agree that the character I am playing is the mage, it may instead be some unquantifed and unquantifiable things that caused the mage to throw that bolt.  Maybe it was simply the act of throwing the bolt.  When one is playing something as ineffable as karma itself, I don't know how you could force an embodiment on it that I could not simply say is a lower form of something which is itself higher and formless.  Shades of possible Buddhist or Hindu thought here?

Yes, you can say it has nothing to do with your character; but when I'm the narrator what I say happens and so if I say your very undefined character is a double decaf latte with mocha sprinkles with these attributes there's nothing in the rules to suggest otherwise. Muhahahaha. 

I also disagree that your "list of attributes" is not an entity.  With its own volition and pattern of interfering with other characters, it is an entity - and one, no doubt, that would get named by anyone paying enough attention.  One character may name it his "bad luck" that lightning bolts keep dropping out of the sky at inopportune moments; while another character might say its the ghost of her father; and because you have made these characteristics so undefined, whoever is narrating will give it form and substance that you don't provide... Or at least they can.. 

It seems in absolute keeping with the system for you to be as vague as you'd like AND for everyone else to fill in what you do not.  As long as this isn't a spotlight character, there's nothing to stop the narrator from saying Bob Smith had a girlfriend twenty years ago, has a mole on the side of his face, or that string-o-attributes is a cosmic chicken come to earth in its avatar, a double decaf latte with mocha sprinkles... :)

Since its making me laugh; I think I could make this fun.  :)

It doesn't matter whether you've filled it in or not; only the social level prevents the narrator from totally re-imagining the character when he narrates.

Quote from: LemmingLord on July 14, 2006, 11:21:47 AM
Yes, you can say it has nothing to do with your character; but when I'm the narrator what I say happens and so if I say your very undefined character is a double decaf latte with mocha sprinkles with these attributes there's nothing in the rules to suggest otherwise. Muhahahaha. 

Yes, you can narrate anything you like, but what you cannot do is use the power of narration to state or create meta-game facts or truth.  You cannot, for example, tell me *the player* that the narrative entity you are describing has any connection to the character sheet I am holding.  As long as I have not specified any tangible embodied existence nor persona, I the player am continually free to validly maintain that while you have the right to create whatever entities you like within your narratiion, you never have the right to step outside the scope of your narration and tell me as a player what entity in game my character sheet represents. :D  Muhahahaha back atcha.

QuoteI also disagree that your "list of attributes" is not an entity.  With its own volition and pattern of interfering with other characters, it is an entity - and one, no doubt, that would get named by anyone paying enough attention.  One character may name it his "bad luck" that lightning bolts keep dropping out of the sky at inopportune moments; while another character might say its the ghost of her father; and because you have made these characteristics so undefined, whoever is narrating will give it form and substance that you don't provide... Or at least they can.. 

Sure, I actually really like the idea of each of them embodying what they perceive in different ways.  But the truth is higher then that.

I also need to point out that in a sense what I am playing is an ineffable cosmic force, with no personality, no more than karma or destiny itself does.  If you want to call that an entity, I don't mind, but it's not conscious and self aware, it's more like gravity, but a force of morality instead - like karma and destiny.

To put it another way, should someone try to narrate a form, an embodiment for this Cosmic Force, I will simply explain, player to player, thatthe *true* cosmic force exists on a higher plane, and is incapable of being so embodied.  What that narrator may have created may be a lesser incarnation of this greater force.

This is probably a bad example, but take Phoenix of the X-Man.  Phoenix is a lesser incarnation, but the Phoenix Force is the greater force above her that cannot be so emobodied.  Now I am not a comics geek and this may turn out to be a very bad analogy, but my hope is that you see what I am driving at.

QuoteIt seems in absolute keeping with the system for you to be as vague as you'd like AND for everyone else to fill in what you do not.  As long as this isn't a spotlight character, there's nothing to stop the narrator from saying Bob Smith had a girlfriend twenty years ago, has a mole on the side of his face, or that string-o-attributes is a cosmic chicken come to earth in its avatar, a double decaf latte with mocha sprinkles... :)

Nope, nothing at all.  Of course, I as a player may even see this incarnation to be one of a completely different cosmic force, and not the one I am representing, only I can say what I as a player am playing...

The only real constraint is if other player want my debt, then they need to provide me with stories I want to engage in.  And that's as it should be.

QuoteSince its making me laugh; I think I could make this fun.  :)

Cool!  I hope someday to be able to game with you, I think we would have a blast! :)

Quote from: Sindyr on July 13, 2006, 05:59:33 PM
"What do you think" = "What do you think about Capes players choosing to play an entity-free character"
[snip]
If instead I have the exact same set of stats, the exact same character sheet, but associate it with no particular entity in game, this would seem to give me an advantage in that since I am not strongly connecting to any *particular* character, I will become a ton harder to manipulate and force tokens out of. While *still* have the same amount of influence in game - even more potentially.

I think it is a bad idea, because I think your rationale for it is flawed.  You are correct, in that it is harder to come up with narration that will manipulate you, the player, into doing things with this character.  You have succeeded in creating an untouchable character.  Congratulations.

The problem is that, since your character is untouchable, it really cannot TOUCH, either.  There is really no point of engagement to this character for the other players.  All that can be done with this character is monkey with other people's action, not really generate any of its own.  Once the cleverness wears off, I believe that it will just be dull, a glorifed NPC that serves no real purpose in the story. 

You said, in an earlier post:

QuoteSo, create a conflict that draws *me*, the player in.  A conflict that is part of a story of hope, or accomplishment, of growth and success, and ultimately not of loss, suffering, surrender, or conflicted moralities.  And I will reward you richly.

If you play this character with me, an equally likely course of events would be me saying "Ok, Sindyr.  The rest of us are going to have a game of Capes over here, pitch in whenever you see anything that interests you."  Then, I pretty much ignore you.  I can get rewards from other people at the table, and am liable to have more fun in the process.  This has nothing to do with kind of character you created, or the kind of story going on.  I would have the exactly the same response if your disembodied nothingness had abilities like "Despair", "Oh crap, not this again", "Oh my God, NOOOO!!!", "Just bad luck, I guess", etc. 

A big chunk of the fun in Capes is not just manipulating other people's characters, but having your own character manipulated.  (This is beginning to sound a bit risque).  That is, it is fun to lay down the goal that makes your opponent say "Oh HELL no!" in that excited way, but it is also just as much fun when another player plays a goal that makes YOU say "Oh HELL no".  Why?  Well, first, it means that your fellow players get IT, the thing you are trying to do with this character.  It means you have created something that is interesting enough for them to challenge.  Second, it makes YOUR character the center of attention: all action around that goal is going to be about whether or not this challenge to your character succeeds.

So, again, I think this character is a bad idea, at least as a main character.  As an NPC on the side, a way to gain an extra action or two, it could be fun, in the same way an NPC like "Martial Law Declared" or "Psychadelic Rock Show" can be fun.  And they CAN be fun, but not as a main character...I have tried them as main characters, and they suck, at least if used for more than one occasional scene.

Moreover, to give this "force of destiny" drives, to my mind, is to risk actually breaking the rules of the game.  On page 32 it states:

QuoteBut when they Stake Debt, it must be on a Conflict that is morally charged for that particular character and Drive.

 
You have successfully created a non-entity; what could possibly be morally charged for this nothingness that has no real existence?  You said, in one post:

Quote

Quote
Goal: The mysterious entity becomes trapped in a human body
Event: The mysterious entity sacrifices itself for humanity
Goal: The mysterious entity falls in love.

What mysterious entity?

But here is an alternative bit of game business:

Quote
Sindyr: I stake two hope debt on this conflict.
Me: One moment please, to whom is this debt staking morally charged?
Sindyr: My character.
Me: What character, I don't see any character? 

It can accumulate debt, but I would argue it can never actually stake it without some semblence of a personality.  And a semblance of personality makes the character touchable.

The phenomenon being proposed here isn't unique to the "bodiless, persona-less character".  Any player can employ the techniques described to deflect any consequences or actions away from the character they are playing.  Let's take an example.

Nameless Character with list of attributes played by Player A

Player B:  The nameless entity gets trapped in a human body...
Player A:  The thing trapped in the body is something else...

Here Player B tries to say something happens to Player A's nameless character.  Player A dodges by saying while what Player B said happened, it doesn't have anything to do with his character.  That's fine.  Player B could have dodged it by saying it was a dream, a TV show, or some other explanation.  It makes no nevermind how he dodged.  Just that he did so.

Zoit the Pinhead Barbarian played by Player A

Player B: Zoit gets trapped inside the body of a little girl...
Player A: It's somebody else that gets trapped, not Zoit...

There's nothing functionally different here from the example above.  Player B says something about Player A's character.  Player A dodges the issue with his narration.

However, Sindyr, I would say that your character isn't legal.  It doesn't have a name.  There is a spot on the Character Sheet for a name.  Every character in the rulebook has a name.  Even the characters that are objects or ideas or whatnot have a name.  They have a name specifically so that they can be referenced for Conflicts and such.  I'd say the strong implication is that characters have to have names of some sort or another.  Even if it is just "Something".  Once it has a name I can reference it for Conflicts.  You can veto the Conflicts as per the rules and you can still dodge any effects from the Conflict via narration just like before, if you like.

Essentially what I'm saying is that the nameless entity isn't functionally different from any other character.  It doesn't gain the player any extra protections from narration or Conflicts or anything.  It just makes it a little easier to dodge stuff you don't like without having to rack your brain for appropriate narration.

Quote from: Andrew Cooper on July 14, 2006, 03:02:13 PM
Essentially what I'm saying is that the nameless entity isn't functionally different from any other character.  It doesn't gain the player any extra protections from narration or Conflicts or anything.  It just makes it a little easier to dodge stuff you don't like without having to rack your brain for appropriate narration.

I will dissent here, Andrew.  I think what Sindyr has proposed is very different from a PLAYER character.  I think it does give you extra protections from narrations and conflicts, because, frankly, there simply aren't that many things that are interesting to narrate or make conflicts about.  Reading between the lines of Sindyr's other posts, I suspect that Sindyr is VERY concerned about people narrating things he doesn't like about his characters.  He has achieved just about the perfect defense against this possible danger; he has created a character about which very little interesting can be narrated, by anyone, including himself.

Think about it...other than trying to embody this character, what can you actually narrate about it?  Sure, Sindyr can narrate things happening, but they are never caused by anything, really.  The other players in the game can narrate things happening as well, but at least they can narrate the cause.
 
As I indicated above, this might be fun for a scene or two, but it would get old pretty fast.  It is functionally no different from playing any other abstract NPC as your main character with the only advantage being you can reuse the abilities on it at the cost of accumulating debt that can never be spent, as it can never be morally charged.  Actually, the NPC's described on pgs 108-109 of the rules (especially "Murphy's Law") are not much different from this, other than the addition of drives.   Mechanically, I think the free Conflict on a two-column NPC is more valuable than adding drives; certainly it is in terms of controlling the story (because conflicts are the story), as well as ensuring that you will often gain at least one story token.

Quote from: Andrew Cooper on July 14, 2006, 03:02:13 PM
However, Sindyr, I would say that your character isn't legal.  It doesn't have a name.  There is a spot on the Character Sheet for a name.  Every character in the rulebook has a name.  Even the characters that are objects or ideas or whatnot have a name.  They have a name specifically so that they can be referenced for Conflicts and such.  I'd say the strong implication is that characters have to have names of some sort or another.  Even if it is just "Something".  Once it has a name I can reference it for Conflicts.  You can veto the Conflicts as per the rules and you can still dodge any effects from the Conflict via narration just like before, if you like.

No problem.  The "name" for this character is Kismet.

QuoteEssentially what I'm saying is that the nameless entity isn't functionally different from any other character.  It doesn't gain the player any extra protections from narration or Conflicts or anything.  It just makes it a little easier to dodge stuff you don't like without having to rack your brain for appropriate narration.

I disagree.  If I play the universal force of Kismet, that seems much more protected against persona-based threats and coercions than if I play Bob the Barbarian.

Narratively, I think it is completely different. There are simply things you can do to Bob the Barbbarian that are simply less defendable by Bob's very nature than what you can do to the ineffable force of Kismet.

However, I think it is quite possible for us to play Capes together, all the while we disagree over whether it is functionally different or not, but still having a good time.  So maybe the point is moot.  If you believe it's not functionally different and I believe it is perhaps we can both be happy with differing perspectives. whilst we play Capes toegther

Sindyr, come back after you've played Kismet in Capes, with someone who knows how Capes works.  I think you will have changed your mind.

In fact, if you want to set a date to play in IRC, I'd be willing to show you what I mean.

Quote from: Hans on July 14, 2006, 02:46:25 PM
I think it is a bad idea, because I think your rationale for it is flawed.  You are correct, in that it is harder to come up with narration that will manipulate you, the player, into doing things with this character.  You have succeeded in creating an untouchable character.  Congratulations.

Thank you.

QuoteThe problem is that, since your character is untouchable, it really cannot TOUCH, either.  There is really no point of engagement to this character for the other players.  All that can be done with this character is monkey with other people's action, not really generate any of its own.  Once the cleverness wears off, I believe that it will just be dull, a glorifed NPC that serves no real purpose in the story. 

I think this misses the fundamental point of this game.  The game is not really about specific characters.  It's about the *players* and what stories they want to encourage and what oucomes they want to pursue, regardless of whether or not they have some kind of embodied character in the game.  Some one else, I forget who, said it best - Capes is not a game where everyone has characters and no one is the GM.  It's a game where no one has (priveleged and owned) characters and *everyone* is the GM.

Quote
If you play this character with me, an equally likely course of events would be me saying "Ok, Sindyr.  The rest of us are going to have a game of Capes over here, pitch in whenever you see anything that interests you."  Then, I pretty much ignore you.  I can get rewards from other people at the table, and am liable to have more fun in the process.  This has nothing to do with kind of character you created, or the kind of story going on.  I would have the exactly the same response if your disembodied nothingness had abilities like "Despair", "Oh crap, not this again", "Oh my God, NOOOO!!!", "Just bad luck, I guess", etc. 

You have every right to be that way, but I think you would be in error.  You can also get just as many rewards from me as from anyone at the table.  The only difference is that you have to do a little more homework, you have to figure out what I want - which is pretty much what the Capes game says to do anyways.

If how you really want to play Capes is to repetitively use people's investment in their characters against them because it is quick and easy, then no, you probably would not have much fun with mine.  Nor would I want you to.

QuoteA big chunk of the fun in Capes is not just manipulating other people's characters, but having your own character manipulated.  (This is beginning to sound a bit risque).  That is, it is fun to lay down the goal that makes your opponent say "Oh HELL no!" in that excited way, but it is also just as much fun when another player plays a goal that makes YOU say "Oh HELL no".  Why?  Well, first, it means that your fellow players get IT, the thing you are trying to do with this character.  It means you have created something that is interesting enough for them to challenge.  Second, it makes YOUR character the center of attention: all action around that goal is going to be about whether or not this challenge to your character succeeds.

If you find having your character manipulated to be fun, I promise to do just that.  Why wouldn't I, since you are willing to pay me story tokens to do it?

However, I do not find having *my* character manipulated to be fun.  There are *other* things that I find fun, and I would be willing to tell anyone I was playing Capes with what they were - so that they can better collect resources off me.

QuoteMoreover, to give this "force of destiny" drives, to my mind, is to risk actually breaking the rules of the game.  On page 32 it states:

QuoteBut when they Stake Debt, it must be on a Conflict that is morally charged for that particular character and Drive.

You have successfully created a non-entity; what could possibly be morally charged for this nothingness that has no real existence?  You said, in one post:

Quote

Quote
Goal: The mysterious entity becomes trapped in a human body
Event: The mysterious entity sacrifices itself for humanity
Goal: The mysterious entity falls in love.

What mysterious entity?

But here is an alternative bit of game business:

Quote
Sindyr: I stake two hope debt on this conflict.
Me: One moment please, to whom is this debt staking morally charged?
Sindyr: My character.
Me: What character, I don't see any character? 

It can accumulate debt, but I would argue it can never actually stake it without some semblence of a personality.  And a semblance of personality makes the character touchable.

Whether it has a "semblance of a personality" or not is debatable.  I will only state that on any conflict I stake debt on, it is morally charged for my character.  You don't have to see it or understand it, and I don't have to prove it, any more than you have to prove that this conflict is morally charged for Bob the Barbarian.  It just is, if you say it is.

Quote from: Vaxalon on July 14, 2006, 04:24:04 PM
Sindyr, come back after you've played Kismet in Capes, with someone who knows how Capes works.  I think you will have changed your mind.

I am always willing to change my mind as I experience new facts.  I dont like to type much if I can avoid it, but I would be willing to play by Skype, Teamspeak, or Ventrillo.  Or in person in Mass, VT or NH.

Quote from: Hans on July 14, 2006, 03:32:49 PM

Quote from: Andrew Cooper on July 14, 2006, 03:02:13 PM
Essentially what I'm saying is that the nameless entity isn't functionally different from any other character.  It doesn't gain the player any extra protections from narration or Conflicts or anything.  It just makes it a little easier to dodge stuff you don't like without having to rack your brain for appropriate narration.

I will dissent here, Andrew.  I think what Sindyr has proposed is very different from a PLAYER character.  I think it does give you extra protections from narrations and conflicts, because, frankly, there simply aren't that many things that are interesting to narrate or make conflicts about.  Reading between the lines of Sindyr's other posts, I suspect that Sindyr is VERY concerned about people narrating things he doesn't like about his characters.  He has achieved just about the perfect defense against this possible danger; he has created a character about which very little interesting can be narrated, by anyone, including himself.

You can make a completely "normal" character that is uninteresting and nobody wants to take the time and effort to make conflicts about.  We've had that happen by accident in games.  That character just ends up in the pile of unused characters most of the time unless someone gets some real inspiration and *makes* the character interesting.

Seems to me that your non-person character isn't substantially different from the ones in the book.  Public Opinion, Murphy's Law, etc.  Yours has Powers, but still completely legitimate.  I'm kinda with Eric on this:  Having unpersonified Fate as a regular intervening force over the course of a game could be super awesome.

I rather agree with Hans, though.  This doesn't sound like you're doing it because you think "Fate takes a hand" is a cool idea.  This is a dodge so that you can play Capes while avoiding having to actually put anything at risk.  You aren't suggesting using this as a sometimes character or along with some real-people characters.  That makes a big difference to me.  You intend to play Kismet exclusively so that nobody can threaten you. 

If you were to sit down with me and three other guys and say "Hey, I'm just gonna play the unpersonified force of Fate, so that I can meddle with you, but none of you guys can do anything to me," I'd roll my eyes.  No, if you're gonna do that, I don't want to play with you.   "Hey, I know this is poker night and you guys always play for money.  You go ahead and play for money, but I'd just like to play with chips, no money.  Cool?"   No, dude.  Not cool.  We're over here trying to have a serious game with serious stakes.  You want an equal opportunity to affect the outcome?  Let's see the color of your money.

Said another way:  You're trying to put yourself in a position where you get to meddle with the story as an outsider.  The story will be about the characters that the other players created and put on the table, with each player saying "This guy is interesting to me.  Let's see what he does and what gets done to him."  What you're saying is "I'm not putting a character on the table.  I don't trust you with my character, but I still want the opportunity to do stuff to yours." 

As an aside, here's a question:  What if every player played a non-person character like yours?  Would that be a fun game?

Quote from: Matthew Glover on July 15, 2006, 10:52:56 AM

As an aside, here's a question:  What if every player played a non-person character like yours?  Would that be a fun game?

Actually that gives me goosebumps!!  That would definitely have a "hand of the gods" feel to it as all of the individuals in the game do what they do by the different forces of the universe... Quite a depiction of the "we have no control of our own destinies" concept!!!

Although this idea can be abused easily, I think it has lots-o-potential.  It is also another great way to slap people like me who are having so much trouble divorcing myself from characters (even though I'm eager to do so!!).  It becomes an interesting challenge indeed to try to figure out what is important to a player who may be playing such forces or phenoms...You don't get their character's success and failure mixed up with the players's own goals. 

But yeah, as with all things, an asshat will take this and laugh about how they broke the system and made everyone cry; so my thought is that the non asshat players should first try to find some ways to have fun with the behavior, use the game mechanics and reward system to reward the non asshat players, tell the person to grow up, and last resorts - don't play this game with them.  These are the kinds of people who need a gamemaster as a babysitter to constantly be saying, "no, that doesn't happen; you're being a jerk."

Maybe we should offer that jerks will just need to grow up if they want to play this game.  :)

Personally, since you brought up asshats and jerks, I think the asshats and jerks are the ones who would only play with you if they can have a way to threaten to hurt you and coerce you.  The ones that lose all interest when the only way they can intereact with you is in a positive way.  :)

More to come.

Quote from: Matthew Glover on July 15, 2006, 10:52:56 AM
Seems to me that your non-person character isn't substantially different from the ones in the book.  Public Opinion, Murphy's Law, etc.  Yours has Powers, but still completely legitimate.  I'm kinda with Eric on this:  Having unpersonified Fate as a regular intervening force over the course of a game could be super awesome.

I rather agree with Hans, though.  This doesn't sound like you're doing it because you think "Fate takes a hand" is a cool idea.  This is a dodge so that you can play Capes while avoiding having to actually put anything at risk.  You aren't suggesting using this as a sometimes character or along with some real-people characters.  That makes a big difference to me.  You intend to play Kismet exclusively so that nobody can threaten you. 

The coolness of playing a universal cosmic force is what struck me when I came up with this idea.  Please, everyone, do not think that the only reason I like this idea is to avoid other player's coercive attampts.  Though that is part of it's allure for me, a probably even larger part is the idea of playing a narrative force, a cosmic force of destiny.

I do not intend to play Kismet exclusively so that nobody can threaten me - that's just *one* of the benefits. 

QuoteIf you were to sit down with me and three other guys and say "Hey, I'm just gonna play the unpersonified force of Fate, so that I can meddle with you, but none of you guys can do anything to me," I'd roll my eyes.  No, if you're gonna do that, I don't want to play with you.

And I hope reading the above you know that I would not do that.  My goal (I feel like I am repeating this a lot) is to earn story tokens by playing conflicts and performing narrations that make you *want* to have me in the game gaining your resources.  Some people here say they want their characters to be meddled with, well then I am happy to oblige.  You may be more like me and prefer to be enticed into spending your resources instead of coerced.  Whatever you want out of playing Capes, unless it is diametrically opposed to what I want (such as you want the world to be destroyed and I want it to persist) I will offer it to you in order to earn your resources.  I hope people do the same for me.

Quote"Hey, I know this is poker night and you guys always play for money.  You go ahead and play for money, but I'd just like to play with chips, no money.  Cool?"   No, dude.  Not cool.  We're over here trying to have a serious game with serious stakes.  You want an equal opportunity to affect the outcome?  Let's see the color of your money.

This analogy is invalid.  Poker's very ruleset requires money.  What I am suggesting is valid within Capes. A better poker analogy (maybe) is if we were playing Texas Hold'em and I showed my cards all the time after folding - not usual poker play, but not invalid.

QuoteSaid another way:  You're trying to put yourself in a position where you get to meddle with the story as an outsider.  The story will be about the characters that the other players created and put on the table, with each player saying "This guy is interesting to me.  Let's see what he does and what gets done to him."  What you're saying is "I'm not putting a character on the table.  I don't trust you with my character, but I still want the opportunity to do stuff to yours." 

As an aside, here's a question:  What if every player played a non-person character like yours?  Would that be a fun game?

That's a very good point.  If everyone played a non-person character it would be *awesome*.

Fundamentally, you can choose to bring a character into Capes and have your focus of interest be centered on that character.  Or, you can have a different approach, and be interested in the overall story, the way I am.

ALL the player's are outsiders.  Having a persona based character within the game is simply a statement of where your interest lies.  It is neither more correct to play a persona'ed character nor more correct to play a non-persona'ed based character.  It's is simply a matter of taste, and there's nothing wrong with it.

And I will say it, if no one else will: kudos to me for thinking of this. (grin)

Quote from: LemmingLord on July 15, 2006, 11:15:40 AM
Although this idea can be abused easily, I think it has lots-o-potential.  It is also another great way to slap people like me who are having so much trouble divorcing myself from characters (even though I'm eager to do so!!).  It becomes an interesting challenge indeed to try to figure out what is important to a player who may be playing such forces or phenoms...You don't get their character's success and failure mixed up with the players's own goals. 

That's how I came up with this idea.  People kept telling me that there is no ownership or authority of character's in game, that whether or not I am owning/playing the character sheet, I cannot prevent other plaers from narrating any actions, thoughts, or choices on the part of my character.  Also, it was told to me that whether the character was narratively in the scene or not, or even dead and destroyed, as long as I have the character sheet in front of me, NO in game narration can prevent me from being able to use my abilities and resources to affect conflicts.

This percolated in my head and created a eureka moment - that the character sheet and the power it represents to shape the story is completely disconnected from anything in the narrations.  And the next logical step if...  that I do not *have* to have a focus character to be able to help "gm" the story.

Playing Capes ultimately is about a group of GM's sharing and competing for narrative influence.  There is no reason to tie an embodied character to the character sheet when I can choose ANY character at ANY time to be interested in.  Yours.  Someone else's.  An NPC.  If there is a character I want to bring into the game, I will - through narration.  But linking it to my character sheet is simply not necessary and inefficient.

To my way of thinking, this is truly how Capes maybe deserves to be played - this is the kind of game Capes truly is.  And it's very interesting and cool.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 15, 2006, 01:23:37 PM
Personally, since you brought up asshats and jerks, I think the asshats and jerks are the ones who would only play with you if they can have a way to threaten to hurt you and coerce you.  The ones that lose all interest when the only way they can intereact with you is in a positive way.  :)

Sindyr, you seem to assume that any game you play with, say, me or Tony, will involve goals like:

Goal: My character rapes your chracter
Goal: Your character becomes a serial killer and loves it, drinking the blood of innocents
Event: Puppies are murdered
Event: All goodness is sapped from the world by the forces of darkness

or whatever.  You seem to consistently assume the worst of a bunch of people you have never met.  If you are in a game and someone plays a conflict like those above with absolutely no warning, no hint it is coming, and no prior discussion, then I'll tell you what I would do.  I would slowly back out of the room and run for it.  For your information, these goals appeal to me not at all...except maybe the last one...the last one could be kind of cool in the right circumstances.

Here, for you information, are the kind of manipulative goals that I might play;

Goal: Doc Ock frames Spiderman for a crime
Goal: The Vulture scares Aunt May into a heart attack
Event: Mary Jane breaks up with Peter
Event: An editorial by Jameson incites the city against Spiderman
Goal: Peter Parker makes it to the hospital to before Aunt May goes into surgery

If you are playing Spiderman, I'll point out that three out of the five above are even vetoable by you.  Thats what I mean by meddling, manipulating, challenging you.   If you cannot bear the thought of any of those things hitting the table unless you think of them yourself, then, yes, you and I should never, ever play in a game together, and if you think I am a jerk and asshat for wanting to play them, then fair enough.  I can live with that.  

Quote from: Hans on July 15, 2006, 04:00:45 PM
Sindyr, you seem to assume that any game you play with, say, me or Tony, will involve goals like:

Goal: My character rapes your chracter
Goal: Your character becomes a serial killer and loves it, drinking the blood of innocents
Event: Puppies are murdered
Event: All goodness is sapped from the world by the forces of darkness

or whatever.  You seem to consistently assume the worst of a bunch of people you have never met.  If you are in a game and someone plays a conflict like those above with absolutely no warning, no hint it is coming, and no prior discussion, then I'll tell you what I would do.  I would slowly back out of the room and run for it.  For your information, these goals appeal to me not at all...except maybe the last one...the last one could be kind of cool in the right circumstances.

Let me clarify, I am not making ANY assumptions.  I am simply keeping my options open.

QuoteHere, for you information, are the kind of manipulative goals that I might play;

Goal: Doc Ock frames Spiderman for a crime
Goal: The Vulture scares Aunt May into a heart attack
Event: Mary Jane breaks up with Peter
Event: An editorial by Jameson incites the city against Spiderman
Goal: Peter Parker makes it to the hospital to before Aunt May goes into surgery

If you are playing Spiderman, I'll point out that three out of the five above are even vetoable by you.

Cool.  But I do want to point out one ULTRA important fact:  I can play Kismet and STILL take spiderman's side and be just as involved in shaping his story.  My character in the game may be Kismet, but the story I am helping to tell is Spiderman's.  So why not do just that?  The smart and efficient choice seems to be to play a universal force and entwine myself with any character that appeals to me in the moment.

QuoteThats what I mean by meddling, manipulating, challenging you.   If you cannot bear the thought of any of those things hitting the table unless you think of them yourself, then, yes, you and I should never, ever play in a game together, and if you think I am a jerk and asshat for wanting to play them, then fair enough.  I can live with that. 

Nope, again, I did not and do not have ANY opinion of how you play, as I have not payed with you.  Plus, *everyone* on this thread need to keep in mind that I was not the one who brought the wors asshat and jerk into this thread.

I sense you are neither.

First, I can see no relation between playing a non entity and being frightened. On the contrary. It is so abstract and dry and vulnerable it can only be brave to try and play it.

The, Sindyr, you have a very beautiful mind, but creations of the mind are fragile. We realized in Son of Love thread that the less "contact surface" your character has, the stronger he will get glued in the end by all kind of players with a peculiar idea of fun. A character such as the "non entity" described above has only one point to target, and it will be targetted. It is not the character's psychology, drives, body, whatever. It is the character's name.
example of goal : Kismet is turned into a blooming lotus flower by Sun Wu Kong.

That does not terribly concern me, for 2 reasons:

-I believe that Kismet is eternal and eternally ineffable.  The blooming lotus flower may have come from Kismet (or not) but here the rub:  No matter what happens to that flower, nothing can affect or curtail how me, the player can use the abilities on Kismet's character sheet to affect the storyline.  That, combined with the nature of the character as envisioned leads me to experience the flower as nothing more than the child of Kismet at most - a child that Kismet may or may not interact with.

-It is completely unnessecary for players to be able to play goals on my character in order to earn my resources.  If they entice me and draw me in on ANY conflict, they will get my resources.  Kismet is in some ways like the Hand of God.  God is *not* the central character of the story though.  In a story about Doc Ock versus Sandman and Spiderman, Doc Ock may be played by player A, and Sandman by player B, and Spiderman by me, even though none of us have character sheets for those characters.  For example, I may be playing the Kismet character sheet, player A may be playing a character sheet called "Villainous Forces", and player B may be playing a character sheet called "Poetic Justice" - but the story, and what we narrate, is the adventures of Sandman and Spiderman against Doc Ock.

I think we need to make a fundamental shift in thinking when it comes to Capes, to realize it's full potential.  We are GM's first and foremost, not PC's.  Our character sheet is mainly to give us a way to affect, channel, and compete for narrative control.  That the character sheet be representative or linked to any incarnate entity in the narration is entirely not only unecessary but superflous.  With the Kismet character sheet, I can still play Spiderman in almost every important way.

I imagine the natural evolution of people who play this game is to more and more embrace the separation of the meta game from the narration.  I myself think and I am going to throw myself fully into this.  Not just as a method of self-protection, but because it now seems true that this is the true spirit of Capes, as designed.  This is what the absolute separation of the metagame and the narrative leads inexorably to, and its very interesting.

Wow.

Sindyr,

Now that is something I think could be really cool.  Go play that game and tell us how it turns out.  I'd love to hear it as I think the Capes rules would rise to the challenge quite well.  I could see a three player game where there were characters representing The Forces of Good, The Forces of Evil and The Hand of Fate.  Where "Forces" didn't neccessarily refer to specific people rather a metaphysical state of the universe.  I just wonder how you would deal with changing characters between scenes.  I think it would become boring to constantly play those incorporeal, big-picture characters constantly.  Sometimes I'd want to dip down into the smaller scale of single characters.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 16, 2006, 08:57:27 AM
No matter what happens to that flower, nothing can affect or curtail how me, the player can use the abilities on Kismet's character sheet to affect the storyline. 

Of course, that's true of EVERY Capes character.

Please let us know how this play turns out.

Quote from: Andrew Cooper on July 17, 2006, 12:18:12 AM
Sindyr,
Now that is something I think could be really cool.  Go play that game and tell us how it turns out.  I'd love to hear it as I think the Capes rules would rise to the challenge quite well.  I could see a three player game where there were characters representing The Forces of Good, The Forces of Evil and The Hand of Fate.  Where "Forces" didn't neccessarily refer to specific people rather a metaphysical state of the universe.  I just wonder how you would deal with changing characters between scenes.  I think it would become boring to constantly play those incorporeal, big-picture characters constantly.  Sometimes I'd want to dip down into the smaller scale of single characters.

Perhaps it would become boring - although my tolerances and what gives me joy may be different from others.  Only time will tell.  On the other hand, if playing Kismet I really wanted to be focusing on the story of Spiderman, I can simply bring him in, and pay no token since he doesn't have a character sheet.  None the less, I can "play" him in almost the same way if I *did* have a character sheet for him. I can narrate his using his powers, I just don't get to roll dice unless I add in some kismet, which is cool. "Spiderman shoots out his webs to grab the top of the wall that Doc Ock is standing under, and topples it onto Ock. I am using my Kismet ability Poetic Justice(3) to roll up my die on the Spiderman defeats Doc Ock Conflict"

Of course, every other player can narrate fr Spiderman too, but as I have been told repeatedly, they could even if I had a character sheet for him, as that sheet gives me almost zero authority.  With that in mind, why both to bring Spidey in sheeted, when I can play a "larger" game and keep my options wide open?

What kind of blows my mind, in a very good way, is that by playing Kismet I am essentially playing *myself*, my godlike ability as a player to reach into the world of the narration and affect it, helping that which I want to support, combating that which I want to curtail.  Heck, all you really have to do is come up with 12 abilities that represent the kind of effect you want to have on the story, "Poetic Justice", "Fate take a hand", "the Good prevail", etc and there you go, you have made a character which is you, the player's, proxy within the narrative world.

Ultimately, by playing the purely narrative force instead of sheeting up a character as a focus, you are declaring that your primary interest is not in any one character overall - although you may be interested is Spidey's story today - but in the story itself.  You are taking a GM stance as opposed to a PC stance.  And I think this is a good thing, because at the end of the day, playing Capes is not like playing a PC, as Capes does not support player ownership/authority over slected PC's, no instead it *is* like being a GM.  And by playing this narrative force, you are strongly embracing that role.

Mind-blowing.

Quote from: Vaxalon on July 17, 2006, 12:54:26 AM

Quote from: Sindyr on July 16, 2006, 08:57:27 AM
No matter what happens to that flower, nothing can affect or curtail how me, the player can use the abilities on Kismet's character sheet to affect the storyline. 

Of course, that's true of EVERY Capes character.

That's true.  But sometimes the mental gymanstics required to figure out how Spiderman's Danger Sense comes into play 7 games after he has been killed can seem a little forced and artificial.  Playing Kismet, I think it flows more naturally, since Kismet *is* my ability to affect the story - they are one and the same.  It's taking something that was one step removed, and removing that step.

QuotePlease let us know how this play turns out.

Will do.  I am arranging to use a room at an art center in the local town weekly for this, and they seem to be given approval, though we still have to rangle over how age appropriate this game must be to be held there.  Anyways, with luck I should be playing on a weekly basis soon.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 17, 2006, 08:12:37 AM
Will do.  I am arranging to use a room at an art center in the local town weekly for this, and they seem to be given approval, though we still have to rangle over how age appropriate this game must be to be held there.  Anyways, with luck I should be playing on a weekly basis soon.

That's good news!  Enjoy yourselves, and let us know how it goes. 

I would like to suggest that this concept is sort of "graduate-level" Capes?  Based on my own experience teaching new groups how to play, this could be too far to go in a first session.  Give it three or four sessions of straightforward four-colour stuff, and once everyone can think about the game play, instead of the actual rules of game play, wow your fellow gamers with this.  I know I was harsh on it before, but really, it will blow their minds, and possibly take the group to a new level of play.  Your only danger is someone else at the table will think of something similar, and scoop you on the surprise!

Yeah, Hans, I think you are right - they have enough to learn with basic Capes, so I will be doing baby steps with 'em.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 17, 2006, 08:08:15 AMWhat kind of blows my mind, in a very good way, is that by playing Kismet I am essentially playing *myself*, my godlike ability as a player to reach into the world of the narration and affect it, helping that which I want to support, combating that which I want to curtail....you have made a character which is you, the player's, proxy within the narrative world.

Excellent insight. May I go one further? To echo Fred (Vaxalon), "that's true of every Capes character." In fact, that's true of every character ever played in any roleplaying game, just as fictional characters in a story are projections of their author. Your "kismet" approach just makes it more obvious. But even if you set out to create a character in the image of someone else's idea -- "this is Spiderman!" -- or in the image of some real person -- "this character is my real-life cousin Barbara, y'know, the one you met last week?" -- you still end up portraying, not the established canonical character or real-life person, but the idea of that person in your own mind. By how you turn your model into Abilities and Drives (or whatever statistics the system gives you); by what you choose to emphasize or deemphasize about your model ("I love the Spidey-MJ romance, but the whole Green Goblin nemesis thing blows"; "Yeah, I know Barbara's a good cook, but I'm not wasting an ability slot on that, what really matters to me is her loyalty to her friends"); by the very choice of one model over another in the first place -- by all these things, you are being selective about your sources, making a statement about what you want to include or avoid in the imaginary world, and therefore making a statement about yourself.

And by how the other players react to your character and what he/she/it does -- even if you're playing a game where (unlike Capes) their reaction has no game-mechanical effect, but is purely social, whether it's whoops of approval or weary eye-rolling -- they are making a statement about your character, and about you.

So, guess what. There is no "safe" way to play. There are no "inviolate" characters. There are no "characters" at all, in any observable sense. There's only you and your friends around the table.

The character is not a character.  The points are not points.  The game is not a game.

When you understand these things, Grasshopper, then you will understand Capes.

:)

Uh, I'm pretty sure the game is a game, actually.

Quote from: Sydney Freedberg on July 17, 2006, 11:06:45 AM
Excellent insight. May I go one further? To echo Fred (Vaxalon), "that's true of every Capes character." In fact, that's true of every character ever played in any roleplaying game, just as fictional characters in a story are projections of their author. Your "kismet" approach just makes it more obvious. But even if you set out to create a character in the image of someone else's idea -- "this is Spiderman!" -- or in the image of some real person -- "this character is my real-life cousin Barbara, y'know, the one you met last week?" -- you still end up portraying, not the established canonical character or real-life person, but the idea of that person in your own mind. By how you turn your model into Abilities and Drives (or whatever statistics the system gives you); by what you choose to emphasize or deemphasize about your model ("I love the Spidey-MJ romance, but the whole Green Goblin nemesis thing blows"; "Yeah, I know Barbara's a good cook, but I'm not wasting an ability slot on that, what really matters to me is her loyalty to her friends"); by the very choice of one model over another in the first place -- by all these things, you are being selective about your sources, making a statement about what you want to include or avoid in the imaginary world, and therefore making a statement about yourself.

And by how the other players react to your character and what he/she/it does -- even if you're playing a game where (unlike Capes) their reaction has no game-mechanical effect, but is purely social, whether it's whoops of approval or weary eye-rolling -- they are making a statement about your character, and about you.

So, guess what. There is no "safe" way to play. There are no "inviolate" characters. There are no "characters" at all, in any observable sense. There's only you and your friends around the table.

I understand and I think I pretty much agree with what your are saying (unless I am missing something, which is quite possible.)

However, I am not sure how this applies to the rest of this thread (again, I could be missing something.)

The two main points I am focusing on this thread seem to be unrelated (in my mind) to the truths you are pointing out:

1) That playing a cosmic force not tied to an in-story persona is quite different from playing a persona based character.  Whether that difference is quantitative (and demonstrable) or qualitative (perceived and in the eye of the beholder), it seems to be there.
2) That playing a cosmic force gives one more options and latitude - again either objectively by its nature, or subjectively by it's paradigm.

There reason I am writing this is to make sure that I am not missing some understanding of your point(s) that may supposed to be applying to either #1 or #2 above, because when I read what you write, it appeared to be worthwhile and true, but I did not find a direct correlation to what I have been talking about here.

Perhaps I missed something?

Quote from: Sydney Freedberg on July 17, 2006, 03:32:40 PM
Uh, I'm pretty sure the game is a game, actually.

Ah but is the game you see the game you play, or is the game you see a mere chessboard, the players pawns, and the actions moves, of the real, higher metagame?

(grin)

Quote from: Sydney Freedberg on July 17, 2006, 03:32:40 PM
Uh, I'm pretty sure the game is a game, actually.

Ah but is the game you see the game you play, or is the game you see a mere chessboard, the players pawns, and the actions moves, of the real, higher metagame?

(grin)

Heh.  The things you folks get up to when I'm away.

Sindyr, you view the ways you can be engaged through your character as weaknesses.  Okay.  Fair enough.  They are.  When someone challenges something that you can't let pass without a fight then you have less choices than you would otherwise.

Now:  Those vulnerabilities are also strengths.  They are the way that you draw people to engage with you.  People want to be in a conflict that matters to other players.  They don't really care if it matters to the fictional world.  They care if it matters to you.  They will spend their resources (and thereby give you resources) to engage with a conflict that matters to you.

So I'm totally in agreement with you that you can do this thing, and protect yourself from being vulnerable to manipulation.  Do you agree with my point that it is bad strategy to have that be your only mode of play?

Quote from: TonyLB on July 17, 2006, 11:15:15 PM
Sindyr, you view the ways you can be engaged through your character as weaknesses.  Okay.  Fair enough.  They are.  When someone challenges something that you can't let pass without a fight then you have less choices than you would otherwise.

One of the interesting things to me is that playing the character Kismet allows me to let more pass (if I choose) without a fight than playing the character Bob the Barbarian.  I again can't tell you right now if that difference is qualititative or quantitative, but for some reason I am not as easily drawn into conflicts against my will. I can still choose to participate in any conflict that entices me, but I don't feel coerced to do that when playing Kismet.  Perhaps by playing a cosmic force it lets me operate from a wider view, where the negative consequences of any  particular conflict can be more easily accepted.

However, at this point, that is not even the main reason I would want to play a persona-less character.  The two main reasons I (at this point) would want to play such a character are because it seems to me to be closer to the pure spirit of Capes (as in, we players are GM's, not PC's) and because it affords me the greatest width of options to play and get involved with *any* character and *any* story.

QuoteNow:  Those vulnerabilities are also strengths.  They are the way that you draw people to engage with you.  People want to be in a conflict that matters to other players.  They don't really care if it matters to the fictional world.  They care if it matters to you.  They will spend their resources (and thereby give you resources) to engage with a conflict that matters to you.

I am confused about that last statement.  I thought the Capes paradigm was (in a nutshell) that I suss out what the other player wants to accomplish with the story, and I play conflicts that allow them to do just that.  I don't however make it easy for them to win those conflicts, and they wind up giving me resources in order to capture that conflict to narrate its resolution.

Now the conflict I played in order to get his resources committed doesn't necessarily matter to me.  If I suss out that he wants to explore the romantic relationship between Mary Jane, Gwen, and Peter Parker, that may not mean a lot to me directly - romantic storylines may not thrill me.  But I do need resources to tell the parts of the story that do thrill me, because it may not thrill *them*.  So I get involved in providing the other player an avenue to explore his romantic storyline, I garner his tokens, and eventually when he tells a part of the story that matters to me but may not move him very much, I can reward him for doing so.  In this way Capes encourages us to help other players tells stories that are important to them and not necessarily to us, so that the other players will return the favor.

It is this base economy of shared storytelling that I find ingenious.

Yet you said "They will spend their resources (and thereby give you resources) to engage with a conflict that matters to you."   Wouldn't that be the other way around?  Wouldn't they be *spending* resources when the conflict matters less to me and more to them, and *earning* resources when the conflict matters more to me and less to them?  Isn't that the point?  You seem to have said something opposite to my understanding of Capes and I cannot reconcile that.

QuoteSo I'm totally in agreement with you that you can do this thing, and protect yourself from being vulnerable to manipulation.  Do you agree with my point that it is bad strategy to have that be your only mode of play?

I still may not quite get what you are saying. Ultimately, to make Capes work, all trimming aside, all you need to do is be willing to invest some time and effort providing the other players storytelling opportunities that they desire enough to spend resources on, so that later they do the same for you.  Isn't that the fundamental principle of Capes?  Manipulation is simply a tool in the toolbox to make this happen, and to my way of thinking, its a broken and unnessecary one, that better tools exist - such as negotiation.

One thing I like to imagine is continual negotiation between the players before conflicts even hit the table.  For example, at the start of every Capes session, players may state what it is they would like to see happen,what changes, events, character growth they would like to explore.  Perhaps at the end of the session players talk about what really worked for them, which conflicts they enjoyed being drawn in to.  Perhaps in between session all the players think about where they want to go next.

To me Capes is the capitalism of narration and ideas.  I like the idea of market research before trying to sell your fellow player a narrative product.  I am not so much a fan of the tactic of insuring a buyer by breaking something he has now - unless he actually wants that.  To me, keeping a good relationship with one's customers is more important for future sales.

Does that answer your question?

Quote from: Sindyr on July 17, 2006, 05:29:41 PM1) That playing a cosmic force not tied to an in-story persona is quite different from playing a persona based character.  Whether that difference is quantitative (and demonstrable) or qualitative (perceived and in the eye of the beholder), it seems to be there.
2) That playing a cosmic force gives one more options and latitude - again either objectively by its nature, or subjectively by it's paradigm.

I'd argue that the similarities are far more important than the differences. I'd also argue that it doesn't necessarily give one more options and latititude.

I'd even argue with Tony that playing this kind of character cannot, by itself, "protect you... from being vulnerable to manipulation." You can play a "persona-based character" and still be invulnerable because you, the real person, don't really care about story; or you can play a bodiless cosmic force and be terribly vulnerable because you, the real person, do care.

Now, clearly you personally are more comfortable with this approach, and you feel you have more freedom to avoid being drawn into conflicts. That's fine. There are probably a lot of people who'd share your preference -- but it's only a preference, and not a universal truth. It's as if you're saying, "Look! Now that I've bought an SUV, I'll never have accidents like I did in my old VW bug!" And I'm saying, "well, for a lot of people, that's a more comfortable car to drive, but actually you've gained more chassis strength at the cost of a higher risk of rollovers, so the safety rating's probably about the same; and anyway, driving a different car won't make you much more or less likely to get into accidents, because what matters in the end is the human being doing the driving."

Quote from: Sindyr on July 18, 2006, 09:19:53 AM
Does that answer your question?

Well, to the extent that your answer is "No, I don't agree with what you're saying because I don't get it," yeah that answers me very well.  Given that answer, I hope you won't be surprised if I elaborate a little bit.

Capes is about creating conflicts that people will care about.  But that doesn't have to be passive.  "What people care about" is not a static target.  It is not fixed.  It changes.  You can change it.

You can passively sit and observe and figure out "Okay, this is something they already care about."  Or you can actively go out and say "I'm making this conflict and I'm going to make people care about it."  Or you can do a variety of things in between ... finding something close to what they care about, and drawing them to care about it fully.

But changing what people care about is a two way street.  If you aren't open to being engaged then you aren't engaging.  I can go into detail about why I think that is, but the observed fact of it hits me in the face every time I play the game.  Making yourself vulnerable to being engaged is the first step to making people care about what you want them to care about.

Does that make more sense of why I describe vulnerability as a strength?

Quote from: Sydney Freedberg on July 18, 2006, 09:25:26 AM
Now, clearly you personally are more comfortable with this approach, and you feel you have more freedom to avoid being drawn into conflicts. That's fine. There are probably a lot of people who'd share your preference -- but it's only a preference, and not a universal truth. It's as if you're saying, "Look! Now that I've bought an SUV, I'll never have accidents like I did in my old VW bug!" And I'm saying, "well, for a lot of people, that's a more comfortable car to drive, but actually you've gained more chassis strength at the cost of a higher risk of rollovers, so the safety rating's probably about the same; and anyway, driving a different car won't make you much more or less likely to get into accidents, because what matters in the end is the human being doing the driving."

If I may point out what I see as the exception, in life, if you have an car accident, you are going tot he hospital, but in Capes, if you do not feel attacked or damaged, then you are not attcked or damaged.

What I am trying to say (badly) is that it seems to me that if playing a cosmic force makes it feel like less bad things are befalling me as a player, than the perception is reality as far as my Capes experience goes - there *is* no objective truth to counter it - all we have in Capes (in a manner of speaking) are *subjective* narrative truths.

Put another way, let's say I am involved in a story in which spiderman strives and fails to save the life of an innocent.

If my character sheet is Spiderman, then I take it personally.  I am bummed, angry, frustrated, and toxic.  The game's fun has evaporated, replacing it with a very real desire (not acted on, of course) to harm the players physically, to do violance upon them for what they have done to me.  This is not a good place to be, not a place I want to risk arriving at.

But if my character sheet is Kismet, even if I having been *playing* Spiderman narratively exactly the same, when Spiderman fails to save the innocent person, I do *not* take it personally.  I am bummed on Spiderman's *behalf*, but from my current point of view, the point of view of Kismet, all things will eventually work out for the best, taking the long view.  Spiderman's failure is simply one knot on one thread in the entire fabric of the tapestry, and that failure may lead to an even greater order of magnitude of goodness and triumph.

Now, if I am playing Spiderman's character sheet, I cannot take that more impartial view, I guess cause I feel like by choosing to link the character sheet to the character Spiderman I am choosing to link Spiderman to *me*.  But by playing Kismet's character sheet, I don't feel Spiderman as being *me* any more than I feel Doc Ock to be *me*.  They are both threads in the tapestry, and its the overall design of the whole thing that I am interested in.  And I am not even striving toward a particular design, I am striving toward making whatever design emerges the best, most coherent, and pure design that I can.

Spiderman fails either way, but the *meaning* of that failure and it's immanent emotive effect completely changes depending on which I embrace - Kismet's sheet or Spidey's.  And that to me, is one of the keys (though not IMO the most significant key) in the difference between playing Kismet and Spidey.

The goal of playing Capes (for me) ultimately is to have a positive, meaningful, and fun experience.  This seems far more likely when I play Kismet.  To me, that is a very real and essential difference.  Playing a persona-less cosmic force simply feels different from playing a persona-based character, and as the product of a narrative experience is feeling, that to me seem as objective as one can get.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 18, 2006, 10:37:48 AM
Spiderman fails either way, but the *meaning* of that failure and it's immanent emotive effect completely changes depending on which I embrace - Kismet's sheet or Spidey's. 

Why?

Quote from: TonyLB on July 18, 2006, 09:35:53 AM
Well, to the extent that your answer is "No, I don't agree with what you're saying because I don't get it," yeah that answers me very well.  Given that answer, I hope you won't be surprised if I elaborate a little bit.

No, I appreciate it.

QuoteCapes is about creating conflicts that people will care about.  But that doesn't have to be passive.  "What people care about" is not a static target.  It is not fixed.  It changes.  You can change it.

You can passively sit and observe and figure out "Okay, this is something they already care about."  Or you can actively go out and say "I'm making this conflict and I'm going to make people care about it."  Or you can do a variety of things in between ... finding something close to what they care about, and drawing them to care about it fully.

But changing what people care about is a two way street.  If you aren't open to being engaged then you aren't engaging.  I can go into detail about why I think that is, but the observed fact of it hits me in the face every time I play the game.  Making yourself vulnerable to being engaged is the first step to making people care about what you want them to care about.

I guess my earlier comment reflects my opinion that I do feel that changing what people care about, while being valid play, is yet not good play if the player is being coerced or forced into, if they resent this action.  If they do not resent this action, and instead embrace it and enjoy it, then that's an entirely different matter.  If a player does enjoy that kind of play, I would be open to providing it for them.  However, if the player does not enjoy this kind of play, I would avoid it, for I would wish them to use the same thinking in their actions towards me.

QuoteDoes that make more sense of why I describe vulnerability as a strength?

I *think* so.  A player who is willing to have their character to be screwed with (if you pardon the connotative content) is going to be open to being involved in a more emotionally deep story.  On the other hand, they also take the risk that there are ultimately *two* outcomes - success and tragedy, and if it is the latter, it's going to hurt them as a human being deeply if they are really being that vulnerable and open.  Whether or not the price of the tragedies is worth the payoff of the successes depends on two things:  how much the tragedies bring hurt and the successes bring joy, and how often tragedies occur versus successes.

To me, given what I have seen here, with Capes players apparently being willing to fight to push people into tradegies with all their might as a tactic, given how vulnerable I personally can be, it's not a good risk versus reward scenario.

Now, I think I should state clearly something else:  Whether or not I am *vulnerable*, that is, "hurt-able", I am always *accessible*.  Seems to me that vulnerability really pertains to how much you can gain or lose emotionally as the story unfolds; but *accessibility* pertains to how available you are to the other players, to how worthwhile it is for *them* to interact with you through Capes.

I believe that unless they derive joy from my personal discomfort or pain, that any groups of Capes players will find playing with me rewarding, both emotionally and resource-wise, because I will never be un-accessible, even though I may not make myself vulnerable.

Does that difference make sense?

Quote from: Sindyr on July 18, 2006, 10:55:26 AMOn the other hand, they also take the risk that there are ultimately *two* outcomes - success and tragedy, and if it is the latter, it's going to hurt them as a human being deeply if they are really being that vulnerable and open.

You say that, and I get that you mean it as "You might get to eat cake, or you might get to eat shit."

But, I find that it's a lot more like "You might get to drink lemonade or you might get to drink espresso."  Very different drinks, very much the opposite of each other, but both enjoyable.

If you have never volunteered for tragedy, maybe you think that being hurt can only be a bad thing.  But man, no.  Just no.  I'll be posting actual play about this, on the soon side, but in the meantime:  Sad songs have their place.  Not every movie would be improved by a happy ending.  Sometimes being beaten and being forced to accept heart-breaking tragedy makes for the best game of your life.  It's happened to me.

Quote from: TonyLB on July 18, 2006, 11:08:54 AM
If you have never volunteered for tragedy, maybe you think that being hurt can only be a bad thing.  But man, no.  Just no.  I'll be posting actual play about this, on the soon side, but in the meantime:  Sad songs have their place.  Not every movie would be improved by a happy ending.  Sometimes being beaten and being forced to accept heart-breaking tragedy makes for the best game of your life.  It's happened to me.

I completely and utterly accept that tragedy can be a rewarding thing for you and many others.  But I experience it differently.  Some illustrations:  when going to a movie, I read the full spoilers of it first so that I cannot be hurt by a terrible ending.  I really only like stories with eventual complete and happy endings, with poetic justice.  I don't mind some mid-story suffering ( to some degree) if the payoff at the end justifies it.  Case in point: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R Donaldson has a lot of terrible things happen in it, a lot of sacrifice.  But the ending pays off on those hurts with more joy and success than what you had to put up with to get there.

I will not defend why I am this way, or get into how I am or am not broken as a human being, or how my brain chemistry may or may not be as functional as it could be.  But I do know that I cannot countenance in my recreation and play the idea of deep failure and hurt (without it at least leading inexorably to an even greater success and joy.).  The purpose for me of play and recreation is to take a break from how real life can contain such experiences of failure and hurt.  It is an escape for a time.

But I don't think Capes requires an experience of deep pain, although it is an optional (and valid) component for those who value it.  I think I have found several ways to employ Capes to great advantage, some by drifting Capes with house rules and others (like this latest idea) by embracing Capes at a deep philosophical level, taking Capes to what I feel is it's ultimate conclusion.

Again, I am not trying to stand in the way of another's player chossing to experience tragedy - if that's what they want, I will even try to provide it for them if they like.  For me, I want eventual and ultimate joy, of some kind.  And the only way that pain and suffering and failure can be part of that for me is to have them be guaranteed steps to an amazing and mind blowing success, greater than the sum of all pain along the way.

I simply do not enjoy tragedies, pain, or suffering, even in art or play, on its own.  I don't know what esle to say.

Quote from: TonyLB on July 18, 2006, 10:44:32 AM

Quote from: Sindyr on July 18, 2006, 10:37:48 AM
Spiderman fails either way, but the *meaning* of that failure and it's immanent emotive effect completely changes depending on which I embrace - Kismet's sheet or Spidey's. 

Why?

I apologize in advance if my attempts to answer are unclear or vague, to some degree we are now asking questions that are usually left intuitively understood and unverbalized. So here goes:

I tried to answer that question above:

QuoteIf my character sheet is Spiderman, then I take it personally.  I am bummed, angry, frustrated, and toxic.  The game's fun has evaporated, replacing it with a very real desire (not acted on, of course) to harm the players physically, to do violance upon them for what they have done to me.  This is not a good place to be, not a place I want to risk arriving at.

But if my character sheet is Kismet, even if I having been *playing* Spiderman narratively exactly the same, when Spiderman fails to save the innocent person, I do *not* take it personally.  I am bummed on Spiderman's *behalf*, but from my current point of view, the point of view of Kismet, all things will eventually work out for the best, taking the long view.  Spiderman's failure is simply one knot on one thread in the entire fabric of the tapestry, and that failure may lead to an even greater order of magnitude of goodness and triumph.

Now, if I am playing Spiderman's character sheet, I cannot take that more impartial view, I guess cause I feel like by choosing to link the character sheet to the character Spiderman I am choosing to link Spiderman to *me*.  But by playing Kismet's character sheet, I don't feel Spiderman as being *me* any more than I feel Doc Ock to be *me*.  They are both threads in the tapestry, and its the overall design of the whole thing that I am interested in.  And I am not even striving toward a particular design, I am striving toward making whatever design emerges the best, most coherent, and pure design that I can.

Apart from that, I am not sure how to answer your question of why it's emotive impact differs so greatly depending on which sheet I am playing.

I guess to paraphrase, it depends on my perspective, my vantage point.  Choosing to play Spidey's character sheet and choosing to play Kismet's character sheet provide very different starting vantage points.  Even more so than choosing to play Spidey's character sheet or choosing to play Doc Ock's character sheet.

The character sheet you choose has to have a significance and an affect on the game, right? If it didn't, people would all start with exactly the same sheet.

I think if you examine the reason why which character sheet we choose matters, you will find the answer to your question of why it matters to me.

Hope that is not entirely unhelpful.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 18, 2006, 12:15:17 PM
But I don't think Capes requires an experience of deep pain, although it is an optional (and valid) component for those who value it.

Uh ... yeah.  Okay.  That's true but ....

Hockey doesn't require a willingness to risk physical harm, either.  But if you don't have that willingness you're going to be beaten by people who do.  They'll be able to take risks you can't and do things, strategically, that will guarantee that they'll utterly dominate you in play.

So, nobody's asking you to justify that you don't want to open yourself up to be hurt.  That's cool.

Opening yourself up to be hurt is a vital strategy in Capes.

That's not saying "You ought to be doing this!  It's essential to Capes!"  It's saying "Well, this is what the system rewards.  So maybe, if you can't do it, you should find another system."

There's nothing wrong with saying that you won't accept (for instance) the death of your character in a game.  But if you state that preference then I'm going to be very skeptical when you say you want to play in my Call-of-Cthulhu/Paranoia cross-over game.

Are you able to hear that and to recognize that "But I really, really don't want to be vulnerable" is true and fine but completely irrelevant?  You're allowed to not want it.  Not wanting it means precisely nothing to its importance to the game system.

Quote from: TonyLB on July 18, 2006, 12:49:57 PM
Opening yourself up to be hurt is a vital strategy in Capes.

I am not trying to be obstinate, I just don't see this.

QuoteAre you able to hear that and to recognize that "But I really, really don't want to be vulnerable" is true and fine but completely irrelevant?  You're allowed to not want it.  Not wanting it means precisely nothing to its importance to the game system.

I think I am hearing that.  Without drifting Capes, there is zero control, apart from agreed upon Comic's Codes (and unwritten social contract), that I can exert on the actions of my fellow players.  However, in this case, in this thread, I am not suggesting controlling what they do.  I am simply suggesting that by playing Kismet, I remove myself from coercion, while leaving myself open to enticement.

So, for the purposes of this thread, sure, I can't control whether or not my fellow players try to use coercive tactics on me... but I can control whether or not I am available in that way.  And it further seems to me, not being available to coercion does not change my desire to garner their resources by giving them what hey want in terms of conflicts and also does not change their desire to get their hands on my resources by doing the same for me, given the above caveat that they are not seeking to be rewarded by the feeling of the infliction of pain and hurt itself.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 18, 2006, 01:03:00 PM
And it further seems to me, not being available to coercion does not change my desire to garner their resources by giving them what hey want in terms of conflicts and also does not change their desire to get their hands on my resources by doing the same for me, given the above caveat that they are not seeking to be rewarded by the feeling of the infliction of pain and hurt itself.

You're mistaken.  Protecting yourself from being changed by other players will vastly reduce your ability to engage them.

What they want, more than any individual thing in the fiction, is to make a human connection.  They want to have an impact on you, and that means changing you.  They want the opportunity to make you feel and do things that you would not have felt and done anyway.  The story and the game is driven by that desire to connect, and it rewards those who give people that connection.

Quote from: TonyLB on July 18, 2006, 01:37:50 PM
You're mistaken.  Protecting yourself from being changed by other players will vastly reduce your ability to engage them.

I'm not preventing myself from being changed by other players - like I said, I commit to keepinbg myself accessible.  I may be preventing them from coercing me, but that's pretty much it.

QuoteWhat they want, more than any individual thing in the fiction, is to make a human connection.  They want to have an impact on you, and that means changing you.  They want the opportunity to make you feel and do things that you would not have felt and done anyway.  The story and the game is driven by that desire to connect, and it rewards those who give people that connection.

I do not think I am in any disagreement with you with the above.  I think, for example, if all the players at a Capes table were to play non-persona cosmic forces, we could get down to the pure essence of Capes.

However, there are many ways to change people, many ways to affect them.  A father that beats his child undeniable changes and affects his kid, and probably does in so doing forge a human connection with his victim.  Without commenting on the health or lack of health of that approach, I will simply say that all of us humans have things that we want to explore and embrace, and things that we want to reject and avoid - and those are different for each of us.

It seems to me that Capes can be played to full effect while respecting the boundaries of things that people are not open to exploring.  But either way, it seems to me that by playing a persona-less character you are actually embracing the overall story more and focussing on the ego matters of one individual character less.  I think this is a good thing, and entirely within the deep spirit of Capes.

To vastly oversimply - one can eschew beating a man and yet find a way to connect with him.  Embracing persona-less characters I think makes that all the more apparent.

>sigh<

Sindyr, I really, really wanted this to be something different from the same unsubstantiated claims you made way back in March (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19245.msg202008#msg202008), but it just isn't.

I'm telling you that the game pushes people to seek out each other's areas of engagement and to push them.  That's what the game does, and if you're not part of it then you're not part of the game.  You're saying that you believe enlightened souls wouldn't act as the game encourages people to act, and therefore there must be a way to make the system not do what it does.  It's not an argument from reality, it's an argument from your desires.

All of the arguments I made back then still apply.  You're still just asserting "It can be different!" without responding to any of the explanations why the game is as it is.  Way back when, we ended on this note:

Quote from: TonyLB on April 02, 2006, 02:51:59 PM

Quote from: Sindyr on April 02, 2006, 11:44:26 AM
I will of course not be dropping the subject or refusing to talk about this (and similar subjects) to and with others, as it seems that there are some here that get what I am saying.

Then I will continue to point out that you have not made any case for your beliefs, until such time as you make a case.  Sounds like we both know where we stand.

We won't be starting from the ground up again.  You still haven't made an argument.  I've still made dozens.  The intervening time doesn't change that, and it doesn't let you start with a blank slate.  You have had this explained to you in many different ways, each in excruciating detail.  You refuse to listen.  That does not constitute an argument on your part, just bull-headedness.

I have three comments to make:

1.
I have been embracing in this conversation the very qualities under discussion.  Instead of being cautious and defensive, I have made myself open and vulnerable.  I have been genuine, truthful, honest, and sincere in the latest interchanges with you, Tony, on this thread.

So that's why your latest response is hurtful to me, that is why I have some feelings of betrayal.  I feel like I decided to trust you, and what you wrote above seems to show me that I should not have.  It's very disappointing to me.  But, since there is nothing I can do about it, and since my mistake may have been in trusting you to really engage with me - it just seems to me to be more fuel to fire of never letting oneself be that open, of always keeping some defense up. Anyways, I felt that the spirit of your response was innapropriate vis-avis the spirit of my side of the conversation - but that is not your problem, it is mine, and I will simply have to deal with it.

2.
You keep repeating stuff like "You still haven't made an argument.  I've still made dozens." and other similar statements of what seems to me to be bravado.  Well guess what?  I feel exactly the same way - that *you* Tony haven't made an argument and *I* have made dozens.  I will admit that *perhaps* I am wrong and you are right - because as a person committed to an open mind I have to.  I can't see you making any similar consession. In any case, as things stand, I fimly believe I have said many significant and valid things that you not only have not countered, most of them you haven't even addresssed.

We both have strong opinions.  We both believe that we are saying something valid, vital, and true; and that the other is not.  We both claim to be right.  There are only 3 differences between us:
a) I am open to the idea that it may be you that is in the right, despite the fact that I at this moment cannot see how..  You do not seem to be open to the idea that you may be wrong and I may be right, despite the fact that currently *you* don't see how.
b) You are the forum moderator, which gives you abilities and powers that I do not posses.
c) Obviously, one of use is more correct and the other is not, though we currently disagree on which is which.

It may be that you have a blind spot that prevents you from seeing that I am right and you are wrong.  It may be that the blind spot is mine, and the situation reversed.  It may be that there are no blind spots, and that our language and starting paradigms are simply completely incompatible for finding agreement.

Whatever the reason, I cannot at this time see how it can be profitable for either of us to continue to enagage the other, especially on this or similar topics.  So perhaps we shouldn't?  Unless we want to get bogged down in a repeating cycle of us basically saying to each other, "You're wrong, and I'm right"

3.
The topic and purpose of this thread is to discuss non-persona-ed characters in Capes, their use, and ramifications.  I think the interchange between you and I has veered somewhat off of that topic, to land somewhere nearer the topic of whether non-consensual coercive play in Capes is necessary for Capes to work and whether it is a good thing in general.
To bring things *back* on topic I give you this:
a) It seems entirely valid within the written rules of Capes to create a non-persona-ed character sheet and character.
b) PLC's (Persona-Less Characters) seem to allow me, and I would imagine others, to more easily disregard coercive play, making each conflict more of a choice of whether or not to get involved, and less of a manipulation.
c) PLC's also give much wider lattitude for the scope of one's involvement.  By playing a PLC such as Kismet, I can partake of Spidey's struggle with Doc Ock, Ock's struggle with Spidey, or the experience of a third party.  I am not locked into one persona's perspective, giving me a much wider vantage point.
d) PLC's, by the very nature of Capes and it's meta-game seem more suited to Capes than PC's, and more of a pure evolution of the very Capes fundamental principles.

Hopefully that will bring us out of the muck of the off-topic irreconcilable difference we have Tony, and back into the thrust of this thread.

If you start a thread about the value of coercive play, I may partake of it.  But I am unfortunately not convinced that you and I can ever see eye to eye on this.

All the best.

Sindyr, I can't recall a single incident when Tony has used moderator powers against you. (Yes, he's warned you not to bring up what he considers extraneous and distracting arguments in certain threads, but he's never even threatened to prevent you from raising those arguments in their own threads, nor has he actually moved any posts or closed any threads that I know of).

Tony, I actually think Sindyr's made a significant breakthrough towards (our way of) understanding Capes in starting to think of characters as being no more nor less than the real-person-playing's ability to influence the story. I think Sindyr's still got one eye blindfolded in his insistence that a "persona-less" character fulfills this role more easily than any other kind, but maybe that realization will also come in time.



And, as Sindyr asked, back to that precise topic -- and with apologies for point-by-pointing, but in this case it seems clearest:

Quote from: Sindyr on July 19, 2006, 12:15:43 PMa) It seems entirely valid within the written rules of Capes to create a non-persona-ed character sheet and character.

Absolutely.

Quoteb) PLC's (Persona-Less Characters) seem to allow me, and I would imagine others, to more easily disregard coercive play, making each conflict more of a choice of whether or not to get involved, and less of a manipulation.

If it works for you, great, though I'm not sure I've ever experienced "coercive" play as you describe it.

Quotec) PLC's also give much wider lattitude for the scope of one's involvement.  By playing a PLC such as Kismet, I can partake of Spidey's struggle with Doc Ock, Ock's struggle with Spidey, or the experience of a third party.  I am not locked into one persona's perspective, giving me a much wider vantage point.

Not really.
Sure, I can narrate the Abilities of an abstraction like "the Hand of Fate" into all sorts of situations where I'd be hard-put to justify the physical presence or indirect influence of "Joe Blow," but conversely it's harder to narrate "Hand of Fate" staking Debt because, with no personality, it's tricky to explain how it cares about anything. Better for one thing, worse for the other.
And you're never "locked into one persona's perspective" in Capes. You can introduce new characters for a single Story Token at any time, or for free at the start of a new scene, and even if you're playing the same guy all the time, you're free to narrate what happens from an external perspective as opposed to through his eyes.

Quoted) PLC's, by the very nature of Capes and it's meta-game seem more suited to Capes than PC's, and more of a pure evolution of the very Capes fundamental principles.

Since I fundamentally disagree with you that there's much of a difference between "PLCs" and "PCs," naturally I don't considered one or the other "more suited... [or] more of a pure evolution."



I think all sides have pretty much wrapped up concluding arguments at this point.

Quote from: Sydney Freedberg on July 19, 2006, 01:35:30 PM

Quoteb) PLC's (Persona-Less Characters) seem to allow me, and I would imagine others, to more easily disregard coercive play, making each conflict more of a choice of whether or not to get involved, and less of a manipulation.

If it works for you, great, though I'm not sure I've ever experienced "coercive" play as you describe it.

It may only exist for me and perhaps a handful or others, and it may be entirely subjective.  It may be a moot point.  Suffice it to say, I think it *will* work for me. :)

Quote

Quotec) PLC's also give much wider lattitude for the scope of one's involvement.  By playing a PLC such as Kismet, I can partake of Spidey's struggle with Doc Ock, Ock's struggle with Spidey, or the experience of a third party.  I am not locked into one persona's perspective, giving me a much wider vantage point.

Not really.
Sure, I can narrate the Abilities of an abstraction like "the Hand of Fate" into all sorts of situations where I'd be hard-put to justify the physical presence or indirect influence of "Joe Blow," but conversely it's harder to narrate "Hand of Fate" staking Debt because, with no personality, it's tricky to explain how it cares about anything. Better for one thing, worse for the other.
And you're never "locked into one persona's perspective" in Capes. You can introduce new characters for a single Story Token at any time, or for free at the start of a new scene, and even if you're playing the same guy all the time, you're free to narrate what happens from an external perspective as opposed to through his eyes.

There are two aspects of this I think are significant.
First and simplest, if I have Spidey's character sheet in hand, and I want to find some way to affect the fight that Catwoman and Dock Ock are having while Spidey is slumped unconscious, I am going to have to do more work to apply "Spidey-Sense" on the character sheet to help Catwoman win the conflict.  I am not saying I couldn't make it work, I am just saying it's simpler and more efficient for me to have a Kismet character sheet and simply use the ability "Good Prevails"
Second, by having 12 Spiderman abilities listed in front of me, and by trying to figure out how to use them to win conflicts, I will naturally be drawn into looking at things from Spiderman's perspective.  By having a character sheet based on a wider perspective, such as Kismet, Karma, Poetic Justice, or whatnot, I will instinctively and naturally be open to taking a wider view than only how things are affecting Spiderman.

Quote

Quoted) PLC's, by the very nature of Capes and it's meta-game seem more suited to Capes than PC's, and more of a pure evolution of the very Capes fundamental principles.

Since I fundamentally disagree with you that there's much of a difference between "PLCs" and "PCs," naturally I don't considered one or the other "more suited... [or] more of a pure evolution."

For me, the two differences I tried to outline above lead to statement d.  I am not sure I can coherently explain why I feel D is true, especially not under intense scrutiny.  But I did want to mention that it does indeed seem to "feel right" to me.  I do not ask that anyone necessarily share this viewpoint if it does seem right to them.  D is not about anything I can prove at this time, just wanted to share my perception.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 19, 2006, 12:15:43 PM
If you start a thread about the value of coercive play, I may partake of it.  But I am unfortunately not convinced that you and I can ever see eye to eye on this.

Why would I have any interest in starting such a thread?  It has no bearing on this discussion.

If you want to say "A system that rewarded people for finding their fellow player's weak spots and ruthlessly jabbing at them would be an evil, immoral, unevolved system" then that's fine.  I totally support your right to say that.  It's a value judgment.

That has no bearing, one way or the other, on the simple fact that Capes is that system.

Like, you can't do the syllogism this way:

• Capes is a good system for me
• A good system for me will not penalize me for not taking a risk that could hurt me badly.
• Therefore Capes will not penalize me for not taking a risk that could hurt me badly.

... because we have so many people who have actually played the system, and know that it will penalize you for not taking such risks.

So when you argue that a good system for you would not penalize that defensive stance it doesn't prove that Capes doesn't do that ... it just proves that Capes is not a good system for you.  See?

Quote from: Sydney Freedberg on July 19, 2006, 01:35:30 PM
Sindyr, I can't recall a single incident when Tony has used moderator powers against you. (Yes, he's warned you not to bring up what he considers extraneous and distracting arguments in certain threads, but he's never even threatened to prevent you from raising those arguments in their own threads, nor has he actually moved any posts or closed any threads that I know of).

I want to take a brief moment and acknowledge that this is the case.  I do not recall ever being moderated by Tony throughout our disagreements.

Quote from: TonyLB on July 19, 2006, 01:54:24 PM

Quote from: Sindyr on July 19, 2006, 12:15:43 PM
If you start a thread about the value of coercive play, I may partake of it.  But I am unfortunately not convinced that you and I can ever see eye to eye on this.

Why would I have any interest in starting such a thread?  It has no bearing on this discussion.

Fair enough.  I just thought we may have (and may still) be off topic for this thread, and if that was the case, wanted to invite you to create a new one. I will levae it in your hands to make that decision.

QuoteIf you want to say "A system that rewarded people for finding their fellow player's weak spots and ruthlessly jabbing at them would be an evil, immoral, unevolved system" then that's fine.  I totally support your right to say that.  It's a value judgment.

Following you so far, and agreeing.

QuoteThat has no bearing, one way or the other, on the simple fact that Capes is that system.

I do not agree with you here.  What you describe is a particular tactic you can use in Capes, if the situation presents itself.  However, it is not the only tactic or the heart of the game.  In chess, there exists many opportunity to trade pieces - for example, take their queen and lose your own.  That tactic is not the soul of chess and is not the only tool in the toolbox for playing chess.  I believe the same is true about coercive play in Capes.  I think, and please do correct me if I am wrong, that you believe coercive play to be the heart of Capes, and further believe that one can neither avoid engaging in corcive play not avoid being engaged in coercive play.

I believe that all of that is incorrect, specifically, I believe:
-There are ways to validly play Capes effectively and well without using coercive play.
-I can play in such a way as to be uncoercible, and still partake in a valid Capes game that is fun and fulfilling for all.
-I can play in such a way as to avoid coercing others, and still partake in a valid Capes game that is fun and fulfilling for all.

You seem to be telling me the above three statements are incompatible with Capes.I would be open to saying why I think that's not the case if you were truly interested in my thoughts on the matter and listened with a truly open mind.

QuoteLike, you can't do the syllogism this way:

• Capes is a good system for me
• A good system for me will not penalize me for not taking a risk that could hurt me badly.
• Therefore Capes will not penalize me for not taking a risk that could hurt me badly.

... because we have so many people who have actually played the system, and know that it will penalize you for not taking such risks.

I believe I have a tactic with which I can avoid being hurt badly, and still engage in a valid game of Capes that is fun and fulfilling for all. Even if the other players have the coercive play tactic in their arsenal and use it.

QuoteSo when you argue that a good system for you would not penalize that defensive stance it doesn't prove that Capes doesn't do that ... it just proves that Capes is not a good system for you.  See?

Your syllogism is flawless *if* I agreed both that Capes required coercive play and that there was no defense against it.  However, since it appears that both of those points are in questions, the case is still not made.

I have an idea about why Tony and Sindyr seem to be talking past each other, and I'm going to try to express it and hope not to cause more problems than I solve. All the below is my interpretation and perception, of course, and I apologize for any misrepresentation.

Sindyr is seeking some area of the game where he is safe, where his concept rules and what he says cannot be challenged by anyone else. In traditional RPGs this is the area inside a PC's skin (modulo personality mechanics, but let's not go there for now). In Capes as written the space available for this is very small -- basically things forbidden by the Comics Code and what is (only temporarily, of course) forbidden by the Not Yet rule. I think that fact makes Sindyr uncomfortable.
Tony is saying that you cannot play the game well unless you have a significant space where you *can* be challenged, and the bigger that space the better, the more engaging the game is. Commonly that space is around 'your' character -- defending Doc Achilles looking brilliant got Tony going, I think -- but it certainly doesn't have to be the only space, even in 'beginner-level' Capes.

Sindyr is finding ways (within the rules as written) to carve out certain inviolate narrative space. Tony is saying that, if you end up not having anywhere to be challenged, Capes won't work. These are not incompatible things. Why can't Sindyr have spaces that are 'inviolate', as long as he has plenty of places where he can be challenged, where he does *care* what happens, even if it's not 'his character getting altered' kinds of challenges? If Sindyr, the player, really wants a romantic triangle in the story, even if he's not playing one of the characters directly, he's going to get heavily involved and committed to conflicts bringing out the conflict. Even if none of the characters anywhere in the story are his 'avatar', I can certainly imagine him getting engaged and stoked about defending certain aspects of the story. On the other hand, Sindyr could do this just as easily with a personaed (is that a word?) character, not letting himself get too attached to the character any more than he would as affecting the story as Kismet; but maybe Sindyr finds that kind of detachment from 'his' characters difficult to achieve.

I do think that this constitutes advanced play, though. RPGers have a natural attachment to 'their' characters, and so Capes uses that attachment as easy creation of engagement, and that works as a good place to learn Capes. It will be more challenging for Sindyr to find places to allow others to challenge him and engage him, the more space he claims as inviolate, and failure to have points of engagement will surely lead to rather flat, mechanical play; the more he relies on abstractions like Kismet to defend himself from these challenges, the more he will have to work to avoid it.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 19, 2006, 02:19:27 PMI believe that all of that is incorrect, specifically, I believe:
-There are ways to validly play Capes effectively and well without using coercive play.
-I can play in such a way as to be uncoercible, and still partake in a valid Capes game that is fun and fulfilling for all.
-I can play in such a way as to avoid coercing others, and still partake in a valid Capes game that is fun and fulfilling for all.

And I'm fine with you believing it.  But you need to learn to difference between believing it and having made any sort of argument for it.

You can avoid being coerced, and you can avoid coercing others.  You've made good arguments that you can do those things.  But doing either (much less both) of those things cripples your ability to push Capes strategy.  As before:  You can play football without pushing people, and without being pushed, but if other people are willing to rough-house then they will beat you.

You can play Capes the way you're describing, but other people are going to blow right past you, and you will end up marginalized.

Are you arguing that you can play Capes in the way you're describing and still keep pace with other players who aren't so limited?

Sindyr,

You need to go test your theory and beliefs.  Sit down at a table and play Kismet (or some facimile of him) with players who both know what they are doing with Capes and don't play that type of character.  See what happens.  I don't know what will happen.  I've never done this before.  What I suspect will happen is that you will find yourself falling behind in terms of Story Tokens, Debt and Inspirations.  I also suspect that you will become to a certain extent marginalized as the other players fail to find you engaging and simply engage with each other in ways they find exciting and entertaining.

Now sit down and play Kismet with a group that also plays that type of character.  I think you'll find the experience somewhat different but you'll have to have discussed the basis of the game on a social level before play.  Otherwise you just end up in the same situation that I described in the first paragraph.

This is the type of thing that backs up your beliefs with something more substantial.  You then have Actual Play experience that demonstrates your points (or not).  Tony, the others here, and I all have enough play experience to say, "The system rewards this type of behavior.  Players will behave this way during play."  That's not just our belief.  It is demonstratable.  We've seen it happen.  Tony designed it that way.  It works that way.  If you try something else and demonstrate that it works another way under certain conditions, we'll consider that.  But until then you're just throwing your beliefs in front of our experience and it doesn't amount to much in the way of convincing us of anything.

*NOTE:  I personally think playing a game where the players are all The Force of Good, Hand of Fate... et al.  Would be fun.  I'd certainly try it with you if you are going to be at GenCon.  So, I'm not saying your idea of everyone playing that type of character is a bad one.

Quote from: TonyLB on July 19, 2006, 02:31:47 PM
And I'm fine with you believing it.  But you need to learn to difference between believing it and having made any sort of argument for it.

Please do not presume to tell me what I need to do, I find it insulting, as would anyone - its either condescending or arrogant, and definitely not helpful.  It would have been better had you said: "Whether or not you believe it, you haven't yet demonstrated or made any arguments for it"

I will reply to what you should have said:

I am open to providing you my arguments and demostration for those statements.  But only if you can convince me that there is a reason to.  I have half come to the conlusion that you are not open to any possibility that I may be right.  If that is true, than the only reason you would want me to list my arguments is to have something to attack - not to actually consider them.  Considering how I felt that you went innapropriately on the attack earlier out of the blue, I admit to not having much trust in your motivations, so before I set myself up I would like an assurance on your part to examine my arguments thoroughly, objectively and rationally, with no preconceptions, but truthfully I am not sure you can do that at this time where I  or my ideas are concerned.  I am not gong to open myself up to attack without thinking there's a reasonable chance that you are open to the possibility that I may be right and are willing to make a real effort to try to be open to that.  At the moment, I do not sense that.

QuoteYou can avoid being coerced, and you can avoid coercing others.  You've made good arguments that you can do those things.  But doing either (much less both) of those things cripples your ability to push Capes strategy.  As before:  You can play football without pushing people, and without being pushed, but if other people are willing to rough-house then they will beat you.

You can play Capes the way you're describing, but other people are going to blow right past you, and you will end up marginalized.

I am not closed to the possible truth of this, but to my eyes and mind you have not yet demonstrated that this *must* be the case. I am not ruling it out, but I am not jumping on board either.

QuoteAre you arguing that you can play Capes in the way you're describing and still keep pace with other players who aren't so limited?

Mainly, I am arguing that you have not demostrated that I can't, so it's an open question.  There after all three posibilities:
1) You demonstrate that abandoning unconsensual coercive play is innefective when up against those that do not. You have yet to demonstrate this to me.
2) I demonstrate that abandoning unconsensual coercive play can be quite effective, even when up against those that do not.  I have yet to demonstarte this to you, apparently.
3) Until either 1) or 2) occur, neither of us can validly make any claims to each other about whether or not abandoning nonconsensual coercive play is either effective or ineffective.  In other words, me failing to demonstrate to you how this play can be effective does not entitle you to claim to have demonstrated the opposite, without actually making a demostration that convinces me, and vice versa.

I mention this because in order to demonstrate your point, you should know you have to do more than undercut mine.

Again, I ask, is this actually on topic here?

Sindyr,

Play Kismet. I'd love to see what happens. Post some actual play here so we can see what goes on. :)

I'm still working on Gods and in my (admittedly limited) actual play I've found that anything can be played as a viable character and engaged - in the one AP I posted here I actually played a network of caves inhabited by blind albino creatures. Now, that was not an unengagable character and my friend Jeff actually had his Sorcerer-King use magic to take control of all my critters (in spite of my "Oh NO you DIDN'T!"), so I'm interested in seeing if you can successfully avoid being engaged by the other players.

Good luck.

Quote from: Andrew Cooper on July 19, 2006, 02:52:41 PM
You need to go test your theory and beliefs. 

I completely agree, and this is one reason why I am happy that I will hopefully have started a weekly local Capes group.

QuoteSit down at a table and play Kismet (or some facimile of him) with players who both know what they are doing with Capes and don't play that type of character.  See what happens.  I don't know what will happen.  I've never done this before.  What I suspect will happen is that you will find yourself falling behind in terms of Story Tokens, Debt and Inspirations.  I also suspect that you will become to a certain extent marginalized as the other players fail to find you engaging and simply engage with each other in ways they find exciting and entertaining.

Finding experienced Capes players to sit down with may simply not be possible.  I may try this out at Dexcon, unless not permitted to, but I don't travel farther than a hundred miles or so from where I live (NH) so my opportunities for playing with already experienced Capes players may be limited greatly.  I hope however to grow some of my own right here. :)

QuoteNow sit down and play Kismet with a group that also plays that type of character.  I think you'll find the experience somewhat different but you'll have to have discussed the basis of the game on a social level before play.  Otherwise you just end up in the same situation that I described in the first paragraph.

This is the type of thing that backs up your beliefs with something more substantial.  You then have Actual Play experience that demonstrates your points (or not).  Tony, the others here, and I all have enough play experience to say, "The system rewards this type of behavior.  Players will behave this way during play."  That's not just our belief.  It is demonstratable.  We've seen it happen.  Tony designed it that way.  It works that way.  If you try something else and demonstrate that it works another way under certain conditions, we'll consider that.  But until then you're just throwing your beliefs in front of our experience and it doesn't amount to much in the way of convincing us of anything.

*NOTE:  I personally think playing a game where the players are all The Force of Good, Hand of Fate... et al.  Would be fun.  I'd certainly try it with you if you are going to be at GenCon.  So, I'm not saying your idea of everyone playing that type of character is a bad one.

I think I agree with everything you have said, and am taking what steps I can to make it happen. In the meanwhile, however, I still intend to continue to foster and participate in discussions about it so long as I find likeminded people who find it worth discussing.

Quote from: Threlicus on July 19, 2006, 02:27:14 PM
Sindyr is finding ways (within the rules as written) to carve out certain inviolate narrative space. Tony is saying that, if you end up not having anywhere to be challenged, Capes won't work. These are not incompatible things. Why can't Sindyr have spaces that are 'inviolate', as long as he has plenty of places where he can be challenged, where he does *care* what happens, even if it's not 'his character getting altered' kinds of challenges? If Sindyr, the player, really wants a romantic triangle in the story, even if he's not playing one of the characters directly, he's going to get heavily involved and committed to conflicts bringing out the conflict. Even if none of the characters anywhere in the story are his 'avatar', I can certainly imagine him getting engaged and stoked about defending certain aspects of the story. On the other hand, Sindyr could do this just as easily with a personaed (is that a word?) character, not letting himself get too attached to the character any more than he would as affecting the story as Kismet; but maybe Sindyr finds that kind of detachment from 'his' characters difficult to achieve.

This seems to me to be very accurate, and probably states some of what I am trying to state better than I yet have.  Thank you.

Quote from: Bret Gillan on July 19, 2006, 03:09:04 PM
Now, that was not an unengagable character and my friend Jeff actually had his Sorcerer-King use magic to take control of all my critters (in spite of my "Oh NO you DIDN'T!"), so I'm interested in seeing if you can successfully avoid being engaged by the other players.

Good luck.

Actually, one note, and please, all take note of this: I a NOT trying to avoid being engaged by other players, I am trying to avoid being FORCED into it.  I certainly plan to choose to be engaged in countless things.  If someone goes after spiderman, to make him turn evil, I am probably going to fight tooth and nail to stop that.  The two main differences, and one or both of these may be differences in my perception, are: 1) I don't feel forced into this conflicts - I feel that I *could* simply choose not to get involved - I *don't* have to be reactive, I can be deliberate, and 2) should I lose the conflict, I am more easily able to return to a larger perspective and think "Oh well - perhaps this *had* to be this way for the greater good" and continue to pursue the narrative visions that excite me.  In this way, losing Spiderman does not mean that I can't turn immediately to the story of Sandman, or whatnot.

Those two things I think will make Capes a lot more fun for me, and reduce other's player's fun not one whit, for the most part.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 19, 2006, 02:59:58 PM
Considering how I felt that you went innapropriately on the attack earlier out of the blue, I admit to not having much trust in your motivations, so before I set myself up I would like an assurance on your part to examine my arguments thoroughly, objectively and rationally, with no preconceptions, but truthfully I am not sure you can do that at this time where I  or my ideas are concerned.  I am not gong to open myself up to attack without thinking there's a reasonable chance that you are open to the possibility that I may be right and are willing to make a real effort to try to be open to that.  At the moment, I do not sense that.

Great!  Don't make your arguments.  That's your prerogative.

Every time (every time) you bring this topic up, I will point out that you have never made any arguments for your beliefs.

You want to lament that I'm being unfair?  Go right ahead.  But don't claim that you haven't been warned.

Oh wait ... your whole sense of betrayal is based in the idea that you hadn't been warned, that this response came "out of the blue," rather than being exactly what I told you I'd do (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19245.msg202008#msg202008) months ago.  So ... uh ... don't claim that again, I guess.

Btw, Bret, your Gods idea is really cool, kudos to you for coming up with it!  I look forward with interest to see how it develops.

Between PLC's, Gods, and more, it seems that the evolutions of Capes is going strong.  I like that.

Quote from: TonyLB on July 19, 2006, 03:31:18 PM
Great!  Don't make your arguments.  That's your prerogative.

Every time (every time) you bring this topic up, I will point out that you have never made any arguments for your beliefs.

You want to lament that I'm being unfair?  Go right ahead.  But don't claim that you haven't been warned.

Oh wait ... your whole sense of betrayal is based in the idea that you hadn't been warned, that this response came "out of the blue," rather than being exactly what I told you I'd do months ago.  So ... uh ... don't claim that again, I guess.

Tony, you debate with a lot of flair, and you are a very clever man.  I imagine that you could take either side of an argument and argue equally effectively for it.  You are most certainly a winner, and I think everyone who knows you knows that.  I understand why you play Capes the way you do and why your concept of Capes is as it is.

You are probably right, there probably was no betrayal - I was probably wrong when I began to feel that you were really engaging with me and listening to what I had to say in a way that had been lacking previously.  Consider that a mea culpa as well.

Know that tearing me down can never demonstrate *anything* that you believe is actually true.  You yourself have never made any cohesive or necessary arguments for your beliefs on this matter.  You may think that coercive non-consensual play is central to Capes and unavoidable, but you still have not shown that it is so.

Just wanted to point that out.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 19, 2006, 03:40:40 PMYou may think that coercive non-consensual play is central to Capes and unavoidable, but you still have not shown that it is so.

Assuming that by the jargony and pejorative phrase "coercive non-consensual" you mean "one player can make things happen in the story that affect other players without their consent (except for consenting to play Capes in the first place), I'd respond:

"Central"? Yes, almost definitionally: the system's explicitly designed around that concept, so even if Tony hadn't ever written a word on the issue since he published the game, he would have "shown that it is so."

"Unavoidable"? No, I think everyone's agreed you can avoid it; most of us just think you'd be missing the point of the game, rather like (car analogies again!) buying an enormous SUV and using it only to go to the grocery store: Sure, you can do it, but if you never go off-road, there are actually many better vehicles for you. If you really want to avoid playing this way, there are probably many better games than Capes for you to play.

Quote from: Sydney Freedberg on July 19, 2006, 04:21:00 PM
Assuming that by the jargony and pejorative phrase "coercive non-consensual" you mean "one player can make things happen in the story that affect other players without their consent (except for consenting to play Capes in the first place), I'd respond:

That's not what I mean.  I mean this (in a non pejorative way):

coercive: intended to manipulate or force, intended to *reduce* choices
non-consensual: without the permission of the target

Effectively, coercive non-consensual play is laying down the conflct "Doc Ock frightens Spiderman into wetting himself in a public and embarrsing way" and in so doing try to force (rather than entice) Spidey's player to engage the conflict and give up his resources in order to prevent a negative and unnacceptable (to him) outcome.  What can make this consensual however, is that some players have the reaction "bring it on" when this sort of play occurs.  But for the players that don't, this would be an example of coercive non-consensual play.

What makes one conflict coercive and another enticing?  I think any hard and fast black and white definition can be quibbled at and argued over - like what does or does not constitute porn, but like the judge said, "I know it when I see it."

I would imagine the conflicts that trade on the emotional weaknesses of a player to get them inolved in a conflict that they absolutely do not want to be part of the story but feel they must nevertheless address would be in the ballpark.

Note that the terms coercive and non-consensual are not pejorative terms, they are simply terms.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 19, 2006, 04:37:07 PMWhat can make this consensual however, is that some players have the reaction "bring it on" when this sort of play occurs.

Okay, but the Capes rules don't distinguish between "bring it on" and "please don't" -- players can make either statement all they want, but the game doesn't give either mechanical force. (N.B. lots of exceptions about Comics Code, spotlight characters, "not yet," and the conflict-veto rules). So if that distinction is critically important to you, you need to give it some game-mechanical authority, which means a different set of rules, which means a different game.

Quote from: Sydney Freedberg on July 19, 2006, 06:34:11 PM
Okay, but the Capes rules don't distinguish between "bring it on" and "please don't" -- players can make either statement all they want, but the game doesn't give either mechanical force. (N.B. lots of exceptions about Comics Code, spotlight characters, "not yet," and the conflict-veto rules). So if that distinction is critically important to you, you need to give it some game-mechanical authority, which means a different set of rules, which means a different game.

Again, I follow and agree with you, except at this point I would probably not ask any player to change their tactics for me.

I think one of the points under current discussion is not whether or not other people should be using these tactics.  Everyone is right when they say it is perfectly valid play under the Capes ruleset, and you are right in saying that forbidding it makes the game no longer Capes.

But,

1) Can *I* play effectively if I refuse to engage in that sort of play - i.e., if I refuse to intiate coercive tactics against those who I intuit would be hurt if I did, will I be at no disadvantage compared to those who do?  I think so - because most Capes players are of the "bring it on" variety and *like* that kind of play directed at the them, and for the others, there's enticement play (as opposed to coercive.)
2) Can I play effectively if I limit people's opportunity to coerce me, not through additional rules, but through a particular style of play valid under the existing rules.

I think the answer to both of the above is yes.  Within the existing Capes rules I can both refuse to coerce those who would have a serious problem with it and also myself refuse to be so coerced, and still be just as effective vis-a-vis conflicts and tokens, have just as an engaging and fulfilling game occur.

As another poster has pointed out, the proof *is* in the pudding, and until I can try this several times and under several circumstances with actual play, all I have are theories, and I will frankly admit that.  As soon as I have the oportunity to engage in actual play in this way, I will.  And I will report back.

In the meanwhile, I have no aversion to continued discussion, if anyone so wishes. 

My main purpose has been and continues to be not to present definitive proof of this concept (yet) but to get people thinking about some new ideas and to put some old ideas in a new light.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 19, 2006, 07:18:11 PM...at this point I would probably not ask any player to change their tactics for me....

Errr... I'm not asking anyone to change their tactics for me, either. (If you and I were playing together and your Kismet thing bored or irritated me, I might, but we're not). I'm suggesting you need to change your tactics for you, to get the most out of the game and to broaden your own range of abilities.

But, yeah, without actual pay, further discussion in the abstract is of diminishing value.

Sindyr, I'll reiterate my offer to play with you over IRC.

Quote from: Vaxalon on July 20, 2006, 11:01:25 AM
Sindyr, I'll reiterate my offer to play with you over IRC.

Never tried it before, but willing as well.  In fact, more than willing!

Quote from: Vaxalon on July 20, 2006, 11:01:25 AM
Sindyr, I'll reiterate my offer to play with you over IRC.

You may not have seen my original response to that:

QuoteI am always willing to change my mind as I experience new facts.  I dont like to type much if I can avoid it, but I would be willing to play by Skype, Teamspeak, or Ventrillo.  Or in person in Mass, VT or NH.

I hate, hate typing in real time to talk to someone else. 

However, with the net being such as it is, shouldn't a Skype Conference call be even better?  Would you be willing to do that?  The only down side is needing a headset with a microphone, a $20 circuit city item if you don't already have one.

I figure we have the net - let's use it to do voice.  Is that doable for you, or anyone?

Skype is fine.  I also have Ventrilo, and access to a server.

Let's do it this way...

Anyone interested, email me with times available, systems usable (Skype, Ventrilo, Teamspeak) and we'll set something up.

vaxalon@gmail.com

You just made my day. Woot!

Email is being sent.

At the risk of dragging this back on topic I have a couple of major issues with the premise...

QuoteQuote from: Sindyr on July 19, 2006, 09:15:43 AM
a) It seems entirely valid within the written rules of Capes to create a non-persona-ed character sheet and character.

Agreed....apart from two major points:

1) As a bodiless, persona-less character I don't think you can justify giving the character Drives.

drive (n) - A strong motivating tendency or instinct related to self-preservation, reproduction, or aggression that prompts activity toward a particular end.

Without a persona Drives would be impossible...

2) As the character has no Drives then it can have no Debt generating powers.

Quoteb) PLC's (Persona-Less Characters) seem to allow me, and I would imagine others, to more easily disregard coercive play, making each conflict more of a choice of whether or not to get involved, and less of a manipulation.

Totally...but from the other player's perspective Who cares?, you have no resources as you have no Debt...you would essentially be a persona-less player with minimal impact on the game.

Quotec) PLC's also give much wider lattitude for the scope of one's involvement.  By playing a PLC such as Kismet, I can partake of Spidey's struggle with Doc Ock, Ock's struggle with Spidey, or the experience of a third party.  I am not locked into one persona's perspective, giving me a much wider vantage point.

This is pretty much true of any character, its one of the joys of Capes.

Rolling on Spidey's "Bravery" I roll up the Conflict "MJ escapes the Green Goblin's clutches" narrating "MJ remembers all those times Spidey saved her against overwhelming odds and struggles to break free, distracting Green Goblin."

Quoted) PLC's, by the very nature of Capes and it's meta-game seem more suited to Capes than PC's, and more of a pure evolution of the very Capes fundamental principles.

Couldn't disagree more...PLCs are not an evolution, they are just you discovering the NPC mechanic and misapplying it.

This is could be a huge leap forward in your understanding of the Capes ethos though if you take the principles of acting on other characters which you seem to like and accept that it happening to your characters in the same way would not be the end of the world...

Quote from: Tuxboy on July 24, 2006, 09:02:22 AM
1) As a bodiless, persona-less character I don't think you can justify giving the character Drives.

drive (n) - A strong motivating tendency or instinct related to self-preservation, reproduction, or aggression that prompts activity toward a particular end.

Without a persona Drives would be impossible...

I disagree completely.  Pick one of the two following reasons:

QuoteCould be the universal drives of Hope, Duty, etc - the impersonal and overarching drives of the cosmos being tuned into, eh?

All that's really required I think is that

(from the Capes rulebook)
"They may Stake Debt on any number of Conflicts that provoke the character to prove themself in the relevant moral Drive."
-and-
"But when they Stake Debt, it must be on a Conflict that is morally charged for that particular character and Drive."

Who decides if the Conflict is "morally charged" or if it "provokes the character to prove themself"?  The character's owner does.  And I don't think any other player can gainsay the owner.  I could simply say, "this character IS this collection of Powers, Styles, Attitudes, and Drives - in other words, this character sheet and the info contained within it, and no more besides what fancy is in my head.  I will let you know when a Conflict is morally charged or provocative from time to time for this character (sheet) by staking debt appropriately - if I stake debt, then you know it's morally charged for this character (sheet)."

It's an unusual approach, but not as far as I can see, an invalid one.

-or-

QuoteInstead of it being Persona-less per se, it is Persona-*light* - it only has enough Persona to justify having drives, but apart from that has no ego or other sentient aspects.  Consider the PLC not to be sentient but to be meta-sentient - a quality of being that affords the minimum neccesary to qualify for drives but does no more than that.

Now, since the PLC *does* have drives and debt, everything else falls into place.

Quote from: Tuxboy on July 24, 2006, 09:02:22 AM

Quotec) PLC's also give much wider lattitude for the scope of one's involvement.  By playing a PLC such as Kismet, I can partake of Spidey's struggle with Doc Ock, Ock's struggle with Spidey, or the experience of a third party.  I am not locked into one persona's perspective, giving me a much wider vantage point.

This is pretty much true of any character, its one of the joys of Capes.

Rolling on Spidey's "Bravery" I roll up the Conflict "MJ escapes the Green Goblin's clutches" narrating "MJ remembers all those times Spidey saved her against overwhelming odds and struggles to break free, distracting Green Goblin."

Yes, but...

QuoteFirst and simplest, if I have Spidey's character sheet in hand, and I want to find some way to affect the fight that Catwoman and Dock Ock are having while Spidey is slumped unconscious, I am going to have to do more work to apply "Spidey-Sense" on the character sheet to help Catwoman win the conflict.  I am not saying I couldn't make it work, I am just saying it's simpler and more efficient for me to have a Kismet character sheet and simply use the ability "Good Prevails"
Second, by having 12 Spiderman abilities listed in front of me, and by trying to figure out how to use them to win conflicts, I will naturally be drawn into looking at things from Spiderman's perspective.  By having a character sheet based on a wider perspective, such as Kismet, Karma, Poetic Justice, or whatnot, I will instinctively and naturally be open to taking a wider view than only how things are affecting Spiderman.

-and-

QuoteWhat kind of blows my mind, in a very good way, is that by playing Kismet I am essentially playing *myself*, my godlike ability as a player to reach into the world of the narration and affect it, helping that which I want to support, combating that which I want to curtail.  Heck, all you really have to do is come up with 12 abilities that represent the kind of effect you want to have on the story, "Poetic Justice", "Fate take a hand", "the Good prevail", etc and there you go, you have made a character which is you, the player's, proxy within the narrative world.

Ultimately, by playing the purely narrative force instead of sheeting up a character as a focus, you are declaring that your primary interest is not in any one character overall - although you may be interested is Spidey's story today - but in the story itself.  You are taking a GM stance as opposed to a PC stance.  And I think this is a good thing, because at the end of the day, playing Capes is not like playing a PC, as Capes does not support player ownership/authority over slected PC's, no instead it *is* like being a GM.  And by playing this narrative force, you are strongly embracing that role.

-and-

Quote
Put another way, let's say I am involved in a story in which spiderman strives and fails to save the life of an innocent.

If my character sheet is Spiderman, then I take it personally.  I am bummed, angry, frustrated, and toxic.  The game's fun has evaporated, replacing it with a very real desire (not acted on, of course) to harm the players physically, to do violance upon them for what they have done to me.  This is not a good place to be, not a place I want to risk arriving at.

But if my character sheet is Kismet, even if I having been *playing* Spiderman narratively exactly the same, when Spiderman fails to save the innocent person, I do *not* take it personally.  I am bummed on Spiderman's *behalf*, but from my current point of view, the point of view of Kismet, all things will eventually work out for the best, taking the long view.  Spiderman's failure is simply one knot on one thread in the entire fabric of the tapestry, and that failure may lead to an even greater order of magnitude of goodness and triumph.

Now, if I am playing Spiderman's character sheet, I cannot take that more impartial view, I guess cause I feel like by choosing to link the character sheet to the character Spiderman I am choosing to link Spiderman to *me*.  But by playing Kismet's character sheet, I don't feel Spiderman as being *me* any more than I feel Doc Ock to be *me*.  They are both threads in the tapestry, and its the overall design of the whole thing that I am interested in.  And I am not even striving toward a particular design, I am striving toward making whatever design emerges the best, most coherent, and pure design that I can.

Spiderman fails either way, but the *meaning* of that failure and it's immanent emotive effect completely changes depending on which I embrace - Kismet's sheet or Spidey's.  And that to me, is one of the keys (though not IMO the most significant key) in the difference between playing Kismet and Spidey.

The goal of playing Capes (for me) ultimately is to have a positive, meaningful, and fun experience.  This seems far more likely when I play Kismet.  To me, that is a very real and essential difference.  Playing a persona-less cosmic force simply feels different from playing a persona-based character, and as the product of a narrative experience is feeling, that to me seem as objective as one can get.

Quote from: Tuxboy on July 24, 2006, 09:02:22 AMThis is could be a huge leap forward in your understanding of the Capes ethos though if you take the principles of acting on other characters which you seem to like and accept that it happening to your characters in the same way would not be the end of the world...

...which is made all the easier by playing a PLC. :)

*LOL*

The dictionary definition of drive blows the first reason out of the water, to have

QuoteA strong motivating tendency or instinct related to self-preservation, reproduction, or aggression that prompts activity toward a particular end.

you must have a self to preserve which presupposes a body or at least a persona.

And as for the second, with a persona, or even a persona-lite you can be interacted with and therefore have conflicts directed toward you which destroys the rest of your argument.

Either there is no persona and no debt generating powers or there is a persona (even a lite one) that possesses powers and can be interacted with.

For the record I do like the concept of  amorphous conceptional "personifications" such as Blind Luck, Serendipity, Law of the Jungle etc, but using them as untouchable characters just doesn't make sense and pretzels the rules...munchkinism at its worst. Besides you'll miss out on fun conflicts like:

Goal: "Chaos Theory makes a mockery of Kismet"

or

Goal: "Fortune's wheels turn and Kismet favours Hobgoblin's escape"

None of this will stop you ignoring Conflicts directed toward you that you don't like but using faulty rules justifications as "proofs"...come on now surely you can do better than that *L*

Isn't "persona-less character" an oxymoron?

*LOL*

Cutting straight to the point...like it!

Quote from: Tuxboy on July 24, 2006, 10:42:40 AM
The dictionary definition of drive blows the first reason out of the water, to have

QuoteA strong motivating tendency or instinct related to self-preservation, reproduction, or aggression that prompts activity toward a particular end.

you must have a self to preserve which presupposes a body or at least a persona.

...which is irrelevant.  Drive used in this setting is a Capes term which Capes defines.  The dictionary defination is irrelevant.  should we consult the dictionary on "debt", "conflict", "goal", etc, I am sure we can find more loopholes and invalidation of any Capes play one cares to eliminate.

So basically, unfortunately, you are wrong.  According to the Capes rules, I can play a PLC with drives.  It does not have to be sentient and posses an ego in the conventional sense.  The only (the ONLY) two limiting factors are that:

"They may Stake Debt on any number of Conflicts that provoke the character to prove themself in the relevant moral Drive."
-and-
"But when they Stake Debt, it must be on a Conflict that is morally charged for that particular character and Drive."

I will attest that if my PLC stakes debt, it *will* be on a conflict that is morally charged for it, and that the conflict does provoke the character to prove itself in the relevant moral drive.

This results in two things:
1) The players know that this conflict my PLC stakes debt on is morally charged for it, and that the conflict does provoke the character to prove itself in the relevant moral drive.  This does not help the player in any way determine what other potential conflicts might also fit into that category.  In fact, this information really is not at all helpful to other players in any way that I can conceive.

2.) Given that I do attest that if my PLC stakes debt, it *will* be on a conflict that is morally charged for it, and that the conflict does provoke the character to prove itself in the relevant moral drive, no player within the scope of the Capes ruleset can prevent me from playing a PLC.

Now, nothing prevents you from saying you don't like and refuse to play with me under those circumstances - just the same way nothing prevents me from saying I don't like gritty brutal games and refuse to play with those that do.

But ultimately, you not liking a debt-enabled PLC is like me not liking gritty games - both are legal and valid, and both are nothing more than a matter of taste.

Quote from: joshua neff on July 24, 2006, 10:48:29 AM
Isn't "persona-less character" an oxymoron?

No.

Quote from: Tuxboy on July 24, 2006, 10:53:33 AM
*LOL*

Cutting straight to the point...like it!

Hope you find my rebuttal as amusing. :)

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 11:16:26 AM
According to the Capes rules, I can play a PLC with drives.  It does not have to be sentient and posses an ego in the conventional sense.

Dude, totally.  In the next iteration of the Invasion from Earth Prime (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20482.msg213408#msg213408) scenario packet I'm totally going to give the rough and tumble neighborhood of Foundry Row a set of drives and powers.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 11:17:31 AM

Quote from: joshua neff on July 24, 2006, 10:48:29 AM
Isn't "persona-less character" an oxymoron?

No.

Well, if you and I were playing together, and you made a character that you claimed was a "persona-less character," I wouldn't buy it. If you create a character with Drives, I don't care if it's sentient or has an ego "in the classical sense." You either make a character for the game or you don't play the game. You either engage with the other players or you don't play the game. You either take the risk of another player doing something to or with your character or you don't play the game. If your character can do things in the game, then other players can do things to and with that character. In all of this thread, I've seen you argue for nothing besides being able to play Capes without running any of the risks that come with playing Capes.

But Joshua ... you don't need the character to have a personality in order for it to be at risk.  If I play "Foundry Row," a working-class neighborhood, and some punk supervillain puts down "Prove that the people of Foundry Row are defenseless insects before me," I don't need Foundry Row to have some anthropomorphic sentience in order for me to say "Oh like hell you will!"  I just need to be engaged with the neighborhood as a character, right?

I mean, if you want to object to the idea that a person will profit from playing Capes in a completely disengaged fashion, that's cool.  But don't lump that together with the perfectly workable technique of playing characters that don't have a face or a voice.

Quote from: TonyLB on July 24, 2006, 11:20:50 AM

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 11:16:26 AM
According to the Capes rules, I can play a PLC with drives.  It does not have to be sentient and posses an ego in the conventional sense.

Dude, totally.  In the next iteration of the Invasion from Earth Prime (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20482.msg213408#msg213408) scenario packet I'm totally going to give the rough and tumble neighborhood of Foundry Row a set of drives and powers.

If I am not mistaken, the game author himself (FWIW) seems share my opinion on this - whihc is significant since we seem to disagree about everything else.

Although we do agree on one other thing - that Capes is a fantastic game. 

Quote from: joshua neff on July 24, 2006, 11:26:11 AM

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 11:17:31 AM

Quote from: joshua neff on July 24, 2006, 10:48:29 AM
Isn't "persona-less character" an oxymoron?

No.

Well, if you and I were playing together, and you made a character that you claimed was a "persona-less character," I wouldn't buy it. If you create a character with Drives, I don't care if it's sentient or has an ego "in the classical sense." You either make a character for the game or you don't play the game. You either engage with the other players or you don't play the game. You either take the risk of another player doing something to or with your character or you don't play the game. If your character can do things in the game, then other players can do things to and with that character. In all of this thread, I've seen you argue for nothing besides being able to play Capes without running any of the risks that come with playing Capes.

And if you wanted to play a gritty Capes game, I wouldn't be OK with that either.  Same thing. Social Contract stuff.  The rules let us do either.

It is ironic to note that both Tony and I embrace the idea of PLC's.

Where we differ on this subject is in our opinions of what can constitute effective play and what PLC play can be engaging and fun.  I tend to have a very wide scope of the above.

No, Tony, I'm pretty much trying to say what you're saying. What I'm quiestioning is Sindyr's argument that playing a "persona-less character" means that if I put down an event "The Hand of Fate manifests in human form," the player of the "persona-less character" (Sindyr) can claim, "But that's not my Hand of Fate, it's a different one!" If you can use your character (a "persona" or a force of the universe) to do things to other players, other players can do things to your character. It doesn't matter whether your character has a personality of not, it's not "safe."

Quote...which is irrelevant.  Drive used in this setting is a Capes term which Capes defines.  The dictionary defination is irrelevant.  should we consult the dictionary on "debt", "conflict", "goal", etc, I am sure we can find more loopholes and invalidation of any Capes play one cares to eliminate.

Sure...why not...that sounds like fun ;)

Debt (n): Something owed, such as money, goods, services, resources
Conflict (n): Opposition between characters or forces in a work of drama or fiction, especially opposition that motivates or shapes the action of the plot.
Goal (n): The purpose toward which an endeavor is directed; an objective.

Nope they all seem to work fine in context...

QuoteIt is ironic to note that both Tony and I embrace the idea of PLC's.

Ah but Sindyr...

I'm willing to bet that Tony's Foundry Row can be interacted with while you have gone on record as stating that Kismet can't be.

As I said I don't have an issue with PLCs just the way you are trying to use them to set up an involilate character...come on...loosen up, have some fun, actually play the game ;)

Quote from: joshua neff on July 24, 2006, 11:47:43 AM
No, Tony, I'm pretty much trying to say what you're saying. What I'm quiestioning is Sindyr's argument that playing a "persona-less character" means that if I put down an event "The Hand of Fate manifests in human form," the player of the "persona-less character" (Sindyr) can claim, "But that's not my Hand of Fate, it's a different one!" If you can use your character (a "persona" or a force of the universe) to do things to other players, other players can do things to your character. It doesn't matter whether your character has a personality of not, it's not "safe."

OK, so first off, you have agreed with me and Tony that I can play a PLC within the rules of Capes - Such as Kismet, or the Golden Path, or Poetic Justice, etc.

That's a very important point, and I guess from your words, you are granting that.

Secondly, your idea of the Event, "The Hand of Fate manifests in human form" would never come off because in any event, no matter how we agree or disagree on the other stuff, any player may veto any event.  Any to keep things simple, that one gets vetoed.

So, for the sake of argument lets assume that you are either trying to free narrate my PLC becoming embodied, or you are making it a goal like "Nekro forces (insert PLC name here) into a body"

Problem is, my character concept for the PLC "Poetic Justice" for example, is not only that it does not have a human form, *it cannot*. 

Consider this:
Let's say you play such a goal, and win it, and narrate Poetic Justice being pulled into a corporeal form.  Let's say through further won Conflicts that body is put into a coma, shut down, isolated, locked up.

Let me ask you two very important questions:
1) Is poetic justice gone from the world?  I would say that as long as a single good guy has a success of some kind, or a single bad guy has a failure of some kind, then poetic justice is present in some amount.  In order for it to be completely gone from the world than good guys could never have any joy and bad guys could never have any frustration - and that simply is not gonna to happen, no matter how close you get to eliminating poetic justice, there will always be some.
2) Am I as a player limited in any way from using the abilities on my Poetic Justice character sheet to influence the cause of poetic justice?  Of course not - nothing that happens narratively can ever affect my ability to use my character sheet and what is on it.

Now if you as a player want to think that you have my character locked up, that's fine.  As long as 1 and 2 are both yes's *I* am going to continue to think that the essential essence of poetic justice lies forever beyond your reach.

How can you make it otherwise?

Sure, you can make everyone in the narrative world believe that you are holding Poetic Justice hostage.

But you can't make *me* the *player* believe it, as long as it simply isn't true functionally.

And as long as I can use my character sheet abilities, I can always narrate a boy doing the right thing, getting a karmic reward, and slowly realizing that that wouldn't have been possible if the *real* poetic justice was on ice. :)

And so the revolution begins.

Tux - sorry, again, not enough time and energy to type debate you, but my invitation for voice chat remains open.

Quote
As I said I don't have an issue with PLCs just the way you are trying to use them to set up an involilate character...come on...loosen up, have some fun, actually play the game ;)

I am trying to start a weekly capes game here, and I will be playing VOIP Capes soon.  So I am doing everything I can.

On the other hand, if its good Capes play to tactically attack, it must be equally good Capes play to tactically dodge the attacks one doesn't find of value - which is one use of a PLC. :)

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 12:06:07 PM

Quote from: joshua neff on July 24, 2006, 11:47:43 AM
No, Tony, I'm pretty much trying to say what you're saying. What I'm quiestioning is Sindyr's argument that playing a "persona-less character" means that if I put down an event "The Hand of Fate manifests in human form," the player of the "persona-less character" (Sindyr) can claim, "But that's not my Hand of Fate, it's a different one!" If you can use your character (a "persona" or a force of the universe) to do things to other players, other players can do things to your character. It doesn't matter whether your character has a personality of not, it's not "safe."

OK, so first off, you have agreed with me and Tony that I can play a PLC within the rules of Capes - Such as Kismet, or the Golden Path, or Poetic Justice, etc.

That's a very important point, and I guess from your words, you are granting that.

Well, I'm not granting anything. It's my understanding of the rules of Capes--which Tony also seems to be saying this, and I have no reason to doubt the creator of the game--that you can have a character be "Hogan Alley" or "Suicide Slum" or "The Hand of Fate."

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 12:06:07 PMSecondly, your idea of the Event, "The Hand of Fate manifests in human form" would never come off because in any event, no matter how we agree or disagree on the other stuff, any player may veto any event.  Any to keep things simple, that one gets vetoed.

So, for the sake of argument lets assume that you are either trying to free narrate my PLC becoming embodied, or you are making it a goal like "Nekro forces (insert PLC name here) into a body"

Problem is, my character concept for the PLC "Poetic Justice" for example, is not only that it does not have a human form, *it cannot*. 

Well, that's nice--but if it's a Capes character, it has to be treated like any other Capes character. That is, I can create a Goal that does something to your character--whether it has a "persona" or not. That's how Capes is played. The specifics of "But my force of nature can't be put into a human form" is irrelevant. (And in superhero comics, a force of naturing manifesting in human form isn't unusual at all.)

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 12:06:07 PMConsider this:
Let's say you play such a goal, and win it, and narrate Poetic Justice being pulled into a corporeal form.  Let's say through further won Conflicts that body is put into a coma, shut down, isolated, locked up.

Let me ask you two very important questions:
1) Is poetic justice gone from the world?  I would say that as long as a single good guy has a success of some kind, or a single bad guy has a failure of some kind, then poetic justice is present in some amount.  In order for it to be completely gone from the world than good guys could never have any joy and bad guys could never have any frustration - and that simply is not gonna to happen, no matter how close you get to eliminating poetic justice, there will always be some.
2) Am I as a player limited in any way from using the abilities on my Poetic Justice character sheet to influence the cause of poetic justice?  Of course not - nothing that happens narratively can ever affect my ability to use my character sheet and what is on it.

Now if you as a player want to think that you have my character locked up, that's fine.  As long as 1 and 2 are both yes's *I* am going to continue to think that the essential essence of poetic justice lies forever beyond your reach.

How can you make it otherwise?

Sure, you can make everyone in the narrative world believe that you are holding Poetic Justice hostage.

But you can't make *me* the *player* believe it, as long as it simply isn't true functionally.

And as long as I can use my character sheet abilities, I can always narrate a boy doing the right thing, getting a karmic reward, and slowly realizing that that wouldn't have been possible if the *real* poetic justice was on ice. :)

The way it would be handled is the same way it would be handled for any Capes character. In other words, your idea of playing Kismet is intriguing conceptually--but I don't see how it would work any differently from any other Capes character. A character is a character. If you can create the Goal "Kismet forces Omega Man to ask Kathy Kane to forgive him for missing their date last Tuesday," then I can create the Goal "Omega Man forces Kismet to piss off and leave him alone."

Quote from: joshua neff on July 24, 2006, 12:28:25 PM

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 12:06:07 PM
OK, so first off, you have agreed with me and Tony that I can play a PLC within the rules of Capes - Such as Kismet, or the Golden Path, or Poetic Justice, etc.

That's a very important point, and I guess from your words, you are granting that.

Well, I'm not granting anything. It's my understanding of the rules of Capes--which Tony also seems to be saying this, and I have no reason to doubt the creator of the game--that you can have a character be "Hogan Alley" or "Suicide Slum" or "The Hand of Fate."

OK, then we agree on this, PLC's are valid Capes characters.

Quote

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 12:06:07 PMSecondly, your idea of the Event, "The Hand of Fate manifests in human form" would never come off because in any event, no matter how we agree or disagree on the other stuff, any player may veto any event.  Any to keep things simple, that one gets vetoed.

So, for the sake of argument lets assume that you are either trying to free narrate my PLC becoming embodied, or you are making it a goal like "Nekro forces (insert PLC name here) into a body"

Problem is, my character concept for the PLC "Poetic Justice" for example, is not only that it does not have a human form, *it cannot*. 

Well, that's nice--but if it's a Capes character, it has to be treated like any other Capes character. That is, I can create a Goal that does something to your character--whether it has a "persona" or not. That's how Capes is played. The specifics of "But my force of nature can't be put into a human form" is irrelevant. (And in superhero comics, a force of naturing manifesting in human form isn't unusual at all.)

Yes, *but*...  if you don't get me the player on board and believeing it, what is the point?

Quote

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 12:06:07 PMConsider this:
Let's say you play such a goal, and win it, and narrate Poetic Justice being pulled into a corporeal form.  Let's say through further won Conflicts that body is put into a coma, shut down, isolated, locked up.

Let me ask you two very important questions:
1) Is poetic justice gone from the world?  I would say that as long as a single good guy has a success of some kind, or a single bad guy has a failure of some kind, then poetic justice is present in some amount.  In order for it to be completely gone from the world than good guys could never have any joy and bad guys could never have any frustration - and that simply is not gonna to happen, no matter how close you get to eliminating poetic justice, there will always be some.
2) Am I as a player limited in any way from using the abilities on my Poetic Justice character sheet to influence the cause of poetic justice?  Of course not - nothing that happens narratively can ever affect my ability to use my character sheet and what is on it.

Now if you as a player want to think that you have my character locked up, that's fine.  As long as 1 and 2 are both yes's *I* am going to continue to think that the essential essence of poetic justice lies forever beyond your reach.

How can you make it otherwise?

Sure, you can make everyone in the narrative world believe that you are holding Poetic Justice hostage.

But you can't make *me* the *player* believe it, as long as it simply isn't true functionally.

And as long as I can use my character sheet abilities, I can always narrate a boy doing the right thing, getting a karmic reward, and slowly realizing that that wouldn't have been possible if the *real* poetic justice was on ice. :)

The way it would be handled is the same way it would be handled for any Capes character. In other words, your idea of playing Kismet is intriguing conceptually--but I don't see how it would work any differently from any other Capes character. A character is a character. If you can create the Goal "Kismet forces Omega Man to ask Kathy Kane to forgive him for missing their date last Tuesday," then I can create the Goal "Omega Man forces Kismet to piss off and leave him alone."

You have proven my point.  You can create the Goal "Omega Man forces Kismet to piss off and leave him alone." but is has zero, absolutely no effect on me the player.  I can still use my Kismet abilities to affect any Conflicts, including those that include Omega Man.

As long two things remain true, I am content:
1) No Conflict you play can impinge on my option to use the abilities on the character sheet - no matter what you do, no matter how it is portrayed, the force of my character sheet continues to be felt.  I will always be able to use my ability "The good guys prevail" no matter what you narrate, to try to make things works out.  I amy or may not succeed, but I can always apply the force of my PLC to try.
2) If the nature of the PLC remains in the world - and with certain PLC's its is impossible to remove - then I as a player may always consider my character to be out there.  I never have to agree with you on what your narration means to me.  I repeat:

QuoteLet's say you play such a goal, and win it, and narrate Poetic Justice being pulled into a corporeal form.  Let's say through further won Conflicts that body is put into a coma, shut down, isolated, locked up.

Is poetic justice gone from the world?  I would say that as long as a single good guy has a success of some kind, or a single bad guy has a failure of some kind, then poetic justice is present in some amount.  In order for it to be completely gone from the world than good guys could never have any joy and bad guys could never have any frustration - and that simply is not gonna to happen, no matter how close you get to eliminating poetic justice, there will always be some.

Can you see how you can never convince me as a player that Poetic Justice is gone from the world?

Now if you can deal with those two things, I see no reason why we couldn't have a lively and fun game.

I expect that in practice, you would have no issues with anything I did.

But what I can't understand is why you feel you can't you do that with a normal PC?

I've had characters that were dead, on the opposite side of the galaxy or just home in bed have a direct impact on Conflicts by use of their abilities, it is not really different than what you seem to be proposing for your PLCs.

Character focus here is a red herring surely. If you can look at a set of abilities and think in terms of other characters with Poetic Justice then what is stopping you doing the same with, say, Lucky Charm?

Does corporeal character ownership narrow your vision that much? I'm genuinely interested to know.

and how about "Goal: Poetic Justice fails the orphans"...would you contest that?

The poor orphans faith in justice is shaken if you don't...

Quote from: Tuxboy on July 24, 2006, 01:20:06 PM
But what I can't understand is why you feel you can't you do that with a normal PC?

I've had characters that were dead, on the opposite side of the galaxy or just home in bed have a direct impact on Conflicts by use of their abilities, it is not really different than what you seem to be proposing for your PLCs.

Character focus here is a red herring surely. If you can look at a set of abilities and think in terms of other characters with Poetic Justice then what is stopping you doing the same with, say, Lucky Charm?

Does corporeal character ownership narrow your vision that much? I'm genuinely interested to know.

Very good questions, and very good points.  Yes, I do feel diferently about them, though I do know that functionally they are not.

If I play Spidey, and he is killed, I can continue to lay he to full effect, but my heart has gone out of it. I feel that Spidey has been eliminated from the world, despite his contintuing effects.  That instead of playing Spider, I am now playing "the spirit of Spidey."
If I play a PLC like Poetic Justice, I have no trouble embracing the idea that Poetic Justice can never be elimiated from the world.

Now perhaps if I started mentally playing the Spirit of Spidey, and not just "Spidey" at the start, then when he gets killed, I would not be as bummed and would see no fundamental shift in play.

I guess I cannot help personally identifying and linking with the character I am playing.  By playing a PLC I am linking directly to my own ideas about how the story should go.  I am affirming more my GM stance than my PC stance.

With a corporeal character I take personally what befalls him.  That doesn't happen with a PLC for me.  I guess it depends on how I interface with the gamespace, what mode I use internally.  If I am telling a story about someone, I don't want to *be* him.  I want to be "above" him, holding him in the third person an as a seperate party.

If I use the first person, if I wrap myself *in* the character, then I don't want to be telling the story, I want to be living it, experiencing it as if it were happening to me.  In that case I *wear* the character.

PLCs seem better for me in this game.  Though I plan to put in time trying it all.

Tuxboy asked the question I would have. You haven't said anything about "PLCs" that isn't true for any other character in Capes--except in your head. Which is fine, but that's your problem. You can make your character a "persona-less character" if it works better for you in your head, but in play, it doesn't work any differently from any other character in the game. If it does, that goes to your "but what if the player doesn't buy it" question: frankly, I don't buy that a "persona-less character" is different from any other Capes character, and trying to treat it differently in the game is, I think, a real dodge, trying to avoid risk and responsibility in play.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 01:39:13 PMIf I play a PLC like Poetic Justice, I have no trouble embracing the idea that Poetic Justice can never be elimiated from the world.

"Until I, ANTI-POETIC JUSTICE MAN, was gifted with powers both terrible and amazing after my horrible, yet ironically appropriate, accident. Now, I have created a device that will wipe all poetic justice from the universe. I need only hit the switch on my ingenious device! No one will stop me now! Muahahaha!"

Quote from: Tuxboy on July 24, 2006, 01:39:08 PM
and how about "Goal: Poetic Justice fails the orphans"...would you contest that?

The poor orphans faith in justice is shaken if you don't...

So the conflict is *really* about whether or not the orphan's faith in Poetic Justice remains - at least that what it means to me as a player.  Poetic Justice (to me as a player) is not a guarantee, its a universal tendency that *sometimes* manifests - but not always.  (Again, this is how I as a player feel about Poetic Justice)  So a conflict that threatens to have PJ fail the orphan doesn't necessarily have meaning for me.

As to a conflict that threatens to have the orphan lose hope in poetic justice - that I might indeed go after, with a LOT of might - unless this is the 4th orphan in a row with such a problem.  I mean, after a while, I begin to say, what is faith for if Poetic Justice has to continually prove itself without end.... grin.

But if you *really* want to game resources off of me, play an *enticing* goal, like "Goal: The orphan acquires a new found hope and faith in Poetic Justice."

How can I say no to that? Ever?

Quote from: Bret Gillan on July 24, 2006, 01:44:07 PM

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 01:39:13 PMIf I play a PLC like Poetic Justice, I have no trouble embracing the idea that Poetic Justice can never be elimiated from the world.

"Until I, ANTI-POETIC JUSTICE MAN, was gifted with powers both terrible and amazing after my horrible, yet ironically appropriate, accident. Now, I have created a device that will wipe all poetic justice from the universe. I need only hit the switch on my ingenious device! No one will stop me now! Muahahaha!"

Heck, I won't even contest that conflict - flip the switch.  It is too boring and mondane to motivate me as a player.

However, if afterward I the player ever see one instance of a good guy finding some joy or a bad guy finding some frustration, I the player will believe that there is still Poetic Justice in the world.

Another example: Let's say I play the PLC "Life"  Unless your villain is willing to remove all living things from the world (and probably end the story completely) Life will remain.

Some concept are inherent to any story and to the existence of free-willed sentient beings.  You can narrate their removal, but you can't actually remove them - no matter what you do.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 12:09:05 PM
On the other hand, if its good Capes play to tactically attack, it must be equally good Capes play to tactically dodge the attacks one doesn't find of value - which is one use of a PLC. :)

You might think so, but you'd be dead wrong.  Both sides (winner and loser) are rewarded for fighting.

So, yes, starting a fight is tactically sound.  Fleeing a fight is not.  Staying in the fight, especially when you're going to be utterly demolished, is tactically sound.

Quote from: joshua neff on July 24, 2006, 12:28:25 PM
It's my understanding of the rules of Capes--which Tony also seems to be saying this, and I have no reason to doubt the creator of the game--

BWAHAHAHAAAAAAAA ... gasp ....

Irony ... causing me to ... suffocate laughing ... must not ... black out.

Oh, dude, I'm sorry.  I misread who was saying that.  I thought it was Sindyr.

It's the whole thing of Sindyr saying "Hey people!  Tony says it, so accept it without question!" that's got the comedic value for me.  I picked the wrong thing to quote there.  There's no humor value to you using me as an authority.

Stupid, stupid Tony.

Quote from: joshua neff on July 24, 2006, 11:47:43 AM
No, Tony, I'm pretty much trying to say what you're saying. What I'm quiestioning is Sindyr's argument that playing a "persona-less character" means that if I put down an event "The Hand of Fate manifests in human form," the player of the "persona-less character" (Sindyr) can claim, "But that's not my Hand of Fate, it's a different one!" If you can use your character (a "persona" or a force of the universe) to do things to other players, other players can do things to your character. It doesn't matter whether your character has a personality of not, it's not "safe."

Rockin'.  We're on the same page then.

Sindyr's right, of course, that nobody can force him to care about ... well, anything.  They can't do it in Capes, and they can't do it in any other game, and they can't do it in life.  Apathy is the ultimate defense.

It is not, however, good strategy within the context of Capes.  In fact, I had a whole post (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20538.0) about the importance of owning and engaging with the moments when your character gets stomped.

Actually, you could introduce and win a conflict to eliminate poetic justice, or all living beings, or the color green, from the universe in any Capes game; either people would ignore it as soon as it was over or have some funky narration to do thereafter, but you don't have to have a specific character in the game representing a concept before you can attack it.

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 12:06:07 PMLet's say you play such a goal, and win it, and narrate Poetic Justice being pulled into a corporeal form.  Let's say through further won Conflicts that body is put into a coma, shut down, isolated, locked up......And as long as I can use my character sheet abilities, I can always narrate a boy doing the right thing, getting a karmic reward, and slowly realizing that that wouldn't have been possible if the *real* poetic justice was on ice.

Sindry, everything you've just said applies to any character in Capes. You can narrate my character being killed, put into a coma, or shot into space -- and I may well refrain from using my vast narrative power to say, as soon as the relevant Conflcit ends, "but I'm back!" -- but I can still narrate my character using any ability or drive in any scene I want. Is it other people's memory of my long-dead character influencing them? The strange stirrings of destiny affecting people in a time when my character is not yet born? Pure thematic echoes, with no pretence of a physical connection, between my character and other people who are entirely outside my guy's event horizon and vice versa? It doesn't matter.

(Conversely, my character can be right there in a scene, but not played as a game-mechanical entity. I realized this is one of the first playtests, when two characters were both trying to convince mine of something, and I decided to stay out of the scene and let them fight it out between themselves).

Now, I can call my character's abilities whatever I want. I can call my character whatever I want: "Bob, the relatively ordinary guy"; "Super Amazing Man"; "The Unstoppable Hand of Fate"; "A series of apparently unconnected coincidences." It doesn't matter. The rules treat them all exactly the same.

But of course the players treat them differently, because they're telling a story together, not just shuffling dice and tokens, so they come to care about "Bob" in a different way than about "Super Amazing" or "Fate" or "coincidences," and that emotional investment -- not strategy alone -- changes the way they play. In fact, that emotional investment is the point of play, since, as you may've noticed, Capes is not a game you can win: There are no victory conditions, no endgame mechanics, no way of keeping score (though Tony's experimented with add-on systems for con scenarios), and, most crucially, no objective way of valuing whether being defeated in one conflict is more or less important than being victorious in another.

So if the way you portray your characters makes it dramatically easier for you and the people you're playing with to have fun with "Kismet" than with any of the other infinite possibilities, that's great; if you have more freedom playing a disembodied presence than a specific person, go for it.

But if this kind of character is about making it easier for you not to care about things -- and primarily I've seen you talking, as with Bret's "Anti-Poetic Justice Man," about your ability to avoid being engaged -- then it strikes me as perverse. Why spend all this energy roleplaying something you don't want to care about, especially when you clearly do care about the characters in games you're roleplaying? Why start multiple threads and write innumerable posts defending the idea of not being emotionally invested, when you are clearly emotionally invested enough to write the posts in the first place?

Quote from: TonyLB on July 24, 2006, 02:35:46 PM

Quote from: Sindyr on July 24, 2006, 12:09:05 PM
On the other hand, if its good Capes play to tactically attack, it must be equally good Capes play to tactically dodge the attacks one doesn't find of value - which is one use of a PLC. :)

You might think so, but you'd be dead wrong.  Both sides (winner and loser) are rewarded for fighting.

So, yes, starting a fight is tactically sound.  Fleeing a fight is not.  Staying in the fight, especially when you're going to be utterly demolished, is tactically sound.

I guess I will just have to trust you on this.

Oh wait - I don't.  (grin)

Quote from: TonyLB on July 24, 2006, 02:49:39 PM
Oh, dude, I'm sorry.  I misread who was saying that.  I thought it was Sindyr.

It's the whole thing of Sindyr saying "Hey people!  Tony says it, so accept it without question!" that's got the comedic value for me.  I picked the wrong thing to quote there.  There's no humor value to you using me as an authority.

Stupid, stupid Tony.

I figured you thought I said that.  Heh heh. 

Quote from: TonyLB on July 24, 2006, 02:53:03 PM
Sindyr's right, of course, that nobody can force him to care about ... well, anything.  They can't do it in Capes (snip)

That's one of my main points, thank you for granting it. With a PLC I can't be *pushed* into engaged.... but I can be *pulled*  into it.  As I illustrated above.

No if I had been playing a PC, not a PLC, I would be much more responsive to coercion.  Why?  Well, I already gave some thoughts on that, more than that I cannot say.

But, for whatever reason, if I enjoy playing a PLC over a PC in Capes, then there is no reason why I can't or shouldn't.  Cool.