[Capes] Metahuman Detectives

[Bret Gillan]

The night before last I got together two other players to try out Capes so I could give it a test run and see if I wanted to run it at the upcoming Arcon. Basically, I was trying to foresee problems I might encounter running this at a convention.

The Players

Me - I was super-excited about the game, having stayed up late the night before to read through the rules twice. My favorite games are Sorcerer, octaNe, and Nobilis. I like long walks on the beach and candlelit dinners.

Mike - I've gamed with Mike for a long time. Mike gets a bad rap for being a power-gamer, but I think this is because the only games he plays in are D&D and Exalted and so on, and he gets into the lists of powers. But who doesn't, really? Anyhow, he gets into describing his characters, their motivations and thought processes, and their actions. I've been thinking for awhile that he'd really enjoy something that let him channel his creativity. He jumped at the chance to play.

Sarah - Sarah's my girlfriend, and a newbie to role-playing games. I mention her first session of Sorcerer in another thread. She loves describing her characters down to the most miniscule details. The narrative aspects of gaming come naturally to her. She struggles a bit with the rules, though.

The Game

The game started off on a sour note when two of my friends who'd told me they'd play backed out, leaving the game with just me and Mike. Sarah rode to the rescue, though, and offered to be the third player. I'll admit that I started the game a bit flustered and annoyed, though.

I started by trying to describe the rules to the players. I've always prided myself in my ability to explain things to people, but the fact that each rule has other rules nested in it made it difficult. I think I did it the wrong way, and that next time I'll try to explain the rules from the bottom-up instead of the top-down.

Scene 1
Location: A back alley in some undetermined town. The air is chilly, it's drizzling raing, and the homeless cluster around fires for warmth.
Starting Conflict: Event - Homeless man gets dragged towards manhole (Note: We had a hard time determining how to create "good" events. This was the first one and when it came to to resolve it we had a bit of a problem.)
Characters: Officer McNally (Mike), Cara the Photographer/Deli Worker (Sarah), and the Sewer Nightmare (Me).
We started by setting the scene and then making characters. I didn't have Click-N-Locks prepared and figured that we could just copy the stats onto paper. This wasn't a big deal, but Sarah wanted to make her characters from scratch, and this was a bit time-consuming. In a con environment, I think I'm going to more or less force people to use Click-N-Locks.
We all fell into describing the scene right away, with everyone contributing color to it. Cara rooted around behind a garbage can trying to find an animal to photograph. Officer McNally, a rookie to the force, called down the alley to see if she was okay. They had a short conversation about what she was doing there before the manhole cover started shaking. We then went into conflicts and whatnot. To summarize the events, a bum got dragged towards the manhole, Officer McNally tried to save him but tripped over one of the many tentacles flailing out of the manhole, Cara tried to photograph the creature, and managed to do just that as it dragged the bum screaming into the sewers.
The only problem we had here is that the Event: Bum gets dragged towards manhole resolved in Mike's favor. And then after he won it, he didn't really know how to make this play out in his favor. Honestly, he or Sarah probably should have vetoed it in favor of something like Event: Tentacles lunge at bums or something, but we were all new.
Mike expressed some dismay that, when he started the page and created a conflict, I ended the page and was able to resolve it without him ever rolling on it. I said that it's simply the strategy of the game. If you want a conflict to survive, create it when you're going on the tail end of a turn, or when you have the story tokens to take another action and roll.
Other conflicts: Goal: Save bum from tentacles, Goal: Photograph creature.

Scene 2
Location: A detective's office with a nice chair and a potted plant.
Starting conflict: Goal: Get Schmidt to give coherent testimony.
Characters: Carter Phoenix (Mike), Annabella the Psychic Sister of Cara (Sarah), and Schmidt the incoherently rambling homeless man (Me)
Carter Phoenix is pumping a homeless man who witnessed the creature's attack for information, while Annabella attempts to determine whether he's telling the truth.  The man, Schmidt, is not making a lot of sense and tries to urinate on the rug, though he ends up being... er... deflected by Annabella's telekinesis. Carter uses his magical abilities to pluck a gold coin from thin air. Schmidt suddenly becomes coherent and spills the beans, but demands to be paid 20 gold coins. Carter sighs, rubs his hands together producing the coins, and Schmidt walks away happy. Before he leaves, he tells the two that the creature is named the Sewer Nightmare, and it smelled like gasoline, and if someone lit a match it'd probably go up in flames. That came about from a neat turn of events where Sarah introduced the goal for Mike's character, and I "poached" it with Schmidt, giving him a sudden moment of lucidity and insight.
Other Goals: Goal: Get more money for information than it's worth, Goal: Identify creature and way to kill it, Goal: Determine if Schmidt is lying or telling the truth, Goal: Urinate on rug.

So yeah. Two scenes in four hours. The game was a lot of fun and we were all satisfied with what we'd done, but I was disappointed at how slowly we progressed. My concern is that if I run this as a con game, it'll give players a taste of the game but we won't run through an actual story arc.

Questions
- In terms of time efficiency, does anyone have any suggestions on how to streamline the presentation of Capes's rules, and how to keep the game moving? I found that the game slowed down a lot from players agonizing and agonizing over what to do. If it happened with new players in a casual session, I can see this happening in a con setting as well. This is really my biggest question.
- What sort of player limit would you put on a Capes game for a con setting?
- I'm also looking for guidelines on how to create Events. We all sort of struggled with them and the role they play in the game.
- When are Inspirations spent? I couldn't find this in the rules, so we all assumed that they were spent as an action.
- Inspirations and tokens go to player, not character, correct? We were all playing so that at the beginning of a scene, you can play any character, so we thought this made sense.
- Can you veto goals?

Thanks!

[Andrew Morris]

- In terms of time efficiency, does anyone have any suggestions on how to streamline the presentation of Capes's rules, and how to keep the game moving? I found that the game slowed down a lot from players agonizing and agonizing over what to do. If it happened with new players in a casual session, I can see this happening in a con setting as well. This is really my biggest question.

Don't tell...show. Just say that the rules are easy to pick up and run a sample scenario with a few regular humans. Go first so the others can see the rules in action. Let them go and explain the rules as they are needed. You should be able to do this in 30-60 mins, leaving plenty of time for the game. This is what Tony did at Dreamation.

[TonyLB]

I'm with Andrew:  Show, don't tell.  Here's my most-normal demo routine (which usually finishes in 15 minutes):

[*]"Okay, pick one of these power modules.  Funky, aren't they?  Yeah, just pick one.  Doesn't really matter that much."
[*]"Now grab a personality.  Put 'em together.  Cross out three things then number the columns.  There's your character."
[*]"I'm making a scene:  Bank Robbery.  Your character's there.  So's this villain."
[*]"On your action you can do one of two things.  I'll do the first one:  Create a Conflict.  Here's mine:  'Goal:  Brutalize hostages'."
[*]"Now it's your turn.  You can make another Conflict, or you can try to stop me from brutalizing hostages.  Oh, you want to stop me?  Sure you don't want something like 'Look good on the evening news'?  Okay, okay, fine... here's how you roll up your side in Hostages.  Yeah, use a super-power... here's a debt token."
[*]"I'm going to React to that.  I'm using this non-powered ability, so I check it off.  Powers, debt.  Non-powers, check.  Got it?"
[*]"New page.  Now we claim things.  I really, really want to brutalize those hostages.  I've got issues.  So I'm claiming my side, which means if I control it at the end of the page then they're brutalized.  Oh, you want to claim too?  Well, if you insist."
[*]"You probably want to use another super-power.  'Cuz they're cool.  Now look at that, you've got two Debt Tokens.  Let's talk about how you could split your dice."
[*]"Man, you're hammering me.  I guess we don't brutalize hostages today.  Curses!  Foiled again!  Here's how we Resolve a conflict.  Loads of Inspirations for you.  And your Debt becomes my Story Tokens."
[*]"So, that's the scene.  What's the next scene?"
[*]"Oh boy!  I'm gonna get me a super-villain, and spend me these story tokens.  Watch me accumulate Debt!  Woohoo!"
[*]"Ahhhh... I just cannot allow your 'Prove the wickedness of Doctor Malificus' Goal to stand.  I invest!  Yea, I invest mightily Debt.  Now you've got a ton of Story Tokens."
[*]"Oh, I'm sorry, I think our fifteen minutes is up.  Yeah, I know, you've got a ton of Debt and all those Story Tokens.  Well, obviously, most game sessions last longer, so you'd be able to use those resources.  But oh, look at the time.  Can't help you.  Bye!"[/list:u][/size]Demoes work best with three players.  Full games work best at three to four.  I wouldn't go higher than six unless you had a ludicrously long time-slot.

Events are things where you want it to happen because it's cool, and you don't really care who profits from it.  So "Bum goes down the manhole" would probably be better as a goal (so people could oppose it), but "Cara gets a good view of the monster" is a terrific Event... does it happen because she's sneaky, or in the moment that it's grabbing her to drag her to its sewer lair?  Really... either way's fine with me.  I just want someone to establish what it looks like.

Inspirations are spent before or after your action.  They do not cost you anything (except the Inspiration itself) to play (page 25 for details).

Inspirations and Story Tokens go to player.  Debt Tokens go to character.

You most commonly veto goals in one situation:  It's a goal for the character you are playing (e.g. I'm playing Cara, I veto "Goal:  Cara jumps down the monsters throat", but I can't veto "Goal:  Monster consumes Cara").

Thanks a ton for playing!  If there's anything I can do to make it easier for you to demo at a con, don't hesitate to ask!

[Bret Gillan]

Thanks a lot for the advice! I'm going to try to rope the two guys that bailed on me into giving it a go and use the "show, don't tell" style of explanation on them and see how it fares.

You also made me realize I was doing something completely wrong. At the beginning of the page, players go around and claim their sides. I got it all wrong and had players do it as a part of their turns, which meant a Conflict could be introduced and resolved on the same turn without the introducer ever being able to roll on it unless he/she could react.

Thanks again.

[Stickman]

The only problem we had here is that the Event: Bum gets dragged towards manhole resolved in Mike's favor. And then after he won it, he didn't really know how to make this play out in his favor. Honestly, he or Sarah probably should have vetoed it in favor of something like Event: Tentacles lunge at bums or something, but we were all new.

I'm no expert, but as I see it, when Mike resolved the event in his favour, it means he, as a player, gets to narrate events, almost regardless of his characters involvement. The Officer had been acting to save the bum, so although he tripped .. as the bum gets dragged into the sewer, the brave officer lunges out, stretching his sprained shoulder 'must ..save ..him ...' and finally managed to snatch a hold of the bums coat and drag him free of certain death. But equally he could narrate that the Sewer Nightmare decides it hates the taste and spits him out with a nasty hocking sound. Or that the sewer nightmares tentacles were just wrapping around when a shot from the officers service revolver pegs it square between the ..er .. psuedopods and drives it off. From my understanding of the rules, if it's not a current conflict of some sort, pretty much anything within the Comics Code is fair game to narrate.

The choice of Event seems fine as well, your stating (with the other players consent) that the bum gets dragged toward the manhole. That's cool, he can be dragged all day long, if you win the Event he's never getting there unless you want him too. Choosing Event - The Bum Gets Eaten might be a little poorer choice depending on your Comic Code, as that removes him from the story pretty effectively. In that case, Mike would have to decide how he wanted the story to move on after the bums death, say by having the Sewer Nightmare choke on the guy, or maybe having that death be a link to tracking it to it's lair.

Inspirations are extremely useful :) As far as I know you spend them either before or after your turn, rather than as an action. So one tactic is to spend just before your turn, split the resulting 2 or 3, then roll up, finish your action and spend another on the other low die / dice, giving you a decent chance at demolishing the opposition on that conflict.