Why I Like One Point Inspirations.

[jburneko]

Just reading around this forum I get the general impression that people think low valued inspiration is utterly useless.  However, I think low valued inspiration are totally awesome and I'd like to share why.  One point inspirations let me play Batman (the only superhero comic I actually read, by the way).  So a one point inspiration comes from either a very small victory or a just short failure ("negative" inspiration).  You know what I do with that little one point inspiration?  I brood.

Yup, I spend Action after Action using abilities to pump that sucker up.  All my narrations are flashbacks and self-doubt and angst.  Because this is costing me Actions I'm suffering more set-backs along the way.  Then, when I've pumped it all the way up to six, I spring into action and that minor victory or (better) hair thin failure is the motor of my victory!

Jesse

[Hans]

You know what I do with that little one point inspiration?  I brood.

In principle I agree with you, Jesse.  And story wise, I agree completely on the coolness of what you describe. 

In practice, though, it always seems like there is so much other stuff on the table I want to have happen or not happen that I don't think I can afford to use my action to bump an inspiration.  I have never yet used an ability to boost an inspiration, out of probably 32 hours or so of Capes playing.  I always seem to have another conflict I want to play, or another die I want to roll.  And strictly mechanically, I can't see that a single 6 point inspiration is worth the 5 actions that had to be used to boost it to that point.

Is this a feature of the game itself, or just a feature of the play I have been involved in up until now?  What is the strategy for bumping inspirations?  When and where do you do it?  Even though I haven't done it, I can see a real value in increasing a 1 to a 2...a 2 will at least let you split.  I can also see a lot of value in bumping 5's to 6's; a 6 is like solid gold.  The hard part is, when do you use an action to bump a 3 to a 4?

All that being said, I do remember several instances where I probably SHOULD have boosted an inspiration, instead of what I actually did, especially on the first page of several scenes I have been involved in.

Wait a second, something did just occur to me...a 6 point inspiration is something that you might not ever have to lose.  That is, if you use a 6 point inspiration to win a conflict, you can usually recoup at least one high level inspriation from the same conflict on resolution.  You really don't necessarily USE 6 pt inspirations, you LAUNDER them through conflicts, changing their story hook.  Hmmm, that requires some thought...

[TonyLB]

Hans:  Absolutely.  Once my group realized this, they started making conflicts for the purpose.

I had "I brought Minerva a jelly donut: 6" or some such thing.  I created "Goal:  Rebuke Minerva for her coldness," piled my jelly donut Inspiration into it and won ... and so I had "Rebuked Minerva for her coldness: 6."  That's a much more ... well, inspiring ... Inspiration.

[jburneko]

Hans,

Huh, my experience has been almost the opposite.  Maybe that's because I played with a lot of players.  When I played there were 5 players so scenes often narrowed down to a conflict or two that only two or three of us were really invested in.  Those of who had already acomplished what we wanted in the scene spent our remaining actions bumping inspirations.

Jesse

[dunlaing]

I'm in a Capes PBP game where I have a ton of Story Tokens and a bunch of low Inspirations. I've been thinking about using a Story Token or two to bring in characters specifically to build up the Inspirations. I just might do it now...

[Hans]

Huh, my experience has been almost the opposite.  Maybe that's because I played with a lot of players.  When I played there were 5 players so scenes often narrowed down to a conflict or two that only two or three of us were really invested in.  Those of who had already acomplished what we wanted in the scene spent our remaining actions bumping inspirations.

So the answer to my question is "its an aspect to the way I have been playing" and not "its a design feature".  Its interesting that your experience and mine can be so different, as I have often played with five (or more) players as well.  I wonder what the difference is?  Is it that we are playing suboptimally, and not using our actions in the wise, long term build up of inspirations?  Is it that we are more eager to jump in on conflicts than your group is?  All rhetorical questions, because I suspect the only way to answer would be a cross-polination game of Jesse's group and Hans's group at GenCon or something, and even then it wouldn't go on long enough to really see the differences.

[Matthew Glover]

All rhetorical questions, because I suspect the only way to answer would be a cross-polination game of Jesse's group and Hans's group at GenCon or something, and even then it wouldn't go on long enough to really see the differences.

Well, you could each record audio of a session and exchange them so you could hear how the other group does it.  Podcast!  :D

[jburneko]

Heh, interesting idea, but my group isn't playing Capes at the moment.  However, I suspect that part of the problem is that particular group had such disparate interests that it was really hard to throw down conflicts that ALL of us cared about.  For example my wife is really into intimate character drama, so unless something was threatening one of her characters on an extremely personal scale she would just use her actions to boost inspirations.  Another player who has since left the group is basically incapable of empathizing with the fiction.  It was all just mechanics to him and since the mechanics are completely divorced from the fiction (unlike, say, D&D where the fictional act of getting hit with a sword means that you loose a resource) he pretty much didn't care about anything except trying to push Story Token and Inspiration points around to see what would happen.  So anytime he didn't feel like doing that, he'd just use actions to boost inspirations.  Finally, as I said, I like playing moody broody heroes like Batman so I had no problem as a point of strategy blowing an action to improve an inspiration.  Often I would "make up for it" by buying another action at the end of the Page to do whatever I wanted to do.

Jesse