My First Game of Capes -- played online

[emb]

Hey everybody! 

I organized a game with my regular online group.  It turned out awesome!  I'm too tired to write very coherently, so sorry in advance.

THE ENVIRONMENT
I scrambled to think of a suitable environment for playing online.  I quickly realized chat wouldn't cut it, so we decided on VoIP, but being able to keep track of conflicts, characters, and turn order was still a nightmare.

Anyway, I think we came up with a pretty good method and I'd like to share it with everybody.

http://www.hessgames.com/index.php?title=CAPES_Instructions

I assembled a package of downloads to use in the game  ... they include ::
1) Ventrilo client -- it worked excellent, although the mics had to be very sensitive..
2) GameTable beta + JRE 5.0 - this turned out better than I thought.  I made symbols for each player, so they could hold story tokens, for dice for the conflicts, for character pictures, and for all tokens.  It was an IMMENSE help in keeping track of conflicts, and didn't really get in the way at all. 
3) MWSnap - a snapshot taking program to save characters made in the clickandlock generator to png format, which could be imported into gametable. 

So, anyone is welcome to just download all that stuff and use it themselves ... it's all free stuf

THE PLAY
Now to the good stuf:: the game was awesome!  It was my first experience with a real narration game (aside from a strang experiment with Puppetland last year).  I found the strategy engaging and driving for the story. 

Our first scene started out slow.  I played Gelatino, the human gelatin, who was bent on destroying a theme park.  He was badly thwarted, but I ended up with 3 story tokens.  Our second scene surprised us.  The CEO (my char) from the park was walking home, ran into the same superheros, and then attempted to buy one of them (the robot) with the help of his lawyer (NPC) and his bratty super-son (also my char).   They played the same two supers, and focused so hard on both embarrasing the CEO and sending him off to prison for attempted kidnapping (he was pretty annoying in the first scene), that they let the robot get bought-up by the CEO's bratty son.  It was awesome...

The rules flowed pretty smoothly, but there are a few things I don't understand.
1) When you bring in a new character, when does he get to act?  He gets a full turn, right?
2) Inspiration and debt are attached to a character, so I can't use them when it isn't the holding character's turn, right?
3) Finally, I'm confused about the order at the beginning of a scene.  If it's my turn to start a scene, I frame it, right? Or do we do that together?  After it's been framed, do we pick characters in turn order, or does it not matter?  When do we pick the first conflict? I ask this because it was my turn to think up the scene, which I did.  I picked a character that would work, but they picked two characters that would hammer me.  So, my first conflict, I picked something that had nothign to do with the framed scene, and it went far away from its roots.

That's it!  Thanks everybody!
-emb

[Hans]

I haven't had a chance to process your instructions and methods yet, which sound very interesting, but the rules stuff I can take a stab at...

1) When you bring in a new character, when does he get to act?  He gets a full turn, right?

You get one action per page for each character you control.  If by "full turn" you mean action, then yes.  As to bringing in a new character, you get one free character at the beginning of the scene, and can play story tokens both at the beginning of any scene and the beginning of any page (according to the errata for pg 22) with a story token.

2) Inspiration and debt are attached to a character, so I can't use them when it isn't the holding character's turn, right?

There is something correct here, and something incorrect.  You are correct in that you can only use the debt of a character on that character's action (either immediately before or immediately after).  You are sort of correct, in that you can only use inspirations on one of your character's actions (either immediately before or immediately after).  You are incorrect in that inspirations belong to the PLAYER, not the character (there is a bit on page 30 that makes you think character's get inspirations, but there is errata on this statemen in the Mind Boggling Errata).

3) Finally, I'm confused about the order at the beginning of a scene.  If it's my turn to start a scene, I frame it, right? Or do we do that together? 

As the scene framer, you have the driver's seat.  You can choose to let other people help out if you want, but you don't have to.

After it's been framed, do we pick characters in turn order, or does it not matter? 

Pick them in order. (Pg 20)

When do we pick the first conflict? I ask this because it was my turn to think up the scene, which I did.  I picked a character that would work, but they picked two characters that would hammer me.  So, my first conflict, I picked something that had nothign to do with the framed scene, and it went far away from its roots.

There are a couple of issues here.  First, there are two times that conflicts can come into play; at the beginning of a new page, or during a character's action.  At the beginning of the page, you can play free conflicts (from exemplars or non-person characters), and you can use story tokens to play additional conflicts.  You can also play a conflict as one of you character's actions.  Since the scene starter is also the page starter, is also the player who gets to take the first action with a character, the scene starter will usually be able to play the first conflict, if they want to, in a scene.  I think that answers your first question.

The second issue, though, is the idea that being ganged up on is a bad thing.  It isn't.  In a three player game, someone is almost always going to be ganged up on.  There are some good reasons to be that person.  First, you are the person most likely to get story tokens; all you have to do is arrange to lose on conflicts, but provide just enough opposition to make your opponents stake debt to beat you.  Second, if the other two are ganging up on you, that means YOU are the center of attention; the story is going to revolve a lot around the stuff you want to do.  Sure, you probably won't succeed at a lot of that stuff, but you can have a lot of fun in the process being the focus.  Three, even though the characters of the players seem like they will gang up on your character, the players themselves often have much more fluid alliances.  Two people might be playing characters that are best of friends, but the players may have radicially different agendas.  As the odd man out, if you play the right conflicts, you can get the alleged allies at each others throats.  Fourth, there are often more conflicts on the table then there are players to concentrate on them.  Because of this, even in a real two against one situation, you can still get things to happen that you want to have happen by playing the right conflicts.  See pg 126 for the idea of preventative goals and distraction conflicts.

[Eric Sedlacek]

Hans covered the questions very well, so I have nothing to add, really.  I do want to emphasize his points about the value of being the odd man out in a scene.  Not only is it a potential gold mine of story tokens, but you have a lot more power to get things you want than you might assume.

There are no sides in a scene.  There are only sides in a conflict.  When you are the odd man out and you want to win conflicts, it is time to change the conflict landscape in your favor.  As Hans said, introducing conflicts that have other players on opposite sides can take the pressure off you. 

Also remember that in the comics, the important conflicts are often then ones that seem more minor on a cosmological scale. 

"Goal: Captain Volcano admits his undying love for Electrogirl."
"Goal: Lava Lad rises above being a mere sidekick."
"Event: Blue Shadow and Powerhouse realize which of them is more heroic."

Throwing in just one of these can make all the hero verses villain stuff seem like backdrop.