[Capes] "Outrun the pain"

[TonyLB]

Greatest in-character line (by far, IMHO) of a very satisfying game of IRC Capes last night.

Anyone who is convinced that giving players narrative authority will lead to them favoring their characters can just click that link for a spectacular counter-example.  I have rarely seen any player so gleefully conspire to destroy his heroes fragile self-esteem as Efindel did for his poor teen hero "Zip".  

He has a super-power of "Ignore the Pain", which I foolishly thought (when I first saw the character) he would use when he was, you know, physically wounded.  But as he shows in game, it's custom-made for a character who needs to put a stoic face on emotional hardship.

I had a lot of fun playing Gray Ghost.  A series of lucky (for me) rolls almost led him back onto the path of believing that he was right in every way.  I'm kind of glad that he didn't get there, honestly:  I know it would eventually have led to an even greater fall from grace, and I just don't know if I'd have been happy with the heartless things he would likely do (in full conviction that he was in the right) in the meantime.


I made a pretty serious tactical mistake (and I'm supposed to know this system!)   I was pretty happy with how quickly it became clear to me that it was a tactical mistake, though.  I spent a Story Token to include Gray Ghost in a scene well before he had any real role in it.  Luckily for me I also made a smart move by spending another token to get narration rights on the object of Zip's forlorn romantic attentions (as an opponent).  So I had plenty to do in the scene, but I was very conscious of how my moves for Gray Ghost weren't gaining as much traction on the situation as my rolls for Kate (until a gunfight broke out at the end, which I suspect Thomas (our Editor) did because he was perceiving the same thing and felt he needed to save me from my blunder).  

If I'd been thinking more clearly (or had more experience with actually playing the system) I would have spent both tokens on the love interest, one as an opponent and one as an ally.  Then I could have made Zip crazy by having Kate run hot and cold on alternate actions, and when-and-if an opportunity came for Gray Ghost to have an impact I could have switched the allied Story Token off of Kate to bring him in.

So sometimes narrative control lets you do things that you wouldn't do if you were smarter.  Nice how it instantly gives you negative feedback, though.  It helps the learning curve.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Couple of neat observations from play of this sort:

1. No one hoses the bejesus out of a character like his own player.

2. You can play your character's ignorance of a secret way, way better when you know that there is a secret, at whatever level of actually knowing the details.

Best,
Ron

[LordSmerf]

So i just wanted to chime in on this one.  I have been GMing this series of play sessions and have really been enjoying it.  The only real prep work i have done is one page of notes with a rough, nebulous relationship map (nebulous in the sense that it says stuff like "Villain X should be closely related familially to Hero Y") and a short list of Bangs for each character.  One of the most ecxiting things has been when the players unknowingly provide the resources i have been trying to fit in.  Taking the above exapmle, we know nothing about Hero Y's family, suddenly one of the players says "And then Y's younger, delinquent brother walks up and..."  And i make a little note on my sheet: "Thank Bob for introducing Frank the brother, now they probably won't see it coming."

So that is an interesting phenomenon which i commented on (poorly) in Tony's last Capes playtest with Skater X.  When the players introduce an element there is less chance of them trying to "figure out what the GM is planning for it."

Thomas

[TonyLB]

The experience you cite definitely happens in Capes more frequently than I feel it "should".  I don't fully understand why it's true, but over and over again playing Capes, when I notice "gap" in the story, making me think "I need X, but I don't know how to get it", the players hand me X on a silver platter, without the slightest explicit prompting.

I'll go way out on a limb here and offer that the rules may be drawing people to tap their skills at Abductive Inference, rather than Deductive Inference.  In offensively general (to a philosopher) terms, this means that they are attempting to infer backward from a desired result to... well, the plain and misleading term is "guess"... to guess simple things they can do and then use their deductive facilities to sort out the ones that will get them the result they want.

I think that players and the Editor are all constantly applying Abductive Inference to reason from the fairly obvious goals (winning Complications, for instance) to the immediate means of achieving those goals (Staking moral Debt on the Complication) to the earlier steps needed to prepare for that (losing small Stakes to build a stash of Debt, creating a situation you're emotionally vested in, etc.)  I suspect they may be going far further than they consciously realize... so that they abductively infer the need for a certain type of NPC, for instance, without knowing at the time what story purpose will be served by their introduction.

It isn't a surprise when you give people preconditions A, B and C and they all independently deduce the same implied outcome D.  It is a surprise when you give them desired outcome D and they all independenty abduce the need for something very like A, B and C... but that seems to be what happens with heart-warming regularity in some game systems... and I sincerely hope that Capes will prove to be one of them.

[LordSmerf]

I wonder if this phenomenon is so powerful in Capes due to the well established subject matter.  "Of course the responsible hero has a rebellious younger brother."  "Of course the irresponsible hero has a straight-laced mother."  "Of course he has a 'girl next door' love interest."  Of course..."  And so on.

It may be some combination of subject matter, genre expectations, and system.  I really do not know, but it is a fascinating and exciting thing to experience.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

I do like how the genre/dream of the subject matter so powerfully enforces Premise.  It makes life ever so much easier.

Except, of course, when I try to classify actual play as G, N or S... pretty well hopeless then.  But that may be because of my poor understanding of the model.