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[Capes] Blocking Action and Monologues

Started by TonyLB, July 21, 2004, 03:11:16 PM

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inky

Hmm, I guess I'm missing the overall goal of Facts here. In the original post it seemed like they were mostly to add color as the result of victories, but now they seem to have morphed into something where it's necessary to codify every event in the character's life or else they can't interact with the system. This strikes me as kind of lame and tending to tedious bookkeeping on the character sheet. Even if you want the requirement that the hero has to have a personal stake whenever they stake something, it seems like you can just say "the player has to justify it with something from the character's history."

I think the only time in the Fact-stating example where Facts are used in an interesting way is when Jack says "ok, they go back to a thought-to-be abandoned I-4 base with me following them secretly". That's the sort of narrative control I can see possibly requiring someone to pay for. The rest of the stuff seems like the sort of basic storytelling twists I'd put in as a GM anyway (this assumes, admittedly, that you're not using a more Universalis-esque model where everyone, including the GM, has to pay for what they introduce into the scene -- but none of the examples seem to go with that, so).
Dan Shiovitz

TonyLB

Inky, you're right.  This is wandering away from what I was originally talking about.  I didn't give a clear direction, and so people have given me lots of suggestions that would work in some system.  Now I need to apply some critical judgment and figure out what needs to happen in this particular system.

The result of winning Stakes was meant to be that the world was proven to be a little more the way the hero thinks it should be.  The Facts should be pieces of Evidence that either support or undermine the heroes trust in their principles (whatever those principles are).

A lot of important stuff can be done using a Fact structure to tell the external story.  But the more I think about it, the less that fits this particular game.  Instead, the Fact structure should help to tell the internal story, the moral evolutions that accompany and inform the external actions.  

Hrm... maybe the "strength" of the Fact isn't in how much impact it has on the world, but in how clear and unambiguous it is as evidence for belief?  So a world-spanning conspiracy of criminals who have corrupted some public officials, but not all, would be a fairly low-level Fact, because it doesn't unambiguously disprove Justice.  But when a speedster gets a heart-transplant across country in time to save a cute little girl who draws him a picture in crayon out of gratitude, that's a high level Hope Fact.

I've rewritten the Example of Facts in Play to reflect this.  I'm happier with it now, though I still felt that I was having to deliberately seek the sort of play I wanted, rather than that I was guided to it by the system.
Just published: Capes
New Project:  Misery Bubblegum

Sydney Freedberg

Quote from: TonyLBI've rewritten the Example of Facts in Play ... I'm happier with it now, though I still felt that I was having to deliberately seek the sort of play I wanted, rather than that I was guided to it by the system.

There's a definite "almost there" vibe to this example. I particularly like how players and Editors have to cite something relevant in a character's backstory so far established to activate Debt.

TonyLB

As I think about what Facts should actually be (and thank you Thomas for continuing to ask me this until I was forced to admit that I had no idea), I keep thinking of Eisenstein's theory of Montage in film-making.  To simplify way too much:  Eisenstein ran an experiment.  He made a film that started with a woman looking out a window, expressionless.  He followed that with different scenes.  Group A saw children playing and laughing outside.  Group B saw a desolate autumn scene with leaves falling.  When asked "What is the woman feeling?" Group A said she was happy and contented, while Group B said she was sad and forlorn.  If shots are made appropriately short, he argues, the emotional content is conveyed to the audience by the way the pieces are assembled.

One of the things I did as I reworked the Example of Play was to replace general Facts that told something unequivocally with specific Facts that could be viewed as evidence, but which required interpretation and context.  

So not "Protects the innocent", but "Disobeyed an order that would endanger a crowd".  Is this about Hope, or Justice, or Duty?  You can't tell until you see how the hero puts it in context in his life.  It's the expressionless woman looking out a window.  People will create the content of the Fact as they decide to refer to it at a particular moment.  Which means that the same Fact can be under different Drives for different people.  You could, in fact, share them around the same way Exemplars are shared, and with much the same effect of linking characters together.

But having different people view the same Fact differently could actually be much more intriguing than that:  Because they can disagree violently about what it means.  Jack Chance can say that his disobedience was a sign of his concern for the common man.  Director X can say that the disobedience was just a sign that he's a prima donna whose selfish attitude led to the Bureau's discovery.

So, here's the question:  Should players contest the meaning of the Facts at all?  And if they do, is it done by the addition of further Facts that put Jack's disobedience in context?  Or do they actually contest for points in the Fact, in the same way that Complications are contested now?  Or something entirely different?
Just published: Capes
New Project:  Misery Bubblegum

LordSmerf

I think that i am still confused about what you want Facts to do...

What do you want to use the mechanics of having Facts in the game for?  Giving players a way/reason to fill in character backgrounds?  Giving players a signifigant way to control the plot (director stance)?

I apologize if all the questions get annoying, but i am really excited by the game and had a lot of fun playing so i really want to see it work out...

Thomas
Current projects: Caper, Trust and Betrayal, The Suburban Crucible

TonyLB

No need to apologize!  I just thanked you (last post) for your questions!  They're very helpful.

Plus, I think I actually know the answer to this one now.

Comic books tell two stories that share many of the same events.  Distinguishing what events are part of which story is not a precise science:  All the most important events contribute to both stories, but in different ways.

There is the Adventure, which is a reasonably logical sequence of events following the rules of cause and effect.  The stakes of the Adventure are external.

And there is the Moral, which is a thematic sequence of events following the rules of symbolism and emotional significance.  The stakes of the Moral are internal.

The mechanics of Dice Pools and Wonders help players work together to create the Adventure.  The mechanics of Facts and Debt should help players work together to create the Moral.  Mechanically the Editor should have GM-level control over the Adventure, but Heroes should have GM-level control over their personal Moral.

QuoteExempli Gratia
    [*]Hyperman defeats the scouts of an alien invasion force bent on destroying life on earth (Adventure)[*]Hyperman needs to get into space in order to face the mothership... it will take the combined efforts of the worlds mistrustful countries.  Hyperman makes a speech at the UN which convinces people to look beyond their differences to their common humanity (Moral)[*]While the joint human space-ship effort proceeds, Hyperman talks with Granthor, captured leader of the scout forces (Moral)[*]As the space-ship approaches readiness, Granthor escapes custody and reclaims his own ship, damaging the human vessel as he flees to his mothership (Adventure)[*]Facing a tight deadline of orbital bombardment, the scientists who have learned to look past their political differences work together to miraculously fix the human space-ship (Moral)[*]Hyperman blasts off into space and tries to fight the mothership, but is overcome and captured (Adventure)[*]Granthor, swayed by the virtue shown by Earth to doubt his races superiority, betrays them and frees Hyperman (Moral)[*]With renewed determination, Hyperman manages to disable the mothership at the last possible instant (ADVENTURE/MORAL)[*]The mothership flees, vowing to return in time.  The people of earth celebrate both their escape from doom and the fledgling understanding that made it possible (Moral)[/list:u]
    Just published: Capes
    New Project:  Misery Bubblegum

    Sydney Freedberg

    The Wonders/Adventure vs. Facts/Moral distinction is an interesting one, especially when you rack Facts under specific Drives (as opposed to the rather endlessly amorphous idea I proposed a while back). It works very well with the idea that the same fact can be perceived by different characters as a different Fact (e.g. in the example, did disobeying an order in order to protect innocents count as undermining Duty or supporting Hope? Jack Chance and Director X disagree intensely).

    QuoteMechanically the Editor should have GM-level control over the Adventure, but Heroes should have GM-level control over their personal Moral.

    Except that the two are intertwined and impact each other, as in your "Hyperman vs. the Aliens" example. So you can't split control of one to the GM and another to the players; any control of one spills over into the other (Unless Facts are purely what a given character perceives is true, in which case they can get dangerously unhinged from reality).

    I still like this idea, mind you. I proposed something similar a while back in suggesting that heroes should rack up Debt doing heroic stuff in the A plot and work off Debt doing human stuff in the B plot. And it seems as if you don't want facts simply to be Fate of the World things, but also small details in a character's personal life too (e.g. "at least I saved that kid" or "my super-battles take so long I missed my dates with M.J. and now she's seeing someone else!").

    I just have no idea how to implement this all mechanically, which is why I've taken so long to reply. If inspiration strikes, I'll post something actually useful....

    EDIT for afterthought: In some ways, the Hyperman vs. the Aliens example is unhelpful, because the whole story is "A Plot" -- there's nothing about Hyperman's home life or secret identity or even trying to save a little kid/puppy/whatever amidst the super-carnage.

    So, a key question: How much do you want stories on the Spider-Man or Buffy the Vampire Slayer model, where B plot can sometimes take precedence over A plot?

    John Harper

    I'm not sure how useful this post will be for you, Tony, but I figure I might as well toss it out as food for thought. This isn't meant to be a critique of your current system idea (I quite like it) but more of a first-blush response.

    Let's take your current example of Hyperman and the aliens. The events in your example are very cool and add up to a nice story. However, each step along the way hinges on the outcome of the Fortune mechanic. What if things turn out differently? Are the following outcomes acceptable for Capes, or not?


    [*]Hyperman fails to defeat the scouts of an alien invasion force. They destroy Times Square and set up a command post in the Empire State Building.
    [*] Hyperman tries to convince the UN to work together to build a spaceship, but it doesn't work. The UN decides to negotiate a surrender instead.
    [*]Hyperman tries to take on the alien base singlehandedly, and is badly injured.
    [*]With no other course, the UN surrender is negotiated and the Earth falls into alien hands.
    [/list:u]

    In other words, is failure (especially catastrophic failure) an option, or do the heroes always manage to make things right in the end?
    Agon: An ancient Greek RPG. Prove the glory of your name!

    Sydney Freedberg

    Quote from: John Harper.... is failure (especially catastrophic failure) an option, or do the heroes always manage to make things right in the end?

    Far be it from me to speak for Tony, but [hubris] I think the answer to your either/or question is "yes." Given the genre, "aliens take over the world" is certainly a possible outcome if the good guys screw up, but then the story becomes "heroic resistance against the alien overlords" and, ultimately, the good guys presumably win. [/hubris] But I don't think it's a system issue at all, really.

    In any case (to return full circle to my personal obsession), stories that revolve around saving/destroying the world (the A plot) usually are less interesting than plots that revolve around personal relationships (the B plot). Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series, not movie) is a great example of this: Of course they're not going to destroy the world, but they may kill off the love interest or break up the relationship -- and in fact generally do. Likewise Peter Parker / Spiderman is almost certainly not going to fail to prevent The Mad Scientist of the Week from blowing up New York and killing Mary Jane & Aunt May; the real dramatic issue, the real thing at stake, is whether his relationships with M.J. et al suffer or come out stronger.

    Which (and now we've slewed the ship around 180 degrees back onto the thread topic!) is why I think Facts and Debt need to, in some way, be generated by the A Plot ("Adventure," in Tony's terms) but in turn generate the B Plot (which doesn't quite correspond to Tony's "Moral," although it has obvious overlap).

    Longish aside:

    By the way, is everyone getting what I mean by "A Plot" and "B Plot"? These are, as I understand it, television scriptwriting concept and are best seen at work in series like Buffy or the later Star Treks: the A plot is the action plot, where the continuing characters save the world / solve the mystery / discover the planet / kill the monster, whereas the B plot is the relationship plot, where the continuing characters deal with each other, their inner emotional issues, and their longstanding relationships. Sometimes, as in Star Trek: The Next Generation (which, fair warning, I loathe), these plots may have nothing to do with each other; sometimes they rebound off another (as in the Spiderman movies, where Peter's crimefighting keeps getting in the way of his relationship with M.J.); sometimes they may cleverly reflect the same "issue" (e.g. the Buffy episode "Hush," where the A Plot is that the town is affected by a curse of silence and the B Plot is that Buffy and her love interest aren't communicating); sometimes the B plot takes over altogether (as in my favorite Buffy episode, "the Zeppo," where saving the world is totally in the background to Xander wandering around dealing with and ultimately overcoming his own sense of loserness).[/i]

    TonyLB

    Sydney:  I sort of figured that the question of Soviet (back in the day) and American scientists working together and bumping up against each others preconceptions would be the B-story in the Hyperman example.  That's probably worth making clear (maybe by giving Hyperman a secret identity as a rocket scientist) if I decide to include that particular example in the main text.

    The discussions between Hyperman and Granthor also struck me as B-plot ("C-plot"?)  I'm not sure how easy it is, in practice, to separate the plots though, as you rightly mentioned.  And who "controls" which plot must be arbitrated through the system... so happily the players should never have to say to themself "Hey, are we telling the A-story or the B-story here?" (although the system can (and will!) be designed to give players more authority/control in Moral and the Editor more authority/control in Adventure).


    John:  Personally, "Earth Conquered!" sounds like a terrific comic book story to me.  I think catastrophic failure (and, indeed, losing the Victory Point race for an entire session or several sessions in a row) makes for terrific stories.  I think (in the original example) that Granthor escaping and Hyperman being captured would both have been battles that the heroes lost... but they're fun in the story.

    The key element (IMHO) to making this work for Capes is making it very clear that heroes can use Facts created by villains, and vice versa.  Once they're made they're just Facts, and they become open to interpretation.

    So Evil Hive Queen Vexis feels that planting the Cluster flag on the Empire State Building is a great proof of her Power.  And that makes her more morally certain.  Hyperman, on the other hand, can look at the same Fact and use it to reference Duty ("Aliens taking over earth!  Not on MY WATCH little missy!"), or something else entirely.  And that may well make him more morally certain.  Heroes are funny that way.

    So in a sense, Facts don't slant the playing field mechanically... as higher-value Facts are added they raise the stakes, giving everyone the ability to sling more Debt around.

    They do slant the playing field tactically, because in order to reference villainous Facts, the heroes may need to do something tactically unsound, like a full frontal assault on the heavily defended Empire-State HQ with nothing more than a rag-tag band of humans who escaped from slavery in the alien diamond mines.  But that's sounds, to me, like a good thing for the system.  It creates precisely the kind of heart-over-head victories that make the genre so wonderful and so easily mocked.
    Just published: Capes
    New Project:  Misery Bubblegum

    Sydney Freedberg

    Quote from: TonyLBSydney:  I sort of figured that the question of Soviet (back in the day) and American scientists working together and bumping up against each others preconceptions would be the B-story in the Hyperman example.  That's probably worth making clear (maybe by giving Hyperman a secret identity as a rocket scientist) if I decide to include that particular example in the main text.

    Hmmm. I'd say the real value of B-story, though, is when it confronts the hero/heroes with priorities that are directly in tension with the A-story -- that is, you have to sacrifice your personal life for your grand objectives (Peter Parker with M.J. in Spiderman 1), or vice versa, or find some transcendant/redemptive way to reconcile them. Now if Hyperman's "secret identity as a rocket scientist" was going to get his ass fired if his boss thought he was too cozy with the damn Commies, that might provide some tension -- or better yet, his wife doesn't like Reds...

    Quote from: TonyLBSo in a sense, Facts don't slant the playing field mechanically... as higher-value Facts are added they raise the stakes, giving everyone the ability to sling more Debt around.

    Now this is beautiful. It even drives the dramatic escalation that you've wanted (if the mechanics can be made to work).

    Quote from: TonyLBThey do slant the playing field tactically, because in order to reference villainous Facts, the heroes may need to do something tactically unsound, like a full frontal assault on the heavily defended Empire-State HQ with nothing more than a rag-tag band of humans who escaped from slavery in the alien diamond mines.  But that's sounds, to me, like a good thing for the system.  It creates precisely the kind of heart-over-head victories that make the genre so wonderful and so easily mocked.

    Perfect.

    EDIT: Crossposted with Tony's post below -- still not sure we quite agree what the significance of "B-plot"/"B-story" is....

    TonyLB

    Quote from: Sydney FreedbergBy the way, is everyone getting what I mean by "A Plot" and "B Plot"?
    I think I do get it.

    What I'm not sure about is whether you can easily disentangle the two in the comic book genre.  If anything, I would say that a lot of comic books run on the forumla that the solution to the B-plot begets the solution to the A-plot, just as the A-plot originally created the situation that is being addressed in the B-plot.

    At it's simplest, a comic book story usually looks like:
      [*]Villain creates a practical threat[*]Hero counters initial threat[*]Villain entangles hero in moral/emotional quagmire[*]Hero fails to counter second threat[*]Hero resolves moral/emotional quandary, and therefore...[*]Hero is victorious![/list:u]This is also why I love "The Empire Strikes Back", but that's not strictly relevant.
      Just published: Capes
      New Project:  Misery Bubblegum

      LordSmerf

      Tony,

      I am not entirely sure what you are thining of doing mechanically, but it sounds to me like there are too many limits on Debt.  You already have a limit based on you Drives, and it seems as if you are adding more and more limits/ and options.  This results in a dilution of focus.  I really think that the Debt system focuses well on the idea of deserving power.  As you add more mechanics you change the focus.  If you want to change focus then go for it, but i am sort of afraid that the game will lose something...

      Of course it is entirely possible (probable, even) that i am simply not seeing this the way that you envision it, which could very easily render my commentary silly and irrelevant...

      EDIT: Quadruple crosspost... that is a first for me...

      Thomas
      Current projects: Caper, Trust and Betrayal, The Suburban Crucible

      John Harper

      Okay, so, it is possible for the Hero to fail again and again and spiral into tragedy. There is no built-in mechanical system to give the Hero a chance to save the day at the last second or anything like that. That's what I figured, but I wanted to confirm it.

      Since a lot of your examples touch on Spiderman or other comic-bookiness (that all end happily, eventually), I wanted to pipe up and say "but the Fortune system can result in the good guys losing again and again with no ultimate victory and no happy ending." If that's a type of play you want to support (and I think it's a good thing) then the current system is on the right track.

      In Capes, sometimes Mary Jane dies. Or leaves Peter for good. And sometimes Green Goblin wins and murders a lot of people. No safety net. No "script immunity." No cavalry waiting off-stage.
      Agon: An ancient Greek RPG. Prove the glory of your name!

      Sydney Freedberg

      Quote from: John HarperOkay, so, it is possible for the Hero to fail again and again and spiral into tragedy. .... In Capes, sometimes Mary Jane dies.

      Actually, this possibility is true to the source material. Doing a web search on some Spiderman stuff (inspired by this game; not actually a Marvel fan at all), I discovered that Peter Parker's original girlfriend in the comics (pre-MJ) does die:

      http://www.samruby.com/History/history_of_spiderman2.htm
      http://www.samruby.com/History/history_of_spiderman3.htm

      This is sometime back in the '70s apparently.