[Capes] Social resolution mechanics

[TonyLB]

Thomas's concern (if I read it correctly) is that a love story plot could be resolved and lead to the end of the game even while a supervillainous threat to the city was still outstanding!

"Oh, sure, there's still a Phlogiston Bomb set to detonate and destroy downtown, but they kissed and made up, so the story's over."

And I agree that's a problem.  If you've got multiple neat conflicts running, you shouldn't have to sacrifice the others when you solve one.

What you want, instead, is "They kissed and made up, and therefore the hero has the strength to resolve the crisis of the Phlogiston Bomb".  Or, conversely, "The hero saved the city from the Phlogiston Bomb, so he has the presence of mind to make peace with his girlfriend."

That way, one thing can clearly be the Defining Moment of the story, without having to throw everything else out the window.

I don't think this is served by exempting either class of conflict from the Victory Points.  What's needed instead is a more gradual and satisfying end-game.  Something beyond "The Victory Target is reached, therefore the story ends".

When one side or another reaches the Victory Target then the game should shift such that Issues and Complications are more likely to resolve.  But the game should continue, albeit in an altered mode.

Heck, I can even sketch out one possible way that this could be done:

[*]Once a Victory Target has been reached, every Complication is considered to be Resolving.  If it spends a whole round without switching Control from one side to another then it is resolved in favor of the side that currently owns it.[*]Any team that has reached the victory target may immediately cash in any Inspirations (including the ones they just won that round) for dice, according to the carryover rules, but without waiting for another scene.[*]The game is over when the last Complication resolves.[/list:u]The one thing this system doesn't encourage (but which I'd like) is a good way to carry over Issues from one session to the next.  Not exactly sure how to address that, honestly.

[TonyLB]

Next, a question.  I'm not sure what "Issues" are supposed to represent.  Are they supposed to be complications, only for the Moral, or are they intended as continuations (whether direct or otherwise) of Adventure complications?  It seems to me that there's room for both, but they would need to be handled separately.

Somewhere back in the history of this thread I recommended that at the end of a Scene all of the Complications that don't have Stakes on them should resolve, but all of the ones that do have Stakes on them (and which have not been Resolved explicitly) should stick around in some form as Issues.  Issues would be just like Complications, but with a longer life-span... you can no longer resolve them just by holding control for a full round, you have to hold control for a full scene.

There is no explicit connection between Issues and Moral, or Complications and Adventure.  "Need a birthday present for Peggy Jean" could play out in a single scene and be just a Complication.  "Clobbering" could easily turn into an Issue, as two titans of testosterone go through a series of battles that are connected only by their desire to prove which of them is, in the end, the strongest.

There has been some question about whether Issues are needed at all, if you have a carry-over mechanic.  The counter-argument being that if the Complications carry over from one scene to the next then that thread of connection serves essentially the same purpose as an explicit "Issue".  Both have a lifespan across multiple scenes, after all.  I've called that idea of how to run things "Serial Complications", simply to have a way to refer to it.

[LordSmerf]

If you want to carry Issues over from session to session that is easy: Issues do not resolve until someone resolves them.  That means that if you do not resolve an Issue this session then that Issue is unresolved.

One way to put a limit on Issues (or at least force them to end every so often, even if they are immediately recreated) would be to generate a Victory Target for Issues (seperate from Session or Scene targets) such that they automatically begin resolving once one side or the other hits that target...

Somewhere back in the history of this thread I recommended that at the end of a Scene all of the Complications that don't have Stakes on them should resolve, but all of the ones that do have Stakes on them (and which have not been Resolved explicitly) should stick around in some form as Issues.

I do not think this works.  Complications need to Resolve at the end of each Scene in order to generate that sense of urgency.  If you give players a way to "take care of problem X later" you take all urgency away from problem X.  In my mind this is horrible since it does not force sacrificial Story choices, instead it forces sacrificial Resource (Debt, Dice, some number that goes up or down) choices which are far less compelling.

I like the idea of Issues being tied to Drives.  I have put it forward before, but Marhault has a very concise mechanic that i would love to steal and modify:

Each Drive is assigned a value which determines the number of Issues that can be tied to that Drive.  The largest Victory Target Issue you can have tied to a Drive is equal to the Drive's value times 10 (if you have Love 3 you can have a 30 VP Issue tied to Love).  Each successive Issue is 10 less: So with Love 3 you have one 30 VP Issue, one 20 VP Issue, and one 10 VP Issue.

This puts a limit on the Size of the Issues you can deal with which i believe is probably a good thing.

I want to again suggest that Issues not provide points toward the Session or Scene Victory Target.  I will try to be a little more clear with the reason why.  Let us say that The Revolting Bob has a 30 VP Issue and a 20 VP Issue that he has clear control over (28-10 and 17-8 respectively).  We start a new Session with a Session Target of 50.  The Bob manages to Resolve both Issues within 15 minutes of Session start and hits 50+ VP which ends the Session.  I believe that this is bad...

Since i think that Issues are more powerful if they can carry over Sessiont to Session i believe that making them VP sinks as well as Debt sinks is a huge negative...

Thomas

[TonyLB]

I see what you mean about not wanting the story to go static just because something's an Issue, rather than a Complication.  The burning building should not be forced to burn perpetually, like the olympic torch, just because someone cares about it.

Now... that having been said, I love the idea that Issues evolve from Complications.  In both of the playtests I've run, the greatest strength of the system has been the way that the Complication mechanic highlights what players are actually interested in, even when they don't know it themselves until the numbers make it obvious.  Expanding that to Issues is a very exciting prospect to me.

My first instinct is to polish a Complication->Issue system so that it addresses your concerns, rather than discard it in favor of something else.

So, using the Burning Building as a test case.  If this Complication is made into an Issue then it clearly cannot be "Burning Building" for its entire life-cycle.  Having "Burning Building" hanging about forever is silly.

I could see it being renamed into "Public Perception of Heroes", though or "Will Megalopolis ever be safe?", or something like that.  Then the Burning Building proves to be just the first element in the ongoing Issue.  And what it changes into (as well as the fundamental question of "Do all the innocents die horribly?") should be determined by whoever controls the Issue at the end of the Scene.

So in the situation you originally worried about:  Two complications:  Building Fire and Clobbering.  The hero stakes on Building Fire and wins Clobbering, ending the scene.  The villain controls Building Fire (which becomes an Issue), so the Editor gets to decide how that situation evolves.

"Dozens are hospitalized," he says "and little Timmy Jones, an innocent six year old boy, is in intensive care with a bleak prognosis... the Issue is now 'Will Megalopolis ever be safe?', and the overall sense right now is 'No, it will not!'  A pall of misery and fear stretches over the city, sapping it of hope.  Until you regain control on this Issue you will suffer a penalty in any scene where the safety of the city or its people is at stake."

[Sydney Freedberg]

This solution appeals.

Until you regain control on this Issue you will suffer a penalty in any scene where the safety of the city or its people is at stake."

I presume the penalty is the same as the Hindrance penalty for losing control of a Complication? One might want multiple levels of hindrance (or assistance), especially for big long-term issues that can get worse and worse and worse (or better and better and better).

[LordSmerf]

Hmm... I am not sure about this either.

I like it in that it makes Issues an outgrowth of the Complications that arise during play.

I do not like it because it will tend to make Issues more common because any time you Stake but lose a Complication it becomes an Issue.  Without playtesting my guess is that that will end up being about 30% of all Complications (perhaps as few as 15%) which means that you will end up with a lot of Issues floating around which in turn will reduce the importance of any single Issue.

Oh, something i did not mention before: The current way of increasing Drives may be a little over powered.  Since any single Complication can result in an increase in any Drive you will probably tend to have wildly rising Drives.  My guess is that you will get an increase in at least two Drives every Scene.  Now it may be that this is exactly what you are aiming at, but my impression is that it will only take about 4 or 5 Sessions for you to achieve 10 or so in multiple Drives, and that seems to be a bad thing to me.  I would like to see a set number of Issues based on Drive (as i suggested above) and incrementing your Drive once you resolve all Issues tied to that Drive.  Once you increment your Drive define new Issues.  You are free to assign Issues that you just dealt with again at the same level or a different one.

The advantage i see in the above system is that you are indicating to everyone involved what you want to deal with from character creation.  It is clear what Issues you think your character finds important.  If you want to be able to change things on the fly i would suggest allowing you to exchange an Issue with a new Issue as long as you have nothing Staked on it.  Once you Stake you must Resolve it...

Hopefully tonight i can get a session in.  If i do i will try things this way and see how it goes.  Maybe you can tell, but i really really want to play Capes again.  I had a ton of fun the first time, and i feel that it has improved remarkably since then.

I agree with Sydney and Tony (i think with Tony) that Issues are treated as Complications in every way with the exception that they do not end at the end of a Scene.  This means that you will be Hindered or Assisted by them and that there are limits on the Debt you can Stake on them.

I guess i see advantages and disadvantages to Complications -> Issues.  I personally feel that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages...

Oh, and is my point about prematurely ending a Session due to VP accumulated from Issue Resolution make sense?  Do you see what my problem is?  If you still want to give VPs for Issue Resolution do you see a solution to my problem?

Thomas

[LordSmerf]

Inspired Ideas...  I have no idea if any of these will work, but i do believe that they will work better than what i previously posted:

1. Drives increase when you Resolve your highest rated Issue that is tied to that Drive.  That still slows progress as you increase your Drives while still allowing you to focus on what you think is really important.  You can basically deal with your mid/low-level Issues or not...

2. Replace Exemplars with Issues completely.  Perhaps an Issue focuses on an Exemplar, perhaps not.  Depends on your character.

3. Allow the use of Inspiration bonuses for increasing control of an Issue.  I see this as being really cool, especially if you can somehow make this one of the primary sources of Issue control.  I still think you want a non-combat type of scene which also allows you to increase control of Issues...

Thomas

[Sydney Freedberg]

....my guess is that that will end up being about 30% of all Complications (perhaps as few as 15%) which means that you will end up with a lot of Issues floating around which in turn will reduce the importance of any single Issue....

So we're back to Tony's comment a while back that there needs to be some mechanic for merging Issues? If you can control (to some degree) the number of Issues floating around, then it makes sense to tie them to Drive levels as Thomas suggested -- and to penalize players for letting Issues proliferate beyond what their Drives can handle.

Related thought: It would probably be best if a single large overarching Issue could be started by one unresolved Complication and then absorb every subsequent unresolved Complication of similar type. E.g. failing to rescue the folks in the burning building starts "Do the citizens feel protected by their superheroes?" Issue. A few scenes later, the heroes don't quite get to some hostages in time and one is shot; that defeat, rather than starting a new Issue, reinforces their problems in the existing Issue. Presumably relevant successes -- stopping your chase of the supervillain to rescue bystanders he's endangered, for example -- would help with the same overarching Issue.

The trick with this mechanic is finding a way to figure out what Complications feed into what Issues besides "the Editor thinks this makes sense."

[TonyLB]

I do not like it because it will tend to make Issues more common because any time you Stake but lose a Complication it becomes an Issue.

If you lose the Complication then it's not an Issue.  The Editor Resolved it.  It's done.

It's only the ones that you Staked on, but that nobody resolves that become Issues.  In my playtest, that would have been one out of ten Issues... about half the others were resolved in-scene, and the rest would have resolved at the end of the Scene (nobody Staked on them).

Are you envisioning substantially different numbers?  Or were we miscommunicating about when a Complication would become an Issue?

Oh, something i did not mention before: The current way of increasing Drives may be a little over powered.

The current way of increasing Drives is meant to increase them temporarily during the game.  Increasing them permanently would be under the Advancement system, which I haven't even begun to think about seriously yet.

The advantage i see in the above system is that you are indicating to everyone involved what you want to deal with from character creation.

I don't think people know what they want to deal with at character creation, or even at the beginning of the session.  It's much better, IMHO, to give them a tool that lets them discover and enshrine what they want as they go along.

Oh, and is my point about prematurely ending a Session due to VP accumulated from Issue Resolution make sense?  Do you see what my problem is?  If you still want to give VPs for Issue Resolution do you see a solution to my problem?

I'm not sure I understand.  You posted two examples of things that could go "wrong".

[*]A player could put lots of VPs in an Issue during a single session, then use those VPs to close the story... to which I posted some initial thoughts on a solution[*]Presupposing that VPs translate from one session to another (which isn't necessarily the case) a hero with a sufficient imbalance of Issue VPs could close out a story in the first chapter[/list:u]Which of those are you referring to?

[TonyLB]

Related thought: It would probably be best if a single large overarching Issue could be started by one unresolved Complication and then absorb every subsequent unresolved Complication of similar type. E.g. failing to rescue the folks in the burning building starts "Do the citizens feel protected by their superheroes?" Issue. A few scenes later, the heroes don't quite get to some hostages in time and one is shot; that defeat, rather than starting a new Issue, reinforces their problems in the existing Issue. Presumably relevant successes -- stopping your chase of the supervillain to rescue bystanders he's endangered, for example -- would help with the same overarching Issue.

The trick with this mechanic is finding a way to figure out what Complications feed into what Issues besides "the Editor thinks this makes sense."

In my limited experience the best way to handle such subjective transfers is by creating a mechanism where the transfer of points is handled through a scene, rather than through just saying "I dump the points into 'Heroic reputation'."

In the example above, say the heroes lose the 'Hostages' Complication by 5 points.  That gives the Editor a 5-point Inspiration (whatever that can be spent for... it's not yet clear).  

Let's assume (for the sake of discussion) that it lets them get two extra dice per round for five rounds in a scene of their choosing.  

They choose to do some "Man on the street interviews", a scene involving neither the heroes nor the villains.  So nobody really contributes much other than their existing dice-pools and the two-die income being pulled in.  The 'Heroic Reputation' Issue is, clearly, one of the Issues on the table in this scene... perhaps the only Issue.  

The Editor plows his points into that Issue.  The player also occasionally throws some leftover dice in, to try to ameliorate the effects.  In the end there are five interviewees, two of whom offer mild shows of faith in the heroes, but three of whom are completely turning against them... the player got two medium wonders, but the Editor just mopped the floor with him.  Ten extra dice will do that for you.  The Editor gains seven control in the Issue, while the player gains three.  The difference of four Control is not exactly the five that he came in with, but it's statistically likely to be close to it, on average.

[LordSmerf]

I don't think people know what they want to deal with at character creation, or even at the beginning of the session.  It's much better, IMHO, to give them a tool that lets them discover and enshrine what they want as they go along.

I think that you and i disagree on this issue.  I side with The Riddle of Steel on this one: part of creating your character is generating your initial character interests.  They should be flexible enough to change if you decide you were wrong, but you should have some idea before you start playing.

Note that this is really a personal preference, one of my favorite GMs agrees with you...

Oh, and is my point about prematurely ending a Session due to VP accumulated from Issue Resolution make sense?  Do you see what my problem is?  If you still want to give VPs for Issue Resolution do you see a solution to my problem?

I'm not sure I understand.  You posted two examples of things that could go "wrong".

[*]A player could put lots of VPs in an Issue during a single session, then use those VPs to close the story... to which I posted some initial thoughts on a solution[*]Presupposing that VPs translate from one session to another (which isn't necessarily the case) a hero with a sufficient imbalance of Issue VPs could close out a story in the first chapter[/list:u]Which of those are you referring to?

Sorry, the second.  Let me lay out my understanding:

1.  Complications accumulate Control.
2.  When you Resolve a Complication you score VPs equal to the total Control from both sides.

So, if an Issue works like a Complication you get Control in an Issue.  If you Resolve that Issue early in a session you score VPs based on the total Control invested in earlier Sessions.  Does that make more sense?

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Yes, it makes sense.  I see how it could happen, and that it would be dysfunctional in terms of pacing.

But as I've mentioned, I like what having Victory Points for Issues does within a given Session.  It helps to tie the resolution of Issues to the resolution of the adventure plot.

As I consider multi-story Issues, I must say that I wonder whether they really are unresolved at the end of each individual episode of a comic book.  There's generally some resolution of the tensions that were built up in the course of that episode.

To switch to a related, but more blatant example:  Dave and Maddie in the Moonlight Television series.  Most every episode had some crisis that threatened to sour their relationship.  Each of those individual crises were resolved, successfully or otherwise,  by the end of the episode.  The overall arc of their relationship was built from that history of tension and resolution.  

I'm thinking of appropriating Statistical's earlier concept of letting things resolve, and counting on the sequence of bonusses from one story to the next to maintain a thread of continuity in the overarching story question being addressed in a series of Issues.

So something like "Marta and Jeff's relationship" would be too big to be a single Issue.  That would be addressed in a sequence of Issues, perhaps like this:

[*]Is Marta dating Ken or Jeff? (Succeed)[*]Can Jeff be a good boyfriend while also saving the world as Mr. Magnificent? (Fail)[*]Is Jeff willing to pay the cost of keeping his secret identity secret? (Succeed)[*]Can Jeff win Marta back? (Succeed)[*]Will Marta ever be safe if she's associated with Jeff? (Fail)[*]Can Jeff resist the temptation to get back together with Marta, even knowing it puts her in danger? (Fail)[*]Will Marta survive Doctor Dementor's latest plot? (Succeed)...[/list:u]And so on, and so on.  Each of these individual Issues would be dealt with in the Story where they arose.  And they'd transfer some kind of Inspiration into the next story, to make it more or less difficult for the hero to face the next Issue in the chain.

This would completely remove any fear of the dysfunctional pacing that you'd talked about.  Of course it would do that by removing multi-session Issues, so that might be a steep price.

Now I was a supporter of multi-session Issues, until I tried to write up an iron-clad example showing how they were utterly necessary.  And I tried for three hours straight last night without coming up with anything that couldn't be simulated by Serial Issues (as above).  But there's still a part of me that thinks I've just missed something obvious.

Does anyone have specific things they'd like to use multi-session Issues for that this wouldn't address?

[LordSmerf]

What do Issues do for us?  I will generate a list:

1. Allow us to make a Complication that carries over from Scene to Scene or even Session to Session.  This allows us to highlight th importance of that Issue to the Characters and Players.
2. If Issues are self assigned they provide a great point of control for the direction of the story, especially the Moral things.
3. Issues provide long term Debt sinks.  Whether this is good or bad i do not know.
4. If Issues are self assigned then they take the focus of the Moral story away from the Editor.  If players are assigning Issues, and Issues are the primary source for Moral story this means that the Editor must play within the bounds defined by the players.  Again, i do not know if this is a good thing or not.
5. Issues provide us with a system that allows us to do away with Inspirations.  Whether we want to get rid of Inspirations or not is another matter.
6. Issues provide clear support for multi-session Arcs.
7. Issues

may (depending on implementation) require players to have some idea of the direction they want the story to take before they begin play.[/list:u]

One thing to note is that while comics are episodic (as American Television tends to be) they are tied into limited Arcs.  If it helps consider comics to have plots that are constructed as a series of "To be continued..." television episodes.  The Issues will tend to be resolved at the end of the Arc not at the end of the specific episode.

Now, what do "Serial Complications" do for us?

1. A unified mechanic.  If Issue do not exist then there is no need to explain or remember the differences (however slight) between Issues and Complications.
2. Focus on Inspirations for Moral story.  Whether this is good or bad...
3. Issues will arise directly from Complications.  This will mean that the Editor has equal (if not greater) control of the Moral story in addition to near total control of the Adventure story.
4. Does not require design of Issues during character generation which allows you to get to playing faster.[/list:u]

I prefer Issues for the following two reasons:

First, i feel that RPGs in general and Narrativist games in particular play more smoothly with some direction derived during Chargen.  I really feel that having players define some (at least) of their Issues up front will allow play to be better (or something).

Second, i like the implied dichotemy of the Editor being the primary influence on Adventure play and the Players being the primary influence on Moral play.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Okay... I described what I was thinking poorly.  What I was recommending was not Serial Complications as such, it was this:

[*]Any Complication with Stakes which is unresolved at the end of a Scene becomes an Issue.[*]Any Complication without Stakes resolves at the end of its Scene.[*]All Issues and Complications resolve at the end of the Session.[*]Any Complication or Issue that resolves grants Victory Points equal to the Control level of the loser.[*]Any Complication which Resolves grants an Advantage, to be used in future Scenes, equal to the winners Control minus the loser's Control.[*]Any Issue which Resolves gives an Inspiration, to be used in future sessions, equal to the Stakes of the Issue.[*]Using an N-point Advantage gives the player an extra two-dice income for N turns of a Scene.  This may also be used to define the nature of the scene (between pre-scripted scenes).[*]Using an N-point Inspiration allows a hero to Stake N tokens of Debt on a Complication.[/list:u]So this is two-method Complications, but serial-only Issues.  Complications can carry over from one Scene to the next either directly in the form of Issues or indirectly by way of Advantages.  But Issues can only carry over from Session to Session in the form of Inspirations.

It looks to me like this addresses items #1-4 on Thomas's list of what Issues contribute.  #5 is bypassed (because Inspirations have an important place in the system) and #7 is... well, we've got an honest disagreement on what we're aiming for there.

I'm interested in #6, because I don't quite understand it, which may well mean that it's an important point I've overlooked:

6. Issues provide clear support for multi-session Arcs.

Can I get some clarification here?  How do Issues particularly support multi-session Arcs?

[LordSmerf]

Can I get some clarification here? How do Issues particularly support multi-session Arcs?

I will answer your question if you will answer mine :)

Basically: having Issues that are like Complications except that they end when they achieve some internal Victory Total provides clear support for and numerical evidence of the Issue's importance.  If it is going to take 50 points of control before anyone can Resolve Issue X, it is clear that Issue X is very important to the story.  Since you are virtually gruanteed not to Resolve this in one session it provides a sense of cohesion between Sessions.  Resolving a major Issue (or perhaps several in near-simultaneity) is a good way of measuring story progress and Arc progression.  If you resolve all Issues (converting them into Advantages and Inspirations) at the end of each Session it seems that you will be playing more towards American Television tradition rather than Comics tradition...

Is that any more clear, i feel like i am explaining things poorly.

Now, my question(s).

1. It seems as if Inspirations do almost exaclty the same thing as Drives (they both set the maximum size of Stakes on a single Complication).  Is it really a good idea to have two things that are this close mechanically?
2. Is there a reason you have Advantages provide 2 dice each turn for N turns instead of simply providing 2xN dice up front?  Providing all the dice at once is much easier with regards to record keeping, but it will probably tend to generate larger rolls.
3. What do you feel are the big advantages of Advantages and Inspirations?

Personally i like the way Advantages are as written (though i tend towards the 2xN dice lump sum), but i think that Inspirations are really, really bad.  Since Debt and Drive are (as i understand things) the central driving mechanic for the Premise, adding another mechanic to the mix (namely Inspirations) seems like a bad idea.

Also, i am still very concerned about automatically converting Complications into Issues.  Let us use the classic "burning building" scenario.  I stake on the burning building, but then let it go unresolved as i chase down my nemisis.  This implies that it becomes an Issue and continues to hold my Debt.  The question is: what Issue does it become?  Who decides?  One thing that is kind of cool about this is that you can choose not to Resolve a Complication and "put off" having to deal with whatever Debt is Staked on it.  Of course this also takes away from some of the immediacy of Staking at the same time.  I need to give that "delaying the inevitable" thing a little more thought... Let me get back to you on that.

Thomas