[Capes] Losing with Style

[Sydney Freedberg]

Numbered topics are fun!

(1) Dice Proliferation

....you guys were right....

We are the champ-yuns, my friend; and we'll keep kibbitzing, to the end.
No time to design, 'cause we are the champ-yuns...

Ahem. Excuse me.

The rewards in the Wonders are currently too rich. They cause a cascading increase in dice that becomes very quickly impracticable. Twenty-eight dice is just too many for the system to feel right with. ...

This has always been my beef with dice pools, actually: They don't scale well because at some point you end up with too many frickin' dice. Normally this only happens when you start playing with characters more high-powered than what the system is calibrated for -- but in your case it happens to every character in every scene as they bootstrap themselves with dice-generating Wonders. Plus as I read through the example, I don't really see much incentive not to roll everything pretty much every time.

One option: I vaguely remember a system that dealt with really large numbers of dice by telling you to assume that most of them came up with average results. Something like, "Okay, instead of rolling 22 dice, assume three 1s, three 2s, three 3s, three 4s, three 5s, three 6s; now just roll for the four-die remainder."

Or -- sacred cow attack! -- is there a way to run this game without dice pools at all? In other words have Powers, Attitudes, & Tropes all give fixed numbers of points towards Control and Wonders? To spice it up with randomness, just roll 1d6 for each Major Participant to get extra points (or to take away from the points they have?). This would end up being a more random, not less, because you only have a few die rolling around rather than so many that results approach statistical certainty.

... eliminat[e] all dice gaining Wonders other than those that reset abilities ...

Now that's an attractive idea.


(2) Non-Combat Play

I've posted the Flawed Example of Play...it gives a fairly good idea of how I see non-combat conflicts being resolved in the system.

It certainly seems that Tropes, Attitudes, and (to a lesser degree, unless you redefine them) Powers all apply just fine to non-combat situations; and there's a place for non-combat abilities.

{EDIT: I take that back about Powers. There's nothing in the rules that requires them to be super-powers, right? They just have to (a) take a serious effort to "turn on" (i.e. taking 1 Debt) and (b) help you continuously. So a rock star's "Animal Magnetism," a preacher's "Rousing Sermon," a lawyer's "Exhaustive Knowledge of Torts," or a homeless person's "I Make You Uncomfortable So You Ignore Me" would work perfectly well as social Powers. For that matter, you can have combat Powers that aren't super-powers, e.g. "SEAL training" or "heavy machinegun."}

Indeed this example is a lovely case of a building-smashing superhero struggling in a non-combat encounter because the other guy is specialized with a bunch of social skills she can't match. Presumably a Batman-like hero would have a much better balance of combat and social/investigative abilities.

The only thing that's mechanically problematic in social situations is those tricksy Wonders, which besides the positive feedback loop are, as I whined before, still somewhat biased towards combat-type effects.


(3) Frames

Plus, it's the first example I've made that has the Frame-assignment of narrative rights in action.

It's very cool. I'm not sure I always follow who gets what frame why -- have you written up actual rules for this yet?

Joe: This is sort of strange. I know he's going to screw me, but I get to give him the straight-line to do it with.

Lovely. Rather like players narrating failures in Trollbabe, come to think of it.


(4) Complications

...the way Complication outcomes are determined. At the moment they are incredibly vague...

Which is (to repeat myself) fine-for-now, but probably will require a set of standard Complications and what resolving them means in the next set of rules.

As for concurrent Complications resolving in contradictory ways -- hmm, not sure I see how often that could happen. In your "Stealth" example, presumably "Clobbering" or "Capture Silverstar" can't even beginuntil Stealth fails, Silverstar is detected, and the Editor can name a replacement complication. (Yes, having "Clobbering" show up while Silverstar's still undetected would therefore be a flaw in the Flawed Example of Play).

I suppose you could have "Intimidation" and "Clobbering" going on at once and end up with A scaring B away at the same moment that B clobbers A into the ground -- but that could be rationalized as B's morale breaking at the moment of victory, before he realizes A is about to go down. Thomas, can you think of any more examples where this might be a problem?

[TonyLB]

Okay, bleary-eyed and exhausted I have posted a revised Example of Play.  I changed the payback rates of some Wonders, and I changed dice-rolling so that fives must be discarded to earn Frames (just like 3s and 4s).

I haven't written these rules up yet.  Mostly because I'm dead tired.  The overall effect seems to be that it keeps dice pools in the 5-15 range the vast majority of the time.  At least with my small dice, that's a comfortable number to roll, and one that mixes fairly well with the rules.  Though I may modify things to drive that number down a little bit more.

One possibility I'm considering is saying that you can't "double up" Tropes and dice-generating Wonders.  But it's too late at night for me to give that the consideration it deserves.

On the statistics of dice pools... they become statistically uninteresting much more quickly when you're adding the dice together to reach a total than when you're evaluating the distribution of numbers within the range (as this game does).  Smaller numbers of dice would help with variability, but I saw plenty of freaky distributions in my completely honest rolls for the example.

In your "Stealth" example, presumably "Clobbering" or "Capture Silverstar" can't even beginuntil Stealth fails, Silverstar is detected, and the Editor can name a replacement complication.

I don't think I agree with that.  Random 2a.m. example:  A tiger is stalking a village.  It has control of both the Stealth and Clobbering Complications.  A hunter goes into the forest, and when the tiger attacks him he fights it off, wounding it and showing his martial superiority.  But he is unable to track the beast when it flees.  He's just won the Clobbering Complication, but not the Stealth.

I do think there are instances where Complications could run at cross-purposes, or be dependent on each other.  But I haven't yet seen the example that really makes it clear to me when that happens.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Okay, bleary-eyed and exhausted

My sympathies. I have that too. 3am baby-waking. So I'll read the new example of play over carefully later. But one thought first...

A tiger is stalking a village.  It has control of both the Stealth and Clobbering Complications.  A hunter goes into the forest, and when the tiger attacks him he fights it off, wounding it and showing his martial superiority.  But he is unable to track the beast when it flees.  He's just won the Clobbering Complication, but not the Stealth.

I was thinking of just such a case (no, not involving a tiger) last night, and I wondered if it might be best to define it as a single "Ambush" complication, with asymetrical results of Control for each side: The Ambusher, when in control, benefits as if in control of Clobbering (i.e. can hurt people), and if he Resolves the Ambush has captured/wiped out the ambushed ones; the ambushed one, when in control, merely benefit as if in Control of an Information conflict (i.e. "Where the hell is he?") and, if they Resolve the Ambush, only then can they replace it with a regular two-sided Clobbering conflict.

Or not.

[TonyLB]

Sydney... I think I see your point of view.  You're viewing Complications as the logical, cause-and-effect building blocks of the story, right?

I tend to think of them more as the goals that characters currently have to choose between, which is slightly different.  In the tiger example, for instance, the hunter probably had a choice between winning the Clobbering (and proving he was tougher and meaner than the tiger) or winning the Stealth (and being able to track the tiger later).

Winning the Stealth but losing the Clobbering might (for instance) have meant that the tiger mauled one of the hunters bearers, but was shot in such a way that, though unhindered, he was trailing enough blood to be tracked.

I don't think that you can get the same effect by saying "Okay, you have to Resolve Complication A before you can effect Complication B".  Does that make sense?

[Sydney Freedberg]

Sydney...You're viewing Complications as the logical, cause-and-effect building blocks of the story, right?

Yeah. It's the residual Simulationist in me, I guess. I take your point that player choice is central, not in-game casuality.

[LordSmerf]

A couple of things real quick.  I will read the new example of play and add more later, but i felt that these were important:

1. The more i think on it the more i feel that the only sources of dice should be Powers, Attitudes and Tropes.  If someone wants to get more dice to roll then they will have to refresh their stuff.  This will focus play on Attitudes and Tropes rather than what Wonders you can handle (it will also make Massive Overkill even worse since you have no recourse for gaining dice).

2. Complications in opposition.  Let us examine the Tiger example.  Currently, as i understand thing, when you Resolve a Complication you control you get to declare the outcome with something close to impunity.  Let us assume that the Hunter successfully Resolves the Clobbering complication with the Tiger in his own favor while the Stealth complication remains unresolved but in the Tiger's control.  The hunter states that the outcome of his resolution is capturing the tiger.  So, what happens with the Stealth complication?  Sure we can say that the tiger is still stealthy, but it seems that you have allowed the hunter to move the game into a place where Stealth is no longer an issue to deal with.  The same could be said of the example of play just before the one you just posted, if Silver Star wins Stealth and declares that this means that she escapes what recourse does that leave for the villains with their Clobbering complication?

Thomas

[Sydney Freedberg]

Okay, bleary-eyed and exhausted I have posted a revised Example of Play...

THAT. WAS. COOL.

I just read the revised example of play, and I really think I get the Frames system now (1 die = 1 Frame, can delegate describing a Frame to your opponent if you want, whoever controls complication gets a Final Frame) and the interaction between Frames, Control, and Wonders.

I also realize that the Frames technique would allow you to replicate Japanese manga-style comics very easily, because you can have people posture emphatically instead of talk. In fact, one nagging problem I'd had with the rules to date was that the best superhero concept I ever came up with was mute (details available on request, but kinda off-topic), and I didn't see how that would work in a game with a "Monologue Phase." But using Frames, I could set up other characters' response to the mute character, just like the author of a comic -- essentially writing, or at least guiding, both sides of the conversation at once. Very cool.

Hmmm. Not substantive criticism here so much as fanboy raving. Oh well.

P.S.: Everyone go buy Bendis & Oeming's Powers, right now.

[LordSmerf]

One thing that i noticed the first time through the Example of Play (and was reminded of reading the newest version) is that the order of spending dice, checking for Complication control, calculating penalties, and declaring Wonders is confusing.  I would recommend simplifying things such that Wonder level is calculated at the beginning of the action when dice are spent rather than allowing you to spend dice, gain control of a Complication which reduces your Penalty and then declare a higher level Wonder.

So, if you do not have enough dice to overcome your penalties you are going to have to rack up some Debt in order get in an action.

Another thing that i noticed is that the Level 1 and 2 Wonders seem a little stilted.  Perhaps i just do not see what you are trying to get at with declaring "Important Elements", but i think that they should be replaced with something else.  I do not feel that as things stand that they are truly conducive to anything.  Feel free to correct me if you feel that they are important, but i just do not see how they are relevant to play or to the Premise.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Thomas:  I'm actually coming around toward (if not all the way to) your position.  My concern with doing only Abilities (Powers, Attitude, Tropes) is that it reduces the strategic side of the game to Massive Overkill and Second Wind, and how to get those at the right moments in the conflict.

A compromise I thought up on my walk is that the sum total of dice that you get from a Sequence cannot exceed its Sequence Level, no matter their source.  Under that rule Effects that get you dice are giving you the chance to get them instead of spending your Tropes, rather than in addition to spending your Tropes.  It becomes an endurance and desperation issue, rather than a power-up technique.

In particular, it makes Strength through Adversity and Passion tremendously useful just after you get hit with Massive Overkill... they can get you back on your feet when you have nothing left to spend in terms of your abilities.


On Complications in Opposition:   Is this directly Complications in Opposition, or are they the Situations that people get to create by controlling a Complication?  i.e. The situation of the Tiger for Stealth was "He can't find me" and the situation of the Hunter for Clobbering is "the tiger's unconscious", and these situations cannot both be taken to their logical conclusion, right?

[Sydney Freedberg]

The situation of the Tiger for Stealth was "He can't find me" and the situation of the Hunter for Clobbering is "the tiger's unconscious", and these situations cannot both be taken to their logical conclusion, right?

I.e. you could have an unconscious tiger that no one can find? Say, it takes a resounding blow as it loses Clobbering but, having won Stealth at the same time, successfully staggers off into the deep brush before collapsing?

Still think this calls for semi-standardized Complications and potential outcomes in the final draft, but for at least the first phase of playtesting, I think this is wingable.

[TonyLB]

Sydney... thanks for the fanboy raving!  Very energizing.

I'll be interested (as playtesting expands) to see how the Frame Narration effects get played out in games with more than one hero.  Giving a Frame to one of your team-mates seems to me an inherently more social thing than giving it to the Editor.

For instance, if you make a seven frame Massive Overkill in one-hero play you basically have seven frames of brutality, either the attacker attacking or the defenders getting pulped.  But the opinions the participants have on it are pretty well pre-scripted.

If you make a seven frame Massive Overkill in five-hero play then you can reasonably have a big central frame of the attacker on the rampage, four reaction shots (one from each of the other heroes), then the defenders getting pulped and a final reaction shot from the attacker.  That's a much more evocative story-telling statement.

P.S.: Everyone go buy Bendis & Oeming's Powers, right now.

Oh, I would so love to get into Powers, but I just blew my month's comic budget on The Ultimates.  Which, frankly, was worth it for two panels alone.

Iron Man:  No, not okay.  Don't you hear what I'm saying?  I'm telling you that I just can't do this.
Soldier:  Well, if you can't, who will?

Their treatment of Tony Stark is giving me exactly what I need to overhaul the lackluster Duty Drive in Capes.

[LordSmerf]

A compromise I thought up on my walk is that the sum total of dice that you get from a Sequence cannot exceed its Sequence Level, no matter their source.

How about basing the limit not on number of dice spent, but on number of dice you did not roll.  That gives us another reason not to roll all of your dice since you will not be able to gain any if you do not hold any back.  Other than that i am still a little hesitant since it seems to lessen the importance ot Tropes by providing a valid alternative.  It seems to set up a situation in which you will save Tropes for those times when you are not able to pull off a Wonder that gets you dice.  This makes Tropes a back-up mechanic to Wonders when it comes to dice generation.

On Complications in Opposition: Is this directly Complications in Opposition, or are they the Situations that people get to create by controlling a Complication? i.e. The situation of the Tiger for Stealth was "He can't find me" and the situation of the Hunter for Clobbering is "the tiger's unconscious", and these situations cannot both be taken to their logical conclusion, right?

You are quite right, the problem is one of opposing Situations rather than Complications.  The Complications themselves are broad and nebulous enough in this case that they are not in opposition (more on this later).  So what you have is two opposing players who each control a Complication with interpretations of said Complications that are mutually exclusive (Silver Star escapes vs. Silver Star is captured).

However, i can imagine a situation in which the Complications do in fact come into direct opposition.  Imagine that Stealth goes to the Editor and he replaces it with Capture Silver Star.  Silver Star sacrifices Information in order to start the Escape Complication.  These are mutually exclusive, and some rule will need to be developed to cover this situation.  Even if it is just: "you can not start a Complication with an outcome tied to a Compliation already in play."

Also, i am a little uncomfortable with allowing people to sacrifice Complications that they are losing and replacing them with one of their choice.  I like it in principle since it will tend to eliminate Complications that all parties are not interested in.  On the other hand it generates a situation in which i can sacrifice Stealth and then replace it with Clobbering even though it would make sense for the successful resolution of Stealth to make Clobbering impossible.  Silver Star successfully avoid detection, now she must fight!  This could become a more serious problem if people start sacrificing Complications that they have no points in (and therefore nothing to lose) in order to do whatever they want.  I suggest at least testing whether eliminating the -1 Wonder Penalty incurred by being on the losing side of a Complication is reason enough to sacrifice one and still allowing the winning player to name the new Complication.  The advantage to the "losing" side would be the elmination of the penalty and being able to start over at 0 to 0 in the new Complication.

And yes, i believe that Frames is really, really good here.  I especially like the way you can hand them out.  It is also nicely balanced that the Complication's controller gets the Final Frame.  That was a very elegant solution to a problem that i had not even realized would come up...

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Other than that i am still a little hesitant since it seems to lessen the importance ot Tropes by providing a valid alternative.  It seems to set up a situation in which you will save Tropes for those times when you are not able to pull off a Wonder that gets you dice.  This makes Tropes a back-up mechanic to Wonders when it comes to dice generation.

I've got a new Capes edition up.  I refer you to that (particularly the section previously known as Wonder Levels") rather than detail exactly how I recast all of the Wonders and their dice-gathering effects.

Executive Summary:  I think that Wonders where you get back dice equal to the Wonder level from the Effect itself will be very few and far between, under the new rules.  I'm interested to see what folks think of them.

Imagine that Stealth goes to the Editor and he replaces it with Capture Silver Star.

Huh... I would never have imagined "Capture Silver Star" as a Complication.  It is clear that, as Sydney has been repeatedly pointing out, I need to do some work on creating a set of example Complications with serious description.

One way to address this issue might just be to say that there aren't Situations for each Complication, there is a single Situation, and any time a Complication changes hands the new Controller can recast anything that was dependent upon that Complication.

Practical Example:  Editor controls both Stealth and Clobbering.  Situation is defined as Silverstar pinned by searchlights while goons move in with net-guns to try to capture her.

Silverstar now regains control of Stealth.  She can't redefine the Situation to say that she's beaten up the mooks, but she pummels two of them long enough to break through their ranks and hide in a janitorial closet.

So long as the Editor still controls Clobbering, the goons have such a tactical advantage that Silverstar 'must' avoid confronting them in mass.  She might pick off one here, one there, using her stealth to advantage, but she cannot simply narrate beating them all to a pulp... to do that she needs to gain control of the Complication.

Likewise, so long as Joe controls Stealth, Silverstar has such a stealth advantage that the goons cannot reliably find her.  Which is not to say they can't beat her up:  You could easily have Sequences where a goon happens upon her, they exchange blows, and then she manages to go back into hiding.

Okay, it's late at night.  I'll talk again when I'm more coherent.

[LordSmerf]

Tony, i like the new Wonders.  My only suggestion would be to change Strength through Adversity to one die per level.  One die per level is much simpler and keeps inflation down.  You might also considering some system in which you get a die for each Frame you let your oppoenent narrate, but that might rapidly spiral out of control.

As to Complications you will need to either define the exact scope of how broad or specific a Complication can be or provide a list of acceptable Complications.  Clearly i was considering much narrower Complication definitions, probably because we used stuff like "Bolo" and "Hostage" as Complications in our game...

Thomas

[Sydney Freedberg]

1) Complications vs. Situation

It is clear that, as Sydney has been repeatedly pointing out...

Weee are the champ-... ahem. Excuse me. Sorry. Go on.

... I need to do some work on creating a set of example Complications with serious description. One way to address this issue might just be to say that there aren't Situations for each Complication, there is a single Situation, and any time a Complication changes hands the new Controller can recast anything that was dependent upon that Complication.

This is an interesting idea but awfully vague in the revised rules as they stand.


2) Special Effects / Wonders

Name change is probably good for reader comprehension, although I have a soft spot for "Wonder." I'd agree with Thomas's worry that you can still rack up dice a little fast, but that'd have to be playtested to know one way or t'other.


3) Frames

Nicely written up. It's all just color, really, but a lovely, well-defined mechanism for handling something that's normally left to "well, you know, describe cool stuff."


4) Shared Exemplars -- stray thought

Seeing how powerful these were in the playtest, might the rule be not, "share at least 2 exemplars with 2 other heroes," but rather, "share one exemplar with each other hero (up to a maximum of five)"? This could be a bit constraining in larger groups but I think well worth it in terms of collaboratively building a relationship map (to use the Edwardsian term).