The Forge Archives

I ran another Capes playtest tonight, solo with my friend Jennifer, to test out whether the new dice balancing had achieved its goal, and how the sequence of Complications to Inspirations back to Complications worked out.

Jennifer handed me a nice juicy opening, setting out Complications for Clobbering and Bystanders, and then adding in what Sydney refers to as "B-plot", in the form of a meeting with her younger sister (and Hope Exemplar) at the mall.  I added in an "Information" Complication, to tie the generic situation to the specific plans I had made.  So on the way to the mall (with plenty of time to get there for once) our heroine came across a rampaging mutated monster and battle ensued trying to rescue the victims of his excesses.  Meanwhile, a shadowy group was watching the combat, evaluating... something... Lady Frost (the heroine) spotted that they were doing that, and even realized that the mutation seemed to be in a torn hospital gown, but she didn't win the Information Complication, so she was unable to put any pieces together.

Pro:  We really had a ball with the combat.  The dice mechanic provided a few groan out loud hardship rolls for each of us, where the pretty plans we'd had for a turn had to be scaled back or scrapped, and a few cheer out loud good rolls for each of us, where we suddenly had opportunities to do much more than we'd planned.  And it all levelled out to a consistent balance of challenge in the long term.  We each Staked debt on three of the four Complications.  In fact, both of us were desperately trying to accrue more debt, in order to Stake more.  Jennifer won two Complications and I won two... she got more Victory Points, but I ended up winning more Stakes.  So Jennifer ended the first scene with a significant VP lead, but overdrawn in one Drive and on the very brink in two more.

Con:  The absence of any rules controlling narration in the Monologue phase was jarring.  Especially as we started getting accustomed to Frame-narration in Action Phase, I wanted something similar for Monologue Phase, particularly to rule how much people got to do as they Resolved a Complication.

Pro:  Resolving Complications lets you narrate all manner of Deus Ex Machina BS without anyone feeling put upon.  Jennifer won the Bystanders Complication by "getting through" to the monstrosity, through its rage and confusion (a Reversal on its "Get Very Angry" Trope)... the monster himself saved the last few of the civilians he'd put in danger, which was gratifying.  When I (in turn) won the Information Complication I had the Shadowy Figures shoot the monstrosity with a poison dart.  Both of these events would have been extremely cheesy if they were resolved on purely Dramatic rules... if the GM just said "Yeah, okay, that works for no particular reason".  But when they were the outgrowth of the numbers everyone had been crunching it felt... right.

For the first time since the earliest playtests I had the time to transition to a second scene from the first.  Critical, obviously, to figuring out how Complications transition from one to the next.

Pro:  The transition from one scene to the next was butter-smooth... Laurel (Lady Frost's secret ID) had failed to meet her younger sister at the mall as she'd promised.  We were both interested in the results of that.  So I took the 3x5 card labelled "Meet Amanda at Mall", crossed out that title, wrote in "Amanda Snit-fit" under it, and slapped it back down on the table.  Jennifer declined to spend any of her Inspirations, so we just filled in with the appearance of another of her Exemplars to liven up the mix.

Con:  It's easy to pick the wrong Exemplar or Complication to jump to.  Jennifer had heavy debt on Truth and none on Love, but I didn't think about it carefully.  I foolishly chose to introduce her Love Exemplar rather than her Truth one, even though it would have been equally plausible for either to be present.  The result, which I obviously should have predicted, is that Jennifer had a hard time mechanically in investing deeply in the relationship with the Exemplar.  I should put some explicit advice in the system about how to include the players's current Debt levels in your decision of what goes in the next Scene.

Amanda's snit-fit was fun, with Laurel desperately shifting away from her sisters massive (and growing) advantage on that particular issue, in order to try to make googly eyes at her love-interest, Jason.  "Snitfit" Resolved in-scene (i.e. without ending the Scene) and I happily replaced it with "Amanda Abduction" (again, crossing out on the same card) with a massive six-point villainous advantage that spelled "inevitable" to me.  I'd had some plans for villains to abduct one of the Exemplars, and the opportunity of Amanda stomping off to "go live her own life" was a perfect lead-in to make our superheroine feel responsible for the wholly unconnected acts of the villains.

Pro:  The transition from one Complication to the next is really quite natural.  People can easily look over the Inspirations hanging about and say "Okay, I have a good sense of what needs to be addressed as we go forward."  But also, they can look at Inspirations as they are played and say "Yes, I see how this emerges from what has gone before".  Score big points to (I think) StatisticalTomfoolery for his insistence that this one-to-the-next threading would serve the same purpose as an explicit issue that exists over multiple Scenes.  He was right.

Sadly, allergy season has been hitting Jennifer so badly that she had to medicate up during the previous scene.  As the scene wore on the dopey-making medicine visibly took hold.  So we had to stop earlier than I had hoped.  About two hours of play all told.

Con:  This hammered home something that's been nagging me for a while about the system:  It is too slow.  In two hours we managed one extended combat with a mutated monstrosity, and one follow-up scene.  For some game systems (D&D for example) that would be a satisfying session in itself.  But in Capes, folks (myself included) have put so much thought into how one scene flows causally and thematically into another that I wanted to get a good solid sequence of them under my belt.

So how can I speed it up?

Some of this will just come with familiarity.  We sped up significantly (I think about doubled our speed) over the course of the session as Jennifer became familiar with the Frame-narration mechanic.

And some of it is in scaling down Victory Targets.  The current method of calculating them is calibrated to the old mega-dice version of the rules.  VP Targets of 5 through 10 are quite reasonable in the new number-balance, and make for nicely compact scenes.

Finally, some of this can be helped with proper organization (and explicitly recommending that in the rules).  Particularly, calculating Effect Levels was just needlessly (and constantly) draining our time because everything was laid out in a chaotic mess.

[*]After the session, as I realized how often we were saying "Okay, you activated... uh... how many powers?" I realized how useful it would be to take a die and set it on a little circle next to Powers on the Worksheet... increase or decrease the die as powers are activated or deactivated.[*]Also, I realized that you should have "Editor controlled", "Hero controlled" and "No-mans land" areas laid out on the table where you're keeping Complications.  You could just move the cards around, and see at a glance how many were stacked up against you.[/list:u]But these organization cues seem... well, they aren't really making the game more Comic-book, they're just responding to the necessities of the book-keeping.  I'm not thrilled with them, as solutions, and I'm hopeful that other folks can make better recommendations.  Possibly even (though I am very hesitant) by reducing some of the calculations in the system.

This is just off the top of my head, but I know that layout is something that comic books emphasize. Average comic book is, what, 32 pages (say 28, not counting the ads and letters columns)? And six to eight "normal" frames per page (depending on the title)? Is there some way to use this information to limit how long a combat runs?

I'd also think that there might be an interesting way to use multiple "frame" sucesses to get an action blow-up: a half-page sized "frame"...

Aha!  I have a "two birds with one stone" solution that addresses Framing in the Monologue phase and not rolling all of your dice.  You get one Frame for each die that you elect not to roll...!  This will allow for people to narrate background information and bystander reactions and the like...

I think that currently the big bog down in speed is tied almost entirely to Effects.  First you take a second to figure out what Effects you can afford (from a list of 8), then you figure out which ones you can use (some are limited by situation), then you pick which one you want to use, then you spend your dice, and then you narrate a number of Frames equal to the dice you spend.  Rinse, repeat.  Five steps for every action that you take, every round.

Possible solutions:

1. Eliminate Effects completely, this takes three of the five steps out completely.  I am not sure that this is a good idea because Effects serve an important purpose in the game.

2. Reduce the number of seperate Effects.  If there are fewer to work with then each of the 3 Effect steps will be shortened due to lowered mental overhead.

3. Take all conditions off of Effects.  That eliminates one full step.  If you can use any Effect at any time then you do not have to figure out which ones you qualify for.  I highly recommend this, it should only be a factor for Passion and Strength through Adversity.

More later as i get the time...

Thomas

Quote from: TonyLBWe each Staked debt on three of the four Complications. In fact, both of us were desperately trying to accrue more debt, in order to Stake more.

*Blink...*  Why?  Was there something in the rules that i missed?  What advantage is there to Staking even more Debt in a Complication?

Quote from: TonyLBThe transition from one scene to the next was butter-smooth... Laurel (Lady Frost's secret ID) had failed to meet her younger sister at the mall as she'd promised. We were both interested in the results of that. So I took the 3x5 card labelled "Meet Amanda at Mall", crossed out that title, wrote in "Amanda Snit-fit" under it, and slapped it back down on the table.

Could you elaborate on this?  How did this work mechanically?  What about whatever numbers were already written on the card?

Oh, and another thing that would speed up play would be elimination of Effect bonuses (Powers) and penalties (Overdrawn Drives) since they add time to the "what can i afford" step.

Thomas

First thought: don't just have a die which represents number fo powers are go.

You need a chart on the character sheet, where each different wonder is described in a one line summary, and with room for a counter next to each one. You keep your counter on your base Powers + Helpers - Inhibitors, such that you can always just say: okay, base of 5, 2 wonder points = 7.

Quote from: statisticaltomfooleryYou need a chart on the character sheet, where each different wonder is described in a one line summary.....

Agreed. But I'd also agree with Thomas that

Quote from: Thomas.... another thing that would speed up play would be elimination of Effect bonuses (Powers) and penalties (Overdrawn Drives) since they add time to the "what can i afford" step. ...

I think a lot of these bonuses and penalties might be more easily folded into the "roll a buncha dice" stage*, where you're adding up a lot of stuff already; that means there's only one stage where you're crunching numbers, when you're building your dice pool, and then everything else is straight spending successful dice on a 1-to-1 basis for Control and various Effects.

* I.e. Overdrawn Drives (if you don't use the narrative sting-in-the-tail that I proposed earlier) and Complications controlled by the other side eat into your available dice, rather than impeding every single wonder. As for Powers, they already give you a bunch of dice, so I'm not sure they need to give you a bonus to Effects as well.

Heh... when I started writing this it seemed radical.  In the meantime, Sydney's gone and posted the basic idea of it while I was fiddling with the wording.  Sydney, feel free to do your "We are the champions" dance, you've earned it once again.

What if you remove the concept of Level being different from Dice Spent?

[*]Active Powers generate one die per turn every Monologue phase after the one they're activated in[*]After you roll, for each Overdrawn drive or enemy-controlled Complication, you remove one die from your Success Pool, highest dice first.[*]After that, for each five or six in your success pool you put a die into your dice pool[*]When you spend a handful of dice you get the Effect that corresponds to the number of dice you spend... exactly.  No exceptions.[*]If you don't do "something special" then each time you describe or assign a Frame you pick up a die and toss it into the discard.[*]"Something special" includes the Effects that let you keep dice, and Tropes.  When you use those in describing a Frame or set of frames you pick up a die and put it back in your pool instead.[*]When you run out of dice you've described all the Frames.[*]Note particularly that this means that when (for instance) you are spending in a Complication you don't control you have an actual mechanics penalty, since you cannot control (and therefore must discard) the die corresponding to that final frame.[/list:u]

Quote from: LordSmerf

Quote from: TonyLBWe each Staked debt on three of the four Complications. In fact, both of us were desperately trying to accrue more debt, in order to Stake more.

*Blink...*  Why?  Was there something in the rules that i missed?  What advantage is there to Staking even more Debt in a Complication?

Two-fold:  First, when you bet your entire Drive then the Drive rises temporarily by one.  In just two scenes, each of us managed to raise three separate drives by a temporary point each.

Second, and connected, the Passion Effect.  Useful on high bets even early, it could clearly become dominant later in the game if rising Drives followed the path I saw in playtest.  People would be able to bet five tokens easily.

QuoteCould you elaborate on this?  How did this work mechanically?  What about whatever numbers were already written on the card?

Scratched a line through them and wrote zero on one side, the bonus on the other, right underneath the original set.  You couldn't do that forever, but if you've got average size handwriting you can probably do it for four or five successive Complications.

Quote from: TonyLBWhat if you remove the concept of Level being different from Dice Spent?

[*]Active Powers generate one die per turn every Monologue phase after the one they're activated in[*]After you roll, for each Overdrawn drive or enemy-controlled Complication, you remove one die from your Success Pool, highest dice first.[*]After that, for each five or six in your success pool you put a die into your dice pool[*]When you spend a handful of dice you get the Effect that corresponds to the number of dice you spend... exactly.  No exceptions.[*]If you don't do "something special" then each time you describe or assign a Frame you pick up a die and toss it into the discard.[*]"Something special" includes the Effects that let you keep dice, and Tropes.  When you use those in describing a Frame or set of frames you pick up a die and put it back in your pool instead.[*]When you run out of dice you've described all the Frames.[*]Note particularly that this means that when (for instance) you are spending in a Complication you don't control you have an actual mechanics penalty, since you cannot control (and therefore must discard) the die corresponding to that final frame.[/list:u]

This seems far more complex than it needs to be.  My suggestion would be:

Calculating the dice pool:

1. Start with however many dice you had at the end of your last round
2. Subtract 1 die for each Complication that your opponent controls.
3. Subtract 1 die for each Overdrawn Drive
4. Add one die for each active power
5. Activate Powers and Attitudes

Spending dice:

1. Give each player one chance per round to spend dice.  You can not get two Effects per round.
2. Allow one Effect that is of less than or equal level to the number of dice spent.
3. Set aside those dice, and then count them off one at a time providing a Frame for each.

How does that work for you Tony?  It seems much simpler...

Thomas... are you suggesting the wholesale removal of Tropes?  Or is their use assumed (but not mentioned) in your write-up?

I'm initially skeptical about the notion of restricting people to one spend per round.  A lot of the strategy I've seen has involved spending some of your success pool to force an enemy to commit more of theirs, and then following up with the remainder of your success pool once the enemy no longer has the dice to contest what you do.  All of that strategy would be removed by this change.  Do you think the system would gain something in return above and beyond speed?

Sorry, Trope use was assumed (along with Dice gain from Effects).  I am not sure that this adds anything aside from speed.  There is probably something, but since i can not think of anything off the top ofmy head it probbly is not signifigant...

Thomas

Okay, putting how many Effects/Spends per turn onto the backburner for a moment, you also suggested taking Complication/Overdraw dice straight from the Dice Pool in Monologue phase.

My reasoning on why to take dice for Complications and Overdrawn Drives away from the Success pool is to make it hurt more.  My experience is that I get really possessive about those sixes.  If somebody were given the right in the rules to just reach in and take them it would sting, even if it didn't greatly influence outcomes.  

In short, it gives the roll and the situation more combined variability:  You can roll lots of sixes and lose them, and feel really stung.  You can roll lots of fours and crow that your opponent can only take trash away from you.  You can roll a lot of sixes when you have no Complications pending, and consider it a major victory.  You can choose to roll no dice, in order to not suffer the loss of dice from Complications and Overdraws.

Whether that's worth slowing things down, I don't know.  I agree that your version is simpler and faster.

Interesting point...  One thing major difference is that removing dice from successes allows you to risk nothing/lose nothing (if you do not roll you can not lose) whereas direct attacks on the pool cause a loss regardless of your choices.  The second generates a de facto time limit (if you spend too much time you just run out of time...)  I see the advantages of your proposal, and i am not sure that a "time limit" is actually a good idea...

Thomas

Thinking about the Effect thing, however, I do see one mechanical abuse that crops up immediately:  As the costs currently go, you could recover every single die you spent if you spend them one at a time doing Use Description.

Now it would take an awful lot of creative brainpower to actually find six new ways (for instance) to take advantage of the setting... I don't mind encouraging that a little, but full dice recovery is too much.

Hrm... tempting to make Use Description and Power Stunt both level 2, and have no level 1 Effect.  People with singleton dice can't spend them.  Don't know whether that would make it too hard for people who are suffering, though.

Then you could leave Use Description as is (i.e. you get back one die) and make Power Stunt "Take one Debt token and get back two dice", which is a variant I used in the playtest that I thought worked out real well.

EDIT:  Another thing that the "Take from Success Pool" does is create a dead zone where it's not worth rolling... if you only have four dice, and you have a four die penalty then you're just throwing them away if you roll them this turn.

Hmm... very good point about potential Use Description abuse.  On a side note, i generally award that extra die if someone is making the effort, but that is because so far no one has tried to abuse it.  One thing that might work (and further my goal of providing reasons not to roll all of your dice) is to allow a number of "actions" (chances to spend dice) equal to the number of dice you have in reserve...

One thing that using a die penalty (whether from successes or before rolling) does that i think is great is that it makes these penalties hurt.  You can probably handle an overdrawn Drive and a Complication or two, but three overdrawn Drives and a pair of Complications can be crippling...

Hey, what about using penalty to assess TN for what is a success or not...?  That could get pretty cumbersome, but then again it might be really cool.  I would guess that something would have to change with regards to die size (the d6 probably does not have enough sides for this), and that may be a deal killer right there.

Thomas