[Capes] Players and Villains

[Doug Ruff]

I'm not seeing precisely how you mean to tie Tropes to Drives... though I like the concept of Tropes causing Villains to accrue Debt.  We had an idea a while back that villains shouldn't take Debt for Powers, but rather should hemorrhage information, and this might be a chance to get back to that without removing villainous Debt altogether.

Ah, sorry, I was unclear in my last post. What I was thinking is that the Villainous Tropes could be targeted against a Hero's Drives. A bit like the comic-book ability to target a Hero's weak spots and pull nasty surprises:

'Not so fast, Captain Liberty!' (unveils small cage) 'I have your pet hamster hostage! Don't interfere or your furry sidekick is finished!'

If a Hero is staking Debt against one of their Drives (and this looks like a core activity) then perhaps a Villainous Trope could require them to make a Hard Choice - Stake More Debt for no extra benefit, or the Villain can Roll Down one of their dice.

This could be couched in terms of fighting the Villain (staking more Debt, but staying focused on the Complication) or dealing with the distraction (remaining true to your internal goals, but losing ground.)

In other words, if Captain Liberty stands back, or uses his powers to rescue the hamster instead of fighting the Villain, he has to roll down his control of the Complication. If he ignores his lil' buddy, he's risking his Drive.

I'm aware that this may overlap with genuine Complications, thus making things a bit more Complicated. But I think that there should be some mechanic for a Villain to directly target a Hero's Drives - it seems to be in keeping with making interaction between Heroes and Villains more meaningful.

Regards,

Doug

[Sydney Freedberg]

Hmmm. I see what you're trying to accomplish here, but perhaps the simpler mechanic would be to allow the villain to introduce a new Complication (e.g. "captive hamster") somehow?

[Doug Ruff]

Sydney, you're absolutely right - I need to do some re-reading and pause for thought.

Perhaps it's better to explain what I'm trying to achieve in terms of the concept, rather than the mechanics.

In the comics, heroes often have their own 'nemesis' villain. In the current mechanics, the players can take these villains as Exemplars for their Drives, even. I think that many of the best villains have a deep personal connection to the heroes.

I think that Tropes are the best route towards establishing this connection and using it in actual play, without adding another mechanic. If the Trope can describe a particular feature of the Villain that undermines the Hero's capabilities (for example, the Villain and the Hero are related; the Villain has a device that weakens the Hero; the Villain is dating the Hero's sister) then it can be used to attack a Hero where it really hurts - in the Drives.

However, I'm unsure how this would fit into the mechanic proper. Like I said, I need to re-read the rules and maybe do some 'solo' playtesting.

Regards,

Doug

[LordSmerf]

I am liking Sydney's suggestion regarding Villain recurrance based on playing villains well...  Grooving on that:

I believe what we really want is a system that rewards players for making the Villains interesting/narratively powerful.  This means that we have a Metagame mechanic...  Two ideas present themselves:

1. Award some kind of meta-resource to the players who play villains well that let them influence the story, perhaps they can get free rerolls, perhaps they can activate a second Effect in one turn, perhaps they get to reduce the bonus provided by an Inspiration, whatever.  Give players and advantage for their Heroes if they play the Villains well.

2. Provide some sort of advantage to the specific Villain who is well played.  Possibly some mechanic that forces heroes to Stake...  I am still unsure that forced Stakes are a good idea, but at the moment it is all i can think of...

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Well, the way I see it you can either reward the players directly (by giving them more story control, for instance, as discussed above) or reward the players through their characters.

So far I'm leaning toward rewarding the players directly (since the causality of villainous excellence translating into heroic advantage is... convoluted, and the competitive angle of villainous advantage is tricky).  I could be convinced otherwise, but I'm not convinced yet.  There's a lot of stuff that can reward the players without ever directly touching a character.

For instance, Sydney's idea of letting the players define some of the Villainous Complications for the next story sounds like a richly useful one.  I'd go one step further and say that they get to define the Complications, but that the Editor gets to choose where and when those Complications get played.  He could have a pack of 3x5 cards with the player Complications on them, as well as a bunch with Complications he's thought up, and pull them out (or write up whole new ones) as appropriate.  Get some use out of the physicality of the props.

[LordSmerf]

Perhaps there should be multiple rewards?  I was thinking that it would be cool for a reward that allows you to declare a Villain to be present in a scene (just as you can declare your own Hero to be present) before Complications are declared.  This would be a more subtle kind of story direction:

"Wow, you played The Adder to perfection!  Here have a [whatever].  Ok, let's set up the next scene."
"Man, it sure was fun playing The Adder, in fact let's do it again!  Here have this [whatever] back and put The Adder in the next scene."
[scene plays]
"Dang man, The Adder is getting really cool!  Have another [whatever].  Ok, next scene, you want The Adder back in play?"
"Actually, i really want to see the Quantam Kumquat again.  I thought he was really cool.  Have this [whatever]."
"Done.  Quantam Kumquat it is."

Does that make sense?

Thomas

[Sydney Freedberg]

Thomas's idea is a good one. It means adding a new mechanic for introducing story elements, but
(a) Story Elements = Complications, Inspirations, and Major Character presence in a scene; Tony's defined what each of these is, but the rules are at present actually a little fuzzy on just how to introduce how many of each, especially at game-start -- so maybe we need such a mechanic.
(b) as Tony said, the alternative to a story-presence mechanic is an in-game effectiveness mechanic, and making villains more likely to win is precisely what we don't want: We want to reward them for losing well.

[TonyLB]

It's a solid notion, and I'm going to adopt it.  Let me see if I can formalize it a little bit.  The goal here is that if people take issue with a specific implementation, we find out quickly, so that we can identify what issues practically restrict the idea that we all like in theory.

Getting Story Tokens

[*]Debt Tokens (poker chips, candies, whatever they are) placed on a certain area of the hero worksheet become Story Tokens.[*]The Editor has a Budget of N Story Tokens each scene for his own use (where N has to be playtested out).[*]Each other player gets one Story Token to start the session.[*]When a player (hero or villain) wins a Stake, he may choose to give the Debt Tokens to the other player who most directly drew him into placing the bet in the first place.  The other player then gets these Tokens as Story Tokens.[*]The Editor may give out Story Tokens at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all.[*]Players may give their Story Tokens to another player for any reason.[/list:u]Prominence

[*]When establishing a new Scene, a player may spend Story Tokens to give a character (hero or otherwise) Prominence.[*]Each character has a minimum Prominence (established when?  changed how frequently?)[*]Heroes and minions will have 1, arch-villains would have much more (how much needs to be play-tested).[*]You may not spend less than the minimum Prominence on a character (though several players can pool their tokens to get to the minimum, if needed).[*]Any character with Prominence is somehow present in the scene.  Exemplars should have values that vary from story to story.[*]When there is a question of which of two actions will be adjudicated first, the character with higher Prominence has priority.[*]When there is a question of who gets to act for a character, the player who put the most Story Tokens into that characters Prominence has priority.[*]To bring in a character that isn't part of the story as established so far you must spend two Story Tokens for each point of Prominence.[/list:u]After the story

[*]The Letter Column is an excellent opportunity for players to earn Story Tokens from their fellows for good questions and answers.[*]At the end of a session players may spend two Story Tokens to create a Complication that the Editor must include in the next story.  They may do this many times.[*]At the end of a session players may spend five Story Tokens to ask an open ended question that the Editor must address (though not necessarily answer) in the next story.[*]At the end of a session one player may spend five Story Tokens to declare some other player the Page One Hero for the next story.[*]Players may not carry Story Tokens from one session to the next.[/list:u]I haven't read PrimeTime Adventures yet, but I get the feeling that I'm copying some of their vibe here.

What do people think?

[TonyLB]

Follow-up thought:  Perhaps the Victory Target for the scene is simply the number of Story Tokens spent?

[LordSmerf]

I like the basics.  I think that it will pretty much be pure playtesting to see if this works.  Nothing is throwing up any flags though...

I am not sure about Victory Target being number of Story Tokens spent.  On the surface i like it, but potentially it could get slightly out of hand.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

In which direction?  Victory Targets too high?

[LordSmerf]

More in the: what if no one spends any Story Points?  Or, if Story Points are required to have a character in scened the possibility exists of no one having any (not having been given any in previous scenes).  And there is the possibility of a scene being blown out of proportion.  So i guess the danger is volatility, it is difficult to predict exactly what will happen, so until this gets playtested we do not know what it will look like.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Fair enough.  I could easily imagine situations where a player doesn't have any Story Tokens, and therefore has to sit back and Villain for a while.  Frankly, that strikes me as a benefit of the system, as much as a problem.

But you make a good point that if all of the heroes run out of Story Tokens then you get an all-villain scene, and then how exactly do any of the folks playing villains get more Story Tokens to get their heroes back in the game?  A puzzle, indeed...

[Doug Ruff]

But you make a good point that if all of the heroes run out of Story Tokens then you get an all-villain scene, and then how exactly do any of the folks playing villains get more Story Tokens to get their heroes back in the game?  A puzzle, indeed...

Scheming?

Seriously, it takes time to build that Armageddon Device - why not have an all-Villain adventure to set up the threat for the next story? The opponents can be 'society' in the form of the police/army/innocent bystanders etc. the first Story token spent to bring a hero in determines who finds out about the evil plans (which are of course secret evil plans) first.

Regards,

Doug

PS Read the rules again (all the way through this time!) by the way, will attempt a play-test soon (even if it's on my own just to test the mechanics!) Do you want me to stick to the core rulebook, or do you want me to try out some of the ideas in this thread as well?

[Sydney Freedberg]

I like. Small quibbles:

When a player (hero or villain) wins a Stake, he may choose to give the Debt Tokens to the other player who most directly drew him into placing the bet in the first place.  The other player then gets these Tokens as Story Tokens. [emphasis added]

You sure you want to make this voluntary? It's actually a neat idea, since (a) it makes the benefits of losing less certain than the benefits of winning and (b) means the players have a way to reward each other for good play. But it could get broken real easily in practice. Definitely a thing to playtest.

When there is a question of who gets to act for a character, the player who put the most Story Tokens into that characters Prominence has priority.

Omigosh -- I think Tony just killed "My Guy"! Do you realize that, as written, this allows any player to take control of any character, villain or hero? Again, this is a very powerful tool that can get broken badly in practice.

At the end of a session players may spend two Story Tokens to create a Complication that the Editor must include in the next story.  They may do this many times.

Now, why only at the end of a story for the beginning of the next? Obviously that's where Inspirations are scarcest; but you could allow players to spend Story Tokens to introduce Complications at any time -- essentially as an alternative to using Inspirations: Inspiration-derived Complications follow on some previously established story element, Story Token-derived Complications can introduce a new element.