[Capes] Players and Villains

[TonyLB]

Re:  Not giving away Debt Tokens.  You're right, I should have phrased that "they must either give the tokens away to another player or return them to the Editor."

Re:  "My Guy".  Yeah, I think I might have to draw the line at letting people take over other players's heroes.  But it is, deliberately, meant to let them duke it out over who controls the villains, and who controls Exemplars and such-like.  So much easier than arguing without rules to resolve it.  You don't want Peggy Sue in the narrative hands of Kill-crazy player Jake?  Well, how much is it worth to you?

Re:  Complications at the end of the story.  This is deliberate.  It's to give the poor beleaguered Editor time to think about how to craft a story around the Complications.

Say the players insist that they want "Active Volcano", "Oxygen is running out", "Who is the baby's father?" and "Make it to the church on time" as Complications.

I don't know about you, but I would want a good solid week between sessions to figure out how to fit all of those into a coherent story.  I'm sure that there are a dozen really good ways to work all of these together (please, if you've thought of the perfect way just PM me... I know it's tempting, but don't clog the thread).  At the same time, there are thousands upon thousands of ways to do it horribly wrong.  Giving the Editor some time where he/she isn't under pressure to perform, and can explore alternatives in the hypothetical, sounds to me like a very good thing.

[TonyLB]

Side-note:  I've got the new, printer-friendly, eye-friendly beta version of Capes online.  It's almost identical in text to the previous version, and it's almost 2MB in size, which is obviously a hassle, but I like to think that the eye candy is worth the download.

[John Harper]

I don't see any overlap with Primetime Adventures, Tony. There's considerable overlap with my own Danger Patrol, though. Particularly with this system of player rewards. A key reward system in DP is the creation of Elements by the players, which can be locations, situations, villains, items, etc. Less like Universalis, more like HeroQuest traits. (link goes to old DP thread)

Of course, they're recorded on 3x5 cards and put into a pile that the GM and players can draw from.

I consider this kind of overlap a good thing. It means that we're probably on to something good.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Re:  Complications at the end of the story.  This is deliberate.  It's to give the poor beleaguered Editor time to think...

Think? Think? Bah! With enough sugary caffeinated drinks, any amount of improvization is possible!

And speaking of sugar...

I've got the new, printer-friendly, eye-friendly beta version of Capes online. ... the eye candy is worth the download.

Sweet.

[LordSmerf]

I really like the new, visually attractive, version of the rules.  The only comment i have is that while it is very pretty, it is incredibly "busy" as well.  There is just a lot on the page.  Not that that is necessarily bad, just that it can get distracting.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Yeah, I see what you mean.  Thanks for the comment, it gets really hard for me to see the rules at the macro level, for all the fiddling around at micro.

Next revision I'll try to spread things out a little more comfortably, and give some of the ideas time to lounge about, maybe even kick their feet up in Examples.


Been thinking about Prominence, and the question of whether a hero can "get into" a scene.  To recap, if it costs Story Tokens for a hero to get into a scene, you can easily end up with a scene where no hero chooses to (or is able to) show up.  What if you threw a war and nobody came?

I adore the concept of a villains-only scene, in theory.  They're such a big deal in comic books, after all (along with hero-only scenes).

The problem, however, is that the rules are heavily slanted toward conflict between two clearly defined sides.  Now a villains-only scene should still have plenty of conflict, but it gets harder to identify the sides.  They emerge from the nature of events, and I don't yet have rules for that.

That's a question I've known I had to get back around to ever since one of my early playtests (when two heroes wanted to rescue a particular Exemplar, but were arguing vehemently about which one got to rescue her).

So here's a proposed rule for many-sided battles:

[*]The Passion effect is changed so that people have to split the die as evenly as possible.[*]Passion can either let you add a communal die on your "side" or add a die of your own, creating another side entirely.  Once you have a side you may only split your own side's dice.[*]Passion can also be used to join two sides back into one.[*]Victory Points are awarded equal to the sum of every side that didn't win.[*]Inspiration bonus is now calculated by taking your highest die and subtracting the highest die controlled by anyone else... if the difference is one or less no Inspiration is given.[*]In one-sided scenes, a Complication starts off with only one die.[*]Increasing this singleton die means (in story terms) increasing the tension in the scene, not achieving any particular result.[*]Complications with Singelton dice that are resolved add no VPs.[*]Using Passion to split the die means the tension explodes into open conflict.  Please note that this is the only way to generate VPs in an all-villain scene.[*]All-hero scenes do not rely upon the same mechanic (although tensions can, indeed, explode) because the Editor is presumed to be playing powers, attitudes and tropes off of the environment (I'll be writing up character sheets for "This is easy... too easy", "Murphy's Law" and other intangibles when I write up sample sheets for the next revision).[/list:u]I think that in addition to handling a long-standing hole in the rules this creates a good way to handle the all-villain scene.  How does it sound to you guys?


EDIT:  People should be able to add characters midway through a scene, so that a scene of Captain Glitter in his secret identity talking with his bowling buddies (running on singleton dice) can suddenly be interrupted by the appearance of Crimson Smudge, and villain-dice get added to cards all around.  Or maybe not.  It's a thought, anyway... haven't figured out whether it's a good one.

[Sydney Freedberg]

...a villains-only scene should still have plenty of conflict, but it gets harder to identify the sides...That's a question I've known I had to get back around to ever since one of my early playtests (when two heroes wanted to rescue a particular Exemplar, but were arguing vehemently about which one got to rescue her). So here's a proposed rule for many-sided battles....

This seems awfully complex to me. I'm not sure you need an Effect (aka Wonder) to account for taking a new side.

Why not simply say a Complication has as many dice (or sets of dice) on it as there are individuals (or groups) with conflicting interests? When a player's turn comes up -- and remember a player can be controlling either a hero or a villain or a supporting character under the latest concepts -- then that player can decide to join (or stay on) an existing "side," or pursue separate objectives and create a new side, which means adding a die.

Thus two heroes can clobber the bad guy for a while and then decide to work each other over as well, or the heroes back safe at their HQ can engage in Witty Banter with each other, or the bad guys can bicker and jostle for position in their Evil Lair.

(Presumably "reroll an opponent's die" can be used on one side of a Complication but not all sides opposed to you at once.)

[Doug Ruff]

I adore the concept of a villains-only scene, in theory.  They're such a big deal in comic books, after all (along with hero-only scenes).

The problem, however, is that the rules are heavily slanted toward conflict between two clearly defined sides.  Now a villains-only scene should still have plenty of conflict, but it gets harder to identify the sides.  They emerge from the nature of events, and I don't yet have rules for that.

I'm glad you've brought this up, as it was likely to be one of my Annoying Newbie Questions pretty soon. There's another one for you on PM about Villain creation, if you get a spare moment :-)

IMHO, Complications are the key issue here. It appears to me that the current intention is that complications are just parts of a Hero-Villain conflict. In other words, you can't have a Complication without such a conflict.

What if this wasn't true, and Complications had their own momentum? By this, I mean that a Complication would automatically attempt to resolve itself each turn, regardless of Hero/Villain involvement.

This needs some examples, so here goes:

Let's say this is a Villain 'scene' and Dr Malevolent is attempting to build a Peril Machine for use against the heroes' home city. He needs 15 Victory Points to do this.

Then we set some Complications:

(1) Dr Malevolent is broke, he can't afford to build the machine.

(2) The machine requires a rare material, which is only produced in certain military experimental facilities.

(3) Dr Malevolent's favourite cat is ill and needs to be taken to the vet.

Let's say that Dr Malevolent really likes his cat (Love exemplar?) so he atttempts to resolve this Complication first. He uses a 1-point power (Army of Incompetent Goons) and gets the goons to take the cat to the vet for him, rolling up the die (getting a '3')

Right, here's the new mechanic: in the absence of an opponent, the opposition die rolls itself up once per 'turn'. Let's say the die rolls a '5' - the cat escapes from the goons' car.

(I'll leave out frame narration for this example, feel free to add your own!)

Dr Malevolent now has to marshal extra forces to regain control over the Complication and find the cat, or he's going to lose the 'battle' next turn as the Complication will resolve.

Let's say he manages to win after calling on his 'determined' Attitude (and perhaps his 'berate underlings' Trope, too.) The cat is found, and the complication is replaced with 'massive vet's bill.'

OK, two money issues now, let's turn them into a single mini-scene. What does any self respecting villain do if he's short on cash? Raid a bank of course!

So, Dr M calls in some more goons, and sme Villainous asociates, and robs the bank. Complications here would be more like a standard battle (Innocent Bystanders, Getaway, Have-a-go heroes perhaps) except, as there are no Heroes, the GM can only roll-up one die for each Complication each turn. The Villains really should win at this point, which is why we need Heroes, and we need them now!

This is likely to be a golden opportunity for Heroes to appear mid-scene. Perhaps Captain Fantastic is paying in the proceeds of the Annual Superheroes' Bake Sale when the robbery happens. At this point, the scene becomes a genuine conflict.

Is this a way out of the bind?

Oh, by the way, if two Heroes are competing for who rescues the Exemplar, shouldn't the victor just be whoever managed to Roll Up or Bump the die (or dice) to it's highest value? If the other Hero wants to interfere, he will either have to raise the score higher (say, from '5' to '6'), or will have to exert his powers against his own side so that they temporarily lose control of the Complication.

This makes Passion very useful (it's easier to roll the die back up again), but there is one flaw: the group has to agree who gets the special effect each turn. This isn't going to be likely if the heroes are in competition anyway.

Anyway, my $0.02 - I'm really looking ofrward to trying this out in a game, though!

Regards,

Doug

[TonyLB]

"Reroll an opponents die" is one die.  So yeah, you've got to choose which die, which implies choosing which side.

As to what the Passion-split gets above and beyond just letting people add dice, I'll point some things out, though I don't know whether they're enough to justify the added complexity:

[*]If you just add dice then a defector has no immediate impact on "team victory".[*]If you split dice then a defector immediately reduces the effectiveness of the folks from whom he split.  He may, indeed, lose them control of the Complication.[*]Tying splits to Debt thorough Passion helps to highlight the underlying reasons for the schism.[*]Tying splits to Debt also solves the question of how villain-only scenes generate Story Tokens:  Folks must spend Debt to get VPs, which means that there are bets to be won and distributed to other players as Story Tokens.[/list:u]And... that's all I can think of.

EDIT:  Cross-posted with Doug who has written more than I can respond to just at the moment.  Have to go cook dinner, and then I'm off to (of all things) an impromptu Capes playtest.

[Sydney Freedberg]

... Let's say the die rolls a '5' - the cat escapes from the goons' car....Dr Malevolent now has to marshal extra forces to regain control over the Complication and find the cat....

Besides the idea of a supervillain sending out his evil minions to put "LOST: Tabby" posters up all over the neighborhood, which is such a beautiful example I want to cry, I like the core idea. Rolling up unopposed Complications this way even gives a unique role for the Editor in a system where players run both protagonists and antagonists: The Editor is Murphy's Law.

P.S.: Reason why I came back online so soon after posting (meant to edit this into last post, but as someone's already replied, I won't) is to suggest that someone can kick another character off their "side" if either party thinks their goals are incongruent -- which implies a goal-setting phase -- which implies something like Trollbabe's "fear and clear" discussion where each side figures out what would happen if the current Complication resolves their way -- which helps deal with the current amorphousness of what winning a Complication means in story terms,

[TonyLB]

Okay, I have a thought on this, but not enough time to really explicate.  So, take it or leave it.

What if Murphy's Law is a character?

Indeed, what if "Archvillain's Lament" is a character, with Attitudes like "You are surrounded by incompetent fools" and "Nobody understand your grand vision" and powers like "A tiny flaw with critical consequences"?

[Doug Ruff]

a supervillain sending out his evil minions to put "LOST: Tabby" posters up all over the neighborhood

Well, I just cried with laughter reading that bit. Damn you!

As for 'fear and clear' - I think the answer is to remember that all Complications are also Goals.

In a conflict, Goals are opposed ('Rescue the Orphans' vs. 'Burn the Orphans'). But when there is only side, the only opposition is Murphy.

How does this help? The overall Story is a conflict between Heroic and Villainous Goals. Before the session, decide the overall goals.

Example: Villainous Story Goal is to successfully ransom the USA with the Peril Machine. Heroic Story Goal is to defeat the Villains in their Evil Secret Base.

Each side's goals will break down into sub-goals each of which may have Complications. The only difference between a Complication and a sub-goal is that a Complication does not advance the Story Goals. This also means that any Story Goal for the Heroes is a Complication for the Villains and vice verca.

EDIT: Cross-posting again! Tony, I suspect that Murphy and friends will be powerful enough if they get to roll each complication (or goal!) every turn. I also quite like the idea of the Heroes being necessary - the Villains need to be able to win if there is no Heroic intervention.

However, there should be a mechanic for 'gloatingly revealing plans' - it's a staple of the genre. Perhaps extra victory points for the Villain, but the heroes get a free one-shot Trope ('plans revealed') for later scenes?

[TonyLB]

Wow, Doug, you post an awful lot of good ideas at once!

I was assuming that Murphy would, in fact, be less powerful if it was a character.  I think that letting every complication roll is too powerful.  But that has to do with my notions on how turns should be made shorter, which I'll get to separately, later in this post.


Regarding "gloatingly revealing plans", I totally agree.  I've been trying to figure out a mechanic that lets people do that sort of thing without the rules system specifically having a "Gloating Rule, subsection b".  I've tried fitting it in many places (Tropes, Effects, Stakes, Inspirations, etc., etc.)  But here's another place to try to fit it in:  What happens, in the narrative, when you set a Complication to be Resolving?

For instance, to use the Spiderman movie climax, Green Goblin beats Spiderman to within an inch of his life and then gloats about how Spiderman's defeat will seal Mary Janes fate.  Perhaps some sort of such declaration ("This is what my victory means!") is what you do (in the story) in order to set a Complication Resolving (in the game).


I see what you're saying about a top-down approach to creating Complications from a planned Story Goal.  It makes for a strong coherence, and lets players keep on track with the story that's been decided.  But I'm designing Capes to do a bottom-up construction of the Story specifically from the Complications that people find interesting.   So I don't think the Story Goal is a real good fit for this game.

I'll point to my playtest last night as an example of how bottom-up storytelling centers the plot on what the players prove they are actually interested in.


In terms of how the rules performed in the playtest:  Play is now much, MUCH faster.  I'd estimate that each individual action is resolved about ten times faster than it used to be.  On a per-action basis I am totally content with the speed of resolving things now.

On a per-turn basis, however, it still needs tweaking.  There were simply too many actions in a given turn.  People would tap an Attitude, a couple Tropes and then every single one of their Powers.  Even when each of those only took thirty seconds, start to finish, that meant about ten to fifteen minutes per turn.

The problem with turns composing a lotta-lotta actions is that it becomes very rare to Resolve a complication.  Generally one (or perhaps two) Complications were resolved to reach the whole Victory Target for the scene.  Which meant very little "resolve and replace".  

The constant resolution and replacement of small Complications is what makes the system encourage an evolving conflict.  It also gives you more scope for choosing what you're interested in (since it means more Stakes resolved per unit of action).  So I'd like to bring down the number of actions taken in a single turn.

There was also a goodly helping of chaos, because there were no rules for "When do I act, when do I sit back and listen?"  To smack down both of these problems (as well as to make Story Tokens really count) I'm thinking of the following:

[*]Characters get one action (Attitude or Power) per "go around" the table.  So Character A acts, then Character B, then Character C.[*]If you've introduced or been assigned more than one character that means you (as a player) get more than one action per go-round.[*]Tropes may be done at any time (to reroll a die that's just been rolled).[*]Turns are made of multiple go-rounds.  Each turn, each character gets a number of actions equal to their Prominence.[*]When all of the characters of Prominence 1 or greater (i.e. all of the present characters) have gone around once, for instance, then all of the characters of Prominence 2 or greater go around again, then all with 3 or greater, etc.[*]This means that higher prominence characters get their extra actions after all of the lower prominence characters.[/list:u]To get back to the very top of this post, if these rules go into effect then the average arch-villain in a villains-only scene is only going to be rolling two or three dice per turn.  Three complications rolling against him each turn is a fairly substantial advantage (since he's running out of expendable resources and Murphy's Law isn't).  This is obviously a bit of a change from before, when the same villain could (and very well might) roll five or six times each turn.  But I'll admit that I still like the simplicity of just rerolling Complications a lot.  Do you see a way to balance it?

[LordSmerf]

Ok, a couple of things:

-Your recent playtest has convinced me that dice splitting and side switching must happen.
-I still like the idea that you get dice equal to your Stake, literally.  You do not get to roll a die of your own unless you are Staked in a Complication.
-The above implies that Complications can not be formed without a Stake, which gets us back to players generating all Complications.  Perhaps with a limit of no more Complications than there are Major Players.  This has the advantage that all Complications are important to someone since they all require a point of Debt to start up.  Now, you can still roll down your opponent's die, even if you are not Staked, you just can not win on your own.
-You mentioned that you feel that too few Complications are required to win a scene.  Possible solution: All Complications are always resolving, each Complication you win is 1 VP regardless of anything else.  Combined with forced Stakes this means that you should not have too many "sucky" Complications.  This will also make Inspirations very powerful since they can be plowed into a Complication that is already resolving.  There is a risk that the game will run too fast and that you can build up a "runaway train" effect.  That would need some testing.  On the other hand, it would mean that you have to win more Complications to claim victory, but the need to reduce your opponent's Inspirations would still give you a reason to fight in a losing battle.

Additionally, i still feel that non-combat scenes are not yet optimized.  Unfortunately i do not really have any great ideas about them...

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Actually, the recent playtest has brought me a lot closer to the idea that your dice should equal your Stake.  Not all the way, but perhaps you can convince me.

Effects, as a whole, seemed to be doing a lot more to hinder the game than to drive it.  The only one people really needed was Passion, and it could just as easily work the way you describe.

So I'm thinking of dumping Effects entirely, and saying that you can always split dice, so long as you have no more dice on your side than you have Debt Tokens Staked.

Now it is a short but (I think) important step from that to saying that there are no freebie dice... that to roll a die you need to add a Stake to the Complication.  

I have a hard time getting my intuitive concerns into words, but I think it boils down to this:  "Sucky" Complications have an important place in the system.  They are the low-pressure playground where people can have fun with the system without needing to address Premise 24/7.

As an example, in our first conflict on the recent playtest, gang members were stealing a mystic whoozits from a local museum.  There was a "Beautiful Things" Complication which I put in, to represent all of the Ming Vases and such on the battlefield.

I noted that Seth made a few attempts to save the art, then got a huge smile on his face and said "Forget it.  I've got a robbery to stop here.  I'll let it all get destroyed.  Heck, I'll help."  He vividly described and enjoyed the property damage that was done (in large part) due to his characters lack of concern.  He kept reminding me that things were getting destroyed every time he fired his sonic cannon.

In short, he enjoyed asserting his right not to care.

The "one die per stake" is incredibly more elegant than the current rule.  You'll get no argument from me on that whatsoever.  But it doesn't as strongly support and represent the players right to participate without caring.

But like I said, I'm open to persuasion.  I really do like the elegance.