[Capes] Players and Villains

[TonyLB]

It seems to me that you've returned to the idea that players should be forced to Stake debt if they want to achieve any mechanical Control in a Complication.  They get some narrative control without Staking, but no mechanical advantage.

Am I missing something?

[Doug Ruff]

So I'm still hung up on the question:  How is a hero moving a neutral die from 2 to 5 different from a villain doing the same?  I wish I had a good answer to that, because I think the rest will fall into place very nicely.

I'd agree with Thomas that (currently) there is no mechanical difference. However, when a Villain moves a die, he is either advancing his agenda, or attempting to stop the Heroes achieving theirs. Vice verca for the Heroes.

The problem for 'player driven' action is that the Villain agenda usually comes first. For the Heroes to fight crime, there has to be a crime to fight... this is why I like the idea of a 'nemesis' Villain for each character. If the charracters have already decided why they are morally opposed to the Villains, and to these Villains in particular, then there is already an element of player 'buy-in' to any plot involving these nemeses.

Re: Drives and staking thereof, At the moment, the players have to place Debt against their Drives to use a power, and can then stake this Debt. Why not make this a single process? If the player starts with a counter for each point in their Drives, and they have to 'stake' a counter every time they use a power, you avoid this initial hesitancy.

This requires a complete reversal, counters are now good to have. If a character runs out of tokens for a Drive, then they have to go 'overdrawn' to use this Drive to use a power then they literally lost their sense of Hope, Justice etc. as this Drive has 'failed them' in previous conflicts.

I think this is a more natural way of approaching the issue, it feels more 'right' to me but it would have a major knock-on effect for the rest of the mechanics. What do the rest of you think?

Regards,

Doug

[LordSmerf]

Yes, that is basically what i am getting at.  I would state it as: you have narrative and mechanical contribution on neutral Complications.  The reason being that you can utilize a neutral die to delay your opponent who is Staked from resolving the Complication.  You have no outright control, but you can utilize the Complication to forward your narrative and mechanical goals.  Of course having your own die on a Complication changes things significantly, you suddenly have oppurtunities to change things and to influence the long-term development of the story through Inspirations.

EDIT: Crossposted with Doug.  And on a first read through, i think his idea has some merit...

Thomas

[Doug Ruff]

*Desperately juggling ideas*

Thomas: as I understand this (which may not be how it's meant to be understood!) any 'neutral die' could be manipulated using some version of the 'Story Point' system, in the absence of actual character presence.

Suggestion 1: If a Hero or Villain uses Story Points to physically enter a scene, they can sieze control of the neutral die (which may allow them to add dice if they have enough relevant Drive/Stake/whatever to place.

Suggestion 2: If the situation starts with both heroes and villains present, then it is up to the GM to decide whether there is any external factor powerful enough to merit an extra neutral die (or dice) which will act as its own 'side' and have its own outcome.

BTW: just read the latest Actual Play thread...cool. I've already been wondering about 'Dark Heroes' with mixed Heroic and Villainous Drives. Which leads me to:

Suggestion 3: If a hero 'runs out' of a drive (either by going Overdrawn, or by losing all tokens in the variant I suggested earlier) then they run the risk of moving over to the dark side. If Justice fails, then maybe Vengeance is the only solution. Lost Love turns into Envy or Spite.

This has the huge story advantage that Villains can attempt to 'turn' the players by defeating their moral foundations through conflict! And the Heroes can attempt to 'turn' the Villains! IMHO this is another classic comic plot.

Anyway, I've dropped enough bombs for now, I'm going to stand back and assess the impact. Will try to drop by later this evening.

Regards,

Doug

[Sydney Freedberg]

Hmmm. I'm beginning to remember observing a rather protracted constitutional debate in the King's College, Cambridge (UK) student government. Someone had proposed to count votes on any given issue as "For," "Against," or "Abstain," with the motion carrying if there were more votes "For" than "Against." But that means that "Abstain" votes don't count, someone else said -- you're disenfranchising people who vote "Abstain."

And amazingly enough, the procedure finally adopted allowed "Abstain" to win. Which meant that the motion was neither defeated nor passed... which meant endless confusion.

I don't mean to rain on this particular parade too hard, but having a neutral die that both sides can affect (as opposed to just the editor acting as Murphy's Law) is starting to resemble a voting procedure in which "Abstain" becomes a force of its own. If a character can roll up the neutral die and the player can narrate an outcome that helps his side -- even if only by delaying the other side's victory -- then the neutral die isn't neutral. (Maybe, given its weakness and ability to be used by other side, it should be renamed "the treacherous eunuch die.")

In short, I'm beginning to think the neutral die is a needless complication (no pun intended). Either you roll up your own die to help your control of a Complication, or you roll down your opponent's die to hurt their control. A "neutral" die that either side can use to stymie the other but not to achieve positive results strikes me as muddying the issues. If we're having this much back-and-forth over what it means, how are new players going to understand it?

EDIT: Crossposted with Doug. Whose point about heroic and villainous drives

Villains can attempt to 'turn' the players by defeating their moral foundations through conflict! And the Heroes can attempt to 'turn' the Villains! IMHO this is another classic comic plot.

is an excellent one. Earlier threads struggled with a mechanic, unsuccessfully, but I think it's very much worth revisiting.

[LordSmerf]

Ok.  Some interesting points Sydney.  Here is the major purpose of the neutral die: it provides a stituation in which you can not significantly effect the outcome of the narrative without Staking Debt.  Basically, there is no such thing as a free die.  You want to win a Complication?  Stake on it.  The neutral die provides a poll of sorts.  If no one Stakes, then it is pretty clear that this Complication deals with something that is of relatively low priority to the players.

Basically the idea is that anyone who Stakes on a Complication can win it (and the ensuing Inspiration) as well as having the ability to control it which provides Final Frame rights.  One thing that might be interesting is that you do not "Roll Up" or "Roll Down" on neutral dice, all neutral rolls are "Wild".  I think that there are some significant advantages to using the neutral dice system.  There are of course disadvantages, but i believe they are outweighed.

Sydney, to address your specific analogy i would say that this is a vote for or against, there are no abstensions.  This is a guage of interest: "Is gathering or hiding Information important to the players?"  No Stakes?  Clearly not important...  One side Stakes?  Someone finds it cool...  Tons of Stakes?  This is clearly something that the players want to deal with.  Additionally, you are forgetting that the Editor is his own side, this is basically a system in which control devolves to the Editor if you do not chose to address it so that he can (hopefully) provide something of more interest to the players.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

If no one Stakes, then it is pretty clear that this Complication deals with something that is of relatively low priority to the players.

I think this is where we differ.  You think that players and the story aren't benefitting from Complications with no Stakes on them.

I disagree.  I think that players often find Complications with no Stakes very important to them.  They're just not invested in a particular outcome.  They're having fun manipulating the system and the environment, and that fun would be diminished if it had to be important.

Does that make sense?

[TonyLB]

EDIT: Crossposted with Doug. Whose point about heroic and villainous drives

Villains can attempt to 'turn' the players by defeating their moral foundations through conflict! And the Heroes can attempt to 'turn' the Villains! IMHO this is another classic comic plot.

is an excellent one. Earlier threads struggled with a mechanic, unsuccessfully, but I think it's very much worth revisiting.

Okay, I'm nodding now.

I think the emphasis is a bit off, however.  The Editor does not get any input into the player-hero's moral reactions.  So the idea of the villains 'turning' the heroes is not quite the right phrasing.

The villains should be able to create opportunities for the hero if they voluntarily turn.  There should be some substantial benefit to going to the dark side, some game-mechanical carrot that the villains can dangle enticingly just out of reach, to encourage the players to have their hero take that step.

[Doug Ruff]

Eeeek, I've just check preview and this is a double crosspost - the following is intended as a response to Thomas' 'neutral die' explanation.


Hmmm, interesting... I don't see the 'neutral die' in the same way - to me the neutral die represents external factors (including Murphy), it gets away from every scene being about Hero vs. Villain conflict.

Superman is a good example of this. Often, he's in his secret identity as Clark Kent. Some of his complications aren't going to involve Villains (at least to start off with). They are going to involve his relationships with normal people. At some point in the story, a Villain's agenda is going to start messing with Clark's 'day job', and this is usually connected to the Complications he had before the Villain came along.

Imaginary (I think) example: Clark needs a good story for the next weekend Edition of the paper (Complication under current rules, I prefer to call this an Agenda or Goal.) Lois has been acting pretty strange recently, and won't tell him what's up (Complication.) Jimmy (is this his name?) the office Junior hasn't turned up for the last two days ('Find out what has happened to Jimmy' Agenda.)

OK, you know that there's a bad guy at the end of this story, but he hasn't shown up yet. Maybe Lois is being blackmailed by Luthor and doesn't want to 'fess up about it. Maybe Jimmy's been kidnapped by another supervillain. Both of these could make the story that Clark needs. But until the presence of a Villain is revealed, who is he rolling against?

(And this is why I like the idea of spending Prominence or Story Points to introduce a character. Imagine Superman is attempting to resolve the 'Find Jimmy' Agenda. Just as he gains control, someone spends 3 Story Points to introduce a major Villain. In the story, Superman is investigating an abandoned warehouse, when suddenly the lights come on... it's a trap!)


Another use for neutral dice is as a 'ticking bomb'. If the Heroes don't something fast, bad things will happen. GM can bump up a die if the deadline is known. For a real big bang, what about 5 dice, and the GM rolls up the lowest each round? This requires the team to act real fast to control the complication and make it resolve in their favour!

I do agree with Thomas that Heroes must be encouraged to Stake, but I'd prefer this to be an integral cost of using a Power, rather than an extra mechanic.

BTW, I also hope that we're beginning to 'meet in the middle' regarding bottom-up and top-down approach. I think the main issue is mechanics; there are loads of cool ideas, but we can't use them all without grinding the game to a halt.

Regards,

Doug[/i]

[TonyLB]

Can I point out that in the above example Lois Lane is probably a character under the control of the Editor, and therefore all of her spectacular attitudes and tropes (custom-made to work against Clark Kent's comparatively weak social skills) are contributing to Villainous victory?

Now in later scenes she might well show up on the heroic side.  Exemplars have a tendency to fence-sit in that way.  But I was talking about this particular scene.

The way I currently play (i.e. the way the Skater X playtest was done) the Editor controls characters for whoever or whatever is opposing the heroes currently.  I had a Dean of the Humanities school as a villain... he had powers like "This is going on your permanent record" and "The Stare".  He was a worthy opponent.

I have the distinct feeling that this has been a blindspot in my describing the game, though.  I've gotten across the impression (quite unintentionally) that all the Editor's characters have to be spandex-clad megalomaniacs.

Heck, here's a sheet of example "villains" I worked up this morning (mostly for Thomas, in case the players skip the tracks this evening).  It probably does a better job showing what I'm thinking than I'm going to manage.

I'd like to particularly point out Bartender (middle of the right-hand column).  I have this image of my tortured hero, Gray Ghost, in a scene with complications like "I did the right thing" and "There was no other choice", and his actions would be using his attitudes and tropes to try to convince himself of these things, while the bartenders actions would be using his attitudes and tropes (and bartender powers!) to undercut Gray Ghost's convenient rationalizations.

[LordSmerf]

The way I currently play (i.e. the way the Skater X playtest was done) the Editor controls characters for whoever or whatever is opposing the heroes currently.  I had a Dean of the Humanities school as a villain... he had powers like "This is going on your permanent record" and "The Stare".  He was a worthy opponent.

Does this mean that we have dumped the idea of players controlling Villains?  I thought that was a good idea...

I think i had always understood your idea that not all "Villains" are spandex-clad (in fact i think you once had an Example of Play with a Bureaucrat as the opposition).  And i must say that that is very cool, the game benefits from such thinking.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

My bad.  "The villainous side" comprises everyone opposing the heroes.

I shied away from that phrasing, because it's the wrong phrasing, and it embarrassed me.  But no, it's not just the Editor.  Players can and will control characters in opposition to the heroes.

There's a No-Prize waiting for whoever thinks up the right way to describe what we're currently calling "Heroic VPs and Villainous VPs".  Right now this is just misleading, as I'm coming to realize.

Oh, and another one for whoever can think of the right word to replace "Tropes" (since Tropes are no longer just issues of style, they have a specific role in saving you from bad rolls, which their name does not convey).

[Doug Ruff]

Ah, I hadn't fully realised this. And it makes a real difference to the game - guess I've been operating from a different paradigm.

As I need to do some serious catching up, some questions for the designer:

1) I notice the example 'villains' don't have Drives listed. Is this the difference between a 'villain' and a more significant Villain?

2) Are there any 'big Villains' as well, lurking behind the scenes? How do these get brought into the session?

3) How does a villain use powers if they have no Drives to place Debt against?

4) Does this mean that every complication requires opposition in the form of a 'villain' with Powers, Attitudes and Tropes?

The last of these questions is the one with the biggest issue attached. I'm not too keen on the idea of having to 'stat up' opposition for every complication, this is why I suggested the idea of complications resolving themselves. (I think this was a precursor to the 'Murphy' or 'neutral die' discussions.)

IMHO, this may also be the reason for some of the speed issues. I would certainly find this an obstacle when a complication resolved and was replaced with a new complication - unless the story follows a predetermined path (to which I say 'yuk!')

I may be missing the point here, but I'm thinking the Powers/Attitudes/Tropes thing may be a bit overused right now.

It also upsets my inner Gamist to think that my superhero isn't any more powerful than the bartender serving him a drink... although I appreciate that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it seems to undermine the 'heroes are special' theme.

(Heh, score me two points in the 'Ego' Drive.)

Regards,

Doug

EDIT: the cross-posting curse strikes again. For Tropes, how about Stunts, or Knacks? And maybe the VP thing isn't a heroic vs. villainous thing, but just the difference between victory and defeat.... or between making a difference, and not making one.

See you later, I'm logging off for a bit.

[TonyLB]

I wouldn't assign a villain character per Complication.  But I find the game works better with an equal power level of villains and heroes in a scene.  The easy way to do that is an equal number of equally built villains (though there are other ways, which I haven't written up or tested).

FWIW, the entire Skater X scenario ran with four villains (Black Demon Gang, their super-powered boss, Dean of Humanities and Skater X).  I just reused them for all they were worth... the Gang, for instance, showed up later at the skate park, looking to cheat their way to victory in an attempt to salve their damaged pride after their earlier defeat.

But yeah, it takes prep time.  I'm trying to cut that down by getting these example sheets out, so that when the players go off on their own fun tangents you can grab something close to what you need and modify it on the fly.

[Sydney Freedberg]

The example "villains" are neat -- kinda mindbending in their abstraction occasionally, but neat: I laughed out loud when I saw the Tropes for "Ambush" and proceeded to read them to my (non-gamer) wife.

And [pet peeve] I think abstractions-as-adversaries undercuts the need for a "neutral die." [/pet peeve]

But you're right, "villain"/"villainous side"/"villainous VPs" is no longer the term. "Opposition" is a bit bland. The Christian term for what we're talking about here is "the world" -- as in "the world, the flesh, and the Devil" -- but that may be a bit obscure.