[Capes] Non-conflict mechanics

[TonyLB]

Well, one way to do it is to say that there aren't any costs, but that the villains/opposition get exactly as much time to work on their Inspirations or Drives as the heroes do.

On Inspirations (at least) the sweet-spot for raising them strikes me as 2-3.  By raising one of those (say) two points to a 4 or 5 you go from a mediocre Inspiration to a dominating one, and the odds of raising a 2 or 3 are pretty good.  Trying to raise a 4 or 5 is very hard, and raising a 1 (or making a new Inspiration) is more of a long term investment.

So heroes would be encouraged to take downtime when they had Inspirations in the sweet-spot and the villains did not.  And then to stop once their Inspirations have passed out of the sweet-spot (and the new ones the villains have been making are about to come into it).

[LordSmerf]

Interesting idea...  I find myself unable to precisely picture what this looks like in play...  How do you think this looks in play?  Is time split equally between Heroes and Villains or what...?

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Well there's already a turn structure in place that distributes time equally in conflict scenes.  I don't really see why you couldn't use the same thing.

[LordSmerf]

Let me clarify then:

Do you see the non-combat scenes split equally between the Hero trying to improve his relationship with his estranged parents and the Villain as he eliminates the competition?  This seems quite out of genre to me.  Sure, sometimes we get to see what the Villain is up to behind the scenes, but we sure see a whole lot more of what the Hero has going on at home...

Thomas

[TonyLB]

That sort of depends on whether you count the estranged parents as potential opposition, doesn't it?

[LordSmerf]

I am not really talking about the split between one side and Opposition to that side, i am talking about two seperate conflict threads running concurrently.  You mentioned that each time you work on improving your Inspirations through non-combat (which i assume means non-combat play) the Villains get equal chance to further their own Inspirations.  What i am trying to get at is: do the Villains improving their Inspirations get as much screen time as the Heroes doing the same thign...

Thomas

[TonyLB]

What do you mean by "non-combat play"?  Is it something more than... well, playing outside of a combat?

[TonyLB]

Sorry, I ignored your direct question.  To answer:  I don't know whether villains would get as much screen time.  I could as easily see the Editor doing their rolls when necessary, but not narrating the results, just running the mechanics to keep pace.  Particularly if the villains are assumed to be pursuing their saturday night plans to destroy the world in the isolation of their mountain stronghold, rather than in downtown Everytown, where Jenny Jasmine is trying to work up the nerve to ask Brad Barton, head of the football team, on a date saturday.

However, I could also see the villains getting equal amounts of screentime.  Shows like Kim Possible run with that sort of double-threading, as well as having intra-villain-group conflicts that keep that action lively.