[Capes] Bluffing

[TonyLB]

As Events have made players reactions to various outcomes more transparent, I've realized something:  There are Events that everybody accepts will not occur a certain way, even if the rules say they would.

What they are varies from game to game, but each group has lines that they have no intention of crossing.  Maybe they won't kill the hero, maybe they won't let bystanders die, maybe they won't change the core relationship with an Exemplar unless the player explicitly gives permission (e.g. "Kate will not see Zip with his mask off").  As I said, the rules vary from group to group.

I've started thinking of it as each groups particular "Comics Code".  And I find that they will turn aside, gracefully if they can, awkwardly if they must, whenever the rules tell them that a violation of that code has to happen.

Rather than just having people fudge the rolls or narration any time the results would cross the line, I propose enshrining it formally into the system.  Any Event that is about to resolve in a way that would cross the groups Comics Code should be set aside.  It does not resolve.  Instead, the player for whom it would have resolved gets a powerful in-game benefit:  I'm thinking they receive a Story Token.  After Resolution is done the Event returns to the table, and that player can keep receiving benefits every single Page, until either the side that has to control the Event manages to control it or the situation changes such that it can be resolved without a violation of the Code.

Thoughts?

[daMoose_Neo]

If I might say, as a comic reader and shadowy watcher of this game (^_^), sweet!
You don't see it *as much* with the more recent titles, but with the older titles (I've got a LOT from the 60's that are like this), the book cover or the opening/teaser page threatens to rock the character's world in some way, shape or form (Lex discovers Clark is Supes! Green Lanturn turns on Earth! Batman kicks Robin out of the BatCave!).

If I'm reading the mechanic right, Events like that would eventually be wrapped up much the same way such teaser/shockers would no? (ie Player decides/narrates that Lex finds some evidence to make him think Supes planted the idea all along and he's not really Clark, that Lanturn was pretending to be under alien influance to catch them in the end, it wasn't really Robin that Batman was kicking out).
Yes?

[LordSmerf]

I do not know that there is much to say about the idea of Bluffing other than... Yeah, it is a great idea!  Though i am not sure about the specific reward being a Story Token, as things stand i have this feeling that there will be plenty of Story Tokens to go around, and that the current rules do not supply enough different things to do with them for people to be struggling to get each and every one that they can...  But that is an issue for another thread, or PM, whatever.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Well... yeah...

See, the idea that a Bluff (primarily an Editor Technique, I'm guessing) should generate a Story Token was sort of linked to my gradual admission that Editors should be forced to earn their Story Tokens just like the players.

I'm a bit embarassed about that one, because Thomas and Sydney and Doug (and who knows how many other people I've shamefully forgotten) have pointed out the possibility and I just didn't get it until I saw things in action.  As usual, people were thinking ahead of me, but now I hope I've caught up.

Long story short, if the players can only gain an advantage over each other by earning Story Tokens then it pits their desire to cooperate against the Story Token mechanic.  But naturally they don't have the same desire to cooperate (at least in the same way) with the Editor.  So the competition should be primarily against him.

I've got some thoughts about the various ways that the Editor could gain the many Story Tokens he needs, but among those is to set up Events that promote Bluffing, and then mine them for all they're worth.  This would mean that, far from seeing less "Burning Orphanage Collapse" Events, you'd see more of them (and more villains being trapped inside the burning orphanage when it collapses under hero control as it eventually must) because the Editor wants to grab control of such Events in the most comics-code-threatening way possible.

My worry on this, though, is that Bluffs could prevent people from facing hard choices.  If I had had (at the time) the choice to avoid Gray Ghost's Surrender, I probably would have taken it, even if it cost me something.  There is much to be said for a mechanic that says "This is what you intensely didn't want your character to have to face, now face it!"  But you still might get that if the Comics Code is a fixed and objective, rather than a variable and subjective, document.

[Doug Ruff]

If I read this correctly:

[*]There are 'lines' a player may not wish to cross with their character[*]these 'lines' are at risk of being crossed as the result of an Event resolving against that character[*]on the one hand, you want to preserve dramatic tension by including the Event and forcing the character to fight for it[*]you also want to ensure that the player has an escape clase if they lose[/list:u]How about a 'Deus Ex Machina' clause - if a Hero really doesn't like the outcome of an Event, they can pay a Story Token to 'twist' the resolution so that it doesn't cross their line. If they have no Story tokens, they must pay the Editor two Story Tokens instead.

This seems more in keeping with the original Batman TV series and films - I vaguely remember some scene from the movie where you didn't even get to see how Batman and Robin escaped, you find out from their conversation that they were rescued by a dolphin(!?)

In that vein, I'd suggest making it an optional rules for 'classic four-colour' comic stories, a more 'grim-and-gritty' campaign such may not need that rule (IMHO, it felt right for Gray Ghost to surrender, it wouldn't have felt right for Batman to do the same.)

[TonyLB]

Doug, this is a really, really good question.  It took me hours to answer this, which is always a good sign of introspection.

There are, indeed, lines that the player may not wish to cross with their character.  But there are two types of lines.

One type of line is objective and unchanging, at least within the context of a particular game.  If your group has agreed that heroes will not die then heroes will not die.  If a player wants their hero to die, they still can't do that.  For terminology's sake I'll call this the groups "Comics Code".

The second type of line is subjective and changeable.  If you're in a situation where your character has to surrender, you may really not want to do it, but there's no objective rule why you shouldn't have to.  For terminology I'll call this a "Player Discomfort".

In my experience, the Comics Code is motivated by a reasonable sense that there are threats that are fun, even essential, but that actually following through on those threats would reduce the story potential for everyone.  It's great fun to have a supervillain lock all the heroes in a death-trap, but if all the heroes are killed then you can no longer use them as characters to explore Premise, and that would suck.  So the Comics Code gives the Editor the freedom and encouragement to pursue those threats as viciously and effectively as he can without any risk of an outcome that nobody wants.

The image I have is of a scrawny little guy threatening a huge biker in a cowboy bar somewhere.  What that little runt needs is a friend at each side of him, holding him back.  That way he can make a big show of trying to get into a fight.  But obviously he doesn't want to get into a fight with someone twice his size wearing a Hells Angels jacket.  He'd get murdered!  He doesn't want the fight, he wants the feeling of wanting the fight.

Likewise, the Editor doesn't want to kill the heroes.  He wants the feeling of wanting to kill the heroes.  The Comics Code is the friend holding him back so that he's safe to explore that feeling without consequence.

Player Discomfort isn't the same thing.  It is most often an outgrowth of the player's hopes and dreams for the character, and it often has nothing to do with what is a good story.  Like I said about Gray Ghost, I wanted him to be happier, to find redemption.  But would I write into my Comics Code "Characters must become happy and find redemption"?  No, not for that game.  It's not what the game was about.

I think that, most of the time, if you've thought out your Comics Code carefully then any Player Discomfort that isn't supported by it is probably wrong.  The option of forcing them to face that discomfort and to see that a good story can be told from the results is an important one.

[LordSmerf]

Tony,

After reading Doug's and then your post i have a couple of thoughts to toss in:

If we have an established comics code then Bluffing seems superfluous.  Why?  Because you are still able to find a way to narrate around it.  Consider Zip Unmasked, while we may have had some unspoken "Kate can not see Zip unmasked yet" we were able to narrate an effective unmasking anyway.  So i do not see that bluffing is really necessary to handle this kind of stuff.

Second, and this is a huge deal: if the Comics Code specifically disallows something then there is never any pressure or tension regarding that thing.  This may be just fine, but it can also weaken story impact.  If Kate can not see Zip unmasked then no threat of it happening is ever credible.  That means that you never have to get worried, or fight for, issues that are covered by the Code.  Again, this may be fine (consider that old Batman stuff, we know ther are not going to die so there is never any tension in situations that indicate Hero death).  Does all that make sense?

Thomas

[TonyLB]

It makes sense.  But the Comics Code is already there.  I'm not talking about adding it, I'm talking about recognizing it and using it.

You're saying that there will never be any pressure or tension regarding Events like "Guillotine Crashes Down".  There certainly isn't now.  We knew that Kate wouldn't get killed.  I never felt tense about that Event for a moment.  I never rolled on it.  Zip only rolled on it once, to break a tie so that he could resolve it.

Now if I thought you were going to grab control of that Event and hold it over us like the sword of Damocles, mining it constantly for the ability to bring yet more minions and Prominence into the game against us, it would have gotten much more of my attention.

With formal Bluffs, players have a strategic reason to pay attention to the things they can't "lose", because those are their weak points!  Those are the areas that, if they neglect them, the Editor will rack up story tokens with which to make their lives miserable.

[Doug Ruff]

OK, I think I get this now.

I'd also thought originally that, as the Comics Code meant that you couldn't do certain things (eg kill certain characters) that Bluffing events that might break the code was futile. Which is why I thought about the mechanic applying to a different 'line' (Player Discomfort) being crossed.

Now, it would appear that Bluffing is about introducing an Event that could breach the Code, but won't because it will instead be replaced with a significant advantage for the bad guys if they resolve it.

That makes sense, but I have a couple of reservations with this.

The first is that these Events are far more powerful than normal Events. They demand attention from the players. A good (ie 'plays hard') Villain is going to want to introduce these as often as possible, as it gives them significant control over the Heroes.

Also, what's good for the goose... I can imagine Heroes introducing events that would also breach the code. This is less likely (Villains are slightly more 'disposable' than Heroes, after all) but what's to stop the Heroes playing 'Dr Malevolent falls over the rim of the volcano' as an Event?

Finally, I suspect that over-using events like these would significantly change the 'feel' of the game.

That doesn't mean it's all bad. I think that there have to be times when there is a genuine need for the Heroes to drop everything and scramble to address a particular problem. However, I'd suggest one or more of the following limitations to these special Events:

[*]Make the Event more expensive to bring into play. For example, it could cost a Story Token to introduce a special 'Threat' Event.[*]Limit the number of 'Threat' Events that can be played to one per Scene.[*]Limit the power of the Event when it resolves. For Example, the Villain gets his Story Token for Resolving the Event, but this rolls down his dice in the conflict to '1'.[/list:u]Finally, a thought on how to represent this in the Narrative. When the Villain resolves a 'Threat' Event in his favour, it doesn't actually resolve. Instead, the Villain gets to gloat about the Event resolving.

So, instead of the guillotine killing Kate, the Specter gets to taunt Gray Ghost and Zip about how useless they are and how Kate is going to die... and the player can taunt them OOC about how they just gifted him a Story Token.

[TonyLB]

Oh, I am so totally loving the idea that villains gloat.  I have wanted to find the right place to add a rules mechanic for gloating for so incredibly long.  YAY!  THANK YOU DOUG!

I really like the idea of rolling back the dice at the time of the Gloat.  I think it's marginally more exciting to roll back both sides to a one.  That way the only way for either side to immediately try to resolve or Gloat on it again is for them to have an Inspiration on hand that can gain them control before the next page starts.

That (roughly) makes Gloating a way to turn a strong advantage in Inspirations into an advantage in Story Tokens.  But it won't generate a lot of Inspirations (if the conflict is strongly contested) and it will give the other side an advantage in amount of debt they can spend.  My intuition is that it should be a fairly self-correcting cycle.

The Spiderman Game is running on a Comics Code that includes the following rules (among others):

[*]Spiderman will not die[*]Spiderman will not kill anyone[/list:u]We reach the finale and the Editor has a huge TON of Inspirations left over from the game-to-date.  Goblin dumps Spidey into a church and the Editor creates an Event "Goblin takes his best shot at killing Spidey".  Clearly (since Spiderman will not die) the Editor cannot resolve this on his side.  So every turn he dumps a high Inspiration on it, holds it to the end of the turn, and Gloats.  

Finally, when he's out of Inspirations worth spending, the Editor makes what he expects to be his final gloat:  "MJ and me, we're gonna have a grand old time!"  Spidey, properly cued, does two things.  First, he proposes the Event "Green Goblin Dies".  The Editor agrees to it.  Then Spidey dumps some of his massive debt in Love into the "Goblin takes his best shot at killing Spidey" Event, takes control of it, and resolves it.  Goblin took his best shot and failed.  The Editor (presumably) gets a final bonus of Story Tokens off of the Love Debt that Spiderman staked and won.

Now it's Spidey's turn to gloat (or, in the heroes case, moralize) a little:  because the "Goblin Dies" Event cannot resolve in his control.  Spiderman doesn't kill people.  It's right there in the Comics Code.  So Spidey moralizes for all he's worth until the Goblin finally gets enough control to resolve the Event, which he does by spitefully attacking Spiderman and killing himself.

[TonyLB]

Correcting myself after some solo playtesting:  Don't roll back both dice.  Rolling back just the villain die is better.

Inspirations just aren't ubiquitous enough to overcome the effect of tied scores stalling the game by forcing people to run through a whole turn before trying to resolve/gloat.

[Doug Ruff]

You're welcome Tony - I too have been longing to see some serious gloating action.

(And nobody is alowed to 'hack' that last sentence, OK?)

[LordSmerf]

One thing that i am still a little uncomfortable with regarding all of this is that both sides can always find an in-Code way of resolving the Event.  I refer you to the Zip thing.  It seems that by including explicit Bluffing you change the entire dynamic of resolution.  While i really like the idea of Gloating (and Morallizing) i am not entirely sure that i like the way this messes with gaining Inspirations (i.e. "I could resolve this and get an Inspiration, or i could Bluff and get a Story Token.")  I feel that i am not really able to articulate what i want to say either...  Perhaps if i think about it a bit more i will be able to present a coherent position.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Thomas:  I agree, people can modify the narrative to remove any possible out-of-code sting.  This happens in roleplaying games all the time, in defiance of any plain, common-sense interpretation of the rules.

I don't want people to have to defy the common-sense interpretation of Events.  On your "Zip Unmasked" example:  If the Event is "Kate sees someone unmasked" and the villains win it then the easiest solution is that Kate sees Zip unmasked, and learns his secret identity.  For what it's worth, I think this would have been way cool.

If that's not acceptable (for whatever comics-code reason) then why should the burden devolve onto the villains?  They competed in good faith, and now they're supposed to softball the hero at the last minute?  That just doesn't seem right to me.  If the comics code bans then from pounding the hero on a particular point then they should get something better instead.

[LordSmerf]

What about Events in which neither side can resolve without violating the code.  I do not know that i would have refused to allow Specter to be unmasked, but i have big plans for him and his secret identity...  So imagine that neither character can be seen unmasked, what happens?

Thomas