[Capes] Tropes or no Tropes

[efindel]

I recognize the question about "Is Fisticuffs a Power or a Skill?", but I think my answer is to ask the question "Does this character use Fisticuffs to engage the games Premise?"  It seems clear (at least to me) that in this case the character does, which makes it a Power.

... and to me, that seems to firmly put things along the lines Sydney's saying.  The fundamental distinction isn't "powered" vs. "normal", it's "heroic" vs. "non-heroic".  Abilities that require Debt are "superheroic" abilities, regardless of whether they come from mutations, devices, training, or what.

Thus, Batman's fighting skill and utility belt and Hawkeye's archery and arrows, are all Debt-powered.

Of course, this leads to something else as a natural extension -- that logically, even certain kinds of Attitudes should be able to be Debt-powered.  As an example, consider Zip's "Ignores the Pain".  Originally, I was going to have him regenerate, his body healing at super-speed.  However, after Tony (at least, I think it was Tony) suggested "Ignores the Pain" as how to put it, the ability, even though it was is the Powers list, became much more like an Attitude -- Zip doesn't necessarily heal with Wolverine-type speed... but he will not give up, no matter what the pain that going on causes him.  What it boils down to is superhuman determination -- and "superhumanly determined" seems like a fine fit for the Attitudes column.

[Sydney Freedberg]

[quote="efindel.... Batman's fighting skill and utility belt ... are all Debt-powered...[/quote]

Exactly, because extreme emotion beyond the normal human range drove him to acquire those skills and devices -- namely his obsessive, strangely repressed grief and guilt over his parents' deaths.

Now admittedly Batman is not a great fit with the first half of the premise "Power is fun -- but do you deserve it?" In the most interesting versions of Batman I've seen (namely the Tim Burton movies and the animated series, as opposed to the later movies and the Adam West TV show), he's not really having fun.

EDIT: Not fun, but catharsis in spades, arguably. And that frankly is what I play for most of the time -- I mean, look at the "alienated, mute mistress of magnetism" for crying out loud.

[TonyLB]

Okay, a lot of interlocking issues here.

There is a modelling question of "If Batman's martial arts is a Power, and SWAT Team-Guy's martial arts is a Skill, what is the game-world justification for the distinction between them?"

There is a premise question of "Is the Premise, as stated, what the game should really be about?"

There is a game-flow question of "How do game dynamics change for a character if they have a substantially lower or substantially higher proportion of Powered abilities?"

Does this just about break down what people are discussing?

[Sydney Freedberg]

There is a modelling question of "If Batman's martial arts is a Power, and SWAT Team-Guy's martial arts is a Skill, what is the game-world justification for the distinction between them?"

Batman has Drives and SWAT guy doesn't, because Batman is Driven in a way that SWAT guy isn't. It's about emotional intensity.

Interestingly, this answer implies, as a converse, that a character who shoots laser beams out his eyes, levitates, reads minds, and doesn't care all that intensely about it has no Drives, has no Powered Abilities, and is not a superhero. He's just some guy.

There is a premise question of "Is the Premise, as stated, what the game should really be about?"

"Power is fun" isn't true for a whole genre of angsty heroes. But it's still doing something for them emotionally. "Power is cathartic, but do you deserve it?" is too Lit 101, though, and "power is intense..." is too MTV. "Power is a rush..."? I'm strikin' out here.

Interestingly, in Capes you have the opposite problem here from Miller's With Great Power... (just bought a copy), which assumes all heroes are driven by tragedy and actually rates the effectiveness of their traits in terms of a stat called "Suffering." But, especially since you already have Debt and going Overdraw, I think one can open up Capes to include the angsty heroes much more easily than one can open up With Great Power... to include heroes who actually enjoy their abilities.

There is a game-flow question of "How do game dynamics change for a character if they have a substantially lower or substantially higher proportion of Powered abilities?"

Debt is both a burden and a resource -- but, point for point, it's more a resource than a burden. (The exception is that one point that puts you over into Overdrawn, which constitutes a discontinuity in the cost:benefit curve you might want to smooth out someday). In the current model of "unpowered Abilities are free once, then inaccessible," a low-Powered character may start out stronger but will fade fast; high-Powered characters can always choose to suck it up and rack up Debt until they win.

[TonyLB]

Okay, I'm guessing that the questions I posted were just about right.  So I'll respond to them.

On Premise:  "Power is Fun" is, in fact, precisely what I was aiming for.  It doesn't mean that your life is fun, or that the consequences of using your power are fun, or that the responsibilities your power implies are fun.  But the power itself?  Fun.

Sydney says that it isn't true for a whole genre of angsty heroes.  I flatly disagree.  And frankly, I'll reach right out and claim Batman for my camp.  Here's the internal monologue from the first action sequence in Frank Miller's seminal Dark Knight:

This should be agony.  I should be a mass of aching muscle -- broken, spent, unable to move.  And were I an older man, I surely would.

But I'm a man of thirty -- of twenty again.  The rain on my chest is a baptism -- I'm born again.

I smell their fear -- and it is sweet.

I defy anyone to read that and tell me that he's not having fun.  Is he miserable too?  Of course!  But misery and joy are not opposite ends of a spectrum, they are elements of a life and a character that are always admixed and intertangled.

[LordSmerf]

Tony, your question regarding Premise reminded me of something.  Debt.  I still do not understand how it works narratively.  I fully comprehend all the cool stuff it does mechanically, and the little ecosystem, and all that fun stuff.  But I am still very shaky regarding what it represents.  For this reason I rarely think about Premise at all when playing Capes.  Now, it is possible that I have simply internalized everything and pursue Premise without conciously deciding to, but there is this huge stumbling block between me and concious Premise stuff.  What is Debt.  I suggest that it will be very, very important for the print version of the game that you are able to explain what Debt means and not just what it does.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Straight from the new rules:  "Debt measures the gap between how much a character needs to prove his worth and how much he has done so."

Note that this description only makes sense in a context where using the cool powers obligates you to justify your worth proportionally.  This is a law of reality in Capes (and, I would argue, in most superhero fiction).

You can represent it with any elements of Color that you want, from a strong internal moral code to karmically responsive powers to little blue aliens who granted the hero his power and constantly drag him in front of their smurf-tribunal to judge how he's used it.

EDIT:  Another interesting way to phrase this is that Debt measures how many (and what type of) trials of the characters worth are already pre-destined by his actions.

[Sydney Freedberg]

.... the internal monologue from the first action sequence in Frank Miller's seminal Dark Knight....I defy anyone to read that and tell me that he's not having fun.  Is he miserable too?  Of course!  But misery and joy are not opposite ends of a spectrum, they are elements of a life and a character that are always admixed and intertangled.

I think you nailed that one. You're right: Fun it is.

But to keep pushing on the idea that superpowered does not necessarily equal heroic.... Prime example here is any episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All the disposable mook vampires/demons/things clearly have Skills but no Powers or Debt: They do scary supernatural things but then go down, fast. Meanwhile Xander Harris has absolutely zero superhuman abilities yet is clearly heroic: He keeps on coming back and back and back, piling on the debt (and the bruises: one of his Tropes/Styles is clearly "get clobbered").

[TonyLB]

Quick clarification request?

It seems (to my mind) that, having discussed the "is fun" part of the Premise you're now wondering whether the "power" part makes sense, or whether it should be "X is Fun, but do you deserve it?" where X is something else as yet undefined.

Is that right, or am I confused?

[Sydney Freedberg]

Oh, I'm probably confused... I actually hadn't thought about "superpowers aren't necessarily heroism" as affecting the Premise, but of course it does. I guess you could say "Heroism is fun" or something, but I'm not sure it's worth rephrasing, because "power" is a wide-open word already. "Power" doesn't have to be laser eyebeams: It can be (gettin' mushy here) the power of the human heart.....

[TonyLB]

It's a good point in terms of how carefully one needs to describe the distinction, though.  I do have a tendency to say "Super-human powers" and leave it at that, even though I clearly include human(-ish) abilities like those of Batman.

Maybe if it's written along the lines of "Abilities that, through their use, set the character apart from the normal run of humanity"?  That's a bit vaguer than I like, though... Hrmm... think, think, think.

[Doug Ruff]

I think that "Power is Fun" works fine, because it's backed up almost immediately by the question "... but do you deserve it?"

The reason I wouldn't change this to "Heroism is Fun" or anything like that, is that this overlooks the fact that being a Villain is fun, too.

The way it's presented at the moment is a very nice "setup". Insofar as it allows the reader to think something along the lines of "yeah, but that doesn't mean that power is right" - only to walk smack into the second half of the sentence.

So, please, don't change it, not unless you've got something really snappy instead.

[efindel]

A semi-random thought:  the tagline/premise could easily be altered to:

Power can be fun... but do you deserve it?

That gets rid of the pesky "is", allowing for heroes for whom their Power is a burden, and that Power isn't necessarily always fun.

But really... as long as the mechanics support angsty heroes (and they definitely do -- they supported Zip and Grey Ghost!), it's a trivial issue, IMHO.

--Travis