[Capes] Free "Capes Lite" PDF for review

[TonyLB]

At the new Capes Website, I've put up a lite version of the rules, along with an in-built story idea and the resources to run it.  I could really use some objective (i.e. "not me") opinions on whether this achieves the purposes for which it was designed:

[*]Convey to prospects a sense of what it is like, on a practical, "rolling the dice and counting" level, to play Capes
[*]Entice prospects into actually playing the game, so as to...
[*]Show prospective buyers the patterns of behavior and reinforcement that make Capes special, hopefully...
[*]Attracting them to play the game more.[/list:u]So what do people think?  A hit or a miss?  How can I do it better?

[Bill Cook]

Looks cool. Capes is something I want to run as a one-shot in one of my meetup groups. (And Mountain Witch. And Scarlet Wake.) This month, we're doing Universalis, and I'm starting a BW campaign with my steady group.

Had the thought: if you could draw up a five question response sheet, I can have people fill it out, and I'll mail them to you .. Which, it occurs to me, you've already got four bullets. Should I hand those out?

[TonyLB]

That would be cool, if your group has a good temperament for questionnaires.

[Bill Masek]

TonyLB,

I really like the click and lock system.  It will allow very fast yet still versatile character creation, it makes character more then just a list of powers and it adds puzzle building fun.

I admit that, reading the rules, I was a bit confused about the way conflicts worked.  You begin your conflicts section with "Conflicts start with a die for each side. These start at 1."  This reads to me to mean "Conflicts each start with a dice.  This dice is showing the number 1.  It is this value that his dice will use."  I believe you mean something like "You start by rolling a dice.  This dice has a priority of 1."  Then to roll against this dice, you have to must both choose a stat with a higher priority AND beat the number rolled on the dice.  However, I'm not sure.

I would start by explaining how dice are rolled (both priority and value, assuming the above is right) then follow it up with rules on narration.  I believe that will make your game much easier to read.

I found the samples of play awkward.  I think that they would make more sense if they were located after the scene pages so the players would know all the relevant rules before they read them.

What happens if multiple heroes want to fight the villains together?  From the rules this would seems impossible.  I’m afraid that this might lead to players sitting around with nothing to do.

Finally, what happens if no player wants to play the villain?  Will the conflicts will exclusively between the saviors?  That doesn’t seem to fit the flavor of your game very well.  I would recommend rules forcing someone to play the antagonist (otherwise its no fun).

I think that, with a little clarification, you'll have a great game.

Best,
       Bill

[TonyLB]

Cool!  Thank you, Bill, this is exactly the type of feedback I can most use.

Interestingly, the way you read my text is almost exactly how I meant it.  The Conflicts start with two dice on them (of different colors), one for each side.  Those dice start with a value of one.  Which is almost exactly what you thought the text was conveying, even if you thought it was conveying it accidentally.

The thing you believed that I must be failing to communicate... that's what confuses me.  Can you explain (perhaps with a short example) how you imagine Value and Priority would work?  I'm trying to figure out what you think I'm trying to say so that I can rewrite the text to more forcefully convey what I'm actually trying to say.

[James_Nostack]

Hi Tony, I read the PDF at work and was itching to reply.

To begin with: I'm not sure I'm your target audience.  Not only am I a dumbass, I am brand-spanking new to the whole Forge scene.  This whole GM-less narrativist stance-y malarkey goes right over my head, though I am certainly willing to learn (and unlearn some old habits).  So, if the document was meant for the fairly brainy members of the Forge to look over, I'm not one of those guys.  I'm an open-minded gamer whose background is entirely in "traditional" RPG's.

The click-and-lock components of character creation is very cleverly done, and I can see people really grooving on that.  

But I find the rules on scenes extremely confusing.  Same deal with the debts and story tokens and all of that.  I think it would help enormously to have a chatty, friendly few pages of showing, in super-generalized please-don't-get-fussy-about-rules style, how things fit together.  Because I can't quite see it.

Something like this:

Capes aims to mimic the genre conventions of superhero comic books, and as a result the rules may seem a little strange to newcomers.  For example, when a policeman in a comic book says "Halt" and nobody halts, he doesn't issue a second warning: he goes for his gun.  Capes mimics this by indicating that once you use a skill during a scene, it can't be reused: if you still want to solve the problem, you'll have to find a new approach.  Is this realistic?  Maybe not.  But it does keep the characters moving, on their toes, trying new tactics--which is what happens in comics.

Or, like this:

Superheroes in comics have a tough life.  The more they use their powers, it seems like their personal lives get more complicated and messy!  Capes handles this by saying that when you use your superpowers you accumulate a "story debt" that you'll have to pay off later: narratively, you've solved the immediate problem, but there's a bigger one on its way.  This debt will probably increase for most of a story, but you can try to gamble it down by making the superhero emotionally invested in a scene: if she wins, it's a huge relief and some of the tension in the story abates; if she loses, well... it gets even more tense.

I think a similar breakdown of what's happening during a conflict would definitely be a huge help.

Also: if you're going to do an example of play, you need to have the actual stats of those characters listed, so people can follow along.

Please note that I'm basing this understanding of the rules almost entirely from other Capes threads.  It is not the sense that I got from the PDF, but I do think it would help explain things to new people.  The game you've built is extremely exotic to someone who's spent most of his time playing Dungeons & Dragons, and if you're going to twist somebody's mind you need to do it slowly.

I realize that fitting in a few pages of explanation may slow things down... but right now I wouldn't know how to play this game.  The rules may be brilliant--and I certainly like what I understood from the other threads--but I can't figure out how they're used.

But don't take what I say too seriously, I may not be representative.  Best of luck!

[TonyLB]

James:  Thanks for the reply!  Two questions.

First, is the text you're looking for (as exemplified in the two quotes) is some text to justify why the rules are as they are, rather than some other way?  Or is the goal to connect it more clearly to the elements of the shared-imaginary-space, so that people can use more than one mode of thinking (both "about the rules" and "about the world") to address their next actions?

Second, where did you lose track of the rules explanation?  Or is it a case that you can't even begin to create a coherent idea of what would be happening?

[James_Nostack]

Hi Tony,

I think there are two things going on with Capes from an "outsider's" perspective.  One is: I'm not entirely clear on what you, the author of the game, intend the key rules to do.  In a more traditional game nobody would need to ask, but since you're doing a lot of funky conceptual things it could help new people get oriented faster.

The second is: once I understand the dramatic effect you intended to achieve, how do I actually use the rules?  And I mean that literally.  Like, it would be nice to have something like this:

Step 1.  When something in the story opposes the character's will, a conflict takes place.  Get an index card and record the name of the conflict, and what the participants want.

Example: Spider-Man spots the Rhino robbing a bank.  The two old antagonists sublimate their homoerotic longings into violence.  So the players write down, "Spider-Man vs. the Rhino" as the name of the conflict.  Spider-Man's goal is, "Catch the Rhino."  The Rhino's goal is, "Rob the bank."

Step 1A.  Pour yourself a nice beverage.  Even if you aren't thirsty, it's nice to have one on hand for later.

Step 2.  Assign a threshold to each participant's goal.  When a conflict begins, each participant's goal has a threshold of 1; jot that down in pencil on the index card.

(Designer's Note: This threshold measures how close you are to completing your goal, and how much effort your opponent will have to exert to stop you.  If you end up so close to your goal that they can no longer meaningfully intervene, you've won the conflict.)  

Step 3.  Somebody [who?] may use an Ability to accomplish his or her character's goal.  In order to use an Ability, it must meet or exceed the threshold on your side.  Cross off that Ability, and roll a six-sided dice.  This is the new threshold for your side; if you don't like it, you may keep the old value of the threshold but the Ability is still crossed off.

Example: Spider-Man's player wants to distract the Rhino, so he uses his spectacular spider-quip ability to make a wise-ass remark.  The threshold for Spider-Man is 1, and the spider-quip is ranked at 2.  Spidey's player rolls a dice and gets a value of 4.  This is the new threshold; note that it means Spidey won't be able to use his rank 2 quip in the next round.

...and so on.

Maybe this approach would work for some people; maybe not.  I didn't need this "baby-steps" approach for learning The Shadow of Yesterday, but it was not so unconventional.

There are two pages of Capes with a bunch of grey text boxes.  I won't deny that they're informative... but (to me at least) it feels like I'd need to already understand how the game works in order to make heads or tails of them.

By the way, I assume you're already out of playtesting phase, but I'll probably be starting up a supers game  around Spring and would love to try Capes if it's out by then!

Good luck!

[TonyLB]

Thanks, James!  That idea of the simplified run-through of "Do this, do that, do the other, lather, rinse, repeat" is perfect for this introduction.  Will do.

As for availability, I am way out of playtesting phase.  The printers called today to say the completed books are in the mail.  I'll be selling as of the end of the month.

Now I just have the subsidiary task of figuring out what is essential enough to merit inclusion in a document small enough to distribute.  If you read the 160 page version it takes the time to hammer home a lot of these issues more concretely.  But I can't really expect people who just want a quick sense of the system to read a huge amount of text.

[Bill Cook]

The two old antagonists sublimate their homoerotic longings into violence.

LOL.

As for availability, I am way out of playtesting phase. The printers called today to say the completed books are in the mail. I'll be selling as of the end of the month.

Oops. I thought your link was a capsule beta. My bad.

Just re-read your initial post. Yes, it's all there, in English. [blushes]

[Forces self to read demo, word for word.]

Ok. I had a number of reactions:

[*]Wouldn't it be cool if you had a page out of a comic book that visualized your play examples?
[*]The Playing Supers pages are a little hard-boiled. It's like reading an appendix of calculus formulas.
[*]Some of the play example phrasing is a little jargon-y. It sounds kind of insider.
[*]Instead of Beth calling Alex on a rules restriction, you could try using a narrative commentary:

Beth: Okay. I'm adding the Conflict "Event: Judy insults the General's intelligence."

(Alex would like to oblige by rolling his one die for Science, but can't since he's already used it once in this conflict. So he chooses another ability.)

Alex: Okay, I'll use my Frustrated Attitude ..

[*]I would just have the cut-out ad on one page.
[*]I think you should remove (or at least appendix) click and locks that don't appear in the play examples.
[*]I think you should re-order things a bit: click and locks, likely goals/conflicts, example of play, then the glossary sections.
[*]End with confidence! Change the last line to "Give it a try! You'll discover that those various player drives, working in concert, create elaborate and sensible stories."
[/list:u]

This game sounds really exciting from a design standpoint. I kind of caught the buzz in some of your development postings. Its potential especially comes out toward the end of the second play example. I'd be surprised if I don't buy it just to get to the bottom of those concepts.

[Andrew Morris]

This whole GM-less narrativist stance-y malarkey goes right over my head, though I am certainly willing to learn (and unlearn some old habits).

James, I was in the same boat as you a few months back. Then I actually tried a GM-less game or two, and it blew my mind.  You really have to give it a try, because these kind of games not only can work, but they can be tons of fun, too. To be honest, I haven't actually played Capes yet, but I'm looking forward to doing so at Dreamation.

Tony, I'm in support of James' comments, though. I had a tough time figuring  out the rules from the .pdf, as well. I think his suggestions are dead on, and will help the folks who don't know anything about Capes, which is, I assume, the target audience. I think having a glossary might also be helpful. At several points while I was reading, I wanted to look up a term, because it hadn't yet been defined, and the context was insufficient to explain it for me.

[TonyLB]

Yep, I'm right there with the advice on this thread.  I think what I need to do is to rework things so that there is less raw density of information, and more narrative of information ("This is you, reading the text, being led to what you need to learn about next").

It's not meant to be a reference work, it's meant to be a primer.  Whole different mindset, which I am working on incorporating.

Bill, I love the idea of doing it in a comic book, and I fully intend to, but I couldn't get it done in time for release.  It is, definitely, the ideal meeting of form and function for this game, but it's also a whole lot of art.

[TonyLB]

Okay, I have rewritten page 2, which was the first of the hyper-dense rules sections.  Now it's much more of a walk-through.

Better?  Worse?

[xenopulse]

Much better. :)

[Gamskee]

The new page explains the basic mechanics of this game much better than the original pdf. However, there are still some things I am confused by?

1) Splitting die- I understand how this is done, but am unaware why it is done.

2) When resolving conflicts, you mention every player has a reaction. Is this usable for teamwork, such as rerolling a failed attempt at clobbering a badguy?

3) When a player is playing more than on character(using story tokens) is the player still limited to one action?

4) How long is a scene for the purposes of refreshing attitudes?

5) When rolling for a conflict, is six the highest result possible, or does splitting die somehow allow success past this? Is a six 'invulnerable' to alterations, a critical success?

6) Is there an order to who goes first?

7) What values are the virtues supposed to have?

These are the questions that come to mind right now?