Question about inspirations

[coxcomb]

First, let me say that I read through Capes yesterday and it rocked my world! The whole thing is chock full-o-goodness.

My only question so far has to do with inspirations.

On page 30 (of the PDF, in case the book is different) it says that the resolving player matches the dice from both side up to determine inspiration awards. The illustration on page 31 seems to be showing how the same set of dice could be matched two different ways for different inspiration awards, is that right?

Also, inspiration is never really defined beyond the very basics in the resources box on page 19. Are they simply generic inspirations, or are they supposed to be defined to apply to specific things? In other words, I win a fight with Dr. Amazing and get an inspiration--is it an inspiration that is related to Dr. Amazing, or fighting, or just an inspiration that can be used for anything?

[TonyLB]

First, your interpretation that the same dice can be matched different ways (at the discretion of the resolver) is 100% correct.

The Inspiration should be (when it is spent) some advantage that you get as a cause-and-effect relationship of having won the conflict.  But it's superheroics, so that cause and effect can be very, very loose.  Here are some types of justifications that I have used on more than one occasion:

[*]Having beaten Professor Despair at his own game gives me the inner confidence to finally speak to the girl I've been admiring from afar.[*]The bystanders, inspired by my heroic rescue of the little boy holding the baloon, mob the villain's henchmen and take them down en masse.[*]The moment I shared in the jail cell with the oppressed minion gives them the courage to slip me the key to my cybernetic manacles.[/list:u]So my general rule would be that it should be related to the origins of the Inspiration to the satisfaction of the player using the Inspiration.

I have yet to see a situation in which I could imagine any game benefit from a second player stepping in and saying "No, you shouldn't be able to use that Inspiration in this situation."

[coxcomb]

So, out of curiosity, how do you track inspirations during play?

Do you write down (for example), "Beat Professor Despair - 5"?

Or do you just note a 5 in a spot on the page set aside for inspirations?

[TonyLB]

Me, personally, I generally scrawl down a value or two on the index card that was already labelled for the Conflict.  Occasionally that will involve righting down something on a fresh index card (when a split goes to more than one player).

But that does end up covering the table with drifts of index cards, which I agree isn't to everyone's liking.  I'm going to be trying a page-per-player method of tracking inspirations at a game running wednesday night.  I'll let you know how it goes, and maybe get an "Inspiration Tracker" page up in the Downloads section.

[coxcomb]

A tracker would be cool.

I can't wait to play!

[Jonas Ferry]

I have a question on Inspirations, and might as well use this thread for it. What concerns me is:

p19: "Inspirations: Gained by winning Conflicts. Spent to increase dice."

p25: "By using their Inspiration the player may raise one die on that characters (sic!) side to the value of the Inspiration."

So are you able to spend, let's say, three points to increase a die from 1 or 2 to 3 or do you spend one point to go from 2 to 3? Or do you spend one point of inspiration to raise the die to the previous or current value of the Inspiration?

Perhaps I haven't read the example of play carefully enough, but the example in the grey box on p25 doesn’t state what the actual effect of the Inspiration spent is.

- Jonas

[Vaxalon]

Let's say there's a die on the table that you want to affect.

You have an inspiration at 4.

You can only use the inspiration if that die is currently at 1, 2, or 3.

When you use it, the die becomes 4.

After that, the inspiration is gone.