[Capes] Takes Some Getting Used To

[Vaxalon]

What if we like 95% of what Capes is, and only 50% of what Universalis is?

"Since I don't want you to go the last 5% with Capes, I want you to go back to Universalis and push it the 50% of the way to where you want to go."

[Valamir]

Hey John...you make excellent points, except where you suggest its been overlooked.  I don't think that point has been overlooked at all.  In fact, its been specifically discussed and acknowledged several times.  I even pointed out this very difference between Capes and Uni over a week ago in this post where I said the difference made me want to play Capes more to see how it works.

I'm a big fan of experimenting with system, so I give Tony full marks for pushing the envelope on player control farther than its been done.  

But that doesn't mean that every boundary pushing experimental mechanic that gets tried winds up being effective.  I admit to being skeptical that this level of complete mutability in the SIS with nearly zero ability to defend it is actually functional for more than a very narrow group of players.  I eager look forward to playing it...but I'm not sure I'd like it.  

I suspect that Capes will get a lot of play because its very cool.  But I also suspect that almost all of that play will involve some degree of additional protection being granted to the SIS...  That may be done formally with a Goal In Goal Out type mechanic like Vax has proposed, or Reaction Conflicts like I proposed, or informally with just a really strong upfront agreement that ridiculous extremeism won't be tolerated.

But I don't see very many people (even those who are big into non traditional RPGs) being willing to tolerate the level of chaos and anarchy that zero SIS protection entails.  I give HUGE props for trying it...and HUGE respect for making it as functional as it is...but beyond treating it as an interesting experiment...it just doesn't sound very fun to me.  If anything I say can be overturned with zero effort by anyone else and almost any time...I suspect (and I keep using that word intentionally) that I'll soon lose interest in saying anything...because taken to the extreme...everything anyone says effectively becomes valueless because it costs nothing to get and costs nothing to take away.

[John Harper]

Oh, I didn't mean to say: "Do not modify Capes." If you like 95% percent of it, by all means tweak it the rest of the way so your group has fun. A thousand times yes!

If some folks want to add some stuff on to the game to make it more in-line with their own preferences, that's super-cool. But doing that is not a condemnation of the core game. It doesn't mean that the core game doesn't work the way it's intended to. It just means that the play experience that the core game delivers is not the play experience you want.

So, go. Tweak. Enjoy.

Ralph: I guess I missed those bits where my point had already been discussed. I see now that it has not been overlooked at all.

I'm still hearing a very strong, "This isn't what I like, so I don't think it will work for other people." Which is a generalization that I couldn't disagree with more. What is revolutionary and boundary-pushing for some is ordinary and easy for others. I certainly believe that the Capes approach may fall outside your comfort zone. But as a general indicator of "what gamers want" or especially "what makes for fun gaming" I don't think that will suffice.

(Your comments like "very narrow group of players" and "I don't see very many people being willing" are big flashing neon signs to me. I don't think either of us are in a position to say what the size and composition of the Capes-playing market is like. When you say stuff like that, it makes me squint and go, "Um, yeah. Whatever." Your misgivings are valid in their own right. They don't have to represent some larger, and frankly, made-up, group.)

And if you still want to convince me that Capes doesn't deliver on what it promises, I'm all ears. I don't consider that discussion closed at all. I just happen to think that it delivers in spades. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

[TonyLB]

I find that people are far more often thrown by the fear of narration gone haywire than they are the actuality of it.  As, indeed, seems to have been the case in this Actual Play thread:  Hulk being thrown into the river was okay, but it made it clear that narration could go further than normal... that's unknown territory, and people want all manner of assurances before they enter it.

Folks don't seem to get those jitters when I'm playing with them.  I attribute that to the fact that I, myself, heartlessly stomp all over causality and realism in the interest of a better experience of play.  People see it happening, and see why it's nothing to fear.

I'd like to ask Fred and James:  Where was most of the narration in your game, relative to the comfort zone of traditional roleplaying?  Skip over the exceptional cases that you've already mentioned, and give me the rough feel of the game as a whole:  Were you narrating for each others characters much?  How much did you define the world to suit your own creative agenda (e.g. "Kosmic Ray punches Hulk.  The crowd cheers and holds up a banner 'We love you RAY!'")?  Did you play around with time, space, coincidence, history?

I know that you only had three pages worth of play, but I'm interested to know if a general tenor emerged.

[Vaxalon]

The feel of it, for me, was like a tightrope walk, with a candle burning through on one side, and a big ol' lumber saw just under my feet... the "Kozmik Ray throws the Hulk into the East River" bit was very early on, and I knew that it had strained something, I wasn't sure what... so I was very wary of going too far.  I could feel the bonds of social contract tightening around me, and I was afraid to push too far, for fear that I would break them.... and I knew that social contract, being the very last barrier between game and argument, was not something I wanted to push against freely...

So I restrained myself.  I tried to keep my narration within the bounds that WOULD have been there, had the system had any.  I tried to imagine what Kozmik Ray's limitations, powerwise, would be, and play within them.  I tried to take my cues from the other players actions, and not try to do anything more outrageous than they were.

I've never been in a game that depends so heavily on the social contract for controlling the flow of the game.

I may go into metaphor buildup here, but I think it's the "An armed society is a polite society" philosophy... we all know that we can narratively blow each other's heads off, so we were careful not to go too far.  The bit about considering having the Hulk destroy the Earth, and then deciding not to, is, I think, an example of how heavily the social contract played into our decision making.

That's what it felt like for me.  I can't say that anyone else had the same feeling.  It was very odd, and there were definitely places where it was uncomfortable.

As I have said, I have played GMless games before (Baron Munchausen, Pantheon)  and heard of others (Universalis) and none of them make such heavy use of the social contract.

But that was JUST THIS SESSION.

I had another session, face to face, that was a lot more fun.  It was among friends, all of us knew that it would be hard to make problems, and in those circumstances, it was more comfortable... but we still played it fairly traditional, with very little in the way of causality or character ownership violations.

[John Harper]

Edit: Removed my post that was in danger of going too far off topic.

[Vaxalon]

I should probably clarify.


I agree with Tony that there's a big difference between what appears to be implicit within the rulebook, and what is true in actual play, because the rulebook isn't the whole system.  People bring all kinds of preconceptions to the table when they play.

Social preconceptions like politeness, respect, honesty, and good sportsmanship.

Dramatic preconceptions like continuity.

Gaming preconceptions like character ownership.

As long as these preconceptions are in fairly good accord between the players, the game works.... it works wonderfully.

When those preconceptions fall out of phase, however, the game shakes me out of my "game head".

Folks don't seem to get those jitters when I'm playing with them. I attribute that to the fact that I, myself, heartlessly stomp all over causality and realism in the interest of a better experience of play. People see it happening, and see why it's nothing to fear.

Why didn't you do that when you showed us the game at my house, Tony?  I don't recall any actions you took in the game which took us outside our comfort zone.  The reason we didn't get the jitters when we played with you is that in spite of the GMlessness and the narrative freedom,  the experience of play was a familiar one, at least for me.

[TonyLB]

I did do that at your house, actually.  As I said, I always do it.  I'm surprised you didn't notice.  Maybe it's because I did it without any sign of fear or hesitation.

For example, our first scene was set (by me) in "The smoking ruins of Washington D.C."  I narrated the destruction of the U.S. Capitol, and the utter defeat of its armed forces, in free narration, and nobody batted an eyelash.

And then when heroes rose up to stop me I narrated things like "I encase you in metal and fling you across town."  That was my standard bit:  I assume that I've already defeated you, and all that remains is to mete out your humiliation.  Is it realistic, given the capabilities of the characters involved?  I don't know or care.

Sydney dumped his character's personalty, because he thought it would be more interesting to have Gun Bunny switch sides.  Remember how cool that was?  Do you see how it has absolutely no relationship to "cause and effect"?

Remember what you did in the second scene?  "I push a button and a trap door opens under the feet of your character, Tony.  He falls to his death."  And how did I respond to that?  I gave a great big smile, and I waved my hands in a pathetic little pantomime of free-falling doom.  I thought your unilateral description of my character's death was hilarious, and a very useful contribution to the fun we were all having.

I mean... your character was decapitated, for pete's sake.  And we all promptly agreed that an alien warlord of his caliber would obviously have a backup brain, for just such emergencies.

I don't mean to hector with all these examples... it's just that in a few hours of play, you were exposed to far more violations of politeness, restraint, realism and causality than most people experience in a whole campaign.  I really could go on and on.

How did it feel?  Bad?  Scary?  Or just plain fun, done a different way?

[Andrew Cooper]

Okay, I've been following this Capes thing very closely because I'm interested in the game.  I'm going to ask a question below that might be a stupid question and could very easily be taken as snide.  I'm prefacing the question by saying that snideness is not my intent.  I'm genuinely interested in getting "inside" Tony's head as a designer and understanding the "whys and wherefores" of his design decisions.  Now that this little disclaimer is out of the way...

If anyone can narrate the effects of a Conflict away with no effort whatsoever, why does Capes have Conflicts at all?  Why isn't the whole System simply freeform?  What is there in the System that makes me want to engage in a Conflict?  I understand about Story Tokens and some of the "rewards" for winning Conflicts but do these rewards actually have some sort of lasting effect that makes it worth my while to get them?  I'm just not understanding why there is a Conflict system at all if Free Narration is so powerful in the game and would really like to hear the reasoning behind it.

[TonyLB]

Good question.  I hope you don't mind if I split off a separate thread for it.

[Vaxalon]

I did do that at your house, actually.  As I said, I always do it.  I'm surprised you didn't notice.  Maybe it's because I did it without any sign of fear or hesitation.

...

How did it feel?  Bad?  Scary?  Or just plain fun, done a different way?

You know, you're right... I take it back... on reflection, you DID do wha t you say.

Your presence at the game table really did have a profound impact on the atmosphere.  It felt totally different playing with you (a confident expert with the system) than it did among my usual game group (friends but not experts) and that was different than it was online (relative strangers feeling their way through an unfamiliar system).  It feels as if, to get the maximum enjoyment out of Capes, someone like you, Tony, has to be there to forge ahead, and set the tone that is required for the game to work right.

[TonyLB]

Was the issue expertise or confidence?  Yes, a "confident expert" will change the atmosphere of the table, but do you think a "confident neophyte" would do the same?

I really have no idea what the answer to that question is for Capes.  It's a question that I myself literally cannot answer through Actual Play.  Any game I play in has an expert at the table.

But the first time I GMed Dogs in the Vineyard, it worked like a charm, even though I only half-understood the system and totally flubbed many of the rules.  Having seen the system work (even when I didn't understand it) I was able to project serene confidence that the system would work, and could be relied upon.

[Vaxalon]

Was the issue expertise or confidence?  Yes, a "confident expert" will change the atmosphere of the table, but do you think a "confident neophyte" would do the same?

My second game (the one among friends) had a confident neophyte (me) at the table, but I didn't know, at the time, that there was a purpose in kicking over the turnstyles.  So no, a confident neophyte wouldn't do the same unless he were told to do so.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Sydney dumped his character's personalty, because he thought it would be more interesting to have Gun Bunny switch sides.

If anyone can narrate the effects of a Conflict away with no effort whatsoever, why does Capes have Conflicts at all? Why isn't the whole System simply freeform?

These two things are related, actually. I had my hero switch sides as the direct result of Tony's villain winning a (hard fought) conflict to influence her. So the conflict mechanics definitely mattered. In fact, I made a fundamental decision about what "My Guy" do on the basis of another player successfully using those mechanics against me -- which in traditional task-based, GM-dominated roleplaying would feel like a horrible violation ("What? You make one lousy Fast-Talk roll and I change sides! You're an evil, despotic GM!") but in Capes is part of a natural and even give-and-take ("Okay, you invested heavily in winning this one; that's cool; you've opened up neat new story possibilities and left yourself open to me getting you back with interest later.")

[Vaxalon]

I had my hero switch sides as the direct result of Tony's villain winning a (hard fought) conflict to influence her. So the conflict mechanics definitely mattered.   In fact, I made a fundamental decision about what "My Guy" do on the basis of another player successfully using those mechanics against me...

No the conflict mechanics didn't matter.  What mattered was your decision to honor the outcome of the goal after it left the table, even though the game not only allows but encourages you to narrate whatever you like.  You made your decision out of respect for Tony, not out of respect for mechanics, because there ARE no mechanics that state that you have to honor a goal after it leaves the table.