[Capes] Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

[James_Nostack]

Tony: what mechanics does Capes employ so that Players A and B, who passionately want to tell a film noir Batman story about ordinary people, can reach an agreement with Player C, who wants to tell a story about an extra-terrestrial battle between Thor and Galactus and hates that gritty Batman stuff?

I have been asking this question, in one form or another, for ten days now, and I have not received a satisfying answer.

[TonyLB]

James, there are no mechanics to do that.  It's not something you want to do in this game.  If you reach consensus on what is happening in the game then you no longer have anything fun to have conflicts over.

As I was saying "Players should strive to be on the same wavelength about what they want in the game" is a false assumption.  

On the contrary, the actual game implies that "Players should be committed to seeking out or manufacturing conflicts at every opportunity."

Why would I choose to include mechanics that would undercut that fruitful process?

EDIT:  And, to draw us back to the Actual Play:  Can you see how the conflicts between players informed and improved the story of this particular session and the campaign leading up to it?

[James_Nostack]

James, there are no mechanics to do that.  It's not something you want to do in this game.

THANK YOU.  It only took ten days of circling around this to reach this point.  Tony, while you may regard this lack of mechanics to settle aesthetic disputes as a laudable feature of the Capes design, it is safe to say that I do not.

My issue with Capes is not "who wins this conflict" or "do we really want to make this a conflict."  It's the players saying, "Oh please God no, please get that idea out of here entirely!  The mere mention of it (which in Capes is equivalent to adding it to the SIS) is killing our fun."  Relying solely on an unspoken social contract isn't good enough in a game where everyone has this much power.

This is why Universalis keeps cropping up in the discussion: because Universalis recognized this as a obvious stumbling block with communal GM'ing and provided a way to resolve this level of dispute.

EDIT:  And, to draw us back to the Actual Play:  Can you see how the conflicts between players informed and improved the story of this particular session and the campaign leading up to it?

Yes, but as Mike mentioned up-thread, it's not relevant to why you're not getting our feedback.  This will be addressed, hopefully with a transcript, of our Capes game next week.

[TonyLB]

Sounds like fun!  See you then!

[Michael Brazier]

Tony: what mechanics does Capes employ so that Players A and B, who passionately want to tell a film noir Batman story about ordinary people, can reach an agreement with Player C, who wants to tell a story about an extra-terrestrial battle between Thor and Galactus and hates that gritty Batman stuff?

I have less experience with Capes than any of you, but -- simply by following the discussion -- I think I know the answer to this.  Just as you can't have a conflict between people who agree on everything, you can't have a conflict between people who have nothing in common.  Here, unless C can link his cosmic battle into the film noir A and B are narrating, A and B will spend no resources in C's conflicts, and C's influence over the narrative will shrink.  

More generally, if a group of players' interests are so divergent that there is no single kind of story they would all like to tell, could any system of mechanics do more than reveal the divergence?

[daMoose_Neo]

Relying solely on an unspoken social contract isn't good enough in a game where everyone has this much power.

Well, there you are.
I'm wondering why the *frell* you'd just sit down and go without any kind of direction. From initial character creation, you should be able to see where Players A (Multi-millionaire playboy/inventor/vigilante) and B (gritty, hardened Police commisioner) want to go. Player C (God of thunder & lighting on a quest to destroy a devouer of worlds) would obviously be right out.

Aside from that, theres a simple fix: if you're not jiving mid session because no one knows where they want to go, talk it through before hand!. My Imp Game has no "mechanical" rules for setting up what kind of game you play- you decide. Chargen takes all of 10 minutes for new players, 5 minutes if you've played before and have some fun ideas, so spending 10-15 minutes hashing out what would be cool is nothing, and it works great.
And I really don't think doing something like that with Capes would destroy that "emerging ideas" phenomena thats observed- at the start, it puts you all on the same thematic page. Even with Imps, we can lay out one scenario (Say shaking down a Casino owner) and end up with several other things going on (Reunite Hades, God of the Underworld with Cerebrus). Capes is much more mechanically inclined towards that, so get yourself a common starting point then race off in different directions.

[Victor Gijsbers]

As I was saying "Players should strive to be on the same wavelength about what they want in the game" is a false assumption.  

On the contrary, the actual game implies that "Players should be committed to seeking out or manufacturing conflicts at every opportunity."

Why would I choose to include mechanics that would undercut that fruitful process?

What James is saying is that it is not just the outcome of conflicts that can be crap, but that the conflicts themselves can be crap. And that there is no way to resolve disagreements as to the kind of conflicts that are appropriate for the game in Capes.

Like, if I'm playing a Universalis western game, one of the players says: "There is an alien hidden behind the rock, and he shoots John!" Now, I may wish to ensure that Joh is not killed by the newly introduced alien, and thus start a Complication. But I can also think that aliens are crap, that there should be no reference to our aliens in our story, and that therefore the entire conflict is crap - and I'll Challenge.

Would I do your position justice, James, were I to say that you point out that there is an equivalent of Complications in Capes, but not an equivalent of Challenges?

[TonyLB]

Yeah, Victor, I get that he's saying that.  He is saying that there are times where the players are in conflict about the whole entire situation-as-stated, and all of its ramifications, and that they would reject it wholesale if they could.

And I gotta say... this example with the gritty noir people wanting street-level conflict and the one guy wanting world-spanning threats, and them constantly fighting tooth and nail to get their vision realized beyond the (to them) raw dreck the other person is offering?  I want to play that game.

I don't want the game where everyone talks it through and makes a compromise (as Nate seems to suggest).  I'm sure it would be a worthy game, but it doesn't really excite me.  I want this specific game that is being listed as obviously dysfunctional.  Similar to Sydney's rundown of how Actual Play emerged from the moderated collision of different creative visions, I offer this fiction:

Darkshade wants to be patrolling the gritty streets.  He asserts that a strange new drug is making the rounds, and tries to track down its source.

Freya, norse thunder-goddess asserts that this drug is created by the H'kotrh, insectoid invaders bent on enslaving earth to the will of their all-powerful Hive Queen.

Darkshade asserts that the Hive Queen hegemony is like an alien mafia, and counters the drug-invasion by revealing evidence that Kr'rrrk, the insect in charge, was skimming profit off the top.  Kr'rrrk ends up wearing cement shoes in orbit around Tycho.

Freya asserts a single gigantic entity (Titanos) coming to destroy the earth, incorruptible, unstoppable, completely void of moral ambiguity.

Darkshade creates a summit between his forces and the H'kotrh.  Though they are deadly enemies (from the past events) they now face a common intrusion upon their turf.  There are extremely nervous negotiations to work together, made all the worse because the H'kotrh don't want to make any admission that humanity might (in Sam Spade fashion) have something to offer despite their bedraggled surface appearance.

I think this sort of thing is way cooler than anything you would get by consensus.  The harder the players are pulling in different directions, the more motivated they are to put a really radical new spin on the contributions that they don't like.

Conflict of artistic vision is not the grit that slows down the engine of creativity... it is the engine.  "Garbage into gold" (Larry's phrasing, but a good one) really works.  But you need the garbage.  You need something that you disagree about... the more strongly, the better.

[Larry L.]

Tony: what mechanics does Capes employ so that Players A and B, who passionately want to tell a film noir Batman story about ordinary people, can reach an agreement with Player C, who wants to tell a story about an extra-terrestrial battle between Thor and Galactus and hates that gritty Batman stuff?

Like, if I'm playing a Universalis western game, one of the players says: "There is an alien hidden behind the rock, and he shoots John!" Now, I may wish to ensure that Joh is not killed by the newly introduced alien, and thus start a Complication. But I can also think that aliens are crap, that there should be no reference to our aliens in our story, and that therefore the entire conflict is crap - and I'll Challenge.

This is the sort of stuff that gets sorted out in Capes when the group decides on the game's Comics Code. If somebody doesn't think space aliens belong in the comic, "Space aliens are not real." If somebody can't abide by massive blood and gore, "No flesh-and-blood being is ever gruesomely lacerated, impaled, or otherwise dismembered."

I think Capes is designed with the idea that "Outside the Comics Code, anything goes." I don't see a flaw with this.

[Valamir]

Conflict of artistic vision is not the grit that slows down the engine of creativity... it is the engine. "Garbage into gold" (Larry's phrasing, but a good one) really works. But you need the garbage. You need something that you disagree about... the more strongly, the better.

Well, that certainly gets to heart of the matter.

In my experience I've found Garbage in Garbage out to be much more likely than Garbage into Gold.

Brainstorming is good.  Brainstorming is fun.  Brainstorming comes up with all kinds of REALLY cool never thought of before stuff.  Brainstorming also produces ALOT of drek.

The game I want to play is the game that allows and encourages creative Brainstorming while then providing a mechanism to filter out the drek before it gets to the SIS.   Braindumping directly into the SIS can be fun...in that late-at-night, everybody's-over-tired, giggle-fest kind of way.  But in the main...not something I'm interested in playing on purpose.

But if that was really your design goal with Capes, Tony, I give you full marks for the accomplishment.  Capes is clearly an A+ success at that and a great case study in my own personal soap box of having clearly defined goals of what play experience you want to engender and then focusing your design on delivering that experience.  You clearly did that in spades...it happens to be a play experience I've witnessed often enough in Uni play to know I not don't like it but that doesn't detract from the design success.

I won't waste any more time looking for the hidden solution to my problem in the game then because obviously there isn't one.  I do think that for me to play the game and enjoy it will require some of the house ideas like those Fred proposed.

[TonyLB]

Ralph, do you have any Actual Play posts about Universalis that describe the play experience you had?

I just have this nagging suspicion that you've never seen violent functional disagreement in action, and therefore conflate disagreement with dysfunction.  But I could be totally wrong about that, of course.  Actual Play would help me to judge.

[Sydney Freedberg]

...violent functional disagreement in action...

Trying to wrassle this back to Actual Play, let me see if I can come up with some examples from the campaign in question of the actual players (not characters) in stark disagreement about how something was supposed to go:

I do color narration of bad guys mowing down innocent civilians; Tony throws in a preventive goal "Hurt humans," banishing carnage from the scene until resolved. (See this thread.). I feel mild frustration but am bribed to be happy with Tony's Debt, which turns into Story Tokens for me.

I create a creepy, shellshocked 11-year-old orphan, Minerva Danaan, as my spotlight character. Tony thinks she's not got enough ties to other characters and proceeds to declare an Event "Minerva falls in Love" (which I decline to Veto, by the way, although I could've, so there's a loose equivalent to Uni's Challenge mechanic). We hotly contest it; I win; so I'm forced to accept Tony's input -- she falls in love -- but he's forced to accept my input -- whom she falls in love with.

I create a little "Event: Revelation" conflict that nobody cares about, win it, and narrate that my character Minerva created the Big Bad. Nobody-careage continues; I gain a small Inspiration and no other resources for my trouble. Later, Eric introduces "Event: Big Bad's Nature Revealed" (again, I don't veto), beats me out for control, and narrates that, no, Minerva's not entirely responsible. I not only get Story Tokens but a cool bit of story to react to: "It's not my fault? Then maybe I'm not as doomed as I thought." (This incident is described earlier in this thread).

I'm sure Tony and Eric can contribute more, but these are ones I where I was one of the violently disagreeing parties.

Now, there was nothing mechanically restraining me from just narrating silly stuff ("Minerva sprouts long white ears and turns into a fluffy bunny!") which might've ruined the mood just by being introduced into the Shared Imagined Space. But while there's no barrier to being boring or silly, the Story Token system does provide a mechanical incentive for me to keep engaging the other players.

In a sense, the Premise of Capes -- "Power is fun. Do you deserve it?" -- applies less to the characters than to the players: You have tons of story power just as a playe, but only by using it in a way that appeals to the other players will you get rewarded, reinforced, and given more story power in the form of Story Tokens.

[Lxndr]

I do color narration of bad guys mowing down innocent civilians; Tony throws in a preventive goal "Hurt humans," banishing carnage from the scene until resolved.

Did this retroactively remove the mowing down of innocent civilians, or did it just stop further mowings?

[TonyLB]

Lxndr:  Just stopped further mowings.  I discovered (to my immense surprise) that I was cool with that in practice.  In theory I would have said that it was a problem.  Funny old thing, the human mind.


Sydney:  I can point out far more fundamental player-disagreement issues.

Eric wants the secrets of Tempus to be central mysteries.  Sydney wants the secrets of Minerva to be central mysteries.  They fight over it constantly, each of them winning in some places and losing in others.  Hence the way that Tempus is interwoven as a shadowy figure into the past of Minerva Danaan, and Minerva is interwoven as a shadowy figure into the past of the Chrysalis time-station.  And now that we've got incarnations of Minerva from multiple ages popping about, I anticipate that this will only get more fun.

Sydney wants magic and symbolism.  I want technology.  We fight over it constantly, each of us winning in some places and losing in others.  Hence our wonderfully evocative Iconic-Tech.


Now I intellectually appreciate (for instance) Sydney's contribution of magic.  I think we're getting better stuff than I would have created on my own.  But I'm not a convert to magic and symbolism, myself.  I'm going to continue to fight for a more technologically-based vision.  And he will, I presume, also continue to fight for his vision.  And so we will continue to be super-cool.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Tony: Interesting. I'd not even thought of those as "disagreements," and they're not stark incompatibilities on single inputs, but they're also things that could be campaign-killers. Except they're not, because (a) our group works well and specific to Capes, (b) if you really care about something, you can burn resources to make sure it happens and (c) you're encouraged to sell your ideas to the other players.

I do color narration of bad guys mowing down innocent civilians; Tony throws in a preventive goal "Hurt humans," banishing carnage from the scene until resolved.

Did this retroactively remove the mowing down of innocent civilians, or did it just stop further mowings?

Just stopped further mowings. I discovered (to my immense surprise) that I was cool with that in practice.

Once something's said, everyone has that image in their heads, whether or not it's accepted into the Shared Imagined Space -- in fact, even if it's immediately declared by all "no, that never happened." (No innocents were killed, Hulk wasn't tossed in the East River, Minerva didn't grow bunny ears, whatever). So, on that level, there's no such thing as "no harm, no foul," and no matter what mechanic you have for "no, that didn't happen," well, it can still ruin the mood if people don't move on.

On the other hand, if something's said and has no consequences -- even if it is accepted into the SIS -- it's very easy to do that moving on. So maybe innocents were killed, the Hulk was tossed in the East River, Minerva did grow bunny ears; but nobody ever referred to it again for any purpose, so retroactively, it fades into irrelevance.

It's kind of like how fans forget a bad episode of their favorite TV show, or don't let The Phantom Menace spoil their enjoyment of the original three Stars Wars movies. The difference is in a RPG you're sitting right at the table with the people producing the "bad episode" and can say, "no, I didn't like that, c'mon"; and in Capes particularly, you can reward them for doing stuff you do like by giving them power to do more stuff.