[Capes] Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

[Callan S.]

Aaron was spot on there.

I like this example:

Andy: Okay, Captain Heroic shouts "You won't get away that easily!" He grabs an I-beam from the construction site and...

Bob: Wait, Captain Heroic isn't THAT strong. I mean, sure, he's stronger than normal, even super strong, but those beams are really, really heavy. I call Goal: Captain Heroic picks up the beam.

And that's actually a really valid thing to explore, with the assistance of some sort of system.

Except Capes (as I understand it) isn't supposed to facilitate that exploration. It's not about asking ifyou can pick up the I-beam and swing it, but why you would swing it and facilitating that.

So what happens when you get a bunch of players who want to explore if they can pick up the I-beam, start playing Capes?

[Doug Ruff]

Aaron was spot on there.

Agreed - Aaron, you really nailed something there.

So what happens when you get a bunch of players who want to explore if they can pick up the I-beam, start playing Capes?

If the group wants to explore it, not a problem, because Captain Heroic's player can introduce it as a Goal. But it does imply a shift from conflict resolution to task resolution, and from 'why' (Can Captain Heroic lift the I-beam in time to save the day?) to 'if' (Can Captain Heroic lift the I-beam?)

What's more, and I suspect this may be more relevant to Callan's point, whether Captain Heroic can lift an I-beam this time does not set any limits on whether he can do it in the future. In other words, you can't use the rules to establish a power level, and I think that's what the group is really trying to do when they are engaged in this sort of exploration.

[Andrew Cooper]

My personal take on what a group should do when they want to explore "if" Captain Heroic is able to pick up the I-beam is that they should be playing Champions, Aberrant, or M&M or something where "if" is the question being answered by the system.  If System does matter (as is generally a given  around here) then Capes probably isn't the system for that type of play.  Just like all those other games really aren't the games you want if you are exploring "why" Captain Heroic picked up the I-beam.  At least, that's my opinion.  Yours might be completely different.