The Capes Mindset

[Vaxalon]

I'm coming to believe that you have to be in the right mindset to enjoy Capes.

1> You have to be up for competition and heavy-duty player-versus-player play.  You also have to be willing to let other people have what they want sometimes.

Failure of this element results in dislocation from the conflict rules.

2> You have to be pretty firmly wedded to Director stance, because if you identify too closely with a character, the game falls apart.  At the same time, you have to care ENOUGH about your character that you are willing to fight for him.

Failure of this element results in thing like "king bystander" and over-engagement with the conflict rules and too little emphasis on narration.

Capes is a tightrope.

[TonyLB]

<mutter> Win some, lose some... debt management vs. story tokens.  Director stance, but with character engagement... affecting conflicts in order to harvest resources... </mutter>

Say!  Doesn't what you said boil down to "Capes works best when you seek out the reward mechanisms built into the rules"?  I mean, that would be true, but hardly a revelation.  It's like saying "Monopoly is a tightrope:  You have to buy properties, but you don't want to run out of money."  To which I would say "Yes," but also "Duh!"

[C. Edwards]

There's a problem with that analogy, Tony. Capes has an SIS. The main thrust of an rpg is to contribute to and manipulate that imaginary space. In Monopoly the full extent of game play is present in the props; board, cards, pieces, etc. I can manipulate the SIS in Capes to fit my vision without using the conflict rules.

In Monopoly the equivalent of the hole I see in Capes would be like buying a property, but when someone else lands on that space they get to buy it too. You've got to hand the property over to them, and hope you land on it again so that you can buy it back. But wait! What's the purpose of owning the property if you're probably not going to collect any rent from it?

That's currently how I feel about Capes.

-Chris

[Vaxalon]

Sure.

The reward mechanism in Monopoly is straightforward.  The more value in properties you own, the better you're doing.  You only need to keep enough cash on hand to cover rent on whatever you're likely to land on in the next turn or two.

Playing monopoly is like walking along a mountain; you can only fall in one direction, really, failing to successfully predict future expenditures when buying properties.

The rewards mechanisms in Capes are far more complex.  You have to consider not only what you want, but what other people want; not only story tokens, but also inspirations, and debt.  The balancing act between these is far more complex.

So yeah, you can boil it down to "Capes works best when you seek out the reward mechanisms built into the rules" but by doing so you boil out my point.

[TonyLB]

Okay, so what's your point?

[Vaxalon]

My point is that the mindset that works for Capes has more requirements than most games do, and they have to be balanced more carefully against each other.

I think this is the root of why a lot of people aren't "getting it".

[TonyLB]

Um... so "The rules are subtle, and I don't immediately understand all the strategies they can imply"?  Or did you mean something else?

So far this still seems to be "Yes and Duh!" territory to me.

[Vaxalon]

No, I'm not talking about strategies, really.

I'm talking about mindset... a combination of what you know (director stance, etc) what you feel (competiveness, cooperativeness) and everything else in your head.  Capes is more sensitive to those things than other RPGs are, I think.

[TonyLB]

Okay then, I'm confused.  How about we move through it one step at a time?

The things you are talking about (the way you position your character, the level of competition you apply) all have an impact on what you gain in terms of resources.  Do you agree or disagree?

[Vaxalon]

Certainly, I agree.... though I'm not sure you're on the right track.

Some people have a problem with director stance.  It's a pretty wild idea for some people, and if a person can't manage it, he'll have trouble with Capes.  It's not rewarded.

On the other hand, people like me can get very detached from their characters.  I've been a gamemaster so much that I tend to become a little distant from them, because I know that generally speaking they're going to take the hard end of things when they go up against the PC's.  That attitude will also cause problems in Capes.  It's not rewarded.

Some people have a problem with competitive RPGs like Capes, Pantheon, and Baron Munchausen.  They play RPG's to get away from competitiveness, and they shy away from that aspect.  If someone like that tries to play Capes, he'll have trouble.  That behavior isn't rewarded.

Some people play RPG's TOO competitively... they always want their character to be the best at everything.  Now this is bad play in most games, but in Capes it presents even greater difficulties.  It's not rewarded.

All together, you've got four classes of people, some common some not, which will have a problem with Capes.

[TonyLB]

Yep!  You've got it exactly right.  That's by design.

I think having the flexibility to view those "styles" as the tools they are, and being able to apply them in balance, is a skill.  The four groups of people you are describing simply don't have that skill... they are stuck in one mode or another.

If they don't have that skill then they're going to be routinely out-performed by people who do.  That's their incentive to stretch a little bit, and learn how to do things that don't come easily to them.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Fred, I agree with... hmmm... 3/8 of what you've said. Let me just go through your four categories, because in almost every case I think people are indeed incentivized, through the reward system, to get out of those mindsets and into the Capes mentality, meaning there's a positive feedback system to help you stay on that tightrope:

Some people have a problem with director stance.  It's a pretty wild idea for some people, and if a person can't manage it, he'll have trouble with Capes.  It's not rewarded.

Director stance hard - absolutely. I struggled with it in the Capes playtests.
But director stance not rewarded in Capes -- really? Once you understand that power, you can create all sorts of funky conflicts like setting Goals for other people that don't logically follow from anything your character does in-SIS.

people like me can get very detached from their characters.  I've been a gamemaster so much that I tend to become a little distant from them, because I know that generally speaking they're going to take the hard end of things when they go up against the PC's.  That attitude will also cause problems in Capes.  It's not rewarded.

Getting detached from your characters -- absolutely, that can happen in Capes, where the "disposable Undifferentiated-debt bad guy" is a common tactic.
Not rewarded -- really? Being detached enough to sacrifice characters gets you Story Tokens. Now, if you mean that overcoming your detachment is not rewarded, perhaps more of an issue there, although I suspect if you don't care enough then it's hard to make other people care and thus pay you Story Tokens to lose.

Some people ...play RPG's to get away from competitiveness, and they shy away from that aspect.  If someone like that tries to play Capes, he'll have trouble.  That behavior isn't rewarded.

Oh boy, will they have trouble. Absolutely.
But if they ever get into the competitive mindset, they'll be rewarded with Inspirations when they win and Story Tokens when they lose and massive director-power over the SIS when they declare preventive Goals and the like.

Some people play RPG's TOO competitively... they always want their character to be the best at everything.  Now this is bad play in most games, but in Capes it presents even greater difficulties.  It's not rewarded.

Okay, this is the tricky one, because I can see two kinds of hyper-competitive player:

The Brawler. He just wants to fight, all the time, over anything, so he can win and prove he's better. I think we can stipulate that Capes is actually perfect for this guy?

The Ninja Turtle. He wants to achieve results in the SIS. What's more, he wants to achieve them without fighting, and in fact without resorting to the game mechanics at all -- probably because years of traditional D&D and/or White Wolf play have taught him that acting them the mechanics is the road to whiff-ville and utter frustration, whereas if he can just convince the omnipotent gamemaster to enact something he wants, he'll get it with 100% reliability.
The Ninja Turtle is going to have a lot of trouble with Capes, because the habits he learned to succeed in other (by all accounts fairly disfunctional) systems are going screw him over again and again: He'll avoid the conflict system, declare his character's goals met in narration, and then feel a big "huh... now what?" -- and/or sheer terror that, with no GM, he has to convince all the other players to accept his narration as set in stone or else any one of them can undo it on a whim.
On the upside, since the whole rulebook and all the tangible rewards (the "cues" in Vincent-speak) are about getting into Conflict, there are lots of pointers towards the more fun way to play, even for the Ninja Turtle.

[Jaik]

There's a problem with that analogy, Tony. Capes has an SIS. The main thrust of an rpg is to contribute to and manipulate that imaginary space. In Monopoly the full extent of game play is present in the props; board, cards, pieces, etc. I can manipulate the SIS in Capes to fit my vision without using the conflict rules.

[SNIP]

-Chris

I read this and I flash back to the rulebook where Tony wrote "Players are free to have their characters DO absolutely anything, but not ACHIEVE absolutely anything."

Capes lets me have fun by doing neat stuff with my narrations.  It also lets me have fun fighting over things with my friends.  But you have to want things and you have to be willing to risk them.  If you would be fine playing a dirt farmer in D&D, you should probably steer clear of Capes.

(Edited to correct the quote)

[Stickman]

I have to admit to being one of those 'don't like to compete' guys, and I still think Capes is the best thing I've played in a long while.

The key to that particualr can o' worms is to remember that you're not going to actively compete agains the other players, you're going to give them something to test themselves against. It's a subtle difference, but I found once I started thinking that way I could do all sorts of things to my buddies knowing that I wasn't out to ruin their good times (the Gloating rule rocks!) but rather to get me some sweet, sweet story tokens by having them prove thier characters worth in situations I helped make more fun.

[WiredNavi]

Sounds to me like Capes would be a good game for a group composed entirely of people used to being in a traditional GM role, and bad for those used to being in a traditional player role (assuming each of those people LIKED those roles).

It does strike me as weird, and perhaps part of the difficulty, that Capes has some incredibly Gamist mechanics for how you determine who narrates, etc. but the rewards for success in those mechanics are entirely transitory and present-focused in a very Story Now kind of way.  I may have won this conflict over this particular thing by being clever and having an appropriate strategy, but the reward was not that I actually accomplished something which will be meaningful in the long term, but that for those few seconds I was at the top and got my way.