[Capes] Vaxalon, Lxndr, and James Nostack have a go

[Vaxalon]

Right now, I'm available MTWF.  Thursdays are taken, with Mike Holmes' HQ game.  I'm fairly certain that Lxndr is available the same days, though I can't be certain.

[Larry L.]

Do you feel the use of the Lexicon to develop the SIS outside of Capes is helpful or hindering? It seems like a cool project on its own, but I have this suspicion that it might be a burden on Capes gameplay,  since there's nothing in Capes to reward a player for adhering to it. (The "reward" otherwise being that you have had a chance to "buy in" to establish whichever bits about the world via the conflict system.)

Which items in your Comics Code were in use this session?

Mostly, I guess I'm a bit confused by why James and Alexander decided to go along with Fred's wishes for these setup things. As seen, Capes gives you free reign to demonstrate your resentment of anything you think is crap.

I, too, am curious specifically how James sees that M&M or free-form would have yielded a more rewarding experience.

[Vaxalon]

The lexicon is an experiment that's ongoing.  It's more to create a "seed bank" that people can draw on than to put bars in place to limit things.  Almost nothing in the Lexicon came up during play.

We had not agreed to any comics code at all for this session.

[James_Nostack]

this would have been an ENORMOUSLY
satisfying session of Mutants & Masterminds or free-form!

Interesting. Can you elaborate why? From what little I know of M&M, it's very far from free-form, so if you can figure out what appeals to you which those two very different things share but which Capes doesn't, we might be onto something.

Mutants & Masterminds, or most traditional games, would have given me the sense that there was a "real" world, with all that would imply.  I could even imagine some modifcations that would permit GM-less play which would still preserve the feeling of "reality."

At the completely opposite end of the spectrum a free-form would enable us to shape the story collaboratively, without the intrusion of formal rules.  Maybe I wouldn't get what I wanted, but I could enjoy as other players took what I offered and ran with it--and vice versa.  

Capes, to my eyes, offers the competition of a traditional game without a feeling that there's anything at stake.  Likewise it offers the "run with others' contributions" part of freeform play, but since it repeatedly insists that there should never be a consensus I end up feeling frustrated and impotent even when I'm all-powerful.

To me, it's the worst of both worlds.  I respect that other people may want this out of a game, but it's not to my personal taste.

[TonyLB]

I'm interested to know:  What do you think would have happened if you started at the same starting point, with the same players, and ran under M&M?  Under freeform?

Do you think you would have got the same sequence of events, just mediated in another system?  Or do you think you would have gotten a completely different story?

For what it's worth, I think the latter.

[Vaxalon]

Well, if we had been playing M&M, there would have been a gamemaster.

If we had been playing freeform, we probably would have been playing under one of the "consent" rules.  Here's an example:

-Character Interaction: Avoid "unblockable" and "forced" actions. If you are playing a character who is attacking or otherwise chasing another character, give them ways to avoid capture. Try to give the other player breathing room. The same goes for playing the defensive character: there should be few (if any) forced actions. Forced actions are, in effect, writing the other player's character without their consent. This is known as power-playing/power-gaming, and is generally not appreciated. The only time forcing actions is acceptable is with the consent of the other player. This can occur when their character is obviously under your character's complete control, or their character is willing to let yours do just about anything. Still, it is best to be avoided. Once again, please try to avoid power-play, as it tends to make RP less fun for those being around a power-gamer.

[TonyLB]

Yeah, but that's talking about process.  Which is fine, and important, but not what I was asking about.  Do you think that, if you changed the process in that way, it would have had the same results?

Because if you don't, then saying "Man, I loved those results... I should have just gotten them through a more palatable process!" seems to be missing the point.

[Vaxalon]

I think it's probably impossible to get exactly the same results from a different process.  I should have made it clear that was what I was saying.

[Vaxalon]

I should make it clear that we didn't like all of the results.  It wouldn't have been a problem, by definition, if we had liked everything that happened.

So no, I really don't think James is saying, "Man, what great results... why couldn't we have done this with M&M?"

Instead, I think what James is getting at is, "You know, if we had been using M&M (with a gamemaster) or FFRP (with a consent rule) these distasteful results probably wouldn't have happened, and we would have kept the good stuff, and it would have been better."

[Jonas Ferry]

When I've played Capes I've had situations and series of events that would probably not have happened weren't it for Capes' mechanics. I can give one example that immediately springs to mind.

I played Chronos I and Chronos II, a future self of Chronos I, both from the future. Another player had created the young female Indian journalist/blogger Janet, who had left her tribe to try life in the big city. Since she was one of the few women the right age, the future of the tribe kind of depended on her. Now enters the lesbian heroine Defiance, controlled by another player, who selects Janet as her Love exemplar. The players agree to add the free event "Janet has a moment of confidence" (as in trusting someone, not as in believing in yourself).

Ok, the scene was at the not-so-secret headquarters of our heroes. Janet had somehow found out the location and arrived for an interview. Chronos I didn't like that at all, but Defiance was interested in Janet and wanted to show her around. The player of Janet added the free event and people started rolling it up and down. The thing was, I really needed to get rid of some debt on Duty so I started spending it on a side of the conflict with the motivation that it was Chronos' duty towards his mission from the future that made him want to tell Janet the right things.

After lots of rolling with three sides to the conflict and more characters than that involved, there were more characters and conflicts in the scene than this, I managed to resolve it. I described how Chronos II time-jumped to arrange stuff for a dinner and managed to convince Janet to share it, while Chronos I distracted Defiance and the others in another room. Chronos II used the dinner as an excuse to inform Janet of things to come, and of his mission to present time, in a way that set up some things to use in sessions to come. Whether his predictions are right or wrong remains to be seen, and depend a lot on if the other players think they're cool.

My point is that it was obvious that the player of Janet and Defiance, and the rest of us, thought that the free event with the moment of confidence would be between those two. I can only speak for myself, but had we freeformed I would have let them have their moment in order to not block the intentions of the players. Now I intervened with all I had, with lots of interesting twists and turns when Chronos and Defiance tried to secure Janet's attention, which created something we wouldn't have dreamed up otherwise. That was the Capes' system at it's best, according to me.

[Vaxalon]

That's wonderful!  I've had plenty of moments like that myself, in Capes.

But it's not moments like that, that you look at the system for ways to improve it.

[Grover]

I think I'm beginning to get a grasp on the problem, even if I have no idea for a solution yet.  Tell me if I'm making sense.

The Capes system has no provisions for permanently adding something to the SIS.  In M&M the rule-mechanics take care of it.  In freeform, there are informal rules which prevent players from messing with each other too much.  But in Capes players are explicitly encouraged to mess with each other, but there is no rules-base to prevent that from getting out of hand.  This means that you cannot do what the rules encourage you to do, because no matter what you come up with, the other players can negate it on their turn.

I think this may be a problem of presentation.  When I've played Capes, I've definitely felt obligated to come up with stuff that makes sense in the SIS.  I have avoided using abilities that I couldn't justify (even to the point of losing conflicts), and I've never used free narration to narrate a significant event.  That doesn't mean I haven't been competing with the other players.  I've used every tool the system gives to try to win conflicts, I've created new conflicts with the specific intention of distracting another player, and I've argued conflicts that I didn't really care about just to get Story Tokens.

James, if you can stomach playing Capes again, try competing for Inspirations and Story Tokens as hard as you can, but treat narrating as if you were playing freeform (i.e. don't narrate without the consent of the other players unless you've won a conflict which specifically allows it).

[Larry L.]

So let me make sure I have this right, James:
[list=1][*]You intentionally sabotaged the game (via free narration) to prove a point.
[*]You put forth a creative agenda which you were not interested in getting, and in fact became disheartened when you got it.
[*]You accepted the entire premise of gameplay begrudgingly, having not gotten what you wanted in the beginning.
[/list:o]I'm not misrepresenting your statements there, right?

Okay,

How were the problems with this gameplay the responsibility of anyone but yourself? Are these problems which should be solved by game design?*

This is completely the "player is a dick" situation which everyone who perceives a problem with Capes has repeatedly assured me we are not talking about. I'm assuredly not implying you're a jerk; I'm merely pointing out that by your own admission you were assuming a dysfunctional posture to break the game. So I don't think this is a legitimate example of how a "good faith" effort to Step On Up can ruin the game.

Are we saying Capes would be better if it had a mechanism for assigning the authority to smack down a player that is spoiling his own fun? (Not sarcasm there, I think it's a valid question. In GMed games it's handled by the GM, and freeform games aren't, AFAIK, truly competitive.)

Perhaps the "competitive" nature of Capes needs to be clarified?

*The word "should" used here deliberately.

[Vaxalon]

Do you REALLY think that James was spoiling his own fun at [05]?

[Larry L.]

I could be reading this incorrectly:

[01] <Warhawk> (But I want to show something about Capes as a system)

I guess I read that to mean that he anticipates that his narration will surpass what is reflected by the mechanics. I dunno, that's why I asked him if I'm understanding him correctly.

Regarding [05], I actually think you should have let him vent his frustrations at that time. By assuming the authority of "moderator," (or perhaps, by others permitting you such authority) I suspect you may knocking something off-balance.