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

[Vaxalon]

I felt like he wasn't ranting at us so much as into the logs.  As such, I felt that it was better handled by actually making a post than by putting it in the log.  We already knew what he had to say.

[Grover]

I think you're misreading the situation Larry.  While it is true that things might have been better if they hadn't compromised on the initial setup, I don't believe that James is trying to express a problem with the setup.  When he was disheartened by his victory, it was not because he was pursuing a goal he was uninterested in - he was pursuing a goal he thought he valued, only to discover that when he achieved it, it no longer interested him.  

I think the problem that he ran into is that he was trying to compete at a level Capes doesn't support.  I think it might be useful to emphasize that while players are expected to compete at the mechanical level (for inspirations and Story Tokens) they need to cooperate at the level of generating narration.

[TonyLB]

James:  Were you disheartened that you achieved your goal, or disheartened that nobody tried to stop you?

I see a lot of similarities between the (clearly failed) strategy that you pursued to try to get attention in Capes, and a very functional strategy that can be employed in Illusionist play:  If you believe that a nominal decision point can (in fact) only go one way (e.g. Doc Trinity cannot be eviscerated and dumped in the Atlantic) then you can get a lot of attention by trying to push the decision the other way, because it forces people to oppose you.

It looks to me as if you were dead certain that people would be lining up to stop Warhawk from invading Krakatoa and killing Doc Trinity.  Then, when nobody felt obliged to worry about your threat to turn the game-world upside down, you felt that the whole thing had been wasted effort.  What do you think?  Right or wrong?

[James_Nostack]

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?

Larry, you have misunderstood me at all three points.  Frankly, discussing Capes would be a lot easier if everyone didn't immediately leap to the conclusion that I am a philistine.  It might be true, but it probably should not be the starting assumption since it may impede understanding on both sides.

1.  I didn't intentionally sabotage anything.  I'm not sure where you're getting that.  Warhawk wanted Fracture to betray Trinity's interests; Warhawk tried to ensure this by removing Trinity very forcibly.  That's not sabotage; it's just my interpretation of how an impatient, militaristic superhuman would react in that scene.  Ultimately he wants to conquer the island; he also wants Fracture's help; Trinity stands in the way of both of those things; Trinity also happens to be immediately at hand.

2. My agenda was to wreack havoc on Krakatoa, which I was quite interested in.  It was, however, the only thing about the setting I could possibly imagine myself, as a player, caring about.  Upon its completion, the game fell apart for me.  There was nowhere else to go.  

3. This particular genre was not my cup of tea, no.  I said so repeatedly during pre-play, and offered several alternatives.  None of these appealed to Vaxalon, who wanted very much to use his Dr. Trinity character in an appropriate genre context.  Realizing that Capes only works with player buy-in, I attempted to learn what a "Dr. Trinity story" is all about, and  found an apsect of that story that appealed to me--being the villain.  I did my best to engage as enthusiastically as I could with the only genre Vaxalon seemed to want.  Aside from refusing to play, what else could be done?

The issue here is that when people want to tell a particular story, they usually have a genre in mind.  Within any particular genre, there are genre conventions.  If something disrupts the genre conventions (i.e., a UFO suddenly appearing in what is consciously intended to be a straight Western) then there's trouble.  In this case, it would mean that somebody at the table doesn't really want to play a straight Western, which can make people who do want to play a straight Western unhappy.

So, at the meta-game level, people need to be clear on what kind of genre they're telling--unless you are totally indifferent to your audience (which seems to be what Tony advises).  So--there needs to be a way that everyone can buy into the story at hand.  If they have not bought in fully, they're likely to (perhaps unwittingly) introduce elements that make other players (not necessarily their characters) unhappy.

Inevitably in these situations, people will not agree.  In an authoritarian game system like D&D, basically the GM has final word.  If you don't like what the GM wants to play, you find yourself another game.  In an egalitarian game, however, you have to reach an accord with everyone at the table, because you're all equally powerful.  It's uncertain how disputes at this level should be settled, and there are some consequences to this uncertainty.  This is a design issue for Capes, and any egalitarian game, because you're multiplying the number of GM's.  If left solely to unspoken social contract stuff, the player with the strongest personality might win, or (in my case) someone might try their best to play along because they felt like giving in was the only way to try Capes at all.

If, for example, there were rules that said, "Player X gets to pick the setting, but Player Y gets to pick the characters," that gives some control to both parties.  Another option might be-- "In the case of a meta-game conflict, roll some dice: highest wins."  Or, auction it off using certain meta-game resources, so that someone who cares strongly about Aspect A can get it, though he won't be able to influence Aspect B as much.

Strictly in my opinion play has to occur in an imaginary space whose broad outlines, at least, are acceptable to all involved.  This permits them to emotionally commit to actions within that space without transgressing it.  From what I have gathered from the pro-Capes crowd, this is intensely undesireable.  That's fine: but I suspect it is likely to lead, in some cases, to the effects listed at the start of this thread.  It did in my case, and for me personally it isn't much fun; maybe others are different.  I would have had more fun if there was some formal way to negotiate those outermost imaginative borders beyond simple conversation, because conversations are very subtle things and people don't always make conversational decisions strictly based on game-logic.

I think, however, that I have explained myself as well as I ever can.  If that doesn't satisfy you, I'm sorry.  

PS.  For reference, I was not ranting--I was simply using CAPS with the understanding that other people would be read the logs, and it would draw attention to mechanical issues with Capes as they were happening in real-time.  (I did not know at that time that Vax would use a "scene numbering" system in the log.)  I made an unfortunate typographical choice since it looks like I was angry; I wasn't.  It was intended as the equivalent of a post-it note.

[Michael Brazier]

2. My agenda was to wreack havoc on Krakatoa, which I was quite interested in.  It was, however, the only thing about the setting I could possibly imagine myself, as a player, caring about.  Upon its completion, the game fell apart for me.  There was nowhere else to go.  [...]
So, at the meta-game level, people need to be clear on what kind of genre they're telling--unless you are totally indifferent to your audience (which seems to be what Tony advises).  So--there needs to be a way that everyone can buy into the story at hand.  If they have not bought in fully, they're likely to (perhaps unwittingly) introduce elements that make other players (not necessarily their characters) unhappy.

It looks to me as if you've got the problem exactly backwards.  The trouble with your session was not that your agenda made the other players unhappy.  It was, rather, that the other players went along with your agenda instead of opposing it -- they bought into your story, let you have your goal without a fight.  And because they did so, you lost all interest in that goal.  If the other players had been more unhappy with your agenda, their resistance would have given you something to be interested in.

In short, the trouble was not too much disagreement among the players, but too little.

[Vaxalon]

Sorry.  I'm just a generally agreeable guy.  :)

[Larry L.]

Okay, let me step back and try again:
[list=1][*]I take back the sabotage bit. But you did know that your narration would not describe a circumstance leading to resolution of the conflict that Fred controlled (due to And Then), right?
[*]You interpreted the acceptance of the Event as meaning there was nothing left to fight about. Has subsequent commentary from Fred and Alexander in this thread shown how this was not actually the case?
[*]You were content to play the Krakatoa setting, but your threshold for disinterest was much lower than it might otherwise have been.[/list:o]
Basically, I'm getting that you want your narration, if it is especially clever, to have an impact on the mechanics. Whereas in Capes, narration is merely to describe the effects the mechanics are having on the SIS, or for scene-setting color.

Is this a more reasonable reading?

Why do you bring in the comment about genre expectations? I don't see anything that violates genre standards in this example.