Capes review at Gaming Report

[TonyLB]

Wayne Tonjes wrote a review of Capes.  I'm still in a "jury is out" mode about the review itself... anyone who thinks that you buy extra actions by spending Debt Tokens, for instance, doesn't fill me with confidence that they've actually taken a lot of time to carefully examine the system.  But hey, publicity is always better than no publicity, and it had a reasonably positive tone.  

Like I said, I'm still deciding whether I like it.

[Larry L.]

Unfortunately, the presentation fails to convey the rules in an intuitively understandable fashion even with three of eight chapters devoted to the task.

Incidentallly, I'm not certain I've ever seen a game text that conveys the rules in an intuitively understandable fashion, excepting a handful of extremely low-mechanic games like TWERPS or Risus. Really, I'm always the guy who shows up, "Yes, I read the rules. No, I still don't have any idea how this game is supposed to play. Let's dive in!"

I have often noticed the term "intuitively" is used to mean "really rather similar to a paradigm I'm already comfortable with; hence, objectively superior."

[Eric Provost]

Capes offers an interesting, free form style of game.

That line kinda boggled me.  My only copy of capes is one of the older playtest versions, but there's nothing in there or in any of the actual play posts I've read to even hint at 'free form'.  In fact, it seems to be one of the most structurd games I know.  

Maybe the game I read was significantly different from the game he read.

But even that aside, what I read between the lines in his review is "I didn't get it."  And as a reader of the review, I wouldn't get it either.

-Eric

[TonyLB]

Yeah, those points are... well I agree.  That's a lot of why I am uneasy with the review.  Basically, I read it and think "He's trying to use a very limited language to describe a game that, frankly, doesn't fit into that language."

Is Capes "freeform"?  Well, if freeform is any game where the players have major input into the ongoing development of the story and the world then... yeah.  But that's only linked with the word "freeform" because of roleplaying history.  So I see what he's trying to say, but at the same time I think to myself "He didn't actually say what he's trying to say, did he?"

At the same time, I have a great deal of sympathy for the fact that he has had to review more games than I can comfortably imagine.  It's got to be easier to review a cookie-cutter reiteration of something you've seen a hundred times before, and if your life and schedule is adjusted to needing to put that much energy into a review then a game that demands substantially more work to understand isn't an exciting opportunity... it's a pain in the ass.

[Eric Provost]

Sympathy?  You're a better man than me.  I don't have any sympathy for him at all.  Sounds like you're trying to give him the excuse of "Hey, he's not used to working, so why ask him to work?"

If he didn't grok it he should have said he didn't grok it.  Problem is, he probably dosen't realize he didn't grok it, so he can't possibly admit it.

Know what?  I think I'll take that sympathy thing back.  I've got sympathy for him as a game reader & player, just not as a game reviewer.  

It's that NewSpeak vs. OldSpeak problem.  OldSpeak gamers expect a certain pattern from their games (like ya said) and NewSpeak writers aren't producing that pattern anymore.  But then, NewSpeak writers aren't doing much of a job of trying to introduce OldSpeakers to the new patterns either.  

I think reviews like that one will dissapear once Forgites figure out how to quietly, seamlessly, and painlessly introduce the oldfolk into the NewOrder.

-Eric