Is Capes a GM Training Game?

[TonyLB]

The definition of GNS modes assumes that such decisions exist in all games. I'm not making that up. You may disagree, but that doesn't change the definition.

See, that's progress!  If you can direct me to where that is in the articles then you'll have done me a great favor.  Thanks!

[Jaik]

I'd like to put forth the notion that Capes is more of a synergistic game than a traditional hybrid.

A traditional hybrid (as I think of it, the actual Forge definition may vary) would be a game where one mode is dominant with a secondary mode playing a strong supporting role.  The difference between the two varies from hybrid to hybrid, but usually one mode is clearly dominant.

I believe that in playing Capes, you can approach it from either a Gamist or Narrativist perspective and end up supporting either/both in the other players.  So, if I'm playing Capes to accumulate story tokens and inspirations and get rid of debt, then I'll look at the tactics involved and focus there and that will rquire me to interest the other players enough to stake their debt so I can get tokens.  It means I have to pick my fights to give myself the best chance of winning inspirations without racking up too much debt.  If I look for ways to tell my story and make important decisions, then it's helpful to have some story tokens and some inspirations, and I can get those by really pursuing the conflicts that matter to me and by helping the rest of the group tell their own stories by giving them conflicts that they find interesting.

It's like the system is this big black box.  Whether I put in G or N input, the other players get whichever flavor interests them the most.  Oooh, kinda like those soft-serve ice cream machines, where you can get chocolate, vanilla, or swirl.  You can either play Capes looking for direct system rewards and the other player's saying stuff like "Wow, how did you figure out to split the dice up like that and finesse an inspiration out of that mess?" (chocolate) or you can shoot for "Wow, so THAT'S how your character would deal with that situation.  Awesome!" (vanilla) or a more complicated thing like "Okay, I'll be facing my arch-nemesis is a couple scenes, so I'd better grab some Story Tokens off of Bob, since he's loaded with Debt.  Oh, I can play my nemesis and set him up as a better bad guy and push Bob to really offload some Debt, maybe even Gloat myself some extra Tokens...And then I'll be able to make the statement that I want"

Sure, the last example is clearly Narrativist.  In the long run.  In the short term, it could appear strictly Gamist.  Except for its motivation.  Theory says that there are no actual Gamist games or Narrativist players, only Gamist or Narrativist decisions, which, taken as an aggregate, can help to describe a given player's tendencies or the style that a given system best supports.  I think that the Capes system does an amazingly good job of suporting both Gamist and Narrativist play and can do so even when the two types of motivations are closely interspersed.

Does all that mess make sense/conform to theory?

[Larry L.]

Okay. I was poring over some past GNS threads and I think I've got a justification for Capes "only" being Nar. In Gamism, the point of play is to, in some objective sense, "win" the game. Like you can win at bingo or chess or football or Tekken. There's a winner and there's losers.

In Capes, "winning" is essential just successfully advancing one's creative agenda. Sure, you win individual conflicts, and they can get real cutthroat, but when the session is over there's not a concrete answer to the question, "So I heard you played Capes. Who won?"

[Mike Holmes]

See, that's progress!  If you can direct me to where that is in the articles then you'll have done me a great favor.  Thanks!

Sorry, was off on vacation for a bit. I'll see if I can't find a citation for you somewhere in the next few days.

Mike

[TonyLB]

Much appreciated, Mike.  Welcome back!

[Anders Gabrielsson]

Okay. I was poring over some past GNS threads and I think I've got a justification for Capes "only" being Nar. In Gamism, the point of play is to, in some objective sense, "win" the game. Like you can win at bingo or chess or football or Tekken. There's a winner and there's losers.

In Capes, "winning" is essential just successfully advancing one's creative agenda. Sure, you win individual conflicts, and they can get real cutthroat, but when the session is over there's not a concrete answer to the question, "So I heard you played Capes. Who won?"

But surely that goes for the vast majority of roleplaying games. Does that mean there are no Gamist games to the extent that there are no formal winning conditions in the games themselves? That would make GNS rather less useful than I had thought (though that's not saying much, really).

[Larry L.]

I've thought about my rationalization some more, and decided it's complete bunk. My Life With Master actually does have a winner, but it's obviously not intended to support Gamist play.

[Larry L.]

Anders,

Strictly speaking, there are no Gamist games (texts), there is only Gamist play.

The "vast majority" of roleplaying rules are incoherent, and need to be drifted to be functional.

Neither of these things are directly relevant to this thread. You should probably ask Ron over in the GNS forum.

[Anders Gabrielsson]

Anders,

Strictly speaking, there are no Gamist games (texts), there is only Gamist play.

The "vast majority" of roleplaying rules are incoherent, and need to be drifted to be functional.

I'm sorry for my imprecision. It's been a while since I was involved in a discussion on these subjects.

I guess I just misunderstood your comment about Capes and Gamist play. Could you elaborate?

[Larry L.]

Anders,

Mostly, I was offering a devil's advocate argument for Tony, while we were waiting for Mike. I'm personally inclined to call Capes play Narrativist-Gamist hybrid... but I think I'm missing some subtlety about the Creative Agenda definitions.

But crap, that was like a month ago. This is all pretty tangental to the original thread, so if you have a specific question about Capes and/or GNS, you should probably start a new thread in the appropriate forum.

[Anders Gabrielsson]

Sorry Larry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that. I was just curious. :)

I would agree that Capes supports both Narrativist and Gamist play - quite well in both instances, in my opinion. (The only Simulationists who could be happy with it would be those who want to simulate superhero comics rather than superheroes as they appear in comics, I think. But that's even more tangential.)

Considering you always have the option of not narrating, I don't see how it could be purely Narrativist.

[Mike Holmes]

Anders, you need to check on your definition of narrativism, narrative, and narration. They are all only tangentially related terms (see the referenced essay below). Narrativism isn't about whether or not one narrates, but about which participant selects the direction of the narrative.

The problem that I'm having is that the discussions in which this stuff that I'm trying to cite came up is so old that some of it is even on gamingoutpost.com (prior to the existence of The Forge). Basically what I recall is saying the same thing you said, something like: "Why can't one make decisions that are two modes at once?" Ron's reply, as far as I can remember, came down to the fact that some decisions simply can't be this way, and he presented some examples. Examples I was forced to agree were such that one could not make a "hybrid" decision about.

In any case, it was shortly after this time that Ron came up with the whole "instance of play" thing. Which says that, basically, looking at individual decisions doesn't tell you about the general priority that a player has. That only by looking at substantive chunks of play could you discern what became later known as Creative Agenda. This is important, because without being able to identify CA, the theory is pointless. It's only at the point that players identify it in others or themselves, or that we can identify such patterns as produced by play, that the theory has any impact (for example, in identifying the source of incoherence in play).

Anyhow, what happens is that in the essays which came later, Ron speaks to the idea of hybrids, but you'll note that he denies that a true hybrid can happen. See the section marked "The grim epiphany: Narrativism and Simulationism" in the Narrativism essay: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html

Immediately above this section (look carefully for it as the example text headers from the Marvel game look like real headers themselves), Ron addresses the differences in Gamism and Narrativism (he points to them being mostly aesthetic). "And the key point for me is that the same game system is usable alternatively for Narrativist or Gamist (or Hard Core Gamist) play, rather than simultaneously."

This essay is a bit dated now, but I don't believe that any of these particular ideas have been altered since.

Mike

[Anders Gabrielsson]

Thanks for pointing that out! I knew I'm not completely up to date on the terminology, but apparently I'm worse off than I thought.