Fact mechanic for Capes

[TonyLB]

It sounded to me like they were more like a shared pool of check-off abilities:  They can roll up a die (I presume a die whose current value is equal to or less than the level of the Fact) and may only be used once a scene.

[Vaxalon]

Well, YOU don't keep them... they aren't owned by anyone.

[Larry L.]

Ahh, okay. So there would be like a "Fact Tracker" sheet in the middle of the table with checkboxes for each item, and anyone can use his turn to invoke a Fact? And Facts don't provide trump/veto power, they just roll up/down a die like any other ability?

[TonyLB]

That's what I'm reading Steve to say.  Which may not, actually, be what he's saying.

I'm also unclear (if I've read him correctly in other things) whether Facts could be used on a reaction, in the same way that other abilities could.  The answer to that makes a huge difference in the strategy of how they are created and used, so I'm interested to hear from Steve how he thinks it would work.

[Grover]

I should make some things clear:

First, Tony has the right idea - they are basically a pool of check-off abilities anyone can use.  I hadn't actually thought about their use with respect to reactions.  I don't see that there would be a problem with allowing their use as a reaction, but I'd be interested in hearing more about that.

Second, I didn't think of the idea with the intention of correcting a problem in Capes (at least, not a problem of dysfunctional play).  My main idea was that Capes provides a good way to mechanically describe characters, but not really a way to mechanically describe facts (although, now that I think of it, Capes loose definition of character would probably allow you to define an arbitrary fact as an aspect of some character or other).  One thing I enjoy about RPGs is the way you can use them to describe imaginary worlds, and I thought that this is a mechanic which will allow for a more complete description without being too disruptive to play.

Finally, Fred - I think the problem that you're running into is taking what Tony says about competition too seriously.  It's true that Capes supports a high level of competition between players, but if the players care more about winning than they do about creating an aesthetically pleasing story, then you are going to get ugly stories that nobody cares about.

Steve

[TonyLB]

Well, actually, I'm pretty serious about competition for resources.  I think that the good story emerges from that competition.  Yes, competition to be the "top dog" in the SIS outside of the game-mechanics will lead to unhealthy social-bullying.  But competition to be top dog inside the game-mechanics just leads to fun!  Because the mechanics are magical and powerful.

So, here's what I'd do with your system, from a purely "I want to win resources" perspective:

• I will never, ever use one of my own abilities when there is a Fact that can apply instead.  Because every one of my abilities I use brings me one check closer to being forced to fall back on powers, generate more debt than I need, and eventually give other people story tokens beyond what I need to give them to win.
• By contrast, I want other people to be using Facts as little as I can manage, because every one of their abilities they use brings them one check closer to creating eventual story tokens for me.
• Therefore, any Fact I create will be as persuasively worded as possible, so that anyone who wants to use it has to pay (essentially) a Royalty in story control to me, the Fact's creator.  So "Captain Proton is totally, in all ways, cooler than anyone else and should be worshipped"... that's a Fact I'd make, because I want it to support my vision of events, whoever uses it.
• When other people make such persuasive-Facts and put high numbers on them, I will, myself, use them early in inconsequential ways so that they don't get used against me as a reaction later in the same scene.  So if Mega-Lass creates a fact "Survived a blast of fusing star-material: 6" then I'm going to use it to say that she can shrug off a paper-airplane thrown at her by a child, so that later in that scene, when I smack her with my Tachyon Beam, she can't use it to react me down.

I think that the strategy above is pretty well sound, though I haven't playtested and seen it in action enough to be certain.

My worry, if the strats are sound, is that all of the strategies point to the benefit of using Facts first, and only falling back on your own check-off abilities when all Facts are expended.  That's a pretty radical reinterpretation of the way character personality influences the game-world, and I wonder whether it would undermine the strength of character-to-character interplay.

[Gamskee]

This has made me wonder if, after reading ubering characters, if one could merely make a villain/hero/character titled "The Setting" or "Physics", and have it lash out angrily at whichever side it felt it should support? Y'know, have abilities like "Object in Motion tends to stay in Motion" or "Enforce Continuity".

I mean, if they are important enough aspects to worry about, someone can pay the story tokens to keep the enforcers around.

[TonyLB]

Oh, that would be so funny as an object lesson to somebody who kept coming to Capes with the misguided notion that "But this is what would happen in reality" is a legitimate creative argument.  "Dude, if you're so in love with Reality, then play it!"

Such wonderful possible exchanges:  "Captain Smash grabs the building by the spindly radio antenna on its top and uses it to SMASH Professor Smug!  I get a five!"  "No way!  Reality reacts with 'Leverage equals force applied times length of lever arm.'  I roll a two."  "Well then, I'll react with Cheesy Monologue, and roll your two... up to a six!  Take that, oppressive forces of conventional physics!  You and your evil master, Isaac Newton, shall never stand in the path of JUSTICE!"

And, at the same time, on a less completely cheesy level:  Yeah, you can definitely bring those things in as ubers, and they really can (and do) change the tenor of a conflict.  It's a nice, gentle, way to enforce your own notions of what should happen... if people object, they get to object with their Debt Tokens (which, classically, Reality wouldn't be able to counter), you get Story Tokens to further your agenda in future scenes, and they get their way because it matters so much to them.  Public Opinion, on page 108, is precisely such an uber, for those situations in which people want to say "Oh, you just wouldn't get away with saying that on live television," or something similar.