Capes Tournament?

[TonyLB]

So I'm trying to figure out something special and nifty to do with Capes at Dreamation 2006 ... specifically, something that will let more than four people play in a scheduled event, since those fill up very quickly, and some people just don't cotton to the idea of playing at the booth rather than getting their name on a list.  I'd love to "run" (loosely) something that could take up to a dozen people, and do something out of the ordinary.

And what I thought (having been prompted by folks at previous cons) was that maybe I should run a Capes tournament.  It has several advantages:

• People who want to jump in and try to win prizes are well advised to hone their skills by playing at the booth at every opportunity.  An ulterior motive to come play with Tony!
• Folks like to try to win stuff.  I like to give away cool stuff.  A match made in heaven.
• I'd get to see whether my claim that pure competition actually does lead to better story holds up under the stress test of people fighting not merely to get "enough" resources, but to get more than anyone else.

The possible downsides are ... it might be utterly insane.  Hard to say.

I'd be inclined to break people into groups of no more than five, no less than three (as that's usually Capes-optimal) and to have them all running their own separate scenes in the midst of some world-wide event ... perhaps an invasion from the center of the earth, led by the cryogenically suspended uber-leaders of the once-ascendant Atlantean Dinosaurs.  Lots of opportunities for people to form resistance cells, or to tunnel down toward the center of the earth, or to try peace negotiations, or to sit and agonize about the frailty of the human condition.  Like that.

Then, ever half hour or so, do a five-minute "sudden death" page, where people get infinite free claims and new conflicts are disallowed.  That closes the scene, BAM, and lets everyone take a few minutes to synchronize on what's happening.  Mix up who's sitting with whom semi-randomly, and have them set another scene and go.

People would have a little envelope into which they slip their Inspirations and Story Tokens after they spend them, and characters after scene end.  Then, at the end of the game, everyone gets a score of ( (Story Tokens spent) - (Debt still on characters) ) x (Inspirations Spent).  Highest scores win prizes.

How does this sound?  Silly?  A worthy experiment that may go horribly awry?  The coolest thing ever conceived of?

[Vaxalon]

I don't think it would work.  What's to stop someone from obliterating the invasion in the first set of conflicts, or even in free narration?  Any IC structure you try to impose on this will be pretty vulnerable to anyone who understands how broad the freedom is in Capes.

[dunlaing]

I vote for cool. But it totally has to be a blatant ripoff of Crisis on Infinite Earths. With pregenerated characters (just the left sides, though..the players pick the personalities). And each seperate game is set on a different earth (let the players decide which earth theirs is). That way, when you bring all of the winners of the earlier rounds together, you'll have some duplicates.

"Bizarro Superman, this is Supersimian of Earth-Ape" "Me am disappointed to meet you!"

"Red Tornado, I'd like you to meet Glitter Glam Slim Line 4000, the ultimate vibrator." "I crossed off the first 'r' in Armor on my character sheet."

[dunlaing]

I don't think it would work.  What's to stop someone from obliterating the invasion in the first set of conflicts, or even in free narration?  Any IC structure you try to impose on this will be pretty vulnerable to anyone who understands how broad the freedom is in Capes.

Can't you have a special tournament rule that says there's a "Goal: Stop the Crisis" in play which can't be played on but doesn't prevent new pages from starting up? That way, the appropriate response to someone obliterating the invasion is "Not yet."

[TonyLB]

I'll also point out that the knucklehead who obliterates the invasion fleet has just robbed himself (and his table) of a rich opportunity to earn resources.  While the other tables happily whittle away at the remnants of the invasion fleet (having narrated that they're still around), spend Debt and accumulate Story Tokens and Inspirations wildly, the table with no invasion fleet and no crisis will be stuck in first gear.

It's a losing move, like fireballing your own party in a D&D tourney.  Why would anyone do that?

[Bret Gillan]

Tony, this sounds awesome. I don't know if it will work without exploding in total insanity, but I think it's worth trying and would love to take part in it.

[Hans]

I don't think it would work.  What's to stop someone from obliterating the invasion in the first set of conflicts, or even in free narration?  Any IC structure you try to impose on this will be pretty vulnerable to anyone who understands how broad the freedom is in Capes.

Can't you have a special tournament rule that says there's a "Goal: Stop the Crisis" in play which can't be played on but doesn't prevent new pages from starting up? That way, the appropriate response to someone obliterating the invasion is "Not yet."

First, where is Dreamation 2006, and is it within easy driving distance of Hamilton, Ontario?  :)

Second: I like the Goal idea above, but have zilch playing experience, so who cares.  It strikes me that an Event: "Your world is a moment away from extinction" is maybe better than a goal.  See below.

Third: I really like the Crisis on Infinite Earths idea.  Perhaps you could write up a single starting scene for each table, one that obviously sets up a wildly different type of Earth -  All communist Earth, Utopian Earth, Dystopian Earth, normal Earth, Earth where dinosaurs never died out, Water covered Earth, Republican-Controlled Earth *shudder*, whatever.  This starting scene sets the tone for that table, and sets up the basic problem (an Invasion by dimension hopping McGuffins of some sort.)  After a certain time period (say an hour or so), you go into a 15 minute "Escalation Phase", in which an Event: "Your earth is a second away from being wiped from exisitence", is introduced.  At the end of this Escalation period, you calculate a score for everyone.  Also, everyone at the table (either by consensus or by vote) determine whether the outcome of the Event means that Earth has dissappeared, or continues to exist.  If the earth still exists, the highest scoring person at the table briefly writes out the current state of that earth as a starting scene for a new table.  If the Earth dissppeared, that earth's story ends (although there are always more Earths).

You then reassign the tables based on score (high scores together for a swiss like tournament format, for example), and everyone keeps playing, now with a new table. After four cycles of this, you take the five people with the highest scores, and put them at a table (I'm not sure what the starting scene for this would be).  They play a final cycle, during which there is a "Climax Phase".  During the Climax phase, an event is introduced "All of existence is a moment away from being obliterated."  Everyone else stands back and watches these master Capes players do their thing, and either save all of existence, or wipe it clean, or something else.

Since the Earths themselves are (mostly) separate, you don't have to worry, from a higher narrative perspective, about storylines being wildly divergent.  It also allows everyone to keep playing, even if your score sucks.  Finally, it allows a greater sense of continuity during the event: the end state of a table becomes the beginning state of another table (although the players may be completely different).

As you can see, lack of real experience and knowledge of a subject is no impediment to me offering with confidence my wisdom.

[TonyLB]

First, where is Dreamation 2006, and is it within easy driving distance of Hamilton, Ontario?  :)

East Brunswick, NJ.  Google Earth puts the distance at 733 km (7 hours, 45 minutes).  That's a hell of a hike ....

Lots of good advice, but a bit too intense for me to properly unpack into my mind at this late hour.  I'll definitely be returning to the suggestions though.

[Andrew Morris]

I don't have any suggestions, but if you run it, I'll play it, unless it interferes with other commitments, like running games.

[Vaxalon]

It's a losing move, like fireballing your own party in a D&D tourney.  Why would anyone do that?

I guess you didn't play Dungeons and Dragons at cons in the early days.  Fireballing the party has happened.  Yes, it's a losing move... but when you don't know the system (say, how much space a fireball takes up when used in a constricted dungeon environment) it's very easy to make losing moves.

How would you handle character creation?

[Judd]

Crisis of the Secret Infinity War.

It sounds like this would be like a bit Marvel or DC-wide cross-over mini-series like the current Infinity Crisis, or the classics, Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earths.

[TonyLB]

Yeah, Judd, that's pretty much my thinking.  Some big thing where heroes (and villains) of all different scales get pulled into the same overarching plot structure.

What I like about the possibility is that the player who wins (by resources) doesn't have any necessary relation to the characters who are dealing with the great big horkin' problems.  A table could totally obssess over the fate of Poughkeepsie, while other people are dealing with the balance of the cosmos ... but still the Poughkeepsie group could end up having earned and spent more Story Tokens and Inspirations.

In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that a group that chooses a narrower focus will find it easier to rack up such resources, because of the human connection and strong emotions.  But I could be wrong about that.  It's another issue I'll want to be observing during the experiment.

And yeah, I think I will definitely end up doing this.  It's too lovely to resist.

[Sydney Freedberg]

The "infinite earths" parallel-worlds idea also makes it easy to work around anyone foolishly "fireballing the party": Okay, our Earth is saved (or destroyed), so we're kinda screwed for things to do, but, hey, there're all these other Earths whose destiny is still in flux.

Besides, without an "established Fact" rule (of the kind Fred "Vaxalon" Wolke's proposed on occasion), there's nothing to stop everyone from glaring at the dope who saved the world too early and then saying, "okay, and then these other invading aliens show up/the old invaders come back from the dead with ghostly howls/whatever." So the fireballing-the-party problem is just a stumbling block, not a dead end: "Okay, so after our automatic Resurrect Dead amulets go off, we pick ourselves up and..."

[Andrew Cooper]

*sniffle*

I wanna play.


*sniffle*

[Bret Gillan]

Crisis of the Secret Infinity War.

It sounds like this would be like a bit Marvel or DC-wide cross-over mini-series like the current Infinity Crisis, or the classics, Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Jeepers!

Players of regular campaigns should totally be encouraged to bring their regular characters and do crossover stuff.

That'd be neat!