[CAPES] Specify the Conflict (aka "Be specific Bob!")

[Jason Leigh]

So, my bi-annual gaming group and I got a chance to play Capes over the New Year's holiday.

It was a qualified success. We chose to play Alias, rather than super-heroes. But that change of Genre wasn't really the issue.  And we decided that folks to pick and choose what spy abilities were "powers" and what were "skills", so that we'd have characters capable of generating debt, and we let folks choose from either the villianous or heroic drives, for those keeping score at home.

It was a new system to all 3 of us, and my one friend and I, who are system fiends and nascent game designers and inveterate game system tinkerers played the game more than we played the story.

My other friend, however, played the story. That caused some tension in the mid part of the game.

I will say, that overall, this is the best "narrativist" type game we've played. After looking over the rules after the session, I realize we'd done some stuff wrong, especially reltive to when and how claiming a side on the conflict happens, and when debt can be staked on a side. But that didn't really cause us our biggest problem.

Our biggest problem dealt with how vague or specific the conflicts are written.

One conflict, and I don't remember the character's name, and my notes are at home, so I'll make it up.."Does Bjorn spill his guts?"

Here's the backstory: Bjorn had been shot, offstage, and was bleeding from a wound to his gut. He was also a part of a consipracy involving the three spotlight characters, and had information about/involved with this consipracy. So, the goal could relate to his medical condition, or to the information he was carrying, or to both.

The person who controlled the conflict had him live (i.e. not physically spill his guts) but reveal, after a fashion, what he knew (i.e. spill his guts information wise).

I thought this was okay, but the other player thought this may have crossed the line. Well, specifically, the controlling players narration resolved that goal beyond the confines of the current scene, which I think we all agree can't happen.

So, we started, after that scene, being a lot more specific about the goals and events, and even specifying what would happen on one side vs. another, and the game seemed to get better.

So, specifically to Capes, does this kind of specificty in conflict definition cause anyone any problems?  Am I right in generalizing this to other "conflict resolution" type games in folks experience?

[Andrew Morris]

I've never had a problem like that playing Capes. If the person who created the Goal wanted it to be interpreted in a particular way, then he/she should have been more specific. If they wanted it to be vague and open, great. Then, whoever wins it decides how it's interpreted.

I guess I'm just not seeing how vague Goals/Events would be a "problem" in Capes.

[Jason Leigh]

Andrew:

Thanks for the comment!

The vagueness led to the controlling player narrating a far-reaching outcome (in story-terms) - with implications for, in particular, the spotlight character who was in the scene (and whose player did NOT end up resolving that particular conflict).

This sparked a "time-out", followed by a long and (for us) tense discussion of the situation, and how the system of rules in Capes led to this.

Likely this is just a thing particular to the social contract dynamics of this group - but that's partly what Actual Play is for, right?  Getting a sense of if there are other groups with similar issues, and if so, how they handled it.

We ended up demanding that the 'sides' and range of potential outcomes be specified with each conflict, rather than just a vague statement open to multiple interpretations.

And this makes sense - basically, the player who didn't resolve the conflict didn't feel like the system gave him enough cues that this particular conflict would be so impactful to his character's story.  He wants the system to make sure that he knows what's at stake (the full range of outcomes), so he can decide where to fight hard for control, and where to let it slide...

Cheers,


Jason

[Vaxalon]

In the games I have been in, that has been an "issue" too... but quickly resolved, as we decided to just roll with it.

"It's not a bug, it's a feature."

[Jason Leigh]

Vaxalon:

Thanks, and yeah, I can see it as a feature with the right group.

Cheers,


Jason

[Andrew Morris]

Oh, and welcome to the Forge, by the way!

The vagueness led to the controlling player narrating a far-reaching outcome (in story-terms) - with implications for, in particular, the spotlight character who was in the scene (and whose player did NOT end up resolving that particular conflict).

Can you give the actual example? Because I'm struggling to see how the narration of any conflict could have such devastating and far-reaching effects. Say that there's a goal on the table: "Stupendous Man is killed." Okay, great, assuming it's not a violation of your Comics Code. Someone wins that conflict and narrates a planet-buster going off and killing Stupendous Man, along with the rest of the planet. Okay, still fine. I don't want the whole planet destroyed, so I just narrate that my character alerted the Time Guardians of what was happening in the nick of time (no pun intended) and they rewind events so that the bomb never went off and everyone is still alive. Yeah, that's a silly and extreme example, but you see what I'm getting at? Tony has said before that Capes is the game where you can do absolutely anything, but achieve nothing permanently.

[Vaxalon]

They might be assuming that that kind of continuity shift is bad form.. in many games, it would be.

[dunlaing]

my bi-annual gaming group

Wow. Just,...wow. Once every two years?

Anyway, I haven't seen a problem with specificity the way you mention it. The problem I've seen with Capes conflicts is the lack of definition of what each side means.

As an example, let's say there's a Conflict out there "Does Bjorn explain the villain's plans?"...and no one has had a chance to claim either side of it. Let's also assume that on the next page, I'll be claiming last. I want Bjorn to explain the villain's plans. Which die do I roll? Technically, in Capes, I have no real way to tell which die I should roll since there is no "for" and "against" side, just two sides that determine who will get to resolve. At the moment, I have no way of knowing which side reflects the "for" side and if I roll one of the dice, I could be making it more likely that he won't spill the beans.

I've played Capes twice (once face to face and once play by post), and both times we've notated what each side was generally for, but as near as I can tell, we were creating a House Rule when we did that.

[Andrew Morris]

Wow. Just,...wow. Once every two years?

I'm assuming he means twice a year. Biannual can be either twice a year, or every two years. It's still a long time between sessions, either way, but Jason probably has other groups to fill in that time.

They might be assuming that that kind of continuity shift is bad form.. in many games, it would be.

True, which I think Jason's got covered with his description of talking about everyone's expectations, then rolling on with a more explicit understanding.

[Jason Leigh]

Andrew:

Actually, I'm a returning wayward lurker and infrequent poster, who lost his password and the e-mail it was originally tied to, so I just reregistered.

In any case, the far reaching impact was story driven - and we all agreed after the play session was over that in a new scene, the affected character could've created a conflict that mitigated or entirely removed those effects.  Something the player didn't grok until after the session was over.  So, it's all good.

But, even after the discussion and the realization that the resolution to that one conflict needn't entirely resolve an entire storyline, we still felt like having more specificty did help us better enforce continuity and story-structure, which especially since we were playing Alias, seemed appropriate (where, you know, the Temporal Police of Dimension Zeta-14 hardly ever make an appearance...)

And yes, I meant to say Semi-Annual, rather than bi-annual.  And actually, I only get to play at most 6 times a year these days, so we try to make every session count.

Vaxalon:

Yes, we weren't assuming it, we consciously wanted to avoid that kind of shift, based on our choice of genre.

dunlaing:

Yes, we realized we were creating a house rule, and we understood the rules-as-written to not have one side of the conflict attached to any specific range of possible outcomes, but after we made the switch to this level of specificty, the engagement in the conflicts themselves got more intense, since everyone seemed to have a better idea why they'd want to compete on a given conflict.

Cheers,

Jason