Questions on staking and splitting

[Hans]

Just off my third session of Capes.  My how I love this game.

I read through this several times, and still feel shaky - Page 25 of the rules says:

"The player may Split Dice on their side of any Conflicts with
enough Staked Debt. They may Stake Debt on any number
of Conflicts that provoke the character to prove themself in the
relevant moral Drive."

There don't seem to be any errata for this section.

Now this clearly says you can only split dice on your side (a side that you have rolled to improve or claimed at some point in the past).  To me this means that if I have never rolled on a conflict previously, I cannot split the die on that conflict until I have rolled on it once; I can't split before I roll, even if my intent is to improve the side.  Is this true?

The debt is more complicated.  There are lots of ways to interpret "provoke the character to prove themself".  Can you stake debt on a side of a conflict you are NOT allied with (never rolled on that side or claimed that side)?  Can you stake debt on the OPPOSITE side of a side of a conflict you are allied with?  The last one I think must be impossible, because otherwise I would have expected to see it in the strategy section.

[Kintara]

Well, I think this is somewhat unlikely, but an interesting question.  If someone stakes debt and the die is high enough to split (i.e., it's been rolled up to at least a two), then someone is probably in a position to split the dice, even if you in particular haven't somehow established your side.  But in the event that no one wants to split the dice on a conflict with staked dice except you, then I suppose you might be stuck if you haven't established who you're allied with.

Keep in mind that you can establish what side you're on by rolling down the other side or claiming the side you want to win.  You can even establish it with an ineffectual reaction.

[TonyLB]

Okay, there is indeed a situation that is fuzzy by the rules:  Joe rolls a side of a conflict up to 3.  Bob wishes to stake debt on that conflict and split it.  Can he do so?

Fuzzy.  Mea culpa.  The rules say no.  Common sense says yes.  You absolutely have my permission to house rule that people can stake debt if they really, really promise that's the side they're going to be rolling on.

The general idea, of course, is to have people staking debt where they are trying to win more often than any of the following:

• Bob rolls on the "For" side of a conflict, then stakes a point of Debt on the "Against" side of the conflict and splits off a third ("Bob") side ... cutting the Against side's total in half in an instant.
• Bob fights hard on the "For" side of a conflict, but sees that he's going to lose.  At the last minute he stakes debt on the "Against" side, just to manage his debt.  Nobody gets the story tokens, because Bob can't give them to himself.

Those two aren't horribly dysfunctional.  In fact, they're pretty damn good strategy.  But I want to make sure that they're advanced options, not a basic "go-to" plan that everybody does every single time.  Because the patterns that they build when used every single time aren't really all that fun.

So, to drive that notion, I tied staking debt to the alliance scheme, just so that you would at least need to throw in a reaction, or an inspiration or something in order to switch sides before you could be using any of these funky advanced tactics.

You want a further extension of this?  Here's an example of tactics driving story in a wierd way:  What does it mean when one character stakes debt on both sides of a conflict?

[Hans]

Okay, there is indeed a situation that is fuzzy by the rules:  Joe rolls a side of a conflict up to 3.  Bob wishes to stake debt on that conflict and split it.  Can he do so?

Fuzzy.  Mea culpa.  The rules say no.  Common sense says yes.  You absolutely have my permission to house rule that people can stake debt if they really, really promise that's the side they're going to be rolling on.

I think my problem was that I couldn't find exactly where the rules said no.  My assumption was that he could stake debt anywhere that is "morally charged" for him.  But it sounds like you intended the rule to be that you can only stake debt where you could legally split dice (i.e. on a side you are allied with, according to page 25 of the rules)

The general idea, of course, is to have people staking debt where they are trying to win more often than any of the following:

• Bob rolls on the "For" side of a conflict, then stakes a point of Debt on the "Against" side of the conflict and splits off a third ("Bob") side ... cutting the Against side's total in half in an instant.

This is defintely against the rules on page 25, as it says you can only split on "your" side.  Here I am telling the designer what is or is not against his rules.  Good gad, the hubris...the tragic arrogance!

[li]Bob fights hard on the "For" side of a conflict, but sees that he's going to lose.  At the last minute he stakes debt on the "Against" side, just to manage his debt.  Nobody gets the story tokens, because Bob can't give them to himself.[/li][/list]

This is what I was thinking of when I wrote my post.  This was exactly the situation I could find no rule to prevent.

Those two aren't horribly dysfunctional.  In fact, they're pretty damn good strategy.  But I want to make sure that they're advanced options, not a basic "go-to" plan that everybody does every single time.  Because the patterns that they build when used every single time aren't really all that fun.

So, to drive that notion, I tied staking debt to the alliance scheme, just so that you would at least need to throw in a reaction, or an inspiration or something in order to switch sides before you could be using any of these funky advanced tactics.

The bolded point above answers my question, even if I can't find it in the rules.  I will just assume it is there and I am missing it.

You want a further extension of this?  Here's an example of tactics driving story in a wierd way:  What does it mean when one character stakes debt on both sides of a conflict?

Which, even given the above, is still possible under the rules in at least two useful ways:
* After a split to a third side, a player will often have debt on two sides of a conflict.
* The "against" side of a conflict has not been claimed, and is higher than the "for" side, my side.  I know that I will claim first next round.  I roll to raise the against side, then claim it at the start of the next page.  Now, the formerly "against" side has just become the "for" side.  I could easily end up with debt on both sides of the conflict if I staked before the switch and stake after.

The strangest thing, story wise, about any of the above, is that all the debt has to come from the same drive.  If it came from different drives, the interpretation would perhaps be simpler - my duty to the cause gets trumped by my sense of justice, etc.  But from the same drive...that is very interesting.  One would assume it means there is some deep conflict in the character; the character is not going to have a clean victory from this conflict, and doubts will remain (i.e. doubled debt is coming back regardless of resolution). 

So far, I haven't really played yet in a session where the true narrativism of Capes has taken center stage; mostly its been people getting use to the rules and throwing out wacky and fun conflicts.  Entertaining, but the psychology of the characters has not been a key factor.  I hope to get a chance to play in a longer term group, and explore these issues more fully.