Interactive History: Conflicts That Change the Rules

[Zamiel]

I have some thoughts and exploration I've written about using Capes to model Interactive History from Aria on my LJ over at http://zamiel.livejournal.com/1001753.html ...

It is, as ever, really good material but I thought I'd copy part of the post over here for more focused discussion. That is:

There does need to be some kind of mechanical support for changing the nature of such characters, and its one that I've been tinkering with for more individual-scale events. To wit: allow Conflicts to explicitly modify the characters if resolved. For example:

    Conflict
    Goal: Imrys deals the Kusangi a decisive defeat on the battlefield. (Kusangi's Warfare would swap with Vast Plains, decreasing their ability in battle.)

The key here is that there is a definite narrative event which is tied to the desired ends. The ensuing resolution would likely involve the Imyri staging daring attacks on dragon-back and calling up ancient sorceries while the Kusangi ride in numbers to the border and the plains themselves make it hard for the Inyri to channel the horsemen into killing fields. The Kusangi might introduce a Conflict simultaneously where their shaman work to unravel the concealment of the hidden city, forcing the Imrys' player to replace the trait entirely. And so on.

(You probably need to read the whole of the original post to be clear on that.)

The underlying question: Does allowing a Conflict to modify the meta-game essentially break the underlying assumptions and mechanisms of Capes in a way that violates its intent? I can think of many reasons that I might want to do such in the course of a game, particularly in reference to changing the Comics Code. For example, I might introduce a Conflict with the intent to remove the ban on killing innocents, with the in-game narrative being that the villain kills a by-stander in a particularly gruesome and egregious way, thus demonstrating "the gloves are off." Later, a hero might publically take the villain into custody and make sure he was publically condemned, putting the prohibition back in place.

Thoughts?

[TonyLB]

The underlying question: Does allowing a Conflict to modify the meta-game essentially break the underlying assumptions and mechanisms of Capes in a way that violates its intent?

I don't think so, but I think it might encourage people to hoard story tokens and inspirations.  When you introduce a second class of conflict that can have long term consequences in ways that standard Capes conflicts cannot, people are (I think) going to want to be sure that they don't spend resources fighting for standard conflicts and then get left in the lurch when the "important" stuff comes up for debate.

Make sense?

As to what that would do to the game, I'd have to defer to actual playtest.  Self-modifying procedures are awfully hard to twig out, even in the comparatively sane world of computer science.  When you get into the messy, human realm of roleplaying it gets beyond my ability to model in my head.

Fascinating thoughts though, that's for sure.

[ubergeek2012]

I don't think so, but I think it might encourage people to hoard story tokens and inspirations.  When you introduce a second class of conflict that can have long term consequences in ways that standard Capes conflicts cannot, people are (I think) going to want to be sure that they don't spend resources fighting for standard conflicts and then get left in the lurch when the "important" stuff comes up for debate.

It would add some complexity, but you could avoid that by adding a second class of tokens to go along with the second class of conflicts.

[drnuncheon]

With regards to changing the comics code by conflicts within the game - it's kind of interestingly nomic-esque.

That said: if it's something you may want to change, then why put it in the code in the first place?  By allowing conflicts to change the code, you're basically just requiring the person to win two conflicts to accomplish the desired task instead of one.  And actually, now that I read it again, it looks like you're allowing both the change to the Code and the goal to be accomplished in the same conflict.  The Code becomes more of a "this is when you can choose to gloat" instead of "this is when you must gloat".  In that case, why keep the code at all?

As I understand it, the code's main purpose is to provide genre fidelity.  (It could be used to provide a "hard line" on what is acceptable and what is not in the game, but by the nature of the code, you're encouraged to go right up to the limit so you can gloat and collect your story tokens.  That brinksmanship might cause the same problems that such an entry in the code was meant to avert.)  As such, if you're constantly modifying the code, you're constantly modifying the genre that you're playing in.

I guess the core of what I'm asking is this: what do you feel you would gain by the ability to alter the code in play?  And what would you lose by simply removing the statements you'd want to change from the code in the first place?

J

[Zamiel]

I don't think so, but I think it might encourage people to hoard story tokens and inspirations.  When you introduce a second class of conflict that can have long term consequences in ways that standard Capes conflicts cannot, people are (I think) going to want to be sure that they don't spend resources fighting for standard conflicts and then get left in the lurch when the "important" stuff comes up for debate.

Make sense?

I can see why that may be the case.

In a real sense, this is an issue of stake-setting. In the presence of Conflicts with clear mechanical effect (changing the rules) and those without, is there as much compelling reason to be invested in the non-mechanic Conflicts? If not, then what you say is exactly what will come to pass; there won't be as much reason to vest Debt into the non-mechanic Conflicts.

Which leads to three potential resolutions:

• Mechanic-altering Conflicts are tightly limited as to when they can occur or where (ie. only in the Interactive History Scenes, or only to alter the Comics Code.)
• No mechanic-altering Conflicts at all.
• Every Conflict has some mechanical impact.

The first option is the most sensible one, depending on the players to be intelligent enough to introduce them when apropos. Other limits might include "one MechConflict per Issue (cycle of Scenes) per person" which keeps things down to a dull roar while still allowing changes.

Its the third option that might deserve inclusion as an Optional Rule in the next edition of Capes. The idea of Conflicts existing as much to change the mechanical or setting elements in a continuing way certainly brings a point to some of the criticisms about Capes that have surfaced (though, pointedly, not my complaints). This doesn't really change as much as it sounds, save to specify up front that Conflicts create continuing situations, until another Conflict or Scene changes things. That unchanged by a Conflict can still be narrated any way one likes, but things changed by a Conflict remain so. The classic example would be "Event: The nuclear bomb hits 00:00:01" and the villain wins with no Code against killing. The nuke goes off downtown, there's an irradiated crater, and that remains until someone runs a Scene that involves the rebuilding of the downtown area.

In good games, much of this occurs anyway, because people respect others' narration by default, but making an Optional Rule of the explicit continuation can be useful.

(Note that I stated a Scene can change things, because Scenes can define edge situations where interesting things occur. For instance, introducing a Scene where the mayor is cutting the ribbon on the reconstructed downtown core. No one gets the chance to oppose that possibility, however, which bothers me at some level ... save that the whole thing can be destroyed again during the Scene just as easily.)

More wandering in the wilderness, here.

[drnuncheon]

Addendum to my previous post:  I don't think that changing a character sheet would be nearly as controversial as the ability to change the Code - any alteration of the sheet would not result in a reduction of the character's usefulness, only in the way that they affected the ongoing game.

However, because of the nature of Capes, I'm not sure that shuffling attributes would do what you want it to.  A power with a 1 or a 2 in it is not any weaker than one with a 4 or a 5 - it'll just be used in different circumstances (whenever you want to roll a die up rather than down: near the beginning of a conflict, or just after the conflict die has split, or to react to a particularly good roll by your opponent).  That doesn't necessarily map to, say, weaker armies very well.

J

[Zamiel]

I guess the core of what I'm asking is this: what do you feel you would gain by the ability to alter the code in play?  And what would you lose by simply removing the statements you'd want to change from the code in the first place?

Well, firstly, you lose the ability to Gloat on such things before events conspire to change the nature of the genre.

Secondly, the ability to change the Code in progress actually does mimic some genres and types of story. Take, for example, Tony's previous mention of his alien-invasion game with a Code that changes based on a Scene-clock. That could just as easily be handled as a House Rule that the Code can be challenged by massive Goals which would normally be Gloatable but which additionally have the meta-effect of removing the named Code. In this variant, the other players have the ability to intervene and say "No, we don't want this to change yet," while simultaneously giving him the added resources to make another try later if he desires.

Thirdly, as stands, there's really no way currently to change the underlying natures of other characters or even your own. Whereas, if you allow mechanics-altering Conflicts, introducing "Goal: Mary Sue falls in love with Magnus (and Peter Porker's Style changes from "Loves Mary Sue" to "Hates Magnus")" allows you to explicitly change elemental things about the character with the added bonus of the other players having a lot of say; they can, as noted, oppose the Conflict, after all. They may, for instance, like the Porker/Sue relationship and want to see it go on. This is stuff you might not otherwise discover in conversation; you can clearly find what folks care about by what they defend.

I think there's a lot of potential in this particular construct, but it definitely needs a caution sign next to it. Still, the vast bulk of the Capes text needs a big caution sign next to it. Its a game where someone, first real Action of the first Scene, can narrate, "I grab an ice-chunk in the Oort Cloud with my power ring and slam it into the middle of the State Capital, leaving a gaping crater from which terrified people crawl!" That's not only mechanically proper, its narratively just, in some settings! So, the idea that "this can be disruptive, be careful" is true, but I'm not sure its significantly more true for mechanics-affecting Conflicts than the rest of the game.

[Zamiel]

However, because of the nature of Capes, I'm not sure that shuffling attributes would do what you want it to.  A power with a 1 or a 2 in it is not any weaker than one with a 4 or a 5 - it'll just be used in different circumstances (whenever you want to roll a die up rather than down: near the beginning of a conflict, or just after the conflict die has split, or to react to a particularly good roll by your opponent).  That doesn't necessarily map to, say, weaker armies very well.

There is clearly a difference, though. Shifting a trait down in the value spectrum makes the trait more likely to be used earlier in Scenes and they become slightly less useful in Reacting to higher dice. The actual side effect, mechanically, is that the character becomes more likely to do such things earlier but less likely to respond to others' actions with it ... which is pretty much what Imrys was looking to do to the Kusangi, at least the last half. Ah, the law of unintended consequences, that giving them a mythic beat-down will make them more likely to rouse to war later ...

See? Works just fine. :)

[drnuncheon]

There is clearly a difference, though. Shifting a trait down in the value spectrum makes the trait more likely to be used earlier in Scenes and they become slightly less useful in Reacting to higher dice.

Right, but you're also shifting a trait upward (assuming that your trait-shifting rules are designed to keep "legal" Capes characters.)  So you haven't really changed his ability to respond, you've just changed the flavor of his response.  Instead of using Warfare to attack Imrys' armies, Kusangi uses Vast Plains: "The warriors of Kusangi are fleet and mobile, using their knowledge of the vast plains of their homeland to outmaneuver their foes, dealing punishing strikes to their supply lines before vanishing again into the tall grass."

I mean, that's very cool if that's all you want - it would just seem to be very easy to equate lowering a trait with weakening it, which isn't the case at all.

J

[drnuncheon]

Secondly, the ability to change the Code in progress actually does mimic some genres and types of story. Take, for example, Tony's previous mention of his alien-invasion game with a Code that changes based on a Scene-clock. That could just as easily be handled as a House Rule that the Code can be challenged by massive Goals which would normally be Gloatable but which additionally have the meta-effect of removing the named Code. In this variant, the other players have the ability to intervene and say "No, we don't want this to change yet," while simultaneously giving him the added resources to make another try later if he desires.

Right.  I think I have a handle on what's bothering me about this, so let me see if I can put it into words.  The idea behind the Comics Code is that it is written and agreed to by the entire group - it represents the group consensus about "this is the type of game we want to play."  Allowing mechanical changes to it alters that idea completely - now it's all about "he who wins the conflict decides what type of game we play", and if players want to oppose that and stick with the original group consensus, they are forced to devote their in-game resources to it.

Equally, there are going to be times where something is going to be just plain better/more appealing/whatever if it breaks the Comics Code, so I can see the desire to have a way to circumvent it.  Our group decided that Rule 0 of our code would be "any of the following rules may be broken with everyone's approval."  I like that, because it keeps the idea that the Code is a consensus but still allows flexibility.

Thirdly, as stands, there's really no way currently to change the underlying natures of other characters or even your own. Whereas, if you allow mechanics-altering Conflicts, introducing "Goal: Mary Sue falls in love with Magnus (and Peter Porker's Style changes from "Loves Mary Sue" to "Hates Magnus")" allows you to explicitly change elemental things about the character with the added bonus of the other players having a lot of say;

Hmm.  You could certainly do the first half of that Goal (Mary Sue falls in love with Magnus) in vanilla Capes, with much the same effect on the other players.  The second part (to me) doesn't necessarily follow from the first - Porker might decide that Mary Sue's happiness is more important than his own, and step aside.  Or he might hate Magnus - but just because he hates Magnus doesn't mean that is represented on his sheet.  So it seems to me like you're trying to cram multiple potentially incompatible goals onto a single conflict there.

Even if the conflict were about changing Mary Sue's sheet, well, it still seems like multiple goals.  She could be in love with Magnus while still having "Loves Peter Porker" on her sheet.  Maybe she loves Porker like a brother.  Maybe she's torn between  the two.  Maybe memories of Porker and their shared history still inspire or affect her in a way that Magnus doesn't.

I guess what I'm saying is that I think those sorts of changes are best left up to the player rather than the system.  That might well be just personal preference - I know our group is holding tighter to the idea of "personal" characters than the Capes core rules do - but I think that introducing those sorts of changes on someone else's sheet is a fast track to making the player think "why should I bother?".

J

[Zamiel]

I mean, that's very cool if that's all you want - it would just seem to be very easy to equate lowering a trait with weakening it, which isn't the case at all.

I'm of no illusions about trying to manage "character power" in Capes. In this context, you could wage significant and fatal warfare between a nation-character with all warfare-related traits and one with none, and the latter has as much chance to win the actual conflict as the first, given sufficient narrative cleverness. "All characters are equally powerful" is an implicit, unstated axiom of Capes and one of its biggest draws, as far as I'm concerned.

That said, changing the order of traits in a group, lowering Warfare, for example, does have a meaningful in-game effect, so its not wasted. It means something, in-context, and as such it changes the way the narrative proceeds. That, really, is very much one of the big points about the kind of games Capes spins out into. At heart, its just dice poker, when you get down to it. In actual play, the resulting story as told in retrospect is a meaningful progression, despite the multiple points of input.

[Zamiel]

Right.  I think I have a handle on what's bothering me about this, so let me see if I can put it into words.  The idea behind the Comics Code is that it is written and agreed to by the entire group - it represents the group consensus about "this is the type of game we want to play."  Allowing mechanical changes to it alters that idea completely - now it's all about "he who wins the conflict decides what type of game we play", and if players want to oppose that and stick with the original group consensus, they are forced to devote their in-game resources to it.

Equally, there are going to be times where something is going to be just plain better/more appealing/whatever if it breaks the Comics Code, so I can see the desire to have a way to circumvent it.  Our group decided that Rule 0 of our code would be "any of the following rules may be broken with everyone's approval."  I like that, because it keeps the idea that the Code is a consensus but still allows flexibility.

As I see it, the Comics Code is just a mechanism for defining the current state of the genre assumptions in-play. Someone else described Capes play as being much like a group of comics writers, each with their own line, collaborating on a shared-world comic series, and I felt that really hit one of the core conceits.

Allowing Conflicts to modify the context of the story assumptions isn't much of a stretch when taken from that perspective; story assumptions generally do change over the course of the telling in such contexts, and those changes are generally iconified with a particularly memorable event which demonstrates that change. The destruction of Gotham via earthquake is an excellent example of such. With hundreds of crazed supervillains of various sorts running about, Gotham still was standing after years. Then an earthquake turns it into a destruction zone, and the mass destruction wasn't over even then. That's an excellent example of what I'm getting at here, the shift from "Gotham is largely immune from large-scale destruction" to that simply leaving the Code altogether. You couldn't do that simply with an out-of-game discussion of the change, you really need to have that shift occur in-game to get the impact.

In Capes, all players are equally privileged. In the absence of a GM, why not allow questions of mechanical concensus to be solved via the mechanisms used to resolve the other conflicts of concensus, ie. the course of the overall narrative? The the other players can oppose the change of Code via exercise of the resources they've gained as good players and storytellers doesn't seem to me to be a bad thing. On the contrary, it all fits of a piece.

Thirdly, as stands, there's really no way currently to change the underlying natures of other characters or even your own. Whereas, if you allow mechanics-altering Conflicts, introducing "Goal: Mary Sue falls in love with Magnus (and Peter Porker's Style changes from "Loves Mary Sue" to "Hates Magnus")" allows you to explicitly change elemental things about the character with the added bonus of the other players having a lot of say;

Hmm.  You could certainly do the first half of that Goal (Mary Sue falls in love with Magnus) in vanilla Capes, with much the same effect on the other players.  The second part (to me) doesn't necessarily follow from the first - Porker might decide that Mary Sue's happiness is more important than his own, and step aside.  Or he might hate Magnus - but just because he hates Magnus doesn't mean that is represented on his sheet.  So it seems to me like you're trying to cram multiple potentially incompatible goals onto a single conflict there.

He might, but the whole point of the Conflict as defined is that the results are clearly defined. If Porker's player isn't the one introducing that Conflict (and there's no reason he couldn't), he still gets veto power over the Goal, just as any other Conflict Goal introduced for a character a player is currently playing. If Porker's player is the one introducing the above Conflict, then he's explicitly specified the stakes he wants to introduce, and the others involved in the Scene can react as they please. Nothing keeps the Conflict from being "Style 'Loves Mary Sue' changes" with the same narrative capsule, and leaving what it changes to to the winner of the Conflict! (This is inspired by the way Conflicts are narrative resolved by the winner; they can be worded with various degrees of specificity. The Conflict "Event: The bomb explodes and destroys the city block" will not always be less preferred than "Event: The bomb timer hits 00:00:00." That is a function of the desires of the players, not of Conflicts. The more specific Conflict can still be resolved a multitude of ways and will be resolved differently given different players doing that resolution.)

Even if the conflict were about changing Mary Sue's sheet, well, it still seems like multiple goals.  She could be in love with Magnus while still having "Loves Peter Porker" on her sheet.  Maybe she loves Porker like a brother.  Maybe she's torn between  the two.  Maybe memories of Porker and their shared history still inspire or affect her in a way that Magnus doesn't.

Its pointedly and specifically about changing Porker's sheet, to wit: "Peter Porker's Style changes ..." That aside, you're missing the point here, which is that Conflicts in Capes always specify some kind of transitional event. That's the nature of Conflicts (and conflicts). Part of the underlying genius of the system as a whole is that the specificity of the Conflicts introduced is pointedly not specified by the mechanics. Some groups will only go after Conflicts which leave much of the "And finally ..." to the resolver, some will prefer to have Conflicts with very specific content and then the resolver elaborates in some ways, and in some groups (like my own), the difference between which type you use lies in understanding who you're trying to entice into burning their hard earned resources on controlling it! (For the record, I actually prefer the more specific Conflicts, because the enjoyment of taking events as writ and perverting the result is almost impossible to pass up for me.)

Yes, all those things could be a result. But in this case, the Conflict specifies a specific result. As long as Porker's current player OKs it, its a perfectly valid (insofar as the narrative) Conflict. The only question is whether or not changing the mechanics as a result of Conflict resolution really breaks things, and the more I experiment with result, the more I lean toward finding it doesn't and thinking its quite excellent Optional Rule fodder. (Its clearly Advanced Play material and as such not for beginners to Capes, but it isn't inherently more advanced than the included section on Strategy, which discusses metagame material seriously.)

I guess what I'm saying is that I think those sorts of changes are best left up to the player rather than the system.  That might well be just personal preference - I know our group is holding tighter to the idea of "personal" characters than the Capes core rules do - but I think that introducing those sorts of changes on someone else's sheet is a fast track to making the player think "why should I bother?".

Why bother doing anything in Capes, by that measure? As it clearly specifies, you can do anything, but you can't accomplish anything. Every Conflict that resolves can be immediately contradicted by a mere act of narration, without even needing to engage in a contest of dice or resources for control of the narrative. The big knock-down, drag-out you just spent six Pages resolving can be trivially reversed as someone opens with, "After Nachtmaren escapes from prison ..." in the very next line. If anything, allowing Conflicts to modify the mechanics answers that question neatly, because the only two things which are really definitional in the Capes narrative universe are the Comics Code and the characters. All else is wholly abstracted.

Why bother, indeed.

[drnuncheon]

I think we're coming at this from two very different starting points and with different sets of assumptions, and right now anything more I'd say would start to be repeating myself, so I'm going to quiet down for a while and let some other conversation take place.

J