Wording of Conflicts and Character Control

[jburneko]

Hello,

I've been following the whole 'character control' argument and I'm a little confused.  My understanding about how conflicts break down has always been this:

Goals are things a character or group of characters are trying to achieve.
Events are things that happen to a character or group of characters but its consequences are unknown.

In the other thread people kept posting things like this:

Goal: Spider-man falls in love with Harry Osborn.

But that's not a proper Goal as I understand the rules.  Now that might very well be a player goal whose into some Spidey/Harry slash but my understanding of the rules is that Goals are things the CHARACTERS, not the players are trying to achieve.  With the above wording, who exactly is trying to achieve this goal?  If it's Spider-man:

1) It's better worded as: Spider-man awakens Harry Osborn's love for him or some such.
2) If it's proposed as Spider-man's goal by any other player than Spider-man's player then Spider-man's player has veto rights over it.  THAT'S ALREADY IN THE RULES.

For completness if it's worded as simply an Event, which the original wording I suggest implies, then anyone can veto it.  Again, already in the rules.

Now, it's true that if Spider-man's player throws down Goal: Spider-man awaken's Harry Osborn's love for him, then Harry Osborn's player is helpless if that Goal comes to pass but that is by design because this is an actual conflict between the characters.  Now theoretically someone could throw down Goal: The Green Goblin awaken's Spider-Man and Harry Osborn's love for each other and now Spider-man's player and Harry Osborn's player are BOTH helpless but again there is an active character trying to achieve something which they can fight.

Finally, the least specific, acording to my understanding, you could get would be: Goal: Awaken Spider-man and Harry Osbron's love for each other.  Which says, SOMEONE, is trying to acomplish this but we don't know who.  But we will know who as soon as someone picks up the "For" side die and rolls it in which case this reduces to the Green Goblin case above.

Does all this makes sense?  Am I right?

Jesse

[Vaxalon]

You can rename any goal that reads "Such and such happens" as "Someone causes such and such to happen."

[jburneko]

Fred,

But that to me is a WORLD of difference.  One is like two editors fighting over whether or not Harry and Peter are gay lovers and the other is, you know, plot development and story.  I mean if the Green Goblin sees underlying homosexual tension between Harry and Peter and wants leverage that to create a distracting love triangle with MJ, whoa cool.

Jesse

[Sindyr]

Jesse, two clarifications:

1)  Harry Osbourne, Spiderman, and MaryJane(MJ), and Janitor Joe are all being played by three separate players.  Spiderman's player dropped the goal, Release MJ from being tied to a chair.  MJ's player, showing a streak of independence, is actually trying to prevent this - she wants to defeat the Goal and then release herself from the chair.  On her turn she plays her Attribute "Narrow Minded" to roll up her side of the conflict, and replaces a one with a five.  She then narrates the following: "Spiderman walks toward Mary Jane, but is stopped by Harry, who grabs Spidey, pulls his mask off, seeing his true identity, and begins to kiss him slow and deep. Spidey, realizing that he is in fact a homosexual, grabs Harry right back, and the two make out, forgetting all about MJ.  MJ is disgusted by the whole affair"

What has happened? Without a goal or event pertaining to the same sex liaison between Harry and Spidey, it still has occurred.

Now, Spidey's player can narrate back, "MJ's suddenly realized that she must have been seeing things - maybe the combination of her prescription drugs is making her see things - MJ decides that must be it.  MJ says, "Spidey, please save me""

Then MJ's player on her next turn can shoot back,"As is turns out, MJ never asked Spidey to save her, what MJ really said was "Spidey, beat it.  Furthermore, a janitor passing through also sees Harry and Spidey in flagrante delicto, as does a security guard watching a monitor linked to a camera nearby - guess this ain't no pill hallucination."

Et cetera.

2)  Even if Spidey introduces a goal to head trouble off at the pass like Goal: Spidey has ANY homosexual impulses or actions at all, he know has to contend with up to three other players that may want to see Spidey get him some man lovin'.  If the players of Janitor Joe, MJ, and Harry want Spidey to do the nasty with Harry, than combines they will easily be able to defeat that preventative spidey goal.

And, even if they can't defeat the spidey goal, on of those three players can simply narrate something else equally disturbing, such as Spidey eating nearby dog poop, which is not prevented by the above Goal in play.

Finally, if Spidey resolves the homosexual goal, it goes away, freeing each player to once again put Harry and Spidey together, because a Goal is only preventative while it is unresolved.  As soon as the goal is resolved, the *opposite* of it's effect can be narrated.

IE, a goal of "Capital City is destroyed" gets resolved by the good guys and defeated, as soon as the goal comes of the table, the next player to narrate can narrate Capital City having been destroyed.

Such are the current problems I see with Capes.

To be fair, Capes is such an innovative and cool game, I believe it can and should be saved from these issues with an appropriate addition of the right house rules.

Your mileage may vary.

[jburneko]

Hello Again,

Okay, well the, between the goals narration thing is another issue.  And much like others here, and I can only say, unless you are playing with sociopaths, it doesn't happen. 

Example From My Own Play:

We had been playing for a long while and one player had a HUGE pile of Story Tokens.  He used them all to bring an entire Super Villain assault force.  I think he had something like 10 characters in play, giant robots, corrupt military forces, six or seven other baddies.  He was out to take The City.  One of the characters I chose to play was a non-character which was The City itself.  I threw in the Goal: The Citizens Ralley Together!  I lost and my 10 character villain friend even cruely twisted by original intention with, "Oh they, ralley together alright, behind me, as they whine about how the current political base is ineffectual."

Anyway, needless to say the rest of us, four other players, all playing one or two supers a piece plus a few exemplars, were utterly defeated.  It ended with all of us being pinned down and surrounded in the local asylum where we were subsenquently imprisoned (Note: No goal stating such, our imprisonment was part of the narration of taking over The City goal).

All of the above was utterly demoralizing.  You could see it on all of our faces.  It was heartfelt defeat.  Did any of us have one iota of a problem with what happened in the game world?  Nope.  Not one complaint.

I had the next scene.  Believe me, I was tempted to say, "...and then The Raven (my spotlight) wakes up from his horrible dream of the future" or even "This scene takes place two years later after The City had been retaken."  But you know what?  I couldn't do it.  I even suggested the above things out loud and I could tell my fellow defeated players didn't want me to do it.  It would have been bad sportsmanship.  It would have been being a sore loser.  I would go so far to say, it would have been childish.

Now a couple of players DID choose to bring in characters who had technically been captured and simply narrated that they had escaped.  No one had problems with this.  And indeed the player after me, really wanted to play out the escape, so announced that his scene was taking place sometime BEFORE mine had.  I don't think escaping itself was ever a Goal.  We just understood this scene was about the heroes escaping and instead threw down goals and events about the METHOD of escape.  It was pretty cool.

Do my players have super-human levels of self-control and comeraderie?  I don't think so.  I've played Capes with total strangers and I've seen the same phenomenon.  People have a feel for what is cool and what is not-cool (at the social level, not necessarily the game level).  Nobody wants to be a perpetrator of not-cool unless they are sociopathic dickweeds out to hurt and undermine other people's contributions to the game.

Jesse

[Sindyr]

I had the next scene.  Believe me, I was tempted to say, "...and then The Raven (my spotlight) wakes up from his horrible dream of the future" or even "This scene takes place two years later after The City had been retaken."  But you know what?  I couldn't do it.  I even suggested the above things out loud and I could tell my fellow defeated players didn't want me to do it.  It would have been bad sportsmanship.  It would have been being a sore loser.  I would go so far to say, it would have been childish.

Just my two cent's, but perhaps a player promoting a story in which the City is taken out and all the heroes are defeated wasn't showing good judgement either - so refuting his inappropriate storyline would have been the punishment fitting the crime.

Capes itself says it best:

The game poses the question "Power is fun, but do you deserve it?"

This applies to the characters, but even more so the GM's/players/authors.

A player that sacks the City, defeats the heroes, and turns the very people the heroes are trying to save into henchmen doesn't deserve admiration.  He needs help. (heh heh)

I have no problem using the very tools of Capes to completely and utterly negate the power of narration and authorship when it has been misused and trust has been abused.

If you like that sort of thing though, if it makes you happy to partake in such a story, then feel free to encourage that player.  I am sure he will be happy to give you more.

One thing that rocks about the amount of narrative power given to players of Capes is that any abuse or misused narrative power can be corrected almost immediately each and every time it happens, until the offending player or players give up and go away, or behave and use their power responsibly.

Cheers

[jburneko]

Well, sure, if it was obvious to me the guy who took out the city was being a dickweed, then yes, I probably would have just said, "So, two years later..."  But since he WASN'T being a dickweed, *I* would have been the dickweed for pulling the "Two years later..." card.

Jesse

[Sindyr]

Then I guess by definition, if you retcon out what another player has done only when you feel he has been a dickhead, than any story which that player creates that is unnacceptable is de facto proof of his being a dickhead, and can thereofr be retconned away without becoming a dickhead onself.

Makes sense.  Perhaps this unofficial rule could be called "the Dickhead rule."

If anyone tries to do nasty and/or abusive things like
-make my chars love interest fall out of love with me and in love with someone else
-capture or defeat my char trivially
-narrate my char doing something I feel is incompatible with my vision of what the char would do
-violate basic precepts of responsible GMing/storytelling

then they qualify for the dickhead rule.

I like that.

Informal rule, the Dickhead Rule - if a player feels that the narrations and other actions of another player indicates that he is being a dickhead, than the player who feels that way may narrate away the offending players abuses and other innapropriate narrations and events without worrying about being considered a dickhead himself.

:D

[jburneko]

The only thing I have to say to that, is that what you're calling an informal rule I call a fact of life.  The rule you propose is always in effect for all social situations whether I'm role-playing (any game), bowling, hanging out at the mall, watching movies, whatever.

It boils down to: Don't do social things with those who can't relate to and egage with your investment in said social thing.

Jesse

[TonyLB]

But that to me is a WORLD of difference.  One is like two editors fighting over whether or not Harry and Peter are gay lovers and the other is, you know, plot development and story.  I mean if the Green Goblin sees underlying homosexual tension between Harry and Peter and wants leverage that to create a distracting love triangle with MJ, whoa cool.

Very good point!

I'll elaborate in a specific direction, because I've noted something that's a little bit odd.  Say I play a "character" for (say) "Martial Law," to indicate an oppressive police state.  Say, furthermore, that instead of "Goal:  Lieutenant Wrath betrays Rebel Sue to the Sewer Morlocks" I write "Goal: The Police State wants Lieutenant Wrath to betray Rebel Sue to the Sewer Morlocks."

That doesn't put a real flesh and blood person into the mix.  But, nonetheless, the fact that there is an agent ("The Police State") providing the adversity makes players come on point.  Indeed, they invest in the idea of the Police State as an active thing with its own sinister purpose exactly when you attribute such goals to it.

Isn't that odd?

[Sindyr]

Now, if I were playing Lt.Wrath I would have no problem with another player playing the goal: "The Police State wants Lieutenant Wrath to betray Rebel Sue to the Sewer Morlocks", because it doesn't make my character do anything - it just proposes dire potential consequences is the goal is achieved and I (Lt. Wrath) choose to not betray Sue.

And that's my point.  The choices for my character are mine and mine alone.

[TonyLB]

Fair enough.  "The Police State maneuvers Lt. Wrath into betraying Rebel Sue to the Sewer Morlocks."

[Sindyr]

Ah, not sure if it was by accident or intent, but you changed a word between what I agreed to and what you said:
I said:

Now, if I were playing Lt.Wrath I would have no problem with another player playing the goal: "The Police State wants Lieutenant Wrath to betray Rebel Sue to the Sewer Morlocks"

You channged the word "wants" to "maneuvers".

Your goal would potentially be vetoed by my (if I am playing Wrath) for taking the choice out of my charaters hands.

[TonyLB]

Ah, not sure if it was by accident or intent, but you changed a word between what I agreed to and what you said:

Totally intentional.  I clarified what I was imagining the goal to entail ("By the fulfilled intentions of the Police State you will do this thing").

Your goal would potentially be vetoed by my (if I am playing Wrath) for taking the choice out of my charaters hands.

Yeah, I know.  That's your ax to grind.  I'm talking to Jesse about something which doesn't really involve you.  'kay?

[Sindyr]

Ah, you made it appear you had be replying to me.  I now understand that you weren't.