Non-debt generating characters...how often?

[Hans]

For those that have been playing a while, I have a few questions regarding non-debt generating characters (that is non-powered characters and non-person characters):

* How often do they end up being played in your experience?
* What motivates people to play them?
* Is the lack of debt generation as big a disadvantage as it seems to me to be at this time?

I ask these questions because we are up to three sessions in our Capes game in Mississauga (haven't put up the 3rd session yet at the web site, but will soon) and we have yet to see a non-debt generating character.  Admitedly, the setting we are using allows for some odd choices of super-powered characters, and in one case we consciously allowed a non-super powered character (The President of the USA) to generate debt (if the President can't generate debt, who could?).  But I'm having a hard time seeing, from a gameplay perspective (not story), how playing a non-debt generator as your main character is ever a good idea.

[dunlaing]

* How often do they end up being played in your experience?

I've never been in a scene without one.

* What motivates people to play them?

A few things motivate me to play them:
1) They tend to lose conflicts, which tends to gain me Story Tokens
    a) When they lose conflicts, it doesn't look like I'm deliberately losing, which tends to gain me Story Tokens
    b) It's easy to get really frustrated at losing when you have an ability that could roll the die down, but it's
       already checked off. Being frustrated tends to cause me to act in ways that are fun for other people, which
       tends to gain me Story Tokens
2) Sometimes the character has been pre-designed as non-debt. e.g., in my PBP game, one of the players created
    a character (Doc Achilles) and a supporting character (Doc Achilles' Sordid Past). I really wanted to play Doc
    Achilles' Sordid Past, so I did.
3) Sometimes it just feels right. If I want to play the villain's henchman who might betray him, and I envision him as
    a non-powered character, I make him a non-powered character. It's a bit of Sim priority edging in, I guess.
4) If my opponents have a lot of Story Tokens, it can be nice to play a character who is guaranteed not to give them any.
5) Since other players want Story Tokens, if you play a non-debt generating character in a scene, you will tend not to
    be the center of attention for that scene. That can be nice some times, particularly if you've been the center of
    attention for a while already.

* Is the lack of debt generation as big a disadvantage as it seems to me to be at this time?

In terms of winning conflicts? yes. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

...But I'm having a hard time seeing, from a gameplay perspective (not story), how playing a non-debt generator as your main character is ever a good idea.

Main character in a campaign or main character in a scene? It can definitely be a good idea as your main character in a scene.

[TonyLB]

But I'm having a hard time seeing, from a gameplay perspective (not story), how playing a non-debt generator as your main character is ever a good idea.

What's a "main" character in this context?

The other thing I'll point out (in addition to agreeing with Bill/dunlaing on the things he said) is that if you view clickable abilities as a resource, non-debt characters are freakin' loaded.

And when you've gotten to the point where every conflict is highly contested, where there is never any chance to just waltz in and get rid of two tokens of debt without making five or six abilities rolls in order to win the conflict, then clickable abilities very much are a resource.  Let me show you what happens if you don't have them:

• You have seven total debt over five drives.  This is bad.  You've got too much.  You're close to being forced into overdraw.
• Worse still, you have no clickable abilities left on the character.
• You stake three points of debt on a conflict.  Now you are carrying four debt.  Four is perfect.
• Now, of course, you must win that conflict.  If you lose it you will be at ten total debt.  That's no good.
\

• So, say you use two abilities (a roll and a react) in order to take control of that conflict.  They're powers, so that gets you two more debt.  You're carrying six debt.  Not great, but you're still ahead of the game.  If you win now you're better off than when you started.
• But now some jerk (possibly staked on the other side) takes control.  What do you do?
• Well, if you lose now then you end up with TWELVE debt.  That's just no good.  You're way better off taking two more points of debt, and winning, than you are stopping there and losing.
• So now you use a story token, and another two abilities.  That's two more debt.  You're carrying eight debt.  That stinks, but it's way better than twelve.  You are, in some very limited sense, ahead of the game.

My God?  How can you ever avoid a debt-carrying character eventually going into ballistic nutso misery?  Well, by comparison, think about what happens if you spend a story token and bring in a non-debt character to help out your super.  How many actions can you (the player) now get without balooning your debt?  Twelve.  Twelve actions off that character alone (if the ability-numbers work out right) that don't earn you a single token of extra debt.  What's happening to the other players while you do that?  They're accruing debt to try to contest you.  What happens to that debt?  It eventually becomes your story tokens.

And that is how non-debt characters rock.  Make sense?

[Sindyr]

Let me flip that question around - if we have three players, and the first two have chosen mortals (non debt chars), whats my incentive to play a hero?  I cannot get story tokens, no matter what I can do.

I personally would find a scene with no chance of me getting story tokens potentially boring and definately unpleasant - after all, what the entire scene winds up being is me arming the other players to better fight me later.

I don't much like that.

[TonyLB]

You've heard of Inspirations, right?

[Sindyr]

Aren't they the red headed stepchild of Story Tokens?

Seems like if my opponents get Story tokens and I get a handful of probably lame (level 1-3) insps, they got much the better of the deal.

[TonyLB]

Ah, gotcha.  I agree, if you can't be consistently generating Inspirations of 5 or 6 when you're the sole super-being in the scene then yeah, you should probably stay away from playing supers.

[Sindyr]

Interesting implication. Is it accurate?

[Hans]

What's a "main" character in this context?

Sorry, ambiguous.  I should have said "only" character. 

• You have seven total debt over five drives.  This is bad.  You've got too much.  You're close to being forced into overdraw.
• Worse still, you have no clickable abilities left on the character.
• You stake three points of debt on a conflict.  Now you are carrying four debt.  Four is perfect.
• Now, of course, you must win that conflict.  If you lose it you will be at ten total debt.  That's no good.
\

• So, say you use two abilities (a roll and a react) in order to take control of that conflict.  They're powers, so that gets you two more debt.  You're carrying six debt.  Not great, but you're still ahead of the game.  If you win now you're better off than when you started.
• But now some jerk (possibly staked on the other side) takes control.  What do you do?
• Well, if you lose now then you end up with TWELVE debt.  That's just no good.  You're way better off taking two more points of debt, and winning, than you are stopping there and losing.
• So now you use a story token, and another two abilities.  That's two more debt.  You're carrying eight debt.  That stinks, but it's way better than twelve.  You are, in some very limited sense, ahead of the game.

...
And that is how non-debt characters rock.  Make sense?

Yes, it does.  So far we haven't been in a situation where being overdrawn has mattered, which has meant that the downside of having too much debt (and the spectre of the big whammy of LOTS of debt coming back as a loss) hasn't really hit yet.  But, come to think of it, the character I am liable to play next session has 7 debt on a 3 debt drive right now, and he ended up there almost exactly in a cycle like you describe.  And on reflection...I've seen the last conflict in two of our sessions end up with INSANE amounts of debt staked, not really for a win but simply to get it off of drives because so much was piled up.  After reading your description above, I can see where having a character that generates no debt could be helpful. 

This is good stuff.  Thanks Tony.

Dunlaing (Bill, is it?), thanks for your post.  It was very helpful as well.

All of the above makes me think that spending a story token in the first page of a scene to get an extra non-powered character (if you select a powered one as your free character) of some sort could be just about the most useful way to spend a story token.  You get an extra action in every page, and you can use that character to avoid the spiralling debt increase described above.

[drnuncheon]

Interesting implication. Is it accurate?

Well, consider these two facts:

1) If there's nobody on the other side of the conflict, they can only have 1 die.
2) You can use debt to split off as many dice as you want, up to your Drive
3) "Unmatched" dice on your side become inspirations for you.

So, if you had a drive of 3, you could have 3 dice on your side of the conflict, roll them all up nice and high, and get at least two of those as inspirations.

Yeah, I'd say that's pretty accurate.

[dunlaing]

Aren't they the red headed stepchild of Story Tokens?

Seems like if my opponents get Story tokens and I get a handful of probably lame (level 1-3) insps, they got much the better of the deal.

If you're the only one with Debt, then you will get high (level 4-6) inspirations. Think about it. You can split the dice every time and your opponents never can. That means you will always be matching dice against thin air.

[dunlaing]

Dunlaing (Bill, is it?), thanks for your post.  It was very helpful as well.

My pleasure. Glad it was helpful.

Yeah, it's Bill.
<----------It's right over there on the left.



Sorry about the cross post with DrNuncheon.

[TonyLB]

Sorry, ambiguous.  I should have said "only" character. 

Ahhhh ... yeah, that's a dicier proposition.  Sometimes I've made it work out, and raked in lots of Story Tokens.  Sometimes I've had it fall flat.

My experience is that a non-debt character is best if they are supporting a super-character.  That can either be another of your characters (if you spend story tokens for more than one) or if you're doing things on the cheap it can be one played by someone else.

All that ability to react and roll dice up gets wasted if there's nobody to split dice for you.

[Tuxboy]

And there is always my favourite reason:

To drive the story along and develop plot...

It seems sometimes we get lost in the mechanics and forget its a RPG, which is a narrative environment. Sometimes its nice to step back from the "winning/losing" aspect and have fun with the narrative.

Its been said that Capes is a multi-GM style of game, which is a great concept, but let's not forget that traditionally GMs don't play to win, they play to have fun and generate fun for others. Sometimes entertaining the other players can be just as rewarding as raking in the resources IMO. I guess it depends what you are looking to get out of gaming.

Sure story tokens are great, inspirations are cool...but if it degenerates into a slog for resources and part of the narrative tool is lost because of that then we might as well go play Monopoly :)

I think its too easy sometimes to lose sight of the role-playing aspects amidst the mechanics...

*steps off the soapbox, tucks it under one arm and goes for a pint*

[Sydney Freedberg]

Bah, humbug!

Traditional "roleplaying, not rollplaying!" players are the kind of people who spend sixty frickin' minutes ordering dinner in character (actually happened in a friend's Mechwarrior game once). They escape from the railroad tracks (laid down by the altruistic GM, who lives only for the pleasure of others) by having their characters go shopping, get drunk, play pranks on each other, or mug bystanders (all things I've done).

Here's the thing:

In Capes, you can still spend an hour ordering dinner in character, or shopping, or bitching, and earn game resources all the while. Filtering what traditionally is "downtime" through the conflict resolution system can make it exciting: "Oh, so you think you're going to pay for everybody's drinks? Ha! My three points of Duty debt say otherwise!"