Everybody Gloats

[Sindyr]

Just going to repeat once crucial bit that I thinks does sum up the issue:

Assuming that tokens > Insps

If gloating is worth doing once, it's probably worth doing repetitively.
result: looping through gloats over and over.

If gloating is not worth doing repetitively, then it's probably not worth doing once.
result:  no one gloats, and the rule is useless.

This is all in general, one can come up with certain specific and uncommon situations to be the exception to the rule.  Once in bridge, I actually tried to lose a game, because it won us the match.  These strange examples exist, which is why I say the above is true in general and of course only if tokens > Insps.

[Matthew Glover]

And if they have already gloated that conflict?  That means they get the story token but because you resolved it, you don't.  IF tokens > inspirations, then you lose by resolving the conflict. On the other hand, if preventing other people from gloating was super important, extra good tactic, than why would anyone gloat in the first place?

If they gloated it once, the strongest play you can make is to ensure that they don't do it again.  Sure, they got some Tokens for it.  You seem to think that if you also Gloat you even the score.  This is incorrect.  You seem to think that if they Gloat and get Tokens, then you resolve and get Inspirations, you "lose," that you've made a bad play.  This is incorrect.  Discard these ideas.  They are wrong.

Game theory says that is gloating is worth doing once, it very well may be worth doing multiple times.  And if it's not worth doing multiple times, it very well may not be worth doing once.  The two facts are not independent.

]Practical application of Capes shows that Gloating is worth doing once, worth doing multiple times, and worth preventing depending on the situation.

If you're Gloating, farm that conflict for Story Tokens for as long as it's fun for you to do so.
If your ally is Gloating, let him farm that conflict for as long as you think you can trust him.
If your opponent is Gloating, stop him.

Therefor if either gloating is worthwhile and people will do it endlessly, and the gloating rule is therefor broken, or gloating is not worthwhile and people will not do it, and the gloating rule is useless and should be removed. (IF tokens > Insps)

Look, man, forget the whole deal with Tokens being better or cooler or more useful or more important or whatever than Inspirations.  That's like saying that a tire iron is better than an apple.  They do different things.  They serve different purposes.    The entire Token/Inspiration comparison is a big part of the problem you're having with this Gloat issue.  If you will just let that notion go you will be taking a biiiiig step forward in grasping what all these people are trying to say.

So the rule is even more broken.  IF tokens > Insps, and if I know you will want to resolve a conflict rather than gloat because even though the Insp is worth less than the token (accorinf to our IF above) you are willing to take it to get the bloody thing off the table.

In other words, I can count on you to not gloat the conflicts while I gloat them as long as I can.

So, it's broken. (IF tokens > Insps)

Tokens aren't greater than Inspirations.  Tokens can't be compared to Inspirations.  Stop that, you're hurting yourself by holding on to that idea. 

That's not broken, that's how the rule is supposed to work.

What is broken is your strategy.  I want you to explain to me how a Gloatfest is a good idea.

Look:

There's a goal in play and I Gloat it because I'm playing a bad guy. I narrate my bad guy saying mean things rather than blowing up the world. Then Tony Gloats it because he's playing a bad guy too.  He narrates his bad guy laughing scornfully at all the good guys. Then Eric Gloats it because even though he's a good guy he wants some of those Tokens like we got, and he narrates my bad guy saying some more mean things about his own character.  Now you've got control of the conflict, Sindyr.  You're playing a good guy.  You decide to Gloat, getting the same number of Tokens that I got, that Tony got, that Eric got, and you choose to let each of us do it again.  Every time somebody has the opportunity to resolve, he chooses instead to Gloat.

We'll keep going all night.  Each of us narrates my guy saying mean things and Tony's guy laughing scornfully over and over and we're writing the worst comic ever dreamed up by mankind.  This scene never ends.  We skip work and keep Gloating. 

We're stacking up thousands of Story Tokens.  We ran out of poker chips, so Tony wrote us a Flash application to keep track.  We all used up our Blockable abilities in the first hour, though, so we're pulling in mountains of Debt for using Powers to keep rolling up those dice to Gloat.  Nobody cares about being overdrawn, though, because we're all Gloating so there's no dice to turn down at the beginning of the page.  We do realize, though, that staking Debt will get us more dice, which means more dice to turn down, which means more Tokens when we gloat, so there's oodles of Debt on this goal.  Shit, now we really don't want to resolve it, because if I resolve, I have to give all that Debt to you as more Story Tokens. 

Let's say, though, six months into it Eric gets tired of this and he resolves. He takes some Inspirations.  Everybody who staked Debt except Eric gets back double Debt.  All Eric's Debt that he staked turns into Story Tokens that he distributes evenly, because really, everybody has six billion Tokens now, so what does he care that everybody else has another six hundred fifty apiece?  He's never gonna run low now.

The scene's finally over.   Somebody starts the next scene.  Oh, wait.  Everybody has six billion Story Tokens and we just spent six months Gloating a single conflict.  Capes is ruined for me, I hate all you guys, and I never want to read a comic again.

Sindyr, tell me how allowing a Gloatfest is good strategy.  Tell me how it lets you manage your resources better than the other players.  Tell me how it creates an interesting story.  Tell me how it's good for the short term.  Tell me about the long-term benefits.  Tell me what possible good you get out of letting it keep rolling around rather than stopping it hard and early.

The alternative to the Gloatfest, you ask?
When you spot your opponent Gloating, you shrug because he got two Story Tokens, then you shut down the Token farm, resolve the goal, take your Inspirations (which are not comparable to the Tokens, by the way) and move on.  Maybe you consider it a temporary setback.  If you're smart, though, you play well and get some big Inspirations off of it.  You narrate something powerful and cool and engaging and show your character being a total badass and your opponent's character (wasn't he just gloating about his ultimate power?) being a weak and sniveling chump. 

How is that not better for everyone?

[Hans]

As an example..."Event: The Tidal Wave Hits".  In and of itself, its not really clear whether this is gloatable.

Which sparks another point, is an Event gloatable? As Events are definites, they will happen, can they be phrased in a way that would break the CC? I'm not sure they could and not get vetoed straight out the box.

Lets consider "Goal: The Tidal Wave hits"

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me, Tuxboy (btw,the name now makes much more sense in light of the penguin thing...).  Take "Event:The bomb reaches 0:01".  To my mind, this is HIGHLY gloatable.  The key is that gloating does not resolve the conflict, it postpones it.  So I narrate something like "Bad guy's bomb continues to tick away beneath the street, as little children, so close to death, play above" and grab my story tokens.  I'd be interested to know what others think about events being gloatable or not.  Even more obvious would be "Event: Hero is about to kill an innocent".  If that can't be gloated on, I don't know what could be (assuming the basic CC from the rules).

I do agree, though, that the more specific a goal is, the more obvious its gloatability will be. 

[TonyLB]

You narrate something powerful and cool and engaging and show your character being a total badass and your opponent's character (wasn't he just gloating about his ultimate power?) being a weak and sniveling chump.

By the way, I'm reading through the manga of Dragonball Z for the first time (yeah, I know, it's a sad gap in my education which I'm laboring to fill) and I am amused by how incredibly stark this pattern is in those books.  I mean, seriously ... the moment when somebody has effortlessly defeated every enemy, and gets up on their high horse to explain how they're the greatest fighter in the universe is the moment you know "Next page he's going to get his ass handed to him by a twelve year old girl in a frilly dress or something equally humiliating." 

Every.  Single.  Time.

Y'wanna know why Son Goku always wins in the end?  Because, reckless as he is, he's a gracious winner.  He doesn't Gloat.

[TonyLB]

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me, Tuxboy (btw,the name now makes much more sense in light of the penguin thing...).  Take "Event:The bomb reaches 0:01".  To my mind, this is HIGHLY gloatable.  The key is that gloating does not resolve the conflict, it postpones it.  So I narrate something like "Bad guy's bomb continues to tick away beneath the street, as little children, so close to death, play above" and grab my story tokens.  I'd be interested to know what others think about events being gloatable or not.  Even more obvious would be "Event: Hero is about to kill an innocent".  If that can't be gloated on, I don't know what could be (assuming the basic CC from the rules).

I do agree, though, that the more specific a goal is, the more obvious its gloatability will be.

Events can be harder to gloat, because the Event (pretty much definitionally) is something that can happen under the comics code ... it's just a question of how you narrate it.  So you can't make the claim "Oh, I have to Gloat that, there's no possible way to narrate my side that wouldn't violate the comics code."

You basically have to step into the theoretically gray (but, in practice, usually pretty clear cut) area of saying "Well, yeah, but my side of the Ticking Bomb event is the one where the narration involves blowing everyone up ... we all knew that, because I drove the point home with brutal candor in every single action that I took toward advancing my side."

Here's an example I actually considered in writing the rules:  End of the Spiderman movie, after Goblin threatens Mary Jane, there is a conflict "Event:  Green Goblin is killed."  Spiderman's player rolls like crazy cakes on that conflict.  Blow by blow, spidey is pounding Goblin to a pulp, ready to tear his freakin' head off!  There is no question in anyone's mind that if spidey resolves that conflict then he is going to kill Goblin with his own bare hands.

And that's why it's gloatable, because having a hero kill someone would violate that movie's comics code.  That's why, even when victory is unquestionably within Spiderman's grasp, he can't reach forward and sieze it.  Instead, he has to pause and moralize, and realize that he's not a killer, and all that jazz.  And that's why the Goblin gets to resolve "Goblin is killed" next page, and pile a huge heaping load of love debt right back in Spiderman's face.

But, theoretically, there is absolutely nothing to stop spiderman's player from narrating the "Goblin is killed" event by the goblin killing himself (or a small child with a thrown rock killing him).  It's the (admittedly non-objective) network of established expectations that helps groups agree what is gloatable and what isn't.  Events put more pressure on that network of expectations than Goals (which often come with a built-in "X or not-X" division), and so they can put a bit more strain on the gloating rules.

[Tuxboy]

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me, Tuxboy (btw,the name now makes much more sense in light of the penguin thing...).  Take "Event:The bomb reaches 0:01".  To my mind, this is HIGHLY gloatable.  The key is that gloating does not resolve the conflict, it postpones it.  So I narrate something like "Bad guy's bomb continues to tick away beneath the street, as little children, so close to death, play above" and grab my story tokens.

But the event doesn't specifically mention any breaching of the CC, it is only your narration that has done that, and if you use narration to gloat on that then that means that any conflict, event or goal, could be gloated upon using narration, which we previously agreed was seriously bending if not breaking the gloat mechanic.

Consider "Event: The flower is about to bloom"...I narrate "The flower's petals quiver, it's full pollen sacks almost bursting as Mightyman signs autographs nearby, unaware that his extreme pollen allergy is about to toll his dead knell." Could I then gloat as my narration breaks the CC or do I get popcorned...I suggest a highly justified latter and although an extremely silly example I suggest it is mechanically no different to the bomb example, but I, like you, would like to hear other people's opinions on this, especially Tony's, maybe we should split it of to another thread?

Even more obvious would be "Event: Hero is about to kill an innocent".  If that can't be gloated on, I don't know what could be (assuming the basic CC from the rules).

This one is more of a grey area...I suspect if it showed up on my table I would not consider gloatable as the phrasing does not specifically state a breaching of the CC, just a "possible" breaching of the CC, and it would be the narration that does the breaching, but can see your point as to the possibility.

*L* Tuxboy is an obscure Bloom County reference...but it does refer to a penguin.

[Tuxboy]

*crossed post with Tony*

Thanks Tony, that's the kind of thing I was looking for...

[Hans]

I just noted that the my post above is not on the original thread topic.  Therefore, I was going to withdraw the question, but four posts piled on to it before I could.  Thanks Tony, for helping.

On the original thread topic:  Sindyr's REAL question is in all of this is...are story tokens always better than inspirations? A few posts back he made it clear that if story tokens AREN'T better than inspirations (one assumes either that they are equal, or, as Matthew suggested earlier, so different in kind as resources as to be incomparable) then his concerns about a gloat-fest would evaporate.  That is the question to answer, not whether a gloat-fest is a good or bad idea.  For me, I agree with Matthew.  Story Tokens and inspirations are like peanut butter and chocolate.  Sometimes you want the one, sometimes you want the other.  Both are good in different ways, and you need both to make a Reeces. 

As evidence of the fact that story tokens are NOT better than inspirations, I suggest we take the evidence of the what by now must be hundreds of sessions that have occurred of Capes since its release on planet Earth.  Has anyone ever actually seen a "gloat-fest" occur?  If one had, I think it would have been posted by now.  Capes players are, by and large, pretty smart people; they had to figure out the rules of Capes, remember.  Therefore, if game theory made tokens better than inspirations, than that flaw in the game design would have been found long ago.  It WOULD be a flaw if it were true, I think; it would destroy the equilibrium between winning and losing. 

Therefore, I would say this is quite solid empirical evidence that for whatever reason, players of Capes do not judge Story Tokens to be universally more valuable than inspirations.  Actually, step back a bit.  Its better to say that this is convincing evidence that players do not judge gloating to be universally better than resolving, since there are non-tactical reasons (want to narrate something cool, its late and you want to go home, have a good idea for another scene) that come into play.  However, any theory of Capes must take into account this evidence.

On a side note, the fact that all claims are cancelled at the beginning of a page is the single biggest pitfall in the way of keeping a gloat-fest going, not splitting off a third side.  After the first page of a gloat-fest, there is ALWAYS at least one other player who could claim your side out from under you and prevent you from gloating again.  However, this does not counter Sindyr's concern; all it does is make it clear that a gloat-fest can only occur as a consensus activity on the part of the whole table, not just two people. 

[Ben Lehman]

If it helps, here.

I like Inspirations better than Story Tokens, and here's why.

First, they are tools for supporting the game continuity.  If I get inspirations from a challenge, I get to write them, and that means me saying "this was important, this is going to come up again."  I'm getting to shape the game continuity significantly.  Cool!

The other reason I like inspirations is because I like winning conflicts.  I tend to play high debt, which means that I need to to some serious staking from time-to-time.  Inspirations let me stake, split, inspire, and win, usually generating the same inspirations right back at me.

Story tokens ... give me another character.  Or maybe an extra action.  Extra actions are generally not as helpful as inspirations.  Secondary characters are fun, but not *that* fun.  One from time to time is more than enough.

yrs--
--Ben

[Eero Tuovinen]

Och, Ben stole my topic!

Which was, of course, that while I have little experience with the game, I find Inspirations SO cool. They're much cooler than Story tokens. The latter tell me nothing of where they come from, but Inspirations.. they're part of the crafted history of the game. They're there because of the story we made. As somebody said, you could just pump out Story tokens with a little collusion with the other players with nary a trouble, hardly touching the fiction. But to get a cool Inspiration, you actually have to play.

So yeah, I like Inspirations more for many situations.

But yeah, Ben pretty much said it all already. Damn him.

[Sindyr]

Sindyr, tell me how allowing a Gloatfest is good strategy.  Tell me how it lets you manage your resources better than the other players.  Tell me how it creates an interesting story.  Tell me how it's good for the short term.  Tell me about the long-term benefits.  Tell me what possible good you get out of letting it keep rolling around rather than stopping it hard and early.

I hear you, Matthew.

Let me respond by first saying that Hans is correct - if tokens are not more effective in general than Insps, than I can say with some certainty that the gloatfest issue will evaporate.

But I think one of the things you are saying, Matthew, is even if tokens are significantly more effective than Insps, and therefore more desirable, you do not see the problem that I do.

Let's assume, to better ask the question of whether infinite gloating cycles occur if tokens > Insps, that a group of player are playing Capes with one important change - Inspirations are never awarded and indeed do not exist in their games.  (Note, I am not interested in the effect of this house rule, nor am I proposing seriously as a way to play Capes, I am simply constructing a thought experiment to illustrate the problem of the unavoidable gloatfest given that all people want are tokens and not Insps.)

If a player gloats a conflict, and gets a token, that ultimately puts you behind a token.  Assuming that you have claimed a side of the conflict and have control of it at the end of the next page, you can choose to resolve the conflict, narrating it how you see fit, force your opponent to take back double debt, if he stakes any, and give away your debt as story tokens to your opponent.

Well, the most he is likely to stake is 3 debt, because each player can only stake debt from one drive, and only as much debt as that drive's rating.  Let's say you both have three debt each staked on this.

[FYI, you can't invest millions of debt into a conflict, you are limited to usually at most 2 or 3, depending on what yoru highest rated drive is.  You can of course spend as much debt as you like rolling up dice. in general, out of every 6 debt you spend you can expect to reap 5 tokens through gloating as you have a 5 in 6 chance on rolling something higher than a 1.]

The options are:

• Resolve this conflict.  Your opponent gets your 3 debt as tokens, he gets back double his debt, for six debt total coming back.  He also keeps the tokens he got last page(3).  No one gets any inspirations, because this group doesn't use them.  Net effect from that conflict: You opponent gets 6 debt and 6 tokens.  You lose 3 debt.
• Gloat this conflict yourself. You get 3 tokens.  Your opponent gets nothing.

Without Insps even in the mix, does it not become clear that the person who blinks, and resolves the conflict will be at a tactical disadvantage?

It's a game of Gloat chicken in a way - the first person to resolve loses.

If people are tired of the conflict or tired of the scene, there may be added incentive to be the one that blinks, but being the one that *doesn't* blinks is more tactically rewarding in terms of resources.

There people who play tactically will tend to keep these gloatfests going.  People who just want the gloatfest over will sacrifice their tactical advantages in order to make it go away.

Therefor, for someone that wants to gain resources, playing with people that are willing to sacrifice their tactical advantage in order to stop the gloating are a gold mine - as someone who plays more tactically can simply bring a gloatable goal (or ten) into being, and then farm the non-gloating players dislike of gloatfests for a tactical advantage in tokens.

So I still feel pretty confident that if we are just looking at tokens, if people are not making tactical errors, then a gloatfest results.

Maybe it's not worth discussing what would happen in the absence of Insps, though.  As Hans says, the entire above thought process is inapplicable if Insps are as desirable as tokens.

So I should probably just table this whole discussion until I have enough experience to come back and say whether or not I think Insps are that desirable vis-a-vis tokens.  Enough people here have said that they are to make me willing to go with that for now.

So I will tell my gaming group that the folks here on the forums believe that gloatfests are not a problem because in equally many circumstances Inspirations are more desirable than Tokens.

If they still want some other safety to short circuit their fears of gloatfests, I will offer up the following optional rules:
HR-1: Once a conflict has been gloated on, no other player may gloat on it, and must instead resolve it.
HR-2: Only the conflict's creator can gloat on it.
HR-3: If a conflict is not tagged as gloatable on creation, than no one can gloat on it.
which they can use or not use as they see fit.

Perhaps even if they require some gloatfest preventing rule, like training wheels they can be removed if and when we all see that Inspirations are equally desirable as Tokens.

Thanks

[Matthew Glover]

All right, now we're getting somewhere.

But I think one of the things you are saying, Matthew, is even if tokens are significantly more effective than Insps, and therefore more desirable, you do not see the problem that I do.

This isn't exactly true.  I think we're both on the same page about Gloatfests.  I think we both agree that they're bad when they happen.  I think where we disagree is that you think that it's good strategy to participate in (which is to say, allow) a Gloatfest, so a rule to stop them is necessary.  On the other hand, I am convinced that it's terrible strategy to allow or participate in Gloatfests, which means that no such rule is needed.  I think several other people feel as I do, based on their posts.  I think that if we can just show you why Gloatfest strategy is bad, we can put paid to this thread.

Before I get into talking about Gloating, I want to address this:

Well, the most he is likely to stake is 3 debt, because each player can only stake debt from one drive, and only as much debt as that drive's rating.  Let's say you both have three debt each staked on this.

[FYI, you can't invest millions of debt into a conflict, you are limited to usually at most 2 or 3, depending on what yoru highest rated drive is. 

I'm 99% sure that this is incorrect.  You can only stake debt from one drive, yes.  However you can stake as much from that drive as you like.  Undifferentiated characters may only stake up to three Debt on a given conflict, though.  (pg. 74)  If
I'm wrong or if this requires further discussion, let's split off a new thread so we can stay on topic.

Here we go with the Gloatfest strategy stuff again.

I asked you to explain to me why you think participation is good strategy and I think you did so.  I think the heart of it was this:

If a player gloats a conflict, and gets a token, that ultimately puts you behind a token.

This is sort of true if you're using Story Tokens as some kind of scorecard.  Don't think of them that way.  Story Tokens are a useful resource.  If the other guy gets one, you haven't lost anything.  Getting one of your own will not cancel out the one he got, either. 

You say that when the other guy Gloats and gets a Token, the smart thing to do is to get some too, which also allows the cycle to continue.  If everyone at the table plays this way, you get a Gloatfest.

Here's a major component of my strategic thinking:  A Gloatfest leads to Story Token inflation, by which I mean all involved accrue a large number of Story Tokens which will have the net effect of reducing the value of each Token.  Do you see why?

Token inflation means that players have a large bank of Tokens to spend, allowing a player to spend them freely rather than having to carefully shepherd them.  When an important Conflict comes up, players will be able to spend exponentially more Tokens for extra actions or even extra characters.  Rather than an extra action or two on a Conflict, you could realistically go into dozens of actions per page.  This is going to amass piles of Debt, which is going to either savagely Overdraw characters or get fed back into the Token inflation problem.  Do you see how getting into this situation will be bad for the game as a whole?  Do you see any other conclusion to a Gloatfest? 

Another component:  Both the original Gloatfest and subsequent hotly contested Conflicts require a great many cycles of narration on a given conflict.  It's possible that players may be able to handle keeping this fresh and interesting and involving, but I have doubts about this.  I suspect that very quickly the many cycles of narration of Actions and Reactions (as well as the repeated Gloat itself on the initial Fest) on a Conflict will grow stale.  That makes for boring play.  Do you disagree?

Extrapolating on that last part:  Boring play may reduce the emotional investment that players have in the game.  Emotional investment is an exploitable resource.  You can exploit my emotional investment (by threatening or rewarding it) to get me to engage, which gets you resources.  I can exploit my own emotional investment (by showing passion) to get you to engage, which gets me resources.  It is to my benefit to keep every other player engaged.  Anything that reduces the emotional investment of any player is a strategic mistake.  Do you disagree?

If people are tired of the conflict or tired of the scene, there may be added incentive to be the one that blinks, but being the one that *doesn't* blinks is more tactically rewarding in terms of resources.

There people who play tactically will tend to keep these gloatfests going.  People who just want the gloatfest over will sacrifice their tactical advantages in order to make it go away.

At best, this is short-term strategy.  It places too much value on individual Tokens, believing that a marginal difference is a significant advantage.  This belief leads to a situation where the entire Debt/Token economy is Inflated to the point of ruination.

Therefor, for someone that wants to gain resources, playing with people that are willing to sacrifice their tactical advantage in order to stop the gloating are a gold mine - as someone who plays more tactically can simply bring a gloatable goal (or ten) into being, and then farm the non-gloating players dislike of gloatfests for a tactical advantage in tokens.

What you describe here is actually the way that Capes is intended to work.  You bring in a villain with goals that are contrary to the Comics Code.  You persue those goals, Gloat, and get a couple of Tokens for it.  I, using my hero, defeat you and maybe you get a couple more Tokens for it.  Together, you and I, we have written the Fundamental Comic Story.  I get to be the triumphant hero (and I get some Inspirations).  You get a few Story Tokens that you can use to advance your own favorite character, be it hero or villain.  You seem to say that the Smart Move is to keep coming up with Gloatable goals so that you can reap the rewards from the sucker heroes who keep resolving the goals.  Please, I say to you, please do this.  This is the model for comic books.  The bad guys keep trying to rule/destroy the world, but the heroes win.  (At one point, you were pushing for extra rules to accomplish exactly this situation, weren't you?)

So I will tell my gaming group that the folks here on the forums believe that gloatfests are not a problem because in equally many circumstances Inspirations are more desirable than Tokens.

That's not why, at least not for me.  Sure, the Inspirations I get for resolving your Gloated goal are great incentive but the real reason is that the Story Token or two that you got off that goal are marginal.  I'm not worried about that.  It's not the significant advantage that you seem to think it will be. 

Perhaps even if they require some gloatfest preventing rule, like training wheels they can be removed if and when we all see that Inspirations are equally desirable as Tokens.

Please don't do this.  You don't need it.  Instead, I'd like you to try this experiment:  Using the stock rules for Gloating, go play some Capes.  If you see a Gloatfest cycle starting, stop it cold.  Resolve the goal the very first chance you get.  Be smart about it, match up resources so you get some good Inspirations.  If you can manage it, split off a third side and match Side A dice against Side B dice so that lots of your dice on Side C are unmatched.  For a capper, narrate a resolution that is an absolute gutting defeat for every player who Gloated, especially the players who are just Gloating for the tokens. 

Do this every time a Gloat comes up.  If you're the first one to Gloat and the others continue the cycle, when it gets back to you, don't Gloat again, Resolve the goal, take the Inspirations, and narrate something utterly savage.  I especially like seeing a villain ripping on heroes for failing to do their job and then doing it for them. 

Play a game or two like this and then tell us whether you still consider the Gloatfest to be a good strategy.  My money says that you (and all your players) will change your minds.

[drnuncheon]

This is sort of true if you're using Story Tokens as some kind of scorecard.  Don't think of them that way.  Story Tokens are a useful resource.  If the other guy gets one, you haven't lost anything.  Getting one of your own will not cancel out the one he got, either. 

Here's another thing you can do: let's say you shut down the gloatfest and the other guy has more story tokens than you.  What do you do?  Convince him to spend them.  Throw down a conflict that he wants to win, oppose him on it, he spends the story tokens to beat you, and you get story tokens from being defeated.

J