A bodiless, persona less character?

[TonyLB]

Heh.  The things you folks get up to when I'm away.

Sindyr, you view the ways you can be engaged through your character as weaknesses.  Okay.  Fair enough.  They are.  When someone challenges something that you can't let pass without a fight then you have less choices than you would otherwise.

Now:  Those vulnerabilities are also strengths.  They are the way that you draw people to engage with you.  People want to be in a conflict that matters to other players.  They don't really care if it matters to the fictional world.  They care if it matters to you.  They will spend their resources (and thereby give you resources) to engage with a conflict that matters to you.

So I'm totally in agreement with you that you can do this thing, and protect yourself from being vulnerable to manipulation.  Do you agree with my point that it is bad strategy to have that be your only mode of play?

[Sindyr]

Sindyr, you view the ways you can be engaged through your character as weaknesses.  Okay.  Fair enough.  They are.  When someone challenges something that you can't let pass without a fight then you have less choices than you would otherwise.

One of the interesting things to me is that playing the character Kismet allows me to let more pass (if I choose) without a fight than playing the character Bob the Barbarian.  I again can't tell you right now if that difference is qualititative or quantitative, but for some reason I am not as easily drawn into conflicts against my will. I can still choose to participate in any conflict that entices me, but I don't feel coerced to do that when playing Kismet.  Perhaps by playing a cosmic force it lets me operate from a wider view, where the negative consequences of any  particular conflict can be more easily accepted.

However, at this point, that is not even the main reason I would want to play a persona-less character.  The two main reasons I (at this point) would want to play such a character are because it seems to me to be closer to the pure spirit of Capes (as in, we players are GM's, not PC's) and because it affords me the greatest width of options to play and get involved with *any* character and *any* story.

Now:  Those vulnerabilities are also strengths.  They are the way that you draw people to engage with you.  People want to be in a conflict that matters to other players.  They don't really care if it matters to the fictional world.  They care if it matters to you.  They will spend their resources (and thereby give you resources) to engage with a conflict that matters to you.

I am confused about that last statement.  I thought the Capes paradigm was (in a nutshell) that I suss out what the other player wants to accomplish with the story, and I play conflicts that allow them to do just that.  I don't however make it easy for them to win those conflicts, and they wind up giving me resources in order to capture that conflict to narrate its resolution.

Now the conflict I played in order to get his resources committed doesn't necessarily matter to me.  If I suss out that he wants to explore the romantic relationship between Mary Jane, Gwen, and Peter Parker, that may not mean a lot to me directly - romantic storylines may not thrill me.  But I do need resources to tell the parts of the story that do thrill me, because it may not thrill *them*.  So I get involved in providing the other player an avenue to explore his romantic storyline, I garner his tokens, and eventually when he tells a part of the story that matters to me but may not move him very much, I can reward him for doing so.  In this way Capes encourages us to help other players tells stories that are important to them and not necessarily to us, so that the other players will return the favor.

It is this base economy of shared storytelling that I find ingenious.

Yet you said "They will spend their resources (and thereby give you resources) to engage with a conflict that matters to you."   Wouldn't that be the other way around?  Wouldn't they be *spending* resources when the conflict matters less to me and more to them, and *earning* resources when the conflict matters more to me and less to them?  Isn't that the point?  You seem to have said something opposite to my understanding of Capes and I cannot reconcile that.

So I'm totally in agreement with you that you can do this thing, and protect yourself from being vulnerable to manipulation.  Do you agree with my point that it is bad strategy to have that be your only mode of play?

I still may not quite get what you are saying. Ultimately, to make Capes work, all trimming aside, all you need to do is be willing to invest some time and effort providing the other players storytelling opportunities that they desire enough to spend resources on, so that later they do the same for you.  Isn't that the fundamental principle of Capes?  Manipulation is simply a tool in the toolbox to make this happen, and to my way of thinking, its a broken and unnessecary one, that better tools exist - such as negotiation.

One thing I like to imagine is continual negotiation between the players before conflicts even hit the table.  For example, at the start of every Capes session, players may state what it is they would like to see happen,what changes, events, character growth they would like to explore.  Perhaps at the end of the session players talk about what really worked for them, which conflicts they enjoyed being drawn in to.  Perhaps in between session all the players think about where they want to go next.

To me Capes is the capitalism of narration and ideas.  I like the idea of market research before trying to sell your fellow player a narrative product.  I am not so much a fan of the tactic of insuring a buyer by breaking something he has now - unless he actually wants that.  To me, keeping a good relationship with one's customers is more important for future sales.

Does that answer your question?

[Sydney Freedberg]

1) That playing a cosmic force not tied to an in-story persona is quite different from playing a persona based character.  Whether that difference is quantitative (and demonstrable) or qualitative (perceived and in the eye of the beholder), it seems to be there.
2) That playing a cosmic force gives one more options and latitude - again either objectively by its nature, or subjectively by it's paradigm.

I'd argue that the similarities are far more important than the differences. I'd also argue that it doesn't necessarily give one more options and latititude.

I'd even argue with Tony that playing this kind of character cannot, by itself, "protect you... from being vulnerable to manipulation." You can play a "persona-based character" and still be invulnerable because you, the real person, don't really care about story; or you can play a bodiless cosmic force and be terribly vulnerable because you, the real person, do care.

Now, clearly you personally are more comfortable with this approach, and you feel you have more freedom to avoid being drawn into conflicts. That's fine. There are probably a lot of people who'd share your preference -- but it's only a preference, and not a universal truth. It's as if you're saying, "Look! Now that I've bought an SUV, I'll never have accidents like I did in my old VW bug!" And I'm saying, "well, for a lot of people, that's a more comfortable car to drive, but actually you've gained more chassis strength at the cost of a higher risk of rollovers, so the safety rating's probably about the same; and anyway, driving a different car won't make you much more or less likely to get into accidents, because what matters in the end is the human being doing the driving."

[TonyLB]

Does that answer your question?

Well, to the extent that your answer is "No, I don't agree with what you're saying because I don't get it," yeah that answers me very well.  Given that answer, I hope you won't be surprised if I elaborate a little bit.

Capes is about creating conflicts that people will care about.  But that doesn't have to be passive.  "What people care about" is not a static target.  It is not fixed.  It changes.  You can change it.

You can passively sit and observe and figure out "Okay, this is something they already care about."  Or you can actively go out and say "I'm making this conflict and I'm going to make people care about it."  Or you can do a variety of things in between ... finding something close to what they care about, and drawing them to care about it fully.

But changing what people care about is a two way street.  If you aren't open to being engaged then you aren't engaging.  I can go into detail about why I think that is, but the observed fact of it hits me in the face every time I play the game.  Making yourself vulnerable to being engaged is the first step to making people care about what you want them to care about.

Does that make more sense of why I describe vulnerability as a strength?

[Sindyr]

Now, clearly you personally are more comfortable with this approach, and you feel you have more freedom to avoid being drawn into conflicts. That's fine. There are probably a lot of people who'd share your preference -- but it's only a preference, and not a universal truth. It's as if you're saying, "Look! Now that I've bought an SUV, I'll never have accidents like I did in my old VW bug!" And I'm saying, "well, for a lot of people, that's a more comfortable car to drive, but actually you've gained more chassis strength at the cost of a higher risk of rollovers, so the safety rating's probably about the same; and anyway, driving a different car won't make you much more or less likely to get into accidents, because what matters in the end is the human being doing the driving."

If I may point out what I see as the exception, in life, if you have an car accident, you are going tot he hospital, but in Capes, if you do not feel attacked or damaged, then you are not attcked or damaged.

What I am trying to say (badly) is that it seems to me that if playing a cosmic force makes it feel like less bad things are befalling me as a player, than the perception is reality as far as my Capes experience goes - there *is* no objective truth to counter it - all we have in Capes (in a manner of speaking) are *subjective* narrative truths.

Put another way, let's say I am involved in a story in which spiderman strives and fails to save the life of an innocent.

If my character sheet is Spiderman, then I take it personally.  I am bummed, angry, frustrated, and toxic.  The game's fun has evaporated, replacing it with a very real desire (not acted on, of course) to harm the players physically, to do violance upon them for what they have done to me.  This is not a good place to be, not a place I want to risk arriving at.

But if my character sheet is Kismet, even if I having been *playing* Spiderman narratively exactly the same, when Spiderman fails to save the innocent person, I do *not* take it personally.  I am bummed on Spiderman's *behalf*, but from my current point of view, the point of view of Kismet, all things will eventually work out for the best, taking the long view.  Spiderman's failure is simply one knot on one thread in the entire fabric of the tapestry, and that failure may lead to an even greater order of magnitude of goodness and triumph.

Now, if I am playing Spiderman's character sheet, I cannot take that more impartial view, I guess cause I feel like by choosing to link the character sheet to the character Spiderman I am choosing to link Spiderman to *me*.  But by playing Kismet's character sheet, I don't feel Spiderman as being *me* any more than I feel Doc Ock to be *me*.  They are both threads in the tapestry, and its the overall design of the whole thing that I am interested in.  And I am not even striving toward a particular design, I am striving toward making whatever design emerges the best, most coherent, and pure design that I can.

Spiderman fails either way, but the *meaning* of that failure and it's immanent emotive effect completely changes depending on which I embrace - Kismet's sheet or Spidey's.  And that to me, is one of the keys (though not IMO the most significant key) in the difference between playing Kismet and Spidey.

The goal of playing Capes (for me) ultimately is to have a positive, meaningful, and fun experience.  This seems far more likely when I play Kismet.  To me, that is a very real and essential difference.  Playing a persona-less cosmic force simply feels different from playing a persona-based character, and as the product of a narrative experience is feeling, that to me seem as objective as one can get.

[TonyLB]

Spiderman fails either way, but the *meaning* of that failure and it's immanent emotive effect completely changes depending on which I embrace - Kismet's sheet or Spidey's. 

Why?

[Sindyr]

Well, to the extent that your answer is "No, I don't agree with what you're saying because I don't get it," yeah that answers me very well.  Given that answer, I hope you won't be surprised if I elaborate a little bit.

No, I appreciate it.

Capes is about creating conflicts that people will care about.  But that doesn't have to be passive.  "What people care about" is not a static target.  It is not fixed.  It changes.  You can change it.

You can passively sit and observe and figure out "Okay, this is something they already care about."  Or you can actively go out and say "I'm making this conflict and I'm going to make people care about it."  Or you can do a variety of things in between ... finding something close to what they care about, and drawing them to care about it fully.

But changing what people care about is a two way street.  If you aren't open to being engaged then you aren't engaging.  I can go into detail about why I think that is, but the observed fact of it hits me in the face every time I play the game.  Making yourself vulnerable to being engaged is the first step to making people care about what you want them to care about.

I guess my earlier comment reflects my opinion that I do feel that changing what people care about, while being valid play, is yet not good play if the player is being coerced or forced into, if they resent this action.  If they do not resent this action, and instead embrace it and enjoy it, then that's an entirely different matter.  If a player does enjoy that kind of play, I would be open to providing it for them.  However, if the player does not enjoy this kind of play, I would avoid it, for I would wish them to use the same thinking in their actions towards me.

Does that make more sense of why I describe vulnerability as a strength?

I *think* so.  A player who is willing to have their character to be screwed with (if you pardon the connotative content) is going to be open to being involved in a more emotionally deep story.  On the other hand, they also take the risk that there are ultimately *two* outcomes - success and tragedy, and if it is the latter, it's going to hurt them as a human being deeply if they are really being that vulnerable and open.  Whether or not the price of the tragedies is worth the payoff of the successes depends on two things:  how much the tragedies bring hurt and the successes bring joy, and how often tragedies occur versus successes.

To me, given what I have seen here, with Capes players apparently being willing to fight to push people into tradegies with all their might as a tactic, given how vulnerable I personally can be, it's not a good risk versus reward scenario.

Now, I think I should state clearly something else:  Whether or not I am *vulnerable*, that is, "hurt-able", I am always *accessible*.  Seems to me that vulnerability really pertains to how much you can gain or lose emotionally as the story unfolds; but *accessibility* pertains to how available you are to the other players, to how worthwhile it is for *them* to interact with you through Capes.

I believe that unless they derive joy from my personal discomfort or pain, that any groups of Capes players will find playing with me rewarding, both emotionally and resource-wise, because I will never be un-accessible, even though I may not make myself vulnerable.

Does that difference make sense?

[TonyLB]

On the other hand, they also take the risk that there are ultimately *two* outcomes - success and tragedy, and if it is the latter, it's going to hurt them as a human being deeply if they are really being that vulnerable and open.

You say that, and I get that you mean it as "You might get to eat cake, or you might get to eat shit."

But, I find that it's a lot more like "You might get to drink lemonade or you might get to drink espresso."  Very different drinks, very much the opposite of each other, but both enjoyable.

If you have never volunteered for tragedy, maybe you think that being hurt can only be a bad thing.  But man, no.  Just no.  I'll be posting actual play about this, on the soon side, but in the meantime:  Sad songs have their place.  Not every movie would be improved by a happy ending.  Sometimes being beaten and being forced to accept heart-breaking tragedy makes for the best game of your life.  It's happened to me.

[Sindyr]

If you have never volunteered for tragedy, maybe you think that being hurt can only be a bad thing.  But man, no.  Just no.  I'll be posting actual play about this, on the soon side, but in the meantime:  Sad songs have their place.  Not every movie would be improved by a happy ending.  Sometimes being beaten and being forced to accept heart-breaking tragedy makes for the best game of your life.  It's happened to me.

I completely and utterly accept that tragedy can be a rewarding thing for you and many others.  But I experience it differently.  Some illustrations:  when going to a movie, I read the full spoilers of it first so that I cannot be hurt by a terrible ending.  I really only like stories with eventual complete and happy endings, with poetic justice.  I don't mind some mid-story suffering ( to some degree) if the payoff at the end justifies it.  Case in point: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R Donaldson has a lot of terrible things happen in it, a lot of sacrifice.  But the ending pays off on those hurts with more joy and success than what you had to put up with to get there.

I will not defend why I am this way, or get into how I am or am not broken as a human being, or how my brain chemistry may or may not be as functional as it could be.  But I do know that I cannot countenance in my recreation and play the idea of deep failure and hurt (without it at least leading inexorably to an even greater success and joy.).  The purpose for me of play and recreation is to take a break from how real life can contain such experiences of failure and hurt.  It is an escape for a time.

But I don't think Capes requires an experience of deep pain, although it is an optional (and valid) component for those who value it.  I think I have found several ways to employ Capes to great advantage, some by drifting Capes with house rules and others (like this latest idea) by embracing Capes at a deep philosophical level, taking Capes to what I feel is it's ultimate conclusion.

Again, I am not trying to stand in the way of another's player chossing to experience tragedy - if that's what they want, I will even try to provide it for them if they like.  For me, I want eventual and ultimate joy, of some kind.  And the only way that pain and suffering and failure can be part of that for me is to have them be guaranteed steps to an amazing and mind blowing success, greater than the sum of all pain along the way.

I simply do not enjoy tragedies, pain, or suffering, even in art or play, on its own.  I don't know what esle to say.

[Sindyr]

Spiderman fails either way, but the *meaning* of that failure and it's immanent emotive effect completely changes depending on which I embrace - Kismet's sheet or Spidey's. 

Why?

I apologize in advance if my attempts to answer are unclear or vague, to some degree we are now asking questions that are usually left intuitively understood and unverbalized. So here goes:

I tried to answer that question above:

If my character sheet is Spiderman, then I take it personally.  I am bummed, angry, frustrated, and toxic.  The game's fun has evaporated, replacing it with a very real desire (not acted on, of course) to harm the players physically, to do violance upon them for what they have done to me.  This is not a good place to be, not a place I want to risk arriving at.

But if my character sheet is Kismet, even if I having been *playing* Spiderman narratively exactly the same, when Spiderman fails to save the innocent person, I do *not* take it personally.  I am bummed on Spiderman's *behalf*, but from my current point of view, the point of view of Kismet, all things will eventually work out for the best, taking the long view.  Spiderman's failure is simply one knot on one thread in the entire fabric of the tapestry, and that failure may lead to an even greater order of magnitude of goodness and triumph.

Now, if I am playing Spiderman's character sheet, I cannot take that more impartial view, I guess cause I feel like by choosing to link the character sheet to the character Spiderman I am choosing to link Spiderman to *me*.  But by playing Kismet's character sheet, I don't feel Spiderman as being *me* any more than I feel Doc Ock to be *me*.  They are both threads in the tapestry, and its the overall design of the whole thing that I am interested in.  And I am not even striving toward a particular design, I am striving toward making whatever design emerges the best, most coherent, and pure design that I can.

Apart from that, I am not sure how to answer your question of why it's emotive impact differs so greatly depending on which sheet I am playing.

I guess to paraphrase, it depends on my perspective, my vantage point.  Choosing to play Spidey's character sheet and choosing to play Kismet's character sheet provide very different starting vantage points.  Even more so than choosing to play Spidey's character sheet or choosing to play Doc Ock's character sheet.

The character sheet you choose has to have a significance and an affect on the game, right? If it didn't, people would all start with exactly the same sheet.

I think if you examine the reason why which character sheet we choose matters, you will find the answer to your question of why it matters to me.

Hope that is not entirely unhelpful.

[TonyLB]

But I don't think Capes requires an experience of deep pain, although it is an optional (and valid) component for those who value it.

Uh ... yeah.  Okay.  That's true but ....

Hockey doesn't require a willingness to risk physical harm, either.  But if you don't have that willingness you're going to be beaten by people who do.  They'll be able to take risks you can't and do things, strategically, that will guarantee that they'll utterly dominate you in play.

So, nobody's asking you to justify that you don't want to open yourself up to be hurt.  That's cool.

Opening yourself up to be hurt is a vital strategy in Capes.

That's not saying "You ought to be doing this!  It's essential to Capes!"  It's saying "Well, this is what the system rewards.  So maybe, if you can't do it, you should find another system."

There's nothing wrong with saying that you won't accept (for instance) the death of your character in a game.  But if you state that preference then I'm going to be very skeptical when you say you want to play in my Call-of-Cthulhu/Paranoia cross-over game.

Are you able to hear that and to recognize that "But I really, really don't want to be vulnerable" is true and fine but completely irrelevant?  You're allowed to not want it.  Not wanting it means precisely nothing to its importance to the game system.

[Sindyr]

Opening yourself up to be hurt is a vital strategy in Capes.

I am not trying to be obstinate, I just don't see this.

Are you able to hear that and to recognize that "But I really, really don't want to be vulnerable" is true and fine but completely irrelevant?  You're allowed to not want it.  Not wanting it means precisely nothing to its importance to the game system.

I think I am hearing that.  Without drifting Capes, there is zero control, apart from agreed upon Comic's Codes (and unwritten social contract), that I can exert on the actions of my fellow players.  However, in this case, in this thread, I am not suggesting controlling what they do.  I am simply suggesting that by playing Kismet, I remove myself from coercion, while leaving myself open to enticement.

So, for the purposes of this thread, sure, I can't control whether or not my fellow players try to use coercive tactics on me... but I can control whether or not I am available in that way.  And it further seems to me, not being available to coercion does not change my desire to garner their resources by giving them what hey want in terms of conflicts and also does not change their desire to get their hands on my resources by doing the same for me, given the above caveat that they are not seeking to be rewarded by the feeling of the infliction of pain and hurt itself.

[TonyLB]

And it further seems to me, not being available to coercion does not change my desire to garner their resources by giving them what hey want in terms of conflicts and also does not change their desire to get their hands on my resources by doing the same for me, given the above caveat that they are not seeking to be rewarded by the feeling of the infliction of pain and hurt itself.

You're mistaken.  Protecting yourself from being changed by other players will vastly reduce your ability to engage them.

What they want, more than any individual thing in the fiction, is to make a human connection.  They want to have an impact on you, and that means changing you.  They want the opportunity to make you feel and do things that you would not have felt and done anyway.  The story and the game is driven by that desire to connect, and it rewards those who give people that connection.

[Sindyr]

You're mistaken.  Protecting yourself from being changed by other players will vastly reduce your ability to engage them.

I'm not preventing myself from being changed by other players - like I said, I commit to keepinbg myself accessible.  I may be preventing them from coercing me, but that's pretty much it.

What they want, more than any individual thing in the fiction, is to make a human connection.  They want to have an impact on you, and that means changing you.  They want the opportunity to make you feel and do things that you would not have felt and done anyway.  The story and the game is driven by that desire to connect, and it rewards those who give people that connection.

I do not think I am in any disagreement with you with the above.  I think, for example, if all the players at a Capes table were to play non-persona cosmic forces, we could get down to the pure essence of Capes.

However, there are many ways to change people, many ways to affect them.  A father that beats his child undeniable changes and affects his kid, and probably does in so doing forge a human connection with his victim.  Without commenting on the health or lack of health of that approach, I will simply say that all of us humans have things that we want to explore and embrace, and things that we want to reject and avoid - and those are different for each of us.

It seems to me that Capes can be played to full effect while respecting the boundaries of things that people are not open to exploring.  But either way, it seems to me that by playing a persona-less character you are actually embracing the overall story more and focussing on the ego matters of one individual character less.  I think this is a good thing, and entirely within the deep spirit of Capes.

To vastly oversimply - one can eschew beating a man and yet find a way to connect with him.  Embracing persona-less characters I think makes that all the more apparent.

[TonyLB]

>sigh<

Sindyr, I really, really wanted this to be something different from the same unsubstantiated claims you made way back in March, but it just isn't.

I'm telling you that the game pushes people to seek out each other's areas of engagement and to push them.  That's what the game does, and if you're not part of it then you're not part of the game.  You're saying that you believe enlightened souls wouldn't act as the game encourages people to act, and therefore there must be a way to make the system not do what it does.  It's not an argument from reality, it's an argument from your desires.

All of the arguments I made back then still apply.  You're still just asserting "It can be different!" without responding to any of the explanations why the game is as it is.  Way back when, we ended on this note:

I will of course not be dropping the subject or refusing to talk about this (and similar subjects) to and with others, as it seems that there are some here that get what I am saying.

Then I will continue to point out that you have not made any case for your beliefs, until such time as you make a case.  Sounds like we both know where we stand.

We won't be starting from the ground up again.  You still haven't made an argument.  I've still made dozens.  The intervening time doesn't change that, and it doesn't let you start with a blank slate.  You have had this explained to you in many different ways, each in excruciating detail.  You refuse to listen.  That does not constitute an argument on your part, just bull-headedness.