[Capes][DexCon] Star-Spangled Barbed-Wire Punch

[Valamir]

The key is to find the exact right level of detail to start things with that works for the game you are playing and the experience you are trying to create; just enough blank space, and just enough words.  This level of detail is very different for different games.  With Capes convention play, I suggest this might be:

* A solid, non-generic Comics Code (i.e. a Code that specifically creates a mood, theme, or points to a particular genre).
* A first scene idea that builds conflict immediately.

I can confirm that these same rules of thumb apply to successful Universalis play...where Comics Code becomes Tenets and the importance of a first scene cannot be overestimated.

[Valamir]

Crap...dang lack of edit.

I meant to also add that

* A set of pre-generated characters that at least give the players the idea, even if they are not required to be played.

Is essentially a specific technique (i.e. one effective method) of establishing bullet #1...mood, theme, and genre.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Now that's a thought: Pregenerated characters are really important in setting the tone even if no one actually plays them. They're seed crystals.

Ralph, I'm going to snap that idea of yours right onto the intellectual armature I'm developing over here. Thanks! These are important issues for any game, but especially critical for ones like Universalis and Capes where you do not and cannot have ten pages of mediocre setting fiction in the front of the book as a guide.




Paul, welcome to the Forge! Allow me to give you a big internet high-five you for "gaming the system" -- that's what you're supposed to do, in Capes, and the designer (Tony) came away very happy with the story that emerged. And I don't think it's possible to tell a serious superhero story without some ludicrously silly details; superheroes are a ludicrously silly concept in the first place, which is part of their power.

Oh, and:

[On] "Event:Betrayal" ...I expected you and the other guy (whose name I've also forgotten, I'm sorry) to fight over the other side, maybe even split it into three. Instead, you both rolled up my claim. I was tempted to try to roll up the other side to keep it alive -- my whole point in introducing it was to milk story tokens -- but then someone (I think Tony) staked debt, and powerless Mayor Weakley was stuck explaining who betrayed whom. I wasn't expecting that.

That happens a lot in Capes, when the group's firing on all cylinders. I've often come up with my clever bid for Story Tokens only to realize, "holy crap, what do I do if I actually win?" Or, more fun yet, "holy crap, what Tony just narrated totally changed the meaning of what this conflict is -- now I have to win it!" And, conversely, "I really, really wanted to win this conflict -- and I've staked all this Debt that's gonna come back double if I lose -- but I'm not sure I can win, even if I dig myself in deeper -- and man, that big pile of Story Tokens on the other side is tempting -- I guess my character's not the person I thought they were, after all!"

[Andrew Morris]

Yeah, Mephisto's Pantry invokes silliness, in my opinion. Foundry Row seems more gritty and real.