Coercive/Push versus Enticing/Pull Capes Play

[Sindyr]

I have been thinking about this a bit, what with the drifting going on in a sister thread, and as always, I do better when I think out loud.  But note that I am not offering Capes Truths with a capital T, along with reams of proofs and demonstrations; instead I offer mere musing and thoughts.  If people engage me here, great.  If not, like I said, this is just me thinking aloud and noting my thoughts.  So all the below should be read with "as I see it" "in my opinion" "to my way of thinking" etc sprinkled liberally throughout.

One further note:  there are no value judgments herein.  While I describe what I think goes on, and what that means, I am not saying that one thing is "bad" or that another is "good."

<musing thought process begins>
Capes has two levels of play, two kinds of rewards beyond the purely social to get something out of playing Capes.  There are competitive rewards and the narrative rewards.

Now I am not talking about tokens and such, I am talking about emotional rewards, the payoff emotionally for playing Capes.

Competitive rewards can be the feeling of beating an opponent.  Perhaps Fred and Tom vie to win a Conflict.  When Fred beats Tom by outplaying him, Fred feels good, just as if he beat him in any other game (where money is not on the line) such as chess or gin rummy. Corollary to that, learning how to employ new and advanced tactics may yield the same or similar feeling, because as we master the game, we feel that brings us closer to our competitive goal of winning and demonstrating for all to see that we are better than our competition.

Narrative rewards are the enjoyment of the story being created itself, and of one's part in telling it.  There may be competition, but not one of tactics, but art - who can create and execute the most interesting and effective plot?  Who can create the most compelling characters?  When all is said and done at this level, one's reward comes from either experiencing a narrative that is fascinating and/or deeply compelling, or from being the one to provide that level of experience to others.

It occurs to me that while the two levels at which to play the game are not fully at cross purposes, neither are they fully aligned.  It is easy to imagine countless scenarios where acting to acquire competitive rewards make it harder to acquire narrative rewards, and vice versa.  It is also just as easy to imagine scenarios where acting to acquire competitive rewards can promote narrative rewards and vice versa.  I can see it going both ways, depending on the situation.

Because there are some situations where narrative rewards and competitive rewards are mutually incompatible, in such circumstances one must decide which are more important to one - the thrill of tactical victory, or the rapture of a narrative gem.

My friend, who has been exposed to all the Capes stuff I have discovered and gone through, made an interesting comment.  He said that Capes is either primarily a competitive game where the tools of competition were narrative, but the goal was to win; *or* Capes is primarily a storytelling game where the competition is there to drive creativity and the narrative experience, and winning is secondary to producing amazing stories.  I think what he was really commenting on is the fundamental potential dichotomy of the two sometimes contradicting goals of acquiring narrative or competitive rewards.

Now, getting tactical for a moment, it seems to me that there are several bifurcating decisions to be made when one plays Capes.  For example, when a Conflict gets played and you see it for the first time, do you think "wow, that's a neat piece of the story, and I really want to see it resolve *thusly*", and then attempt to win the right to resolve it for *story* reasons, or do you think "wow, there's a golden opportunity, and if I play this right, I will end up with many more resources."

Obviously, which you say depends on a lot of factors, such as what the Conflict is, what it means to you and the other players, the current state of resources around the table, etc.  And obviously, one can take a multi-tiered approach, such as by saying "If I think I can win this cheap, I would love to resolve it.  But if some starts getting involved in trying to win it from me, I don't care about it *that* much and will instead take the resources"  You can be flexible and re-evaluate as you go along.

Playing for narrative rewards then, is simple and what it entails is almost a given.  If someone plays the conflict "Spidey trounces Doc Ock and puts him in jail", you might say, "Hell no, they won't! Resources be damned, this ain't gonna happen!" and fight with all your might to win that conflict.  What you are really saying is that you value the narrative reward of staving of the defeat far more than you value the competitive reward of planning on letting them eventually win so that you can scoop up more resources.

It needs to be noted that some people, myself potentially included, may have a bit of an alpha male mentality, and find it hard not to see and engage in challenges even without any narrative reward being present.  In the above example, Doc Ock's player *may* be fighting to win the Conflict in order to make the narrative go in the direction he wants, for the narrative reward.  However, it may be that nothing could be farther from the truth.  Doc Ock's player may simply see that Conflict as a challenge to *him*, the player, and he damn well is not going to let that challenge go unanswered.

So enthusiastic engagement over a conflict doesn't have to mean that one values the narrative consequences more than the potential for resource collecting.  It can also mean that one feels that were one to let the Conflict go, one would be allowing another player to score a tactical and competitive victory against us, all narrative considerations aside.

So charging in to do battle over a conflict can be for either the competitive reward of accepting and defeating another player's perceived challenge, *or* can be for the narrative reward of shaping that piece of the story.  I suppose the relevant question to consider is, "Am I engaging in the Conflict because I have something to prove to another player, or because a care deeply for how the narrative unfolds here."  Those two do not *have* to be mutually exclusive, but I believe even when aligned, one's primary motivator will be one with the other relegated to a secondary, less important status.

So when are we going to talk about Coercive/Push versus Enticing/Pull Capes Play?  I'm getting to that, grin.

Playing Capes as a competitive game first and foremost, with the narrative just a backdrop for the competition is fine.  One can easily play for competitive rewards first and narrative rewards second.  To my way of thinking, despite the fact that this will produce a story, playing this way is not "role-playing" as I would define it.  It is using a role-playing backdrop to create a competitive and tactical game.  On the other hand I do not consider wargaming with miniatures to be role-playing either, so if you disagree with me you are most likely in good company.  Nevertheless, the only way in which I consider Capes to be a "role-playing" game is if the game is played to generally emphasize narrative reward over competitive ones, at least overall and again, *generally*.  Since Capes can be played fully competitively or fully narratively, or anywhere in the middle, Capes itself does not determine this, rather, how the players at a table *employ* Capes does.

(Note: this is not to imply that Capes as a roleplaying game is better or more worthy than Capes as a game of tactics and strategy, or vice versa, just different)

Now let me directly address the topic itself.

There are two approaches to getting another player to get involved in a Conflict, to getting them to fork over the resources.

There is coercive play.  Now, coercion is *not* a negative word, it simply refers to using force, overt persuasion, and other methods that generally make the target think that NOT performing as asked would have very BAD results.  In a sense, they are being *pushed* into it, to avoid the threatened negative outcomes that would potentially occur if they did not jump in.  So the fundamental nature of using coercive play on someone is that you threaten them with negative outcomes if they do not act in the way you require."

There is also enticement play.  This refers to making the target think that if he does not act in the way you wish him to, he will miss an opportunity to achieve something very GOOD.  This is being *pulled* into it, the allure of the payoff making them come to act the way you wish them to.  So the fundamental nature of enticement play is offering positive outcomes if they *do* act the way you require.

I tend to think that in general, all things being equal, enticement play tends to yield Capes games that are more narratively driven and are actual roleplaying games; and coercive play tends to yield Capes games that are more competitively driven and are not actually roleplaying games.

Now I do believe it is *possible* to construct scenarios where coercive play is used narratively and enticement play is used competitively. For example:

The heroes have fought to the dark keep in the middle of the forest and are now confronting the evil Warlord.  I play a Conflict "The Warlord kills Bagnor the halfling" (a PC). My intention in playing this Conflict is not to challenge the other player's ego, or to count coup.  It may not even be to primarily gain resources, though that is a nice result.  My intention may simply be narrative - to raise the dramatic stakes and give them something to be afraid of *narratively*, not ego-wise or resource-wise. And when Bagnor's player sees this Conflict hit the table, he *could* experience this as a competitive challenge, player to player, *but* he could experience this in the same as I played it - a raising of the narrative and dramatic stakes.  The spectre of that coercive conflict can still be played at the narrative level.

Likewise, I can play the Conflict "The Warlord is killed by Bagnor the halfling", attempting to entice the player of Bagnor to engage in a scenario that I believe the player's ego cannot pass up.  My intention in stroking his ego is to gain resources.  Bagnor's player, seeing this Conflict, salivates and goes after it, and when he wins it he basks in his victory in front of the other players.  In other words, the payoff for Bagnor's player wasn't narrative, it was in him demonstrating to the other players his success - which is not a narrative reward, but a competitive one.

However, despite the fact that *some* coercive play can be primarily narrative and *some* enticement play can be primarily competitive, generally speaking, it seems to me that the linkage goes the other way around.

Consider: In the above coercive example, the Bagnor's player may *not* embrace the possibility of his character's demise as great dramatic stuff.  He may instead be flipping out, thinking "Omigod, I can't lose this guy, I have put so much work into him, I love this PC, I CAN'T LOSE HIM - why is this asshat attacking me? I hate him, threatening my poor Bagnor - I will just have to show him and save myself from the crushing blow of losing my PC and fight as hard as I can..."

Whether the above exists in the conscious or subconscious, the above reaction is normal and reactive - and will occur in I think most people in similar circumstances.  And this reaction, the fact that the two greatest concerns to Bagnor's player is 1) Saving his own ass from the misery of losing his character and 2) Gaining revenge on the player that put him in this position by public ally defeating him - now Bagnor's play is not for narrative reasons, but for competitive ones.  And Capes, as a roleplaying game suffers.

And even the kind of shallow, ego stroking enticement play can easily lead to deeper, more narrative rewarding results.  For example, it is easy for Bagnor's player to latch onto the "The Warlord is killed by Bagnor" conflict.  Why not?  It makes him look good and puffs up his ego.  But as he plays out the conflict, he may naturally find that he is thinking less and less about how his ego is getting public ally stroked, and more and more pulled into the what's going on narratively as he is pulled into this conflict, he is getting pulled into story itself.

So, what does all this musing, this mental diarrhea boiled down to?
(Ick, I mentioned diarrhea and boiling in the same breath, lol)

-Capes can be a role-playing game, but can also not be one, depending on how it is done and with what priorities.
-There are two kinds of play in which a Capes player can engage in Capes: Competitive and Narrative, with Competitive play yielding rewards of having victories or other ego rewards and Narrative play yielding rewards of having a fulfilling storytelling experience.
-Most players will partake of both, yet most players default to one of those stances being their primary one. 
-There are also two ways to create and play Conflicts:
---Coercive or "Push" play, designed to threaten a player with the spectre of a negative if the player does not engage.
---Enticing or "Pull" play, designed to offer potential rewards to a player that does engage.
-Coercive/Push play is better suited to Capes players that are looking primarily for the kind of rewards that focusing on what Competitive modes offer.
-Enticing/Pull play is better suited to Capes players that are looking primarily for the kind of rewards that focusing on what Narrative modes offer.

All of this informs our actions and choices when these issues come up.

This neatly enables me to better understand why I play Capes, what I am looking for, and how to focus on getting it – it also lets me understand the other player's at my table, their goals and methods.

Ultimately, I think it may be true that while the players at the table may engaging in Narrative or Competitive play according to their goals, the mélange of everything going on a the table yield an overall game that is either primarily Competitively or Narratively driven.

For example, if of five players at the table, three are engaging in pursuing Narrative goals primarily, then the other two may find the game somewhat unsatisfactory.  Likewise, reverse that and have three primarily Competitive players, and the two Narrative players may find the game not greatly enjoyable, or perhaps even frustrating.

The final conclusion?  I think that the best Capes games probably arise where all or almost all players at the table have the same spectrum of needs and goals – in other words, where all players are primarily focused on either primarily Competitive play or Narrative play.

Due to the game author's seemingly apparent focus on Competitive play, and due to his influence and exposure on the official forums, I believe that the majority of Capes players are Competitive, not Narrative.  However, I think that if you gather a table of primarily Narrative players at a Capes table, you will see a very different, but still valid and rewarding Capes game.

And you will probably see a lot more Enticing play than Coercive.

[TonyLB]

It is easy to imagine countless scenarios where acting to acquire competitive rewards make it harder to acquire narrative rewards, and vice versa.

It is?  Huh.  Can you describe such a scenario?  Assume, for the purposes of description, that the players at the table have debt on their characters and story tokens to spend (if needed), so that there are resources to be sought and sufficient leeway for the dynamic to work itself out.  Mid-game, in other words.

To my way of thinking, despite the fact that this will produce a story, playing this way is not "role-playing" as I would define it.

LOL.  That's my new marketing scheme, by the way ... stone-faced outrage at the fraud being perpetrated by calling Capes a "roleplaying game."

[Sindyr]

It is easy to imagine countless scenarios where acting to acquire competitive rewards make it harder to acquire narrative rewards, and vice versa.

It is?  Huh.  Can you describe such a scenario?  Assume, for the purposes of description, that the players at the table have debt on their characters and story tokens to spend (if needed), so that there are resources to be sought and sufficient leeway for the dynamic to work itself out.  Mid-game, in other words.

Will try to do so soon.

To my way of thinking, despite the fact that this will produce a story, playing this way is not "role-playing" as I would define it.

LOL.  That's my new marketing scheme, by the way ... stone-faced outrage at the fraud being perpetrated by calling Capes a "roleplaying game."

Had I been drinking milk I would have snorted it.  Heh heh.

[Bret Gillan]

It's not a roleplaying game. It's better than a roleplaying game. We're cutting edge! We're leaving all those archaic "games" in the dust.

[Sindyr]

I leave all value judgements over what is better to each individual. ;)

Note: Don't misunderstand me.  I have not and do not say that Capes is or is not an RPG.  Capes can be used for RPG play, or it can be used for non RPG play.  It goes either way, as Capes is written.  So *please* do not credit me with having said that Capes in not an RPG - all I said is that some Capes *games* are not rpg's - and others are.

[Threlicus]

That's a lot to digest, Sindyr. I think you have some observations that are worth thinking about.

I've got a few quick comments.

First, I don't think your equation of coercive with push and enticing with pull holds water. I think that *any* conflict laid down in Capes is a pull -- you're soliciting other players' input on a question of how the story should go. In contrast, players might push in their actions by resolving, forcing unignorable things into the narrative by their narrations and so forth; by directly narrating something, you're putting it out there without giving other players' opportunity to gainsay it (except by the Popcorn Law).

Secondly, I want to suggest a different term that Coercive. I want to suggest 'Threatening' for the kinds of conflicts you mention. They are conflicts that have the possibility (or even likelihood) of being resolved in ways you don't want the story do go. Enticing would be conflicts that have the possibility of being resolved in ways you *do* want the story to go. This opens the possibility of a conflict being both Threatening and Enticing, and highlights the further fact that what is seen as Threatening or Enticing is both a matter of degree and a matter of subjectivity to the players involved. I think the perception of Threatening is mostly the degree to which the player thinks it likely that a hypothetical resolver other than himself will do things he doesn't want, and how strongly he does not want them. I think I could probably start expressing some of this mathmatically, but I'm not going to. :)

I would suggest that the most engaging conflicts would be those where more than one player is both Threatened and Enticed by a given conflict. Capes mechanisms are set up to provide various forms of metagame currencies to determine both a) who cares most (in either direction) and b) who has accumulated enough 'cred' with the group to be entrusted with the right and responsibility of determining the result. Those conflicts will pull both the most caring and the most staking of cred from the players involved. It is also hard to see how Capes can work without people being Threatened to some degree; unless he has no preferences, there will always be some chance that other resolvers will take the story in directions he doesn't like.

[Sindyr]

I am ok whether you use Threatening or Coercive - I would actually like to find a better word than both.  I hope you will not take it amiss if for myself I stick with the word Coercive for now.

Also, another aside, Enticing could just as well be called Seductive, for that matter.

For me, the key defining difference between Coercive and Enticing is Coercive focuses on the threat of negative outcomes to motivate a player, where Enticing focuses on the allure of positive outcomes to motivate the player.  Describing Coercive as push and Enticing as pull is simply my perception of those activities - my perception that we are driven away from threats and towards rewards leads me to thinking:
If we are running from a threat, I equate that in my mind to a push as the visualization I have is that the threat is behind me, me moving away from it, the threat must be pushing me away.
If we are running toward a reward, my visualization is that if something in front of me is causing me to approach it, I feel that as a pull forward toward it.

These may not be your ways to visualize this stuff, and that;s cool.  Just wanted to explain why I equate Coercive play with Push and Enticing play with Pull.

I would suggest that the most engaging conflicts would be those where more than one player is both Threatened and Enticed by a given conflict. Capes mechanisms are set up to provide various forms of metagame currencies to determine both a) who cares most (in either direction) and b) who has accumulated enough 'cred' with the group to be entrusted with the right and responsibility of determining the result. Those conflicts will pull both the most caring and the most staking of cred from the players involved. It is also hard to see how Capes can work without people being Threatened to some degree; unless he has no preferences, there will always be some chance that other resolvers will take the story in directions he doesn't like.

Ah, but what I find most intriguing is *why* are these players so engaged - why do they care and stake their cred?

If their primary motivation is to accrue the rewards of Competitive success, then they will be looking to proove themselves, either by winning conflicts or by acquiring resources.
If their primary motivation is to accrue the rewards of Narrative success, then they will be looking to serve the story and develop the narrative, and proving themselves will not matter as much.

In the first case, the narrative elements and the Capes rules are the tools they use to prove themselves.  In the second case, the competitive elements and the Capes rules are the tools they use to weave a story.  In theory it may be possible to do exactly both equally, but in practice I surmise that either the competitive or the narrative goals will take priority for each player.

[drnuncheon]

Can Capes really handle coercive play?  It seems to me that coercive play depends on a power imbalance: one player has to be able to say, "Do X or bad consequence Y will befall you", and then be able to back that up.  In a game where no player has any more power to impose negative outcomes than any other, and especially in a game where the negative outcomes may not have any lasting effect, I'm not sure that power imbalance can exist.

J

[Sindyr]

Precisely.  That is, coercive play is only effective inasmuch as what is being threatened has a meaning and significance for the target.

So if one assigns meaning to the Conflicts themselves (perhaps because even though they can in theory free narrate their reversals, in practice they cannot due to the Social Contract), or one believes that a player will make a "bad thing" happen if not stopped, then coercive play can be quite effective in causing the target player to get involved.

If on the other hand one does not assign meaning to the Conflicts because one can free narrate their reversal easily, or one does not beleve that the threatening player will follow through, one will fail to be so coerced.

Likewise, if playing a persona-less character, one will also generally fail to be coerced.

However, in standard Capes games that I have experienced, mostly on the net, a lot of the Conflicts are coercive in nature.  Probably because even the game itself does not enforce taking the consequences of defeat during a Conflict seriously, the Social Contract does.  And no one wants to break the Social Contract.

So, yes, I think Capes (plus the SC) really *can* handle coercive play.

Remember also, if you have 100 story tokens and your opponent has none, if he plays "Your character dies" he is still playing coercively at you.  You can win his goal easily with your tokens, one assumes.  But coercion is not about whether he can get you to do what he wants you to do - in this case, spending your resources to win this Conflict - by threatening a Bad Thing - the death of your character.  The fact that you can almost assuredly prevent it after committing your resources does not gainsy the fact that the threat he posed to you go you to do what he wanted.

[TonyLB]

However, in standard Capes games that I have experienced, mostly on the net, a lot of the Conflicts are coercive in nature.  Probably because even the game itself does not enforce taking the consequences of defeat during a Conflict seriously, the Social Contract does.  And no one wants to break the Social Contract.

I don't think that's what's going on.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, taking the consequences of defeat and owning them ... really being engaged with them and changed by them ... is sound strategy.

Why assume that people are caving to social pressure, when the much easier explanation that they're playing the game in an intelligent way is so ready to hand?

[TonyLB]

It is?  Huh.  Can you describe such a scenario?  Assume, for the purposes of description, that the players at the table have debt on their characters and story tokens to spend (if needed), so that there are resources to be sought and sufficient leeway for the dynamic to work itself out.  Mid-game, in other words.

Will try to do so soon.

You got an ETA on this?  I'm still very interested in how you think the rules are tugging away from people making a good story.

[Sindyr]

It's double XP weekend on CoV, so Mondayish probably.  After all it will probably take me an hour or two to digest and craft a suitable and appropriate post.

[Sindyr]

It is easy to imagine countless scenarios where acting to acquire competitive rewards make it harder to acquire narrative rewards, and vice versa.

It is?  Huh.  Can you describe such a scenario?  Assume, for the purposes of description, that the players at the table have debt on their characters and story tokens to spend (if needed), so that there are resources to be sought and sufficient leeway for the dynamic to work itself out.  Mid-game, in other words.

OK, here goes.  FYI, my purpose for providing the example(s) is for illustrative purpose, not to exhaustively proove something and not to get drawn into an debate made endless by the participants (like you and I) having seemingly incompatible perspectives.

Cast:
Jack is playing The Guardian, a superhero.  Dan is playing Nekro, a super villain. Both have debt and tokens.

Example 1:
Jack has a narrative goal to explore The Guardian's past and family - the pieces of his life before he became so well endowed, that now lie shrouded in an amnesiac-like mystery.  He would like to see Dan play Conflicts at him that facilitate exploring these things.
Dan does want Jack's resources.  However, he knows that Jack is really emotionally invested in the Guardian looking strong, capable, and proud.
So instead of crafting storylines that delve into the Guardian's past, he plays Conflict's that threaten Jack's ego and vision of his character:  Goal: Nekro wipes the floor with the Guardian, Goal: Nekro turns the city against the Guardian, Goal: Nekro taunts the Guardian so mercilessly that he accidentally in his rage kills a innocent bystander (or almost does, depnding on your CC), Goal: Nekro keeps the Guardian fighting so long that he can't hold his bladder and publically urinates himself.

All these Conflicts are valid, and Jack has only a few options:
1) Engage and win, paying Dan off for his unhelpful (to Jack's narrative goals) actions.
2) Refuse to engage and lose, allowing Dan to narrate humiliation after humiliation of the Guardian and to some extent, Jack.
3) Quit the game
and of course:
4) Play a PLC instead of a PC in future, guarnteeing that Dan can only motivate him through enticement, not coercion. (In general)

Example 2:
Jack wants to be involved in a story where his superhero is successful in preventing supervillains from doing their dastardly deeds.  Dan wants to beat Jack.  Dan play a Goal: Nekro puts the city under his thrall.  Jack pulls out all the stops, trying to offer Dan tons of resources.  Jack even brings in a second character to stake more debt on the conflict, but no matter how much he offers Dan in terms of resources, Dan wants the satisfaction of beating Jack, of refusing Jack something that he wants.  That's Dan's competitive goal - its not about the story, its about showing that he is able to keep Jack from the thing he wants most.  And the more Jack shows that he wants it, the more Dan is determined to prove himself, pulling out every tactics he can, bringing in a 2nd character himself, and more.  Jack's narrative goals are frustrated by Dan's competitive ones.

Example 3:
Jack is fighting to keep a peace conference on track.  Getting the peace accords signed is narratively very important to Jack.  So he has his character the Guardian guard the conference.  Dan has Nekro show up, and the two battle it out.  Dan is intending to let Jack win, but only after Jack has committed so many resources that it is very profitable to do so.
Note:  So far we have an example of Competition working *with* Narration. But there is more:
Jack sees all the resources that Dan is playing against him.  Jack knows that he will have to give Dan a *ton* of his own resources to have a chance in hell to protect his desire for the story to continue from a successful peace conference.  But then Jack thinks, "you know, Dan is spending a lot of debt there.  If I took a dive, I could rake in a lot of resources, which would put me at a tactical advantage to him, and might be the superior play."  He goes for it, much to Dan's surprise, letting Dan win and raking in the tokens.

In this case, Jack's compeitive goals got in the way of his own narrative goals, but it is another example where competitive goals can contradict and frustrate narrative ones.

That should give you a clear picture of what I mean when I say "It is easy to imagine countless scenarios where acting to acquire competitive rewards make it harder to acquire narrative rewards, and vice versa." - should, but I give it even odds that our paradigms and thought processes are so different that it won't.  Nevertheless, it's the best I can do in this moment to fulfill your request.

Now, you (Tony) can tear each of them down, find fault or quiblle over the details, you are an excellent debater.  But my purpose here was not to engage you in debate, but to show you the *spirit* of what I am talking about.

If a man asks tells me that he does not know what a triangle is and asks me to draw one, I will oblige to the best of my ability.  If he comes back at me, faulting me for my lack of artistic skills, or for whipping one out freehand instead of using Adobe Illustrator to really get it right, I will feel that I am wasting my time.

The examples above are freehand, not perfect.  But just like a freehand drawing of a triangle can still evoke the truth of triangles without being perfect, so can my freehand examples do the same.

I hope this helps illuminate where I am coming from here.  That's all I intend to do.

[TonyLB]

Jack has a narrative goal to explore The Guardian's past and family - the pieces of his life before he became so well endowed, that now lie shrouded in an amnesiac-like mystery.  He would like to see Dan play Conflicts at him that facilitate exploring these things.
Dan does want Jack's resources.  However, he knows that Jack is really emotionally invested in the Guardian looking strong, capable, and proud.

So ... Jack has at least two goals, right?  Exploring the past and family and having his character look strong, capable and proud.  Dan addresses one goal preferentially, because he finds it more interesting.

Not seeing the problem.

Example 2:
Jack wants to be involved in a story where his superhero is successful in preventing supervillains from doing their dastardly deeds.  Dan wants to beat Jack.  Dan play a Goal: Nekro puts the city under his thrall.  Jack pulls out all the stops, trying to offer Dan tons of resources.  Jack even brings in a second character to stake more debt on the conflict, but no matter how much he offers Dan in terms of resources, Dan wants the satisfaction of beating Jack, of refusing Jack something that he wants.  That's Dan's competitive goal - its not about the story, its about showing that he is able to keep Jack from the thing he wants most.  And the more Jack shows that he wants it, the more Dan is determined to prove himself, pulling out every tactics he can, bringing in a 2nd character himself, and more.  Jack's narrative goals are frustrated by Dan's competitive ones.

So we're assuming that Dan is an unfeeling automaton with no story goals of his own?  And Jack takes advantage of that by getting Dan worked up into a lather of competition?  Cool for Jack!  He has succeeded at engaging Dan (who sounds awful hard to engage otherwise).  Mucho resources for Jack!  Dan won't be able to pull that trick twice :-)

Example 3:
Jack is fighting to keep a peace conference on track.  Getting the peace accords signed is narratively very important to Jack .... He goes for it, much to Dan's surprise, letting Dan win and raking in the tokens.

Yeah.  That's cool when that happens.  I posted actual play about how cool that is, like, a year ago.  It's only gotten cooler since.  You think that you can only be happy if the story goes a certain way, but then when the other prospects are forcefully presented to you, you realize "Now hey!  I hadn't realized how cool that could be ... I needed it to be accompanied with Scooby Snacks (or Story Tokens) before I would give it a fair shake!"

Again ... remind me ... how does the peace conference going wrong and the world plunging into chaos because of Guardian's failure make for a bad story?

Now, you (Tony) can tear each of them down, find fault or quiblle over the details, you are an excellent debater.

True, very true.  I've also got a raw and untamed animal magnetism that arouses desire in women and envy in men.  Sometimes vice versa.

And yet, the fact that I am so very, very dashing does not make your points any stronger.

[Sindyr]

Jack has a narrative goal to explore The Guardian's past and family - the pieces of his life before he became so well endowed, that now lie shrouded in an amnesiac-like mystery.  He would like to see Dan play Conflicts at him that facilitate exploring these things.
Dan does want Jack's resources.  However, he knows that Jack is really emotionally invested in the Guardian looking strong, capable, and proud.

So ... Jack has at least two goals, right?  Exploring the past and family and having his character look strong, capable and proud.  Dan addresses one goal preferentially, because he finds it more interesting.

Not seeing the problem.

Didn't expect you would.  You haven't in the past.

The point is that the first goal is Narrative and the second goal is Competitive, as described, and that they are incompatible. QED.

Example 2:
Jack wants to be involved in a story where his superhero is successful in preventing supervillains from doing their dastardly deeds.  Dan wants to beat Jack.  Dan play a Goal: Nekro puts the city under his thrall.  Jack pulls out all the stops, trying to offer Dan tons of resources.  Jack even brings in a second character to stake more debt on the conflict, but no matter how much he offers Dan in terms of resources, Dan wants the satisfaction of beating Jack, of refusing Jack something that he wants.  That's Dan's competitive goal - its not about the story, its about showing that he is able to keep Jack from the thing he wants most.  And the more Jack shows that he wants it, the more Dan is determined to prove himself, pulling out every tactics he can, bringing in a 2nd character himself, and more.  Jack's narrative goals are frustrated by Dan's competitive ones.

So we're assuming that Dan is an unfeeling automaton with no story goals of his own?  And Jack takes advantage of that by getting Dan worked up into a lather of competition?  Cool for Jack!  He has succeeded at engaging Dan (who sounds awful hard to engage otherwise).  Mucho resources for Jack!  Dan won't be able to pull that trick twice :-)

If you need to import assumptions to make your case, then you haven't made your case.  And yet, still:

Jack's narrative goals are frustrated by Dan's competitive ones.

Which is another QED for me I think.

Example 3:
Jack is fighting to keep a peace conference on track.  Getting the peace accords signed is narratively very important to Jack .... He goes for it, much to Dan's surprise, letting Dan win and raking in the tokens.

Yeah.  That's cool when that happens.  I posted actual play about how cool that is, like, a year ago.  It's only gotten cooler since.  You think that you can only be happy if the story goes a certain way, but then when the other prospects are forcefully presented to you, you realize "Now hey!  I hadn't realized how cool that could be ... I needed it to be accompanied with Scooby Snacks (or Story Tokens) before I would give it a fair shake!"

Again ... remind me ... how does the peace conference going wrong and the world plunging into chaos because of Guardian's failure make for a bad story?

Actually, you need to be reminded that what you ask is NOT what I was demonstrating.  Although it easier to reframe the conversation into something you can challenge than actually address something you can't.

The point is, if you will let me pull you back to the *real* point, is that Jack's desire for achieving Competitive Goals (more tokens) over ruled his desire to achieve narrative goals (successful peace conference).  A clear third case where competitive goals and narrative goals  were incompatible, and the competitive won out over the narrative. Game, set, match.

Now, you (Tony) can tear each of them down, find fault or quiblle over the details, you are an excellent debater.

True, very true.  I've also got a raw and untamed animal magnetism that arouses desire in women and envy in men.  Sometimes vice versa.

And yet, the fact that I am so very, very dashing does not make your points any stronger.

Well, the fact that you appear not to be able to seperate fact from fantasy might lend a wee bit of support. ;)