The Exciting Challenge of Retcon in Capes

[LemmingLord]

This is incorrect.  At least in one way: If winning a conflict is to have meaning, it must create at least in the moment a truth.  The truth in the moment MUST extend forward OR if it doesn't then you have a game that permits retconning.

I spent many long and tedious posts making exactly this argument.  This argument is pretty much the core of Universalis...a game that in many ways is very similar to Capes, but in this crucial way it is not.  All of Universalis is predicated on the idea that the "truth in the moment must extend forward to have meaning".  That's why Universalis play establishes Facts, and gives players a mechanical advantage when defending those Facts in the future.

But thing is, I've since come to realize, Capes doesn't work that way.  You've correctly recognized that Capes doesn't have a mechanic that establishes "truth extending forward".  Your mistake however (as mine was) is in assuming it needs one.
,,,
Capes uses exactly the same logic, but dispenses with the mechanical leverage for defending a fact.  Essentially that makes the game even more purely democratic.  Democracy is brutal...but it works.

These are good points.  I would like to add that there IS a mechanic a group could utilize to establish facts in the game; just meet for a little while between games and establish fixed history in your comic's code...

In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the way my group will do things:  we'll Comic's Code (which I will call CCing) some common setting, some common theme, and probably the origins of characters we want to see...  We may CC certain things certain character's CAN'T or WON'T do - if someone has a Captain America character, for example, we may just want to CC "Captain America is a patriot and would never say anything to discount the nation, the flag or its founders."  We might CC "Captain America gained his superpowers by taking the superserum."  We might decide that we don't want to play in the forties anymore and jump forward; then we might CC "Captain America was frozen in ice in 1945 and aokwened without aging forty years later."

Now while some retcons are unavoidable;  you can clearly establish binding setting or history as specific as you need it to be with everyone's agreement in the in-between games times WITHOUT introducing new mechanics to the game.

[TonyLB]

Interesting.  How do you expect Gloating to effect the game, relative to those CC items?

[LemmingLord]

Interesting.  How do you expect Gloating to effect the game, relative to those CC items?

By establishing fixed placed in time, the gloatable aspects would come in whenever that period of time was dealt with; certainly it would be most "gloatable" in the case of a game that includes time travel - as these CCs are going to be fixed immutable forces of history - if you've CCd "John F. Kennedy was shot and definitely killed on this instant in history" then the real John F. Kennedy could not appear during a game taking place afterwards without definitive explanation; certainly the goal: call up John F. Kennedy on the phone and get his snickerdoodle recipes" should be gloatable, if not a little stupid! :)

Of course there are ways around these things; having John F. Kennedy come back from the dead and so forth or having time travel that CAN change the flow of human history..  If you didn't have CCs dealing with those issues, these setting and events set in stone are more set in that thick white packing material your DVD player comes in...

[TonyLB]

certainly the goal: call up John F. Kennedy on the phone and get his snickerdoodle recipes" should be gloatable, if not a little stupid! :)

But ... if they're gloatable then I'm going to create and fight for such conflicts.  Gloating is good.  Gloating gets me Story Tokens.

Putting the "fixed in stone" elements of the past into the Comics Code is going to make them immutable, but it's also going to make people constantly challenge them.  Is that what you want?

[Bret Gillan]

"Ooh! I'm always on the verge of getting that Snickerdoodle recipe, but Kennedy just won't give it up! Foiled again!"

[Andrew Cooper]

Tony,

I totally think this would be cool when done correctly.  Let's see...

1.) Elvis is dead.
2.) Kennedy's assassination is shrouded in mystery.

Then Goals like...

"Elvis seen at Waffle House."
"Kennedy assassin found."

are excellent, gloatable Conflicts.  Depending on the style of game someone is shooting at, these kinds of things could add some cool flavor to the game.

[TonyLB]

Like a (good) X-Files game would have "The conspiracies can't be proven" or something similar.  Yeah.

If that's what the OP is going for, that would, indeed, be tres awesome.  There would be a constant, simmering suspicion about the very things they, themselves, witnessed and achieved through play.

[LemmingLord]

certainly the goal: call up John F. Kennedy on the phone and get his snickerdoodle recipes" should be gloatable, if not a little stupid! :)

But ... if they're gloatable then I'm going to create and fight for such conflicts.  Gloating is good.  Gloating gets me Story Tokens.

Putting the "fixed in stone" elements of the past into the Comics Code is going to make them immutable, but it's also going to make people constantly challenge them.  Is that what you want?

Live and learn; I guess I'll have to see! 

I'm not sure I agree that people necessarily are going to challenge them; yes they may get story tokens for challenging them, but it may not be worth the squeeze to come up with something that challenges establshed historical facts while also making the game interesting. 

If someone is interested in challenging it, then yes, it will be fun and their will be story tokens galore.  Win win.

[R. Jason Boss]

How about enemies using these Gloatable goals as part of an ongoing campaign to ruin the hero?

"Captain America is a patriot and would never say anything to discount the nation, the flag or its founders."
Goal: Captain America appears in all his Aryan glory at an American National Socialist rally as a keynote speaker.
"Captain America gained his superpowers by taking the superserum."
Goal: Captain America was created using stolen German Technology from the Ubermensch Projekt.
"Captain America was frozen in ice in 1945 and aokwened without aging forty years later."
Goal: Captain America was captured, brainwashed and used as a top Red Agent during the Cold War, but hidden in the ice block after the USA nearly discovered his situation.

Maybe I'm off-base here, but I'm interested in learning.
Jason

[Sindyr]

Tony is absolutely right here - when it comes to Comics Codes one central truth must be embraced.

If you Comic's Code it, they will come.

Let's say for the sake of argument that a group finds the "damsel in distress" plots tedious and want to avoid them in their gaming.  So they establich a Comic's Code: "Significant Other's of heroes cannot be placed in jeopardy"

Big mistake, if they really wanted to remove this kind of narrartive from their game.  Because in Capes, as I am sure we all know, players get story token rewards through Gloating, which is bringing the narrartion to the brink of violating a Comic's Code.

So what one needs to plan on is that since Capes through the Comic's Code and Glotaing *pays* the players to bring the narrative up to the limit, by creating a new Code you are really incentivizing players to keep the story near the new limit.

The limit will never be crossed.  But the limit will be approached an *awful* lot, since that is what gets rewarded.

Long story short, if you want set a limit *without* paying the players to approach, if you want to prevent something from occurring and NOT have players rewarded for threatening to make that something happen, then you *cannot* use a Comic's Code to do it.

What do you then do? Simple.  Create a new kind of limit called a non-Gloatable Comics Code.  Then *all* you have to do is (assuming the table agrees) write the following into your game contract:
Comic's Code: "Significant Other's of heroes cannot be placed in jeopardy. This Code is not Gloatable."

Now you have added a limit without adding an incentive to play near it.

Done deal.

[Bret Gillan]

If the entire table truly agrees and it's unanimous, then why is it necessary to establish a "non-gloatable comics code"?

[Andrew Cooper]

It generally isn't necessary.  I tried it out once and it didn't hurt anything but the non-gloatable portions of the Code never actually had to be enforced either.  Essentially they were just little reminders of what we had all agreed to as the setting, theme and feel for the game.  I guess if there were a new player that was going to sit down at the table and he wanted to know what we had agreed to about those things, they would have been there to point to.  However, I didn't have any new players coming in so it wasn't an issue.

I think it is important to point out that all the players agreed on the points that were put down as non-gloatable unanimously.  Had a single person disagreed it would have been unfair to put in in there like that.  That kind of situation is what the Conflict rules in Capes are for.

[Sindyr]

If the entire table truly agrees and it's unanimous, then why is it necessary to establish a "non-gloatable comics code"?

Or alternatively, why not?

[Sindyr]

If the entire table truly agrees and it's unanimous, then why is it necessary to establish a "non-gloatable comics code"?

Or alternatively, why not?

Clarification:  Capes has no way to create a limit that does not yield a reward to those that threaten to cross it.

IF you want such a limit in your game, the easiest way to do so is to create a non-gloatable CC.

(dryly)Just don't invite someone to your game that will tar and feather you for employing what to the faithful appears to be a sacrilegious abomination - an abridgment of the holy word of Capes.

(grin)

[R. Jason Boss]

Lemminglord has said he and his group are fine with these being Gloatable, so there seems to be no need to posit non-gloatable rules at all.

Jason