The Capes Dojo

[Bret Gillan]

For reference for this thread, the capes Tournament formula for scoring is:

((Story Tokens Earned x 2) - Debt Remaining) x Inspirations Earned)

So since Capes has officially gone competitive and we have Capes tournaments sprouting up (and since I plan on running at least one Capes game at conventions I go to as a tournament) I thought maybe we could have a thread where we strategize, talk about general tactics or specific tactics, and hone our skills. Maybe go over our victories and failures and give each other pointers. I'll step up first with some mention of tactics I employed at the Dexcon, what worked, what didn't.

This thread is intended to be a scattershot discussion of tournament strategies and tactics, and I'm encouraging people to throw their thoughts on the topic out there whatever they might be. If at any point we feel something merits its own thread and focuse, we can do that.

Debt Dumps - I think this was a boner move. I was using superpowers to roll up Conflicts, and I'd say "Oh crap, I have too much Debt." Then I'd create a Conflict specifically for that Drive, and dump my Debt into it. The problem? Someone would always offer some token resistance to rake in the Story Tokens. Instead of using the Debt as an effective resource, I was giving away Story Tokens over Conflicts nobody else really cared about.

Rollover Inspirations - This is an obvious strategy given Tony's formula and one he tipped me off to before the game began. Given that you score on Inspirations earned, there's no reason not to roll your Inspirations into a Conflict you're winning and take more Inspirations.

Fishing for Debt - I've been doing this for a long time, but I always keep an eyeball on my opponents' stacks of Debt and use it to figure out what sort of Conflicts I'll make. Heavy on Love? Time to put your girlfriend in danger. Heavy on Pride? Time to have my character prove his superiority to yours. Etc. Now this is something I'm still fine-tuning, and it might just be that it's a difficult tactic to employ with strangers in con games - you don't know what will make them bite and what won't. Tips on this would be appreciated.

Spend-o-rama: A Theory - It seems to me given that resources earned and Debt dumped are good, good things, and following on the heels of the Rollover Inspirations strategy, that you should go nuts spending your resources. There's no reason not to, and spent Resources can only help you by either providing you with more resources, or diminishing the Inspirations that your opponents will take away from a Conflict.

Finessing Debt - Debt's the trickiest resource in the game since spending it is giving your opponents points, but it also allows you to stack up Inspirations on a Conflict. This is the one area of the game I'm interested in folks thoughts on the most - the effective accumulation and expenditure of Debt.

Osu!

[TonyLB]

The Long Arc:  It is hard to earn Story Tokens and Inspirations at the same time.  Not impossible mind you, but hard.  But the scoring is over the entire game.  You can concentrate on one resource for the first few hours, then use those resources like a wild-man in a desperate bid for the other types of resources.

Example:  I play Lady Victory to

mop the floor with people, wilfully giving away fist-fuls of my debt as story tokens, in order to generate great, big, whopping inspirations.  Because I want to be generating a lot of debt, I have no problem reacting a lot, which gives me a dominant position.  At the half-way point I turn over.  Now people have lots of story tokens.  I start conserving my actions, generating little or no new debt (presumably snagging some non-debt characters for support) and trying to spend down any I have.  I spend down my Inspirations as my main source of power (intending to spend the very last one at the very end of the game) and force people to respond with Story Tokens, which generate more debt, and to stake debt against me in order to succeed.  Thus I earn story tokens to complement my Inspirations.[/list]

[Vaxalon]

Why is having debt a bad thing?

Just because of the name?

It shows you're PLAYING SERIOUSLY.

[Bret Gillan]

It's a bad thing because it subtracts from your score.

[Hans]

Sensei, I respectfully submit the following...

* It seems to me like there is a pretty big advantage, given the scoring formula, to Non-Person Characters as a second character.  It allows you to take more actions and conceivably win more conflicts, but does not increase your debt.

* Since the formula says "Debt Remaining", not "Total Debt Earned", it might be worth setting a "debt cap" for yourself...say 10 total debt.  If you go over the debt cap, you need to shed some.  If you are under the debt cap, don't worry about it as long as your other resources (STs, Inspirations) are increasing.  As long as you keep to your cap, the effect of debt on your game is known quantity, and the game then is just about ST's and inspirations.

* It seems to me that the way you hand out inspirations is a big deal at resolution to the score.  For example: if your opponent has a better story token to debt ratio than you do, you may be better off to give them no inspirations and take a small one yourself, than to take a big one and give them a medium size one.  Since the formula is multiplicative, their overall score may increase more than yours if you are not careful.

* I agree that debt dumping is a bad idea.  Every debt you get rid of is coming close is doubled when it becomes a story token in the score of another person.  Even if you have a conflict that you have claimed and you are currently unopposed, if you try to dump debt off on to it your opponents have an immediate incentive to spend a ST to get in on the action; they have already gotten the points for that ST, and have a chance to get more!

* Spend-o-Rama, revisited:  I think going nuts spending ST's and Inspirations is a must.  There is little reason to sit on them for long.  Staking debt, though, is trickier.  Debt should be managed, not spent wildly, since every debt you stake either comes back to haunt you or gives score to someone else.   I think the debt cap idea above might be a good idea.

* Changing characters: Changing characters can be dangerous, I think.  Every powered character needs some amount of debt to work, and chances are once that character reaches that level of debt, the character is liable to keep it.  Hence, when you switch to a new character, you are probably increasing your debt in a bad way (unless it is an NPC)

Actually, that last one brings up a point, Tony.  How do you score debt if two people played the same character during a session?  Or is that simply not allowed?

[Eric Sedlacek]

Why is having debt a bad thing?

Just because of the name?

It shows you're PLAYING SERIOUSLY.

Earning debt doesn't reduce your score.  Holding onto debt does.  That's a big distinction.

[TonyLB]

Oh, yeah ...

Hard-core heartless bad-assery:  When you need Inspirations, oppose the person who has earned the least Inspirations at the table, and beat on them some more.  Stuff more Story Tokens down their throat.  When you need Story Tokens, oppose the person who has earned the least Story Tokens, and force them to win yet again.  Stuff more Inspirations down their throat.  Thus you balance your own two factors, maximizing your score, while preventing other players from balancing theirs.

Note:  This strategy is better in the latter half of the game.  In the first half (or so) of the game people will use this as the start of The Long Arc and will reverse your efforts, crushing you with the consequences of your own strat.  Capes-jutsu.

[TonyLB]

* It seems to me like there is a pretty big advantage, given the scoring formula, to Non-Person Characters as a second character.  It allows you to take more actions and conceivably win more conflicts, but does not increase your debt.

Totally.  But having two debt-carrying characters can let you win a vital conflict, pushing back huge loads of debt in your opponent's face.  If you do this at a time when they have just run through their clickable abilities, you can conceivably force them to keep pushing with that character, and to desperately unload debt which you can pick up as story tokens for minimal effort.

Decisions, decisions!

Actually, that last one brings up a point, Tony.  How do you score debt if two people played the same character during a session?  Or is that simply not allowed?

If I take on a character that you left with debt outstanding, you say "Thank you!", because I have just assumed all responsibility for that debt.  Poof!  It's no longer your problem.

[TonyLB]

I got ... no clue between these two.

Spend-o-rama: A Theory - It seems to me given that resources earned and Debt dumped are good, good things, and following on the heels of the Rollover Inspirations strategy, that you should go nuts spending your resources. There's no reason not to, and spent Resources can only help you by either providing you with more resources, or diminishing the Inspirations that your opponents will take away from a Conflict.

* Spend-o-Rama, revisited:  I think going nuts spending ST's and Inspirations is a must.  There is little reason to sit on them for long.  Staking debt, though, is trickier.  Debt should be managed, not spent wildly, since every debt you stake either comes back to haunt you or gives score to someone else.   I think the debt cap idea above might be a good idea.

... specifically:  Is it good to deliberately create Debt in order to supply other players with Story Tokens?

The immediate view says, no, of course not.  Story Tokens in their hands make their score higher, which raises the bar on the score you need to achieve in order to beat them.

But ... there are other effects of giving them Story Tokens.  They take more actions.  They create more debt.  They can get more leverage by spending debt (since they can take multiple passes at a single action).  They create and resolve more conflicts.

To what extent are you likely to profit from these things?  Are you likely to profit more than other people?  Enough more that it offsets the advantage that you gave them in the first place?

Anyone got any thoughts on this?  I'm actually a little at sea, trying to analyze further than "Hrm ... lotsa factors involved here!"

[drnuncheon]

It's a bad thing because it subtracts from your score.

That's kind of circular - if it subtracts from your score, and the score is a representation of how well you play, then it ipso facto represents bad playing.  Vax seems to be wondering what makes racking up the debt "bad playing" - why does it subtract from your score?

Tony, didn't one of your main group (was it Sidney?) set out to collect as much debt as possible?

J

[Bret Gillan]

It seems reasonable that it should subtract, and keep in mind that it's only Debt that you haven't gotten rid of by the end of the game. That way you can't play a character, pile on the Debt, and then toss the character and make a new one. Which I think would be "bad playing."

[Vaxalon]

WHY does it seem reasonable that debt should subtract?

Really... up until you're overdrawn, debt makes your character MORE powerful.

I think the formula should count the number of overdrawn drives.

[drnuncheon]

... specifically:  Is it good to deliberately create Debt in order to supply other players with Story Tokens?

The immediate view says, no, of course not.  Story Tokens in their hands make their score higher, which raises the bar on the score you need to achieve in order to beat them.

But ... there are other effects of giving them Story Tokens.  They take more actions.  They create more debt.  They can get more leverage by spending debt (since they can take multiple passes at a single action).  They create and resolve more conflicts.

To what extent are you likely to profit from these things?  Are you likely to profit more than other people?  Enough more that it offsets the advantage that you gave them in the first place?

Anyone got any thoughts on this?  I'm actually a little at sea, trying to analyze further than "Hrm ... lotsa factors involved here!"

Hmm.  OK, the only source of Story Tokens is Debt, so obviously any group who tries to minimize their subtraction is going to also minimize the group's collective score.  I'm not sure if that's relevant - is there any reason or meaning to comparing score between games, or only within a game?  My gut says that people will compare scores even between games, so if everyone takes a debt-minimizing strategy, the entire group suffers.

What if everyone but you takes a debt-minimizing strategy?  Well, debt is a resource, too, so if you're more willing to get it and use it, you're going to be able to win just about any conflict you want to, and rack up several unopposed inspirations.  That's good, because it multiplies the value of every story token you do get - and it maximizes your ability to use your own debt for splitting.  You could deliberately throw the conflicts that your opponents are dumping their (small) debt on to get their Story Tokens, too.  I suspect that if everyone else is turtling, it would be pretty easy to control the game.

If you wanted to drive things towards the Spend-O-Rama (and why not? It sounds like the most fun) then the easiest way to do that woud be to reward the spending of debt.  You've got a "don't get stuck with debt" penalty in the score already, which is fine, but if I had to choose the better of two Capes players, with all other factors equal, the guy who generated (and thus spent) more debt is probably the better player, because he played harder and contributed more to the game.

J

[Hans]

WHY does it seem reasonable that debt should subtract?

Really... up until you're overdrawn, debt makes your character MORE powerful.

I think the formula should count the number of overdrawn drives.

This is a VERY interesting idea, I think.  It would essentially incorporate the idea of debt cap I mentioned above into the game score.  As long as you are managing your debt wisely, your score is unaffected.

[Hans]

It seems reasonable that it should subtract, and keep in mind that it's only Debt that you haven't gotten rid of by the end of the game. That way you can't play a character, pile on the Debt, and then toss the character and make a new one. Which I think would be "bad playing."

Its "bad playing" if using Tony's scoring formula, maybe, I'm not completely sure.  In a non-scored game its not necessarily bad playing because a) you got to do a lot of stuff with your disposable character that you get to take to the bank and b) there is the ripe plum of an NPC sitting there with a pile of debt to start with that someone could use later to win a lot of stuff.

Actually, one caveat; lets say a character has a drive strength of one.  If you were to intentionally play this character in such a way as to seriously over draw them on that drive, I would call that toxic playing.  Not so much "bad-playing", since you are getting what you want out of him.  But it is sort of like the Exxon Valdez method of Capes.  I would be tempted to take that character, and consistently side with you on your later conflicts in another scene, just to make sure all those overdrawn drives come back to haunt you.