Capes and GMing

[AaronLehmann]

So I'm thinking about taking a setting I wrote and ran in D&D, and porting it to Capes.  My concern is that there is cool story I want to tell, and I selfishly do not want it to start out with a level playing field for everyone, but rather to start with it slanted, and have things even out over the course of play.  I'm thinking about pregenning a bunch of characters (because it soooo easy), and figuring out a nice complicated R-map for them.  Then at the beginning of things, show the R-map to the other players, and say "This is the current situation with the important NPCs.  I have some ideas to sling into this, but from here on out we're equal."

Is this thought of mine bad and wrong?  Is there a better way to achieve this?  Also, I'm looking to have a pretty dynamic setting.  Is Capes a bad way to model it (since the CC is a big thing, and it's all about invariants)?

Aaron Lehmann

[TonyLB]

Doing preparation is a great way to get your creative ideas on the table.  If nobody else has better thoughts (and, odds are, if you've put a lot of thought in and they're just sitting down to play) then they'll likely adopt your ideas as their own and run with them.

The problem, of course, is that they'll adopt your ideas and run with them.  You never do know quite which direction.  I've had characters that I had a strong mental image of, and I didn't get that image entirely onto paper ... and them somebody lived strictly by everything that was written down (the powers, the Exemplar Relationships, etc.) but diverged wildly on the stuff that I hadn't written.  It was pretty wierd to see in action.

[Sydney Freedberg]

With Capes, it is definitely a good thing for some one person in the group step up and say "hey, I have this cool idea! I want a story about this, and that, and this other thing!" --- which one subset of the functions traditionally called "GMing," the social-creative organizer part. It is also definitely a bad thing for that one person to think s/he is going to have special ability to direct what happens next -- which is another subset of the functions traditionally called "GMing," but one Capes has no place for. It's often hard for people (e.g. me) who've done a fair bit of traditional GMing to make this distinction and, most importantly, to avoid falling into the old habits.

Thus, when you say "there is a cool story I want to tell," and you specify a direction for things to evolve in (first "slanted," then "even out"), you may want to check yourself: That's how traditional GMing encourages you to think, and it won't work here -- and just talking that language can reinforce bad mental habits. Conversely, when you say "This is the current situation with the important NPCs. I have some ideas to sling into this, but from here on out we're equal," you are absolutely on the right track: "Hey, here's a cool thing, let's all play with this."

Also: For a "pretty dynamic setting," Capes is perfect, because nobody can stop anyone else from changing the setting; dynamic is the default, and the Comics Code (what you mean by "CC," right?) can only stabilize a few specified things, and there're always ways around -- assuming you have much of a Comics Code at all.

Now, if you're passionately tied to the power balance starting out "slanted" and then evening out, you might want to check out With Great Power..., which is very deliberately geared to do just that, with the GM playing the villains and starting with lots of advantages that fall away one by one while the players' heroes get stronger and stronger.

[TonyLB]

With Capes, it is definitely a good thing for some one person in the group step up and say "hey, I have this cool idea!"

Let me make what I believe to be a critical modification here.  It is a good thing for at least one person to step up and say "Hey, I have this cool idea!"

Everyone cool with the implications of that, or should I elaborate?

[AaronLehmann]

Thank you for your replies, Tony.

Thus, when you say "there is a cool story I want to tell," and you specify a direction for things to evolve in (first "slanted," then "even out"), you may want to check yourself:

I was vague there.  What I was talking about with "slanted" and "even out" was the level of narrative control.  I figured that by creating a bunch of characters and relationships to start, I'd get all the narrative slant I wanted.  Especially considering my gaming group is used to someone doing this kind of thing (GMing).

Given that clarification, does what you said still stand?

[baron samedi]

A suggestion, Aaron; as a fun prop, to reach your goal, you could write your "secret ideas" and "things that must or must not happen" on a few cards in an envelope, and let a player read the relevant card when he's playing a role relating to that character. Then nobody knows the full story of "Dr Doom", only pieces relevant to a scene... thus leaving players room to manoeuvre.

Just my 2 cents.

Erick

[TonyLB]

That would be particularly cool if you encourage everyone to bring such envelopes.

[Sydney Freedberg]

I figured that by creating a bunch of characters and relationships to start, I'd get all the narrative slant I wanted.  Especially considering my gaming group is used to someone doing this kind of thing (GMing). Given that clarification, does what you said still stand?

If they're used to paying attention to you because they're experienced with traditional GMing, and you start out by setting out a lot of the situation -- key characters, etc. -- then yeah, you'll definitely set the ball rolling in a particular direction in a powerful way.

Potential danger: everyone assumes that once you've done that, you'll keep doing that, and they don't have to -- or worse, they aren't allowed to. Which means that you will have to keep kicking the ball, over and over, to get it rolling, only to see it peter out again, while they sit there and wonder why the game keeps going flat and why you're not "GMing" properly -- when the game is designed so that you don't have the full range of powers necessary to keep the story going/ball rolling by yourself.

So I'd strongly recommend not just laying out your cool ideas as a tightly interlocking, carefully constructed whole and saying "okay, let's play." I'd recommend you leave some big holes in it and then encourage everyone else to chip in with ideas before you ever start playing. And when I say "big holes," I do not mean "room for growth," I mean "big glaring obvious questions for which you provide no answer"; and when I say "ideas," I do not mean "for your personal player-character," I mean "for any kind of character and for the whole world." Frankly I'd do this for any game, even a traditional GM-driven one (and I'm just finishing up such a campaign which I'll post about in a few weeks on Actual Play), in order to get everyone invested and excited, but for Capes it's especially important.

[AaronLehmann]

Thanks, all, for the advice.

[LemmingLord]

I was inspired.  I'm going to switch over my GURPS fantasy game to capes too.  I'm not sure this is the right place, but here are the two character's I converted:
Sarai, Elven Animalist (was the GNPC)
Animal Communication 1, Frenzy 3, Tracking Prey 2
Pecking Order 1, Misunderstand Humanity 2, Predatory Tussling 4, Act on Insticts 5, On the Prowl 3
Curious 1, Confused 2, Pack Mentality 3, Amoral 4
Justice-1, Truth-1, Power-3, Hope-1, Duty-3

Necra, Oinous Alchmist (was troublemaking lieutenant level bad guy not quite revealed)
Vile Potions 3, Hid in the Shadows 1, Know hidden nature of the world 2
Creepy 1, A certain point of view (read: half truths) 2, Recoil at the Good 3, Screw the rules 4, Manipulate 5
Wicked 2, Denial 1, Abrasive 3, Secretly Hurting 4
Obsession-1, Pride-2, Power-1, Despair-2, Fear-3

[Sydney Freedberg]

That's cool. GURPS characters have those big lists of skills and advantages/disadvantages to glean Capes abilities from.

But otherwise GURPS is about as different a game as you can get -- I presume you've played some Capes so you know how different?

(By the way,  you may want to start a new thread if you want to have a a detailed "GURPS to Capes" conversion discussion as opposed to a general "switching from traditional GM'd games to Capes" discussion.)