[AP] Capes at the Game Store

[drnuncheon]

It was a recipe for failure.  Everything was stacked against it.

I had stopped down at Game Masters (my FLGS) because the wife was at her "lady geeks" church group, and while I am undoubtedly a geek, I am also both male and a Godless Heathen(tm), so I have to find other ways to entertain myself.  Phil, the owner, had confessed a certain fondness for unusual small press games, and I had pointed him to IPR a few days before.  Tonight I stopped down with my Capes box (index cards, poker chips, and dice. Oh, and rules.)

Like I said, it should have failed.  There were only the two of us.  He had to keep getting up to take care of customers.  We had games of Magic going on at the same table.  But it actually turned out surprisingly well.

We kicked off with character creation - we had both played in the same Champions game for quite a while, so we whipped through and created his teleporting martial artist from there, and then went on to create Magneto.  A classic Capes intro scene was set: a hostage situation at the bank.  I was able to draw on my knowledge of his character to throw down a good initial goal: Rescue Cassie (his love interest from the campaign - if we'd been using drives and exemplars she'd have been one).  He tossed one down for me: escape with the money.  The scene was short, with each of us winning the goal the other one had thrown down.

The second scene really took off, as I introduced the power of Capes with regards to switching characters.  He picked right up on that, and decided to switch to playing Mystique (disguised as Cassie, naturally!) while I played my own character from the Champions game, a cyberkinetic overcaffienated hacker named Hez.  There were about half a dozen goals in that scene as we kept throwing them back and forth.  We started out with a pair aimed at Mystique: "find the location of the headquarters" and "escape".  He grasped the tactical significance of claiming pretty early on, driving up Escape (and staking debt) but never claiming it, and keeping me busy using my actions on other conflicts so I couldn't resolve it either.  I got him back, though, using a Story Token to introduce his own character Alias back into the scene!  Even so, we ended up with Mystique escaping and Hez captured, and although she failed to find out the location of the hideout or steal Hez' database, the good guys never figured out that she wasn't Cassie.

Best exchange:
Phil: I use 'spoil your plans' to roll that four.  I knock Hez' coffee off of the table.  It's heading for the floor...and I'll take the 2 I rolled.
Me: Crap.  I use 'Caffeinated' to react, taking a point of debt and diving for the coffee. I've got to grab it before it hits!
Phil: Let's see, what do I have...oh, vindictive.  As you dive for the coffee I'll "accidentally" step on your foot.

I think that was the point where we cracked up the Magic players - although they almost made me weep, because one of them said "man, this game sounds complicated."

Complicated.  From a Magic player.  Tony, I am so sorry for whatever injustice I did in the explaining of your rules.  I can only hope it was because they only half-heard the explanations between their counterspells and artifacts and whatever else was going on over there.

What we didn't cover: non-powered characters.  Drives (I mentioned them, but we used the "Lite" undifferentiated debt rules). Exemplars. Gloating and the Comics Code.

Anyway, the wife has a Monday night class next semester, so I might try to make "Indy Game Mondays" an unofficial tradition.  (Anyone else in the Pittsburgh area?)

Rules Question That Came Up - not during play, but I was thinking about it after the fact

When are you permitted to do things that don't take an action, like staking, splitting, and using an inspiration?  Obviously you can't do this in the middle of someone's action, but can you take your action, let another player take theirs, and then stake/split/inspiration before the end of the page?  Allowing it seemed to work fairly well, but it might get pretty complex in a multiple-player game.  (A and C are allied, A goes and rolls a 6, B goes (and has to roll a different die), A stakes and splits the 6 so that C can roll it up even further.)

[Vaxalon]

Complicated.  From a Magic player.

The rules may not be complicated, but your game was.

[Hans]

When are you permitted to do things that don't take an action, like staking, splitting, and using an inspiration?  Obviously you can't do this in the middle of someone's action, but can you take your action, let another player take theirs, and then stake/split/inspiration before the end of the page?  Allowing it seemed to work fairly well, but it might get pretty complex in a multiple-player game.  (A and C are allied, A goes and rolls a 6, B goes (and has to roll a different die), A stakes and splits the 6 so that C can roll it up even further.)

Glad things went well, Jeff.  Capes IS complicated, but complicated in a holistic way, like a living organism.  It has a lot of pieces, but all the pieces fit together and make the whole much more than the sum of the parts.

As to staking, splitting, inspirations, etc., you can only do these on your action, for the character that is acting (with regard to debt), either before or after you actually take your action.  Also, the reactions are considered integral to the action, so you cannot stake debt between rolling the die and peoples reactions to that die.

Here are the relevant bits from the FAQ:

When can I stake debt/spend inspirations/split dice/schism during my action?
At any time before and/or after you make your actual action, and you can do these things any number of times as long as you have the resources to do so.
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=15238.msg162637#msg162637
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16239.msg172914#msg172914
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16407.msg174491#msg174491

How does staking/splitting/using inspirations/schisming work with reactions?
The reactions immediately follow the changed dice and are, in essence, part of the action. Therefore staking, splitting, etc. all must take place either before the action, or after the action and all its consequent reactions.
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19894.0