[Musing] Drives in different Genres

[drnuncheon]

It seems to me that the Drives are what really ties Capes to the superheroic genre, at least on the mechanical level.  (The trappings are just that - trappings.  Excuses to roll a die.)  Given that, it follows that if you change the drives, you should be able to easily change the genre. 

What pushes a character in that setting? 
What needs do they need to satisfy to justify themselves?

Obviously, it would work best for genres with strong, iconic motivations that are shared across characters.

For a chivalric game: Honor, Valor, Loyalty, Piety, Love.
For a Mafia game: Respect, Fear, Power, Loyalty, Omerta ("Manliness", the "Code of Silence").

Although, now that I'm thinking about changing the drives for different genres, I have to ask myself: what would the effect of letting characters choose their own Drives be?  Mechanically, they don't need to work any differently - the exemplar still represents their relationship with the drive, whatever it is.  The player just needs to be able to choose drives that are going to let him Stake debt in a way that makes sense in the narrative.

Anyone else done anything like this?  Am I behind the times here?

[Eric Sedlacek]

I think your two questions are a pretty good gauge of making a genre work in Capes.  If you have answers to them and the answers are important to the game, you have a winner.

[drnuncheon]

Continuing on with the idea of letting players choose their own Drives for a character: 

It almost seems like allowing that would turn Drives into something similar to Keys from Shadow of Yesterday.  A Drive could potentially become anything that would reaffirm the character's belief in himself (or whatever you see Debt as representing).  It could be extremely general (like the current Capes drives) or it could get specific.

How specific?  If Drives could be things like "Find my missing sister", then they become something akin to long-term goals that last over many scenes or even sessions.  Maybe they're even something like PTA's Issues, serving the same function of guiding a character's arc.

How would that affect the economy, though? A more specific drive is going to be slightly harder to work into narration, and it's definitely going to guide play towards that drive.  If I need to do things relating to finding my missing sister to get rid of debt, then there's going to be a lot of goals (or even scenes) relating to finding my mising sister.  On the other hand, it presents a very clear flag to other players as to what they can do to get Story Tokens from you.

J

[TonyLB]

Personally (and this is personal ... not game-designer-wisdom) I think of Drives as a philosophical position on what is important, objectively in the universe.  That makes it easy to draw people into conflict:  A person who stakes Hope is likely to inherently be attacking someone who has a high Despair drive ... and may well be attacking people who believe in Justice, or Duty, and like that.

So a drive like "Find my sister" makes me cock my head and look at it a little cross-eyed.  I would find it hard to argue that "Find my sister" is a vital and important part of the universe.  "Family" (including finding your lost sister) however, I could stretch to.  "Love" (subsuming both) is, obviously, great fodder.

Does that distinction make sense?

[Vaxalon]

J, your proposal would make more sense if there were a mechanic in Capes for changing drives.

[drnuncheon]

Personally (and this is personal ... not game-designer-wisdom) I think of Drives as a philosophical position on what is important, objectively in the universe.

Tony,

I'm definitely with you on that in stock Capes, or even the variants I described in my first post - I'm definitely heading into deeply variant territory with that second post, a sort of 'what if' to explore how things would change if Drives were personal rather than universal.

"Find my sister" is a drive that might not be important to the universe at large - but it's definitely important to that character's universe, and as such it could be used to bring the character into conflict.

Maybe the missing part - the trick - would be making sure the drives of various characters intersected in antagonistic ways.

J

[LemmingLord]

Herb the
St10 Average
Dx12 Graceful
IQ12 Brighter Side of Average
HT12 Somewhat energetic
Move 6 Faster Than Average (6 Yards/Second)

Animal Empathy, Empathy, Rapid Healing, Acute Taste and Smell +5

Addiction - Gangi Cigarettes, Delusion - Speaks of Being A Follower of A God of which on one has heard: Magna; Sense of Duty - Sick and Injured,  Poverty, Reputation Appear to be some kind of Con Artist; -1 to most, -3 to lawmen/strangers.

Talks Loud and Fast
Always washing his hands (even makes the motion if no water or soap is available)
Smells like his latest concoction (usually like an herb garden, frequently of wild onion.)
Uses Magnets to heal.

First Aid - 14
Physician - 14
Poisons - 11
Swimming - 12
Veternarian - 14
Naturalist - 12
Knife - 14
Area Knowledge - 14
Botany - 6
Camoflage - 12
Cooking - 13
Staff - 14
Surgery - 10

Equipment:
Walking Stick (Staff) Swing Crushing 1d+2; Thrust Crushing 1d
Eating Knife Swing Cut 1d-3; Thrust Impaling 1d-3
Large Knife Swing Cut 1d-2; Thrust Impaling 1d-2
Magnets

Capes:

Drives: None (I assume unpowered as a character meant for a support role) OR
Drives: Hope 4, Duty 2, Justice 1, Truth 1, Duty 1 (if we decide he's powered up)

Research 2, Emergency Care 3, Alternative Medicine 4, Staff Whack 1
This smells like 1, Hoakie Religion 2, Empathize 3
Medicated 1, Confident 2, Friendly 3, Loud 4, Attract Attention 5

Whata think?

[TonyLB]

LemmingLord:  Was this meant to be in this thread, or in the GURPS to CAPES conversion thread?

[LemmingLord]

Yes...  Ooops!

[Bret Gillan]

drnuncheon,

I'm playing with this in my Capes supplement, Gods. Drives are not static as they are in Capes - when you create a God you select their Drives in the form of Domains and Qualities. Domains are things like Fire, Death, War. Qualities are things like Benevolent, Vengeful, Hungry (the last one is my favorite for Cthulhu-esque deity potential).

It's interesting because it makes these things a lot more complex. Fire is no longer just fire, it's a cause, a source, and a target of struggle in the world, and it becomes dramatically more important. The stories of the game are about a kingdom burning to the ground, a sorcerer working to extinguish a live volcano, and as the player of that god you will try explore Fire in a lot of different ways.

A Drivesays, "This is what the Conflicts in this game are going to be about."

[Andrew Morris]

Gah! Dammit, Bret...now I want to run a Capes game of elemental gods where you have to take one of the five classic elements at 3, then 2s in the close elements, and 1s in the opposing elements. Finish the Gods game, already!

So....yeah. Up until Bret's comments, I was all on Tony's side about Drives. Heck, when I did Sin City with Capes, I still used the standard Drives -- I just made sure no one was entirely heroic. But stuff like Bret lays out...man, that just seems to cool to not use.

[Filip Luszczyk]

That's funny how after yesterday's game I've been musing how Capes could be used for many other genres, and now I see this thread ;)

Something like an hour ago some possible ways of doing Exalted and L5R came to my mind. And obviously, it could be done differently, depending on what the specific group would like to emphasise.

Exalted simply begs for using Virtues as Drives, although there are only four of them. As a fifth Drive, Essence/Heart/Destiny or something like that could be used. Another possible approach would be to use Castes and/or Aspects as Drives (e.g. whether character's story revolves around war and physical conflict, leadership and faith, wisdom, intrigue and secrets, etc.).

In L5R elemental Rings could be easily used as Drives. Coincidentally, five rings, five Drives, and both are connected with some values.