Shameless praise and some first-timer questions

[Joel P. Shempert]

Hi!

I've been poring over the available (free) Capes material as well as this forum for the last few months, and I must say, Tony, this game is brilliant. Delicious, eat-it-with-a-spoon-and-lick-it-clean, brilliant. I'm jazzed about running Capes Lite for a few friends as soon as possible, and I can't imagine that an upgrade to the full version is too far in the future.

So I had a question or two; it occurs to me that some of the answer may end up being "see the Capes full rules," as I only know the lite rules. So if I do step over into that territory, just lemme know and that'll be answer enough. Meanwhile, any answers that are pertinent to the rules I currently have access to (i.e. Lite), I would appreciate.

First question: Styles, what are they for? Specifically Powered Styles. A style with a check-box I get, the more check boxes you have, the more you can check off before you run out. But a powered Style, well, it's just one more debt generator, and if I've got, say, 5 powers and 3 styles, two of 'em powered, the most I can have in a powered style is 3, whereas I've got 5 in my highest Power--what advantage does that Style have over my 3-5 powers? They're flavorful, sure, but if my Spider-man has Web-shooters 2, I can just narrate something like "entangle foe" without giving it a style, right? (And on a related note, the way different Power nodes are apportioned seems inconsistent. f'rinstance, the Godling';s Super-Strength, Super-speed, laser eyes, etc. are discrete powers the Godling has, while the Teleporter's "Appear," "Disappear," "appear, attack, disappear" et al seem like mere extentions of the same power. I know for purposes of mechanical use they're identical, but it seems to skew their narrative use.)

Also. . .mixing and matching of Powers and Skills. Can it be done? Does it throw off anything horribly to do it, like the Debt economy? There are some characters, Reed Richards say, whose "skills' I can see being just straight-up Powers. If anyone needs to prove that they deserve their intellectual gifts (far more than a stupid elastic body), it's Reed. But others. . .like Peter Parker needs to prove he deserves his photography skills. Or Clark Kent his Journalism. Actuallythis brings to mind a bigger issue that occurred to me as I was in the Flash generator a week or so ago cranking out about 20 Marvel characters for experiment/practice: the whole secret identity thing seems handled poorly by Capes, to my rookie eyes at least. In a truly well-rounded superhero like Spidey or Superman, the set of 12 abilities has its hands full just depicting the "hero" side, with little room for the "civilian" side. Spider-man's not too bad; the persona module was enough to cover both pete's angsty core and spidey's brash exterior. And I just left off "photography" as unimportant, though I would've liked to fit "science wiz" on there. But Clark is impossible, possibly because of the exeme "persona" he puts on to distinguish himself from Superman. And he really is a good journalist, so that whole skillset seems to apply to him, even if Lois is the more aggressive reporter. How do you handle this kind of thing? The Capes rules as written seem to handle a Hero pretty well if we JUST think of him as a Hero. But they seem to break down a bit when he takes off the mask.

Moving along. . .there are some references to mechanical distinctions that Idon't see in the Lite rules. . .I can only assume they are from the Ful version. But I'm curious about them considering that they seem to pop up quite a lot and could be helpful in running even a Lite game, to give people a better idea of how to play in terms of Narration procedure. So Events and Goals, they're different how? Is it that a Goal is something a character is specifically striving for, and an Event is just a happenstance divorced from PC motives? And Veto power--that's not mentioned ANYwhere in Lite that I can see, but seems quite important. . .who has veto power and when?

Thanks for your patience (hmm, pretty presumptious of mw to assume you WILL be ;) ), I hope to run Capes soon and I wanna get the best experience possible out of it.

Peace,
-Joel

[Kai_lord]

First question: Styles, what are they for? Specifically Powered Styles. A style with a check-box I get, the more check boxes you have, the more you can check off before you run out. But a powered Style, well, it's just one more debt generator, and if I've got, say, 5 powers and 3 styles, two of 'em powered, the most I can have in a powered style is 3, whereas I've got 5 in my highest Power--what advantage does that Style have over my 3-5 powers? They're flavorful, sure, but if my Spider-man has Web-shooters 2, I can just narrate something like "entangle foe" without giving it a style, right? (And on a related note, the way different Power nodes are apportioned seems inconsistent. f'rinstance, the Godling';s Super-Strength, Super-speed, laser eyes, etc. are discrete powers the Godling has, while the Teleporter's "Appear," "Disappear," "appear, attack, disappear" et al seem like mere extentions of the same power. I know for purposes of mechanical use they're identical, but it seems to skew their narrative use.)

You got it. Heck, you can narrate anything you want. What the names of the abilities do is telling about what kind of character you have. They are for color, nothing more. On the other hand, color is one of your main weapons for getting resources from the other players.

Also. . .mixing and matching of Powers and Skills. Can it be done? Does it throw off anything horribly to do it, like the Debt economy? There are some characters, Reed Richards say, whose "skills' I can see being just straight-up Powers. If anyone needs to prove that they deserve their intellectual gifts (far more than a stupid elastic body), it's Reed. But others. . .like Peter Parker needs to prove he deserves his photography skills. Or Clark Kent his Journalism. Actuallythis brings to mind a bigger issue that occurred to me as I was in the Flash generator a week or so ago cranking out about 20 Marvel characters for experiment/practice: the whole secret identity thing seems handled poorly by Capes, to my rookie eyes at least. In a truly well-rounded superhero like Spidey or Superman, the set of 12 abilities has its hands full just depicting the "hero" side, with little room for the "civilian" side. Spider-man's not too bad; the persona module was enough to cover both pete's angsty core and spidey's brash exterior. And I just left off "photography" as unimportant, though I would've liked to fit "science wiz" on there. But Clark is impossible, possibly because of the exeme "persona" he puts on to distinguish himself from Superman. And he really is a good journalist, so that whole skillset seems to apply to him, even if Lois is the more aggressive reporter. How do you handle this kind of thing? The Capes rules as written seem to handle a Hero pretty well if we JUST think of him as a Hero. But they seem to break down a bit when he takes off the mask.

On this subject, you should go take a look at Secret Identies for Supers?. I had a lot of the same questions you do about this subject.

On the subject of powers, styles, and skills, it's not about creating a complete list of every single power that the character could ever use. Remeber, you only need to mention the ability being used when narrating. No, you need to deside what things define your character. For instance, nothing is stopping Supes from photographing, interviewing, or asking a pointed question as part of your narration. However, they are not central to what he is, no matter how good he is at them. So they don't go on the character sheet. As an example, lets say you wanted to investigate Evil-corp as Clark Kent while playing Supe's character sheet. You Casually Overpower Mortals to fast talk your way past the security guard, and then use Super-strength to break the lock on  a door.

On the other hand, Lois is all about being a Journalist, and that's how she drives the story foward. She has the Journalist abilities from the click and lock.

Moving along. . .there are some references to mechanical distinctions that Idon't see in the Lite rules. . .I can only assume they are from the Ful version. But I'm curious about them considering that they seem to pop up quite a lot and could be helpful in running even a Lite game, to give people a better idea of how to play in terms of Narration procedure. So Events and Goals, they're different how? Is it that a Goal is something a character is specifically striving for, and an Event is just a happenstance divorced from PC motives? And Veto power--that's not mentioned ANYwhere in Lite that I can see, but seems quite important. . .who has veto power and when?

For these questions, I'm going to refer you to the Capes FAQ

In closing, welcome to the wonderful world of Capes. If you'd like to see how Capes plays out head over to     irc://linuxguy.magicstar.net/indie_ooc and irc://linuxguy.magicstar.net/indie_nar at 8 pm est tongiht. There will be an IRC game of Capes going on.

[drnuncheon]

First question: Styles, what are they for? Specifically Powered Styles. A style with a check-box I get, the more check boxes you have, the more you can check off before you run out. But a powered Style, well, it's just one more debt generator, and if I've got, say, 5 powers and 3 styles, two of 'em powered, the most I can have in a powered style is 3, whereas I've got 5 in my highest Power--what advantage does that Style have over my 3-5 powers?

Well you can only use a Power once on any particular Page, so having two powered abilities at 3 means you can (say) use one to roll and one to react.

Also, someone with X-Ray Vision 3 and Bounce Bullets off my Chest 3 is going to be able to use that 3 more easily in a wider variety of circumstances.

J

[Joel P. Shempert]

Hi, guys,

Kai,

You got it. Heck, you can narrate anything you want. What the names of the abilities do is telling about what kind of character you have. They are for color, nothing more. On the other hand, color is one of your main weapons for getting resources from the other players.

Cool, I gotcha. Makes perfect sense, and seems opbvious on reflection. Just some concept-blockage on my part, I guess.

On this subject, you should go take a look at Secret Identies for Supers?. I had a lot of the same questions you do about this subject.

I read the linked thread; awesome. That shit is hot. I agree that either option is intriguing and appealing in different ways, so mixing or matching as players feel (even within the same campaign, perhaps) is probably ideal.

On the subject of powers, styles, and skills, it's not about creating a complete list of every single power that the character could ever use. Remeber, you only need to mention the ability being used when narrating. No, you need to deside what things define your character.

Yeah, duh. File this one under "concept-blockage," above.

And J,

Well you can only use a Power once on any particular Page, so having two powered abilities at 3 means you can (say) use one to roll and one to react.

Also, someone with X-Ray Vision 3 and Bounce Bullets off my Chest 3 is going to be able to use that 3 more easily in a wider variety of circumstances.

About the once per page thing, check. That's something I'd missed.

About the wider variety of circumstances, point taken. I guess the instances that had given me pause were cases where a style and a pwere are more directly related. For instance, Spidey having "Web-shooters 2" and "Entangle foe 2," or Nightcrawler having "Appear 3" and "Appear Behind someone 3". While my gut feeling is that (for my own char design at least) I'd want to give different numbers to those abilities where possible, even if they are the same the once per page thing makes doubling up useful.

Thanks for the great answers, everyone. I can't wait to try the thing out for real. I've been really hankerin' for some great, issues-driven Super-rpin' with the spate these last few years of great Superhero movies. Spider-man was the first, and Batman Begins and Superman Returns the latest, but the hankerin' really flared up with the Incredibles. At that moment, I knew--KNEW--that there were Great Things to be done with Superhero-themed RPG storytelling. But stuff like Silver Age Sentinels makes my head hurt. Capes looks like the answer to my Superhero prayers.

Thanks, Tony!

Peace,
-Joel

P.S. to quote Homer Simpson, "I'm not a praying man. . .but if you're up there. . .please, save me, Superman!"

[AaronLehmann]

Well you can only use a Power once on any particular Page, so having two powered abilities at 3 means you can (say) use one to roll and one to react.

Really?  I thought powered abilities could be used and reused.  It makes sense that they wouldn't, though.

Aaron Lehmann

[TonyLB]

They can be used once a page ... then used again in the next page.  So they could potentially be used any number of times in a scene (if there are enough pages).

Check-off abilities can be used once in a scene, then not again until the next scene.