Redoubled debt

[AaronLehmann]

Does it have to go back to the same drive it started from?  Does it all havde to go to the same drive?

If the Cap'n loses a conflict in which he had staked 3 obsession, can he put 4 of the resulting 6 into obsession, 1 into Justice, 1 into love, and 1 into duty?

Aaron Lehmann

[Hans]

Does it have to go back to the same drive it started from?  Does it all havde to go to the same drive?

If the Cap'n loses a conflict in which he had staked 3 obsession, can he put 4 of the resulting 6 into obsession, 1 into Justice, 1 into love, and 1 into duty?

Aaron Lehmann

It all has to go back to the same drive.  That's the downside to staking.  Mitigating this somewhat is the fact that in my experience being overdrawn doesn't usually have that big an impact on the game.  Not a good thing, but not quite as bad as it might seem.  It probably has more impact the longer the campaign goes on. 

[TonyLB]

In my experience the place you get pounded, once you have six debt, is when you get desperate and try to unload it too fast.  Overextending yourself gets you slapped down bad.

"Oh look!  I'll stake 3 Debt on A and 3 Debt on B and now I'm not merely no longer overdrawn, I've actually got room to spare!"

Which ... yeah ... if everyone lets you win both A and B.  But suppose you win only A?  Now you've gotten back six debt (just like you started out with) plus you presumably used a fair number of powers trying to defend B.

[Eric Sedlacek]

It all has to go back to the same drive.  That's the downside to staking.  Mitigating this somewhat is the fact that in my experience being overdrawn doesn't usually have that big an impact on the game.  Not a good thing, but not quite as bad as it might seem.  It probably has more impact the longer the campaign goes on. 

The dirty little secret of Capes is that the effect of being overdrawn is mostly psychological.   The mechanical penalty is negligible and remains so no matter how long the game goes on.  The thing is, most conflicts are resolved during the first page they are contested, so you can be overdrawn in page after page and end up never having to roll anything down.  Even when you do, it tends to be no big deal.

If you so choose, you can have a character permently overdrawn in a drive and just use that drive as an endless resource for splitting dice.  But it is very psychologically difficult for me to see a huge pile of debt on my character, know that it represents pain, and not at least try to get rid of it.   

I know that in my case, this realization made zero change in my actual behavior in game.