First play thoughts

[Curufea]

Another new player here - had my first game yesterday.

There was some confusion with Pages which could be resolved with a better turn sequence description, I think.  Breaking up pages into three subsections - the Free Conflict/Claim portion, the Action portion and the Resolution portion (where claims are taken from unresolved conflicts as well, which isn't mentioned in the rules I can see).

Also we couldn't find stuff on when a Scene should end.  We played "until there are no conflicts left" as the end of Scene - but I would appreciate being pointed at where this is in the book.

[Curufea]

Resolution portion (where claims are taken from unresolved conflicts as well, which isn't mentioned in the rules I can see).

Dang - can't edit posts, oh well.  Scratch the bit about Claims - Claims are never removed, I've no idea why I thought they would be.

[Hans]

Welcome to the Capes club!  Hope you enjoy the game as much as I do.

Kai_Lord made an excellent flowchart of the game which can be found in this thread:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=21433.0

which might help out with some of your play order questions. 

[Andrew Cooper]

Um...  okay.  Either I've been playing this game wrong for the last 2 years or I'm not understanding your statement about Claims.  Here's how Claims go as far as I know.

1.) At the beginning of a Page, each player has the opportunity to Claim a side to any existing Conflict.
2.) At the end of a Page, all Claims on unresolved Conflicts are removed.

Someone with a page number in the Book or a quote from Tony correct me if I'm wrong.

[Hans]

You are right, Andrew.

[Curufea]

2.) At the end of a Page, all Claims on unresolved Conflicts are removed.

That's what I assumed, but I went through the rules and couldn't find it.  I'd really appreciate a page reference.

Anyhow, I mocked up an expanded turn sequence for us to try out - I'll add the claim removal step: http://www.curufea.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=Capes

I hope to play it again tomorrow (Sunday) and try experimenting with other genres.  The trick will be defining where the opposition should be occuring - the game mechanics centre around competition and opposition.  Some genres would use non-person characters more than others - such as horror (IMHO).

[DaveA]

From "The Mind-Bending Errata!" file at http://www.museoffire.com/Games/Downloads/Errata.pdf:

p 20:  "When a Page ends without any Conflicts on the table, the Scene is over."  (Credit to Mike Sands)

p 22:  "At the end of the Page players must resolve Conflicts they have Claimed.  All Claims are then removed before the next Page." (Credit to Fred Wolke)

[Curufea]

Doh!

But - if the product is electronic, and the errata is electronic - why is there an errata?  Can the main rules not be fixed?

[Curufea]

On a side note - seeing that recomendation in the errata that Inspiration used should reference the Conflict that generated it - possibly it may be a good idea to have-

Inspiration tracking-
When a Conflict is Resolved, Story Tokens awarded and Inspiration calculated the card used to record the name of the Conflict may be kept by the player with the highest earned Inspiration, putting dice on the card to keep track of that amount of Inspiration as a reminder for future use of the Inspiration where it came from.  If other earners of Inspiration for that conflict wish reminders, they should use further cards.

[Curufea]

Arg! Now I wish I could edit posts again - just looking at the downloads page again, people have already thought of tracking inspiration with index cards.

[Matthew Glover]

In my group we use a Player Record Sheet with an Inspiration section similar to the Inspiration Tracker linked on the Muse of Fire page.  This sheet also has a spot to note down how many Story Tokens you have at the end of the session.  I like being able to note down on the sheet my own interpretation of the Inspiration.  For example, if this is the conflict:

Goal: Gangbuster stops The Queenpin's scheme

If I'm playing Gangbuster and the goal resolves in my favor, I might write down my inspiration as "Gangbuster stopped The Queenpin in her tracks.  Again.  (3)"

If I'm playing The Queenpin and it resolves against me, but leaves me with inspirations , I might write down "That punk Gangbuster got lucky and fouled up The Queenpin's plans.  (1)"

If I end up with more than one inspiration off a conflict, I might even write each one down separately.  So:  "Gangbuster shut down The Queenpin's operation.  (2)"  and "The Queenpin didn't get the loot from the bank heist.  (5)"

Not that you couldn't do this on cards just as easily, but I also like having a neat list of my story thread resources.  For even more fun, you could note down on your Insp Tracker when you roll an inspiration into a conflict that produces more inspirations so that you have a clear list of your inspired story threads.

[TonyLB]

But - if the product is electronic, and the errata is electronic - why is there an errata?  Can the main rules not be fixed?

But ... that would require me to realize that I had not already done that.

Honest ... I've got a file that's updated with those errata.  It's the one that new copies of the book are printed off of.  I thought that file had made its way to the PDF download section long ago.  Whoops!  Thanks for the heads up!

[Curufea]

But - if the product is electronic, and the errata is electronic - why is there an errata?  Can the main rules not be fixed?

But ... that would require me to realize that I had not already done that.

Honest ... I've got a file that's updated with those errata.  It's the one that new copies of the book are printed off of.  I thought that file had made its way to the PDF download section long ago.  Whoops!  Thanks for the heads up!

Fair enough - I know how it is, sometimes we have problems with versions of manuals not being the latest on our manual page at work.
But yeah, the file I downloaded from the Forge Bookshelf doesn't mention claim removal, scene ending or inspiration tracking.
Despite that, it's still the favourite of the Indie games I've bought so far.  I can see many uses for it :)