Quick Character Question

[MBradford1968]

We played our first Capes session last night - enjoyed it and it went well but we had one question.

We played the birth of a super team so at the start the characters didn't have any powers, once the event to give us powers happened we picked a power-click and used the personality we had picked for the non-powered character but we couldn't work out if you then have 2 character sheets for the character - one powered and one non-powered or merge the 2 into one sheet - we decided on 2 sheets as the powers and skills overlapped and the powered character would end up being less skilled than the non-powered one (ok it might not matter that much as you can work your abilities into the story anyway you like but it just felt wrong).

To make this a bit clearer one character was a Scientist/Crusader - once he gained his powers he became a Godling/Crusader - we decided that the characters would have 2 sheets - a hero ID and a secret ID but looking at it now the character losses all his scientific abilities whilst in hero form - how so you do it in your games?

Cheers ... Brad

[Zamiel]

To make this a bit clearer one character was a Scientist/Crusader - once he gained his powers he became a Godling/Crusader - we decided that the characters would have 2 sheets - a hero ID and a secret ID but looking at it now the character losses all his scientific abilities whilst in hero form - how so you do it in your games?

That's pretty much how it goes here, but it's worth pointing out that the character doesn't lose those abilities in the heroic mode, they're just not so important that they allow the Player to guide the outcome of conflicts with them. Dr Godling doesn't stop being the foremost expert on dimensional science in the city, he just doesn't typically use that expertise to break the minds of bank-robbers.

Note, importantly, that's this is not to say he couldn't, iy's just to do so, his non-heroic sheet would need to be brought into play, either by the heroic sheet's player or someone else, which leads to the ofttimes-awesome situation of a character struggling in conflicts with himself. Maybe Dr Godling's scientific curiosity struggles to keep him from simply destroying the Alien Destructo Ray. Perhaps he needs to research the Gateway Machine and fend off the Invaders at the same time, necessitating the Player spend a Token to bring the scientific genius side onto the table. There's a number of possible ways it can go.

It would certainly be appropriate for Dr Godling to take "Dimensional Scientific GENIUS" as a Style on his heroic sheet if you thought it was an important enough aspect of the character, but it's not strictly necessary.

[5niper9]

Hi Brad,
after searching a bit I found this nice old thread which holds all the answers to your questions:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17141.msg181674#msg181674
I have not that much experiece with Capes yet, but Sydney Freebergs post seems to be on the spot:
There are two possebilities:

1) Clark Kent and Superman are one character in-game. Clark can use super-abilities at any time (albeit his player may do best to narrate them as memories or metaphors); Superman can do Clark's Kansas thing at any time (e.g. Attitude: Modest, Style: Fade into Woodwork). They cannot oppose each other: Their interests (debt) are one and the same. Anything either Clark or Superman succeeds at -- i.e. stakes Debt on and wins -- makes both Clark and Superman feel better about their worldview-- i.e. have less debt.

2) Clark Kent and Superman are two characters in-game. They have entirely separate Abilities (although each one's sheet may have Abilities identical to, or referring to, the other's). They can support each other or oppose each other or ignore each other freely. IIf Clark succeeds at something, Superman doesn't feel any better about himself; if Clark fails, Superman doesn't feel any worse; and vice versa.

Hope that helps.
Greetings,
René

[MBradford1968]

Cheers for the replies - I've sent the link to this thread to my group so they can have a read.

[MBradford1968]

Quick Message for René - I got your message but can't send messages - so I replied to the email address on your profile.

Cheers ... Brad