When is a character finished?

[coxcomb]

I played my first Capes game on Tuesday. I'll go into the session on a separate Actual Play thread, but I gots questions. Two have already been answered (when the scene ends and about 1-point inspirations). but here's another:

When there is a goal in play that says "Capture [or Incapacitate] so-and-so"  where so-and-so is being portrayed by a player, does success mean that that character is absolutely disposed that way for the whole scene, or does the controlling player have the ability to declare a "So-and-so escapes [or wakes up]"?

Our assumption was that, as long as the scene is still going, everybody gets to go, regardless of the current disposition of their character in game. How wrong is that?

[TonyLB]

That's exactly right, in my view... though often I will have my character acting "from behind bars", because it makes people crazy that they can have all the advantages in the story and still have the character beating them on relevant conflicts.

For instance, strapping James Bond to a table and starting a laser going on a "slice-and-dice" course doesn't (usually) give you a decisive advantage in "Goal:  Prove my superiority to Bond".

Those who want the Capture to have some sting should roll their Inspiration from it into another Conflict... like if you had a 5-point Inspiration for "Strap Bond to Table" you could start off at 5-to-1 in "Prove my superiority to Bond".  It doesn't win it for you, but it's a darn fine start.

[coxcomb]

Also, our thinking was that this is incentive to wait to resolve certain conflicts until their resolution would end the scene. If the last resolved conflict is "Capture Dr. Bizzaro", the outcome is pretty clear.

[Vaxalon]

Remember that conflicts can't step on each other's toes.

If you have a conflict out there that says, "Doctor Bizarro strangles the Ebony Englishman to death" you can't declare one that says, "The Ebony Englishman freezes Doctor Bizarro in a block of ice."  The (successful) resolution of either one before the other would throw a huge monkey wrench in the proceedings.

[TonyLB]

Actually, that just sounds like the ending of a John Woo film to me.

[Vaxalon]

Yes, it does, but only if both of them resolve simultaneously.  

How do you deal with it, if Doctor Bizarro strangles the Ebony Englishman to death, but you still have "The Ebony Englishman freezes Doctor Bizarro in a block of ice." on the table?

[TonyLB]

Before I offer suggestions, I'll say that rules-wise the way I handle it is by passing the buck to the player of Doctor Bizarro.  By the "Not Yet" rule, he can't narrate anything that would resolve the outstanding conflict (in this case "Ebony Englishman freezes Doctor Bizarro") one way or another.  Yet, he's got to resolve the conflict.  Which is totally his problem.

But I have never found it particularly hard to work around these things in practice.  Ebony's been strangled to death, but you still want him freezing things?  Okay, options:

[*]He's had his trachea shattered, and has been dealt a mortal blow, but has a few moments (as many as he needs) for revenge.
[*]Killing him releases his powers in surges from his corpse, so Doc Bizarro needs to get clear fast or he'll be frozen by his enemy post-humously.
[*]Ebony did something before he died (super-cooling some water mains, perhaps?) which still effects play after his demise.
[*]A clone.[/list:u]That having been said:  Can the rule system create situations that call upon you to be particularly, sometimes even fiendishly, inventive?  Ohhhh yeah.

[Vaxalon]

Can the rule system create situations that call upon you to be particularly, sometimes even fiendishly, inventive?  Ohhhh yeah.

I just worry about what happens when my inventiveness isn't up to what the game requires.