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8/13/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Losing with Style
The newest version of Capes, Superhero Storytelling, is online. The new system is substantially simpler than the version it replaces... lots of rules that seemed to have a reason for…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, statisticaltomfoolery, LordSmerf, Sydney Freedberg.

7/30/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Social resolution mechanics
Okay, the new revision of Capes is online. I've separated the action into two phases: First is Monologue Phase for talking, invoking Attitudes and Powers, and playing with Debt. Second…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, statisticaltomfoolery, LordSmerf, Sydney Freedberg, Marhault.

7/21/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Blocking Action and Monologues
I'm writing up a superhero game called Capes. Its premise is "Power is fun, but do you deserve it?" Two issues were highlighted by last nights playtest. First issue: It…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, Sydney Freedberg, LordSmerf, inky, John Harper.

7/21/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Playtest
[ WARNING: Long Post! ] I ran Capes for the first time tonight. What a strange, strange experience to see the game in action, after having tinkered so much. It's…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB.

7/15/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] The Problem of Evil
For those who are interested, I've put up an Example of Play for Capes. Capes is a superhero game with the Premise "Power is Fun, but do you deserve it"?…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, StrongBadMun, inky, Sydney Freedberg, John Harper, Shreyas Sampat, Tobias, Stephen, dalek_of_god, LordSmerf, Jinx, Bob McNamee, Marhault.

7/13/2004 TonyLB: Explicit and Emergent Rules
As I design, I increasingly encounter the choice between making rules that explicitly say "The game will be played in such and so a manner" and building a mathematical system…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Andrew Morris, timfire, Shreyas Sampat, Valamir, Noon.

7/11/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Balancing Powers, Attitudes and Tropes
I've put a second draft of Capes online. It's a superhero game with the premise "Power is fun, but do you deserve it?" It runs on a system of dice…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, ErrathofKosh, Tobias, Sydney Freedberg.

7/7/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Superhero Punishment mechanic
I have pushed myself to get something resembling a cogent first draft of Capes up on the web. I am looking forward to another round of playtesting fairly soon. Before…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, Michael S. Miller, ErrathofKosh, btrc, inky.

6/30/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Need help expressing a thought
This is silly, but I've been going back and forth on trying to express this one idea for days, and I know for a fact that I clarify my thoughts…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, inky, John Harper.

6/19/2004 TonyLB: [Amber] Playing with Strict Karma
[ Spawned from [url=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=124226#124226]this thread[/url] ] I've taken on, largely through foolhardiness, the interesting task of running Narrativist Amber. And here we are with some more running commentary on its…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Eero Tuovinen, Mark D. Eddy, captain_bateson, Jonathan Walton, John Kim, Mark Johnson, Simon W, Andrew Norris, Noon, Valamir, xiombarg, Mike Holmes, Erick Wujcik, Halzebier, Ron Edwards, Arref, hanschristianandersen, RaconteurX.

6/17/2004 TonyLB: Trust and Communication
Folks asked me to repost this somewhere that it could be discussed without interrupting the discussion it sprung from. Would that I had anything more to add at the moment,…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, beingfrank, captain_bateson.

6/17/2004 TonyLB: Rapidly changing stats
There's something bugging me in my system. It's a silly little factor, but I can't get it out of my mind and maybe someone has a perfect solution. I have…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, ethan_greer, Michael S. Miller, Valamir, John Harper, timfire, Lxndr.

5/5/2004 TonyLB: [Amber] Jonesing for constraint
So the saga of attempting narrativism in Amber DRPG continues... We're at an interesting phase. The players have gotten past the novelty of being able to take over some of…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Noon, Andrew Martin, Mike Holmes.

4/24/2004 TonyLB: Deep Immersion
In the Group Ownership of Players thread, Valamir expressed his frustration with misinterpretation of his argument, and recommended that the discussion had exceeded the bounds of the original thread, and…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Valamir, Ron Edwards, neelk, greyorm, Halzebier, clehrich, Jack Spencer Jr, Peter Hollinghurst, John Kim, GreatWolf, talysman, Maarzan, Sean, contracycle, montag, RaconteurX, Rob Carriere, pete_darby, Eric J-D, MR. Analytical, Russell Impagliazzo.

4/19/2004 TonyLB: Pitching rules for narrativism
So I'm running an Amber game with heavy mechanics of narrativism added in. And people like the idea of having a lot of input into the story their characters are…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, greyorm, Bankuei, Alan, Ron Edwards.

4/12/2004 TonyLB: Cascading ambiguity
Okay, so I'm running a game where I've give folks the right to write for the NPCs, and to frame and describe scenes their character would know nothing about. Additionally,…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, clehrich, Bob McNamee, Paganini, StalkingBlue, Mike Holmes, Peter Hollinghurst.

3/30/2004 TonyLB: Learning to use Scene Agendas
I'm running a play-by-post game which makes liberal use of scene agendas. So for each major scene, I'm trying to get people to say (or, worst case, accept my judgment…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Valamir, clehrich, jdagna, Matt Wilson, orbsmatt, Mike Holmes, Jonathan Walton, Ron Edwards, DannyK.

3/25/2004 TonyLB: Asynchronous Roleplay
Play by email, play by post, play by written correspondence... asynchronous roleplay. A different style with (I think) different techniques. I can think of a few that I've used, and…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, coxcomb, Jonathan Walton, orbsmatt, Valamir, Jack Spencer Jr, andy, Bogie_71, M. J. Young, Dev, beingfrank, xiombarg.

3/23/2004 TonyLB: Bangs and Narrativism... I -so- need help
Okay, so I've run SO many failed PBeMs that it's got to be me. And they all fail the same way. And my newest one is doing exactly the same…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Valamir, clehrich, quozl, coxcomb, montag, John Kim, joshua neff, Noon, Alan, Lisa Padol, Trevis Martin, Michael S. Miller, Itse, neelk, DannyK, Blankshield, ptevis, Clay, Ron Edwards.

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Subsequent Topics

8/25/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Mutants and Snitfits
I playtested Capes again last night. Details of how the rules worked out can be found in a much longer post here. What I found fascinating in terms of the…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Ron Edwards.

9/7/2004 TonyLB: [Amber] The Trap of Self-Sufficiency
The ongoing, possibly-doomed, experiment in Amber Narrativism continues! When last we joined our persistent playing group, they had finally sidestepped the tangled ways in which the game mechanic itself undercuts…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, inthisstyle, Vaxalon, Blankshield, Grover, Marco, Ron Edwards, Lisa Padol, jdagna.

9/8/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Players and Villains
Welcome back, true believers, to design of Capes: Superhero Storytelling! When last we left our intrepid designers, they had created a system that looks like it will run faster, stay…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, Sydney Freedberg, Alan, Ron Edwards, John Harper, Doug Ruff, LordSmerf, Bill_White.

9/12/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Skater X and letting go
Had an impromptu playtest last night, which meant I had about five minutes to prepare villains and plot. Turns out not to have mattered much. Two players, Danny and Seth.…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, LordSmerf, Ron Edwards, Sydney Freedberg, Bill_White.

9/14/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Conversation is combat
Had another Capes session tonight, this time over IRC. I've posted an in-character transcript and an interlaced transcript with both IC and OOC comments. The experience of play itself was…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Doug Ruff, LordSmerf.

9/14/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Debt or Resource?
[quote="LordSmerf"][quote="Doug Ruff"][... snip]Re: Drives and staking thereof, At the moment, the players have to place Debt against their Drives to use a power, and can then stake this Debt. Why…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, LordSmerf, Doug Ruff, Sydney Freedberg.

9/15/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Unresolved Complications
The current text of Capes is here. The system represents situations as a set of Complications. Heroes and villains can place Stakes on these Complications, to represent their moral investment…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, LordSmerf, Doug Ruff, Sydney Freedberg.

9/16/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Setting the Scene, Complications
[quote="Sydney Freedberg"]... suggest that someone can kick another character off their "side" if either party thinks their goals are incongruent -- which implies a goal-setting phase -- which implies something…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, Sydney Freedberg, Doug Ruff, John Harper.

9/18/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Scene Goals
Okay, as promised, I have written up my best guess at an Example of Play for the Scene Goal rules that Doug recommended here. I'll be interested to hear whether…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, Doug Ruff, Sydney Freedberg, LordSmerf.

9/20/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Strategy Search
Okay, I'm trying something a bit new. Here is a new Strategy Page for Capes. This is a very small file. Just go ahead and download it. Here are the…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, Doug Ruff, LordSmerf.

9/21/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] "Outrun the pain"
Greatest in-character line (by far, IMHO) of a very satisfying game of IRC Capes last night. Anyone who is convinced that giving players narrative authority will lead to them favoring…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Ron Edwards, LordSmerf.

9/23/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Story Tokens: Limits needed?
Well, Capes is still in progress, but I can definitely see daylight at the end of the tunnel. I'm getting a face-to-face campaign set up, writing up a quick-entry scenario…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, GregS, Sydney Freedberg, LordSmerf.

9/29/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Getting whooped but good
Played Capes over IRC again on monday. I've posted a transcript again, mostly because it's easy. Fun, unexpected session. Our heroes got trounced. Seriously, it is hard to describe the…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Ron Edwards, LordSmerf, Noon.

9/29/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Spandex Soap-opera
So I had the first session of my face-to-face Capes campaign last night. Some good stuff and some bad stuff. The good stuff: Once characters were created, they quickly lined…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, LordSmerf.

9/29/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Speeding character design
Capes is a superhero game with very broad abilities. Your Powers or Tropes can be pretty much anything that can happen. "God answers my prayers" is just as legitimate as…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, LordSmerf, Sydney Freedberg, Doug Ruff, WhiteRat, efindel, John Harper, Vaxalon.

10/1/2004 TonyLB: [TFOS] Years gone by....
I'm interested to see if there are insights that Forge-think can bring to roleplaying stories from (in this case) more than a decade ago. I've got several stories from a…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, bcook1971, Ben Lehman, Vaxalon.

10/3/2004 TonyLB: Earliest I've ever had conflict in a game
Danny's running a short game set in the Stargate: SG-1 universe, a month from now. He's recruited me and a bunch of the folks who play in another game I…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Ravien, Matt Wilson, clehrich, hanschristianandersen, Noon, Alan.

10/5/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Non-conflict mechanics
[url=http://www.museoffire.com/Games/Capes%20Sept%2017.pdf]Capes[/url] presents everything that can be done game-mechanically as a series of conflicts between two or more sides. This forces people to scene-frame right to the juicy conflicts, but that's…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, LordSmerf, Doug Ruff, Sydney Freedberg.

10/6/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Not Complications -- Events!
Last night, discussing a problematic Complication ("Victoria West's Friendship") Eric said something like this: "Look, by declaring this Complication we've established that West will make a show of her appreciation.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, TheCzech, Doug Ruff, Sydney Freedberg, LordSmerf, efindel.

10/8/2004 TonyLB: [Capes] Pacing without Victory Points
I have yet to play a game where keeping track of Victory Points has made anyone a happier gamer. Sad, but true. As Sydney points out here, the Tension Threshold…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, LordSmerf, efindel.

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