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 is Wonder Phase, for rolling dice and doing stuff. That, I think, is a tremendously useful division for speeding and simplifying gameplay.

But I've also formalized Facts and given a first shot at how to integrate them. Which is giving me tremendous brain-cramps. The current iteration is a simple "You win a Staked Conflict, you declare a Fact" manner, and it is not singing. There's just no strength to Facts declared that way, by player or GM fiat. You could get lucky, and people could really grow attached to what they thought up on the spur of the moment, but I'm not counting on it.

So here's a different idea:

• You win a Staked Conflict, that earns you the right to declare a Scene, later.• The rules for handling the Scene are such that it is likely (but not automatic) that it will generate a Fact of Strength roughly equal to the Stakes you put in.• The scene goes through a number of rounds equal to the combined Stakes of the Conflict.• At the end of that number of rounds the scene ends, whether anything has been resolved or (more likely) not.• Each round should offer progressively more emotional risk, and more potential reward, than the last• Each round of the scene is resolved using a Conversation mechanic.• Initial thought: The conversation and combat mechanics should share the same Monologue phase, but then use dice pools in a subtly different way... combat uses the Wonder Phase, and conversation uses a Discovery phase.

Now what in tarnation should this Discovery phase be about? That's where this gets a little hairy.

In the Wonder Phase of Capes, if you spend a number of Dice on something then you get to narrate the result. The number of Dice spent (with some additional stuff) dictate the maximum level of outcome you can achieve. Within those limits you are free to narrate what you want.

My thinking is that in the Discovery Phase, if you spend a number of Dice on something then you require another player (possibly the Editor, possibly someone else) to narrate the result. The number of Dice spent (with some additional stuff) dictates the minimum level of information that the player so called upon must reveal about their character (or else forfeit any further benefits for themself from the conversation?). Within those limits they are free to narrate what they want.

I know that I've got a lot of generalities here. I apologize. If people will bear with me, I'd like to hear some feedback about whether you think the general goal is a worthy one, or whether I'm haring off on yet another wild goose chase. If the consensus is that this generally makes sense for the premise and genre then it will be worth brainstorming more detailed Discovery Phase rules.

I'm on the run here, and would like to comment more, since I've really liked watching this game develop, but:

1) I really like the new revision: excellent job!

2) I'm with you that developing new facts doesn't seem to be quite the mechanism it should be, but I worry a lot about the proposed solution exacerbating issues with players having downtime. I envision that you want debt to be something that is staked quite a lot: it's a cool mechanism. If three players win one staked bet each, that's three resolution scenes right there.

I'm going to go print this out, and think about it more on the train.

I'll be reading the newest rules momentarily... First a comment on Facts.

I think you are right about making Facts matter to everyone involved, and the best way to do that (i think) is to make them rare. I have a two part suggestion:

1. Starting heroes have X number of Facts when they are created. Probably between 1 and 3.
2. The "Spotlight" character of an epsiode (session, issue, whatever) gets one more Fact. I would say that the "Spotlight" character is whoever gets Page One rights... It is probalby appropriate for that player and the Editor to have a brief discussion about what kind of Fact the player is interested in generating.

That should keep facts rare, but still allow them to accumulate. There are some definate draw backs (Facts accumulate very slowly). It is possible that conflict could arise over who gets to be spotlighted for any given session as well. On the other hand the since Facts will be so rare players will have to make each and every one of them count...

Thomas

Thomas

Statistical: Good point about the proliferation of scenes.

Maybe the better way to go is that each N-stake won gives the player N "scene points", each of which can be used to buy one round in a scene. This can be used in a scene they create (i.e. "I'd like to buy round 1 of a scene investigating the ruins of Moscow") or to extend a scene they find interesting ("She insults him to his face and then walk away? Oh HELL no... I'll buy another round of this scene just to run out and catch her by her arm on the landing!").

If that's combined with a Conversation mechanic that raises risk and reward as scenes go on then hopefully people will cut short the scenes they aren't enjoying, and spend more of their downtime budget on the scenes that interest everyone.

EDIT: Added examples and corrected grammar.

Thomas: I see two options to the proliferation of Facts.

One, keep them rare, but never let them go away.

Two, let them proliferate, but then require the players to periodically discard down to a quota determined by their Drives (encouraging them to buy up the Drives... a major reward mechanic, yet to be written).

I had been thinking fuzzily of option two, but I could certainly be persuaded otherwise.

For each Drive you invent Facts of different levels, counting your way up from one to the value of the Drive. So if your Truth Drive is three you will create three Facts for Truth, with Strength of one, two and three respectively.

First, you can take any number of Debt tokens, so long as your total Debt (after taking these tokens) in the associated Drive does not exceed the Strength of the Fact. So if you had one Debt already, and reference a Strength 3 Fact you may take zero, one or two Debt Tokens. These tokens are placed on the Drive, on the Hero Worksheet.

I see your point about how letting people distribute Facts any which way could encourage genre-appropriate monomania.

Two things though...

First, according to the current rules, a hero with no Facts in a given Drive will never be able to Stake anything in that Drive. For all intents and purposes, that Drive will not exist for that character. That's a fairly serious notion, and one I'm not really comfortable with.

Second, the system already promotes monomania, albeit more subtly: A player who specializes in one Drive gets more Fact-points, total.

5-1-1-1-1 distribution nets: 5+4+3+2+1+1+1+1+1 = 19 points.
2-2-2-2-1 distribution nets: 2+1+2+1+2+1+2+1+1 = 13 points.

That's a pretty sizable gap, with the cost being that you're only going to be racking up Debt in one Drive, so the villains are going to get to know your attitudes on (say) Justice pretty quickly, and start using them against you.

Excellent point. You definately want people to be able to Stake in any Drive... I have some really nebulous ideas about that... Give me some time to think about it and i will get back to you... :)

Thomas

{EDITED extensively because I hit "Submit" instead of "Preview" at a key point.}

I finally got to sit down and read the new rules (much of it with my baby on my lap) and I'm very pleased. They're so clear I even understand the difference between Wonder Cost and Wonder Level now. Some things I couldn't resist quibbling with or applauding follow:

TonyLB, in the rules, wrote: Each player will need room to accumulate a stock of dice for their hero. This represents their power on hand, and will hereafter be called their Dice Pool.

TonyLB, in the rules, wrote: Comic books tell two stories at the same time, using the same events. There is the Adventure, which is the rock'em sock'em way that your superheroes kick butt and astonish the world with their abilities. And there is the Moral, which is the soul-searching, heart-rending emotional roller-coaster ride that infuses the Adventure with significance.

TonyLB, in the rules, wrote: The invasion of earth by aliens might be a Strength 1 Fact for your hero, while the shy smile and wave the girl next door gave him as he went off to fight for Earth's freedom could be a Strength 4 Fact.

TonyLB, in the rules, wrote: If a Drive has an Exemplar, they must have opinions on at least one of the Facts in that Drive.... Often it is, in fact, something they said...

More quick thoughts, keeping in mind that it's beta.

The level/cost section is improved (again, I too finally grasp it fully), but still has the feel of that you start running into rules, and then the actual purpose is explained. I feel this happens a lot, both on small and large scales.

Speaking of cost/level, I think those terms should change: I understand why you picked them, but it doesn't help the player keep them in mind. Something like: every wonder point I spend gives me one Control, and then I calculate the Effect based on wonder points+modifiers.

You use Clarity and Strength in reference to facts to mean the same thing.

I couldn't find what order players take their turn in in this one: maybe a good rule now that everybody goes is that the person with the highest successes gets to decide whether the order is lowest-to-highest, or highest-to-lowest. Really, the initiative system that might be neat is the Streetfighter one: People go lowest to highest, but at any point, a higher person can interrupt and take their turn. That's probably work to figure out exactly how to adapt it, but it might have a nice feel.

Strength Throguh Adversity is troublesome: it requires you to first, remember what the wonder cost of the last attack against you was, and also has the tricky adjucation of figuring out what's an attack against you, rather than what's an attack against the side in general. When Silverstar saves the chopper, is Smogzilla available to use this?

There's also this issue with complications, now that everything goes into complications: what do you do when no complications are out? This is probably related to a separate issue of, what happens if you have a superhero vs supervillain toe-to-toe fight without much external stakes? Yes, I know that this is moving a bit away from the premise, but just going up and hitting the evildoer is a large part of superhero comics.

As far as non-combat and discovery of facts go: all the wonders effects work in non-combat situations, and they even work with mortals. A mortal is someone with attitudes, and tropes and facts, and that's all. You could very easily introduce the idea of Power Level (change this name!), and then be able to figure things off that. For example, you could say, that all heroes and villains are PL 5 to start (5/4/3, 5*2-1 = 9 points of debt/facts), and all mortals are PL 3 (3/2, 3*2-1 = 5 points of debt/facts).

Anyway, I got distracted there: I think that with all players going being a great step in the right direction to making sure players don't get left out, here's another: make discovering a fact about someone part of the normal play. You want situations where someone is doing the critical investigative work to figure out the flaw in the doomsday machine, at the same time that the other heroes are fighting the bad guy.

Complications seem a nice way to resolve this...the player describes everything that's going on in their subplot, and when the editor starts throwing Control at it, then various problems arise in the hero's way. Maybe the best way to do it is that you can declare a complication to be about discovering a fact of strength X. If it resolves out for the discoverer, then you get the fact; if it resolves out for the discoveree, then they get nothing/some small token (you want to encourage the discovery of facts, since in this method, the player who is taking time to discover facts isn't generating VP)

If you go in this direction, you'll need to probably have more valuable uses for facts. It's also slightly changing the feel of facts: there's a difference between a personally meaningful fact and one that is just about the doomsday machine.

Maybe the following rules tweak for this issue:
When you force someone to stake debt because you know a fact, and they lose, and their drive now runs over the limit, you have broken one of their drive. That player can choose to either:

Take a -1 Effect penalty for each extra token on the drive (ouch!)
or
Replace that drive with a drive one step closer to the person who won. None of the facts on the old drive may be used to force staking.

There's a bunch of other rules that would have to be built around this, but this makes finding facts very valuable, because you can force someone to either become ineffective or you get to convert them. Maybe a better way to visually organize the drives you had before is just have 5 simple lines:

Good - Neutral or Neutral - Evil

This useful? Great work again.

Oh, and one more thing. The game as written now and the actual play hints at basically, one long scene . Given how most comic books work, this isn't a terrible idea t o run with. Maybe, when the Editor section comes around (no rush, not important), the idea of making scenes with large victory point totals, but with goal points, makes sense.

For example:

Overall goal: 30VP
0-10VP: Villain robs several banks of all their unused $2 bills. Heroes investigate.

At 10VP, if the Villain is ahead, introduce complication: Villain terrorizes local shopkeepers with confusing $2 bill with 2 Control.

10-20VP: Villain tries to capitalize on fear of strange US currency by printing counterfeit new bills: $7, $34.

At 20VP, if the Villain is still ahead, introduce complication: Riots at local banks with customers demanding new $34 bill with 2 Control.
If Heroes are ahead, introduce new complication: Liberty Mint Public Service Announcement with 2 Control

20VP-30VP: Villain tries to destroy the Liberty Mint and make his money the only money around.

Edit: You'd need some way of refreshing heroes, either through effects, things written into the scenario, or general rules.

Post-putting-baby-to-bed thoughts.

TonyLB wrote: You win a Staked Conflict, that earns you the right to declare a Scene, later.... you require another player (possibly the Editor, possibly someone else) to narrate ... The number of Dice spent (with some additional stuff) dictates the minimum level of information that the player so called upon must reveal about their character...

TonyLB wrote: each N-stake won gives the player N "scene points", each of which can be used to buy one round in a scene. This can be used in a scene they create (i.e. "I'd like to buy round 1 of a scene investigating the ruins of Moscow") or to extend a scene they find interesting...

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: As far as non-combat and discovery of facts go: all the wonders effects work in non-combat situations, and they even work with mortals. A mortal is someone with attitudes, and tropes and facts, and that's all.

Sydney Freedberg wrote:

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: As far as non-combat and discovery of facts go: all the wonders effects work in non-combat situations, and they even work with mortals. A mortal is someone with attitudes, and tropes and facts, and that's all.

Yes! The thought's been rattling around in my brain every time LordSmerf / Thomas says "we need non-combat rules" that "these are conflict rules and with a little tweaking all Wonders could be non-violent." But Statistical Tom here hits a nail on the head I hadn't even seen: how to deal with non-supers.

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: Anyway, I got distracted there: I think that with all players going being a great step in the right direction to making sure players don't get left out, here's another: make discovering a fact about someone part of the normal play. You want situations where someone is doing the critical investigative work to figure out the flaw in the doomsday machine, at the same time that the other heroes are fighting the bad guy.

Complications seem a nice way to resolve this...the player describes everything that's going on in their subplot, and when the editor starts throwing Control at it, then various problems arise in the hero's way. Maybe the best way to do it is that you can declare a complication to be about discovering a fact of strength X. If it resolves out for the discoverer, then you get the fact; if it resolves out for the discoveree, then they get nothing/some small token (you want to encourage the discovery of facts, since in this method, the player who is taking time to discover facts isn't generating VP)

Side note that's been rattling around my head all day:

What happens if you start a scene off with a lowish Victory Target (say 5), and then raise the Target by some set number of points for every token that anyone Stakes on a Complication?

LordSmerf wrote: I am not so sure that it is that simple. Let us look at the example of Silver Star. She has a "Cold Ruthless Terminator" Attitude, in many social situations activating this Attitude would be fairly inappropriate...

TonyLB wrote: Now clearly, to handle something like that, you don't want Complications that would be resolved at the end of a scene. I'm going to posit (at least for the moment) a different class of things called Issues, which are like Complications, except that they don't automatically resolve at the end of a scene.

I'm not sure, really, when they should resolve though. Does the ordinary mechanic seem adequate? I guess it would keep the contests close in control, if they're important, precisely so that people could jump in to regain control if it were in danger of being resolved against them. Maybe I just need to have more faith in the system... or maybe there need to be more stringent rules for how to resolve Issues.

Multiple inset madness!

LordSmerf wrote:

Sydney Freedberg wrote:

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: As far as non-combat and discovery of facts go: all the wonders effects work in non-combat situations...

I am not so sure ... Silver Star....has a "Cold Ruthless Terminator" Attitude, in many social situations activating this Attitude would be fairly inappropriate...

TonyLB wrote:

LordSmerf wrote: I am not so sure that it is that simple. Let us look at the example of Silver Star. She has a "Cold Ruthless Terminator" Attitude, in many social situations activating this Attitude would be fairly inappropriate...

Is that different from (say) activating Pseudo-teenage Angst in the middle of combat?

A (perhaps) linked question: Should the use of Attitudes in social settings be governed by different rules, because of the larger role that emotion and behavior have in conversation (as opposed to in fisticuffs)?

TonyLB wrote:

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: Anyway, I got distracted there: I think that with all players going being a great step in the right direction to making sure players don't get left out, here's another: make discovering a fact about someone part of the normal play. You want situations where someone is doing the critical investigative work to figure out the flaw in the doomsday machine, at the same time that the other heroes are fighting the bad guy.

Yes! Full agreement here. The Fact system is too clunky and separate from the rest of the events. If I need to build another system to resolve it in scenes, I'll do that, but now that you mention it... how much nicer it would be to have it all working in a unified system.

Complications seem a nice way to resolve this...the player describes everything that's going on in their subplot, and when the editor starts throwing Control at it, then various problems arise in the hero's way. Maybe the best way to do it is that you can declare a complication to be about discovering a fact of strength X. If it resolves out for the discoverer, then you get the fact; if it resolves out for the discoveree, then they get nothing/some small token (you want to encourage the discovery of facts, since in this method, the player who is taking time to discover facts isn't generating VP)

Now that's a darn good thought. I'm not sure whether you're saying you discover a Fact of someone elses (like the villains cunning plan) or a Fact about yourself (What is the dark history of my mystic artifact, and why was it called the "Hand of Fear" in rennaisance Venice?) And I'm not sure it really matters.

I'm confused though: Why wouldn't somebody who is discovering facts be generating Victory Points? Under the (in no way sacrosanct) current-rules, any Complication that gets resolved generates Victory Points. And I sort of like the notion that the heroes can as easily complete their defeat of the villain by discovering something crucial about his past as they can by beating him over the head with a lead pipe. But it's late and I could easily be missing something.

Now for a concrete contribution, on top of (I think) what's been said already: I think that if you're actively trying to discover something about your opposition, the result of your failure shouldn't just be that you don't discover anything. Symmetry almost demands that they should discover something about you.

This has fun consequences against the villains, but it's much more fun when contesting with non-supers in straightforward conversation. For example, Peter and MJ's awkward conversations (in Spiderman... haven't seen SP2 yet, don't hand me spoilers!) are largely about each side trying to suss out the feelings of the other, while not risking revealing anything unambiguous about their own feelings first.

Now clearly, to handle something like that, you don't want Complications that would be resolved at the end of a scene. I'm going to posit (at least for the moment) a different class of things called Issues, which are like Complications, except that they don't automatically resolve at the end of a scene.

I'm not sure, really, when they should resolve though. Does the ordinary mechanic seem adequate? I guess it would keep the contests close in control, if they're important, precisely so that people could jump in to regain control if it were in danger of being resolved against them. Maybe I just need to have more faith in the system... or maybe there need to be more stringent rules for how to resolve Issues.

By the way, the other cool attribute is that this handles Issues wonderfully: instead of issues being like a complication, Issues are just collections of facts, and the player (or the cunning Villain) can spend VP to develop Spidey's relationship with MJ along.

LordSmerf wrote: The idea of Issues is great. Especially if you combine it with the idea of limiting the number of Turns a non-combat scene can have and then setting a Resolution Target for Issues. [...] For more important Issues you set higher Resolution Targets. Since you only get so many Turns this will prolong Issues longer...

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: (B)ut part of the idea from above was that there is an interesting tradeoff between winning the confrontation now and finding out Facts, which are more long-term payoffs. Even in the short-term, there is the possibly interesting tradeoff between resolving the situation at hand, and trying to find out Facts which will then possibly help you even more.

statisticaltomfoolery wrote: (B)ut part of the idea from above was that there is an interesting tradeoff between winning the confrontation now and finding out Facts, which are more long-term payoffs. Even in the short-term, there is the possibly interesting tradeoff between resolving the situation at hand, and trying to find out Facts which will then possibly help you even more.

statisticaltomfoolery wrote:
Just throwing out a few ideas:

1) Start a complication at an even greater edge (Now that you know that his machine is vulnerable to water, you can start the complication: "Rerouting water pipe to surface" at a bonus due to the fact)
....
4) Plot purposes: stopping the bank robbery but letting the robbers get away may leave you helpless to stop the next phase of the plan, while getting some facts may let you interrupt it.

Sydney Freedberg wrote:

statisticaltomfoolery wrote:
Just throwing out a few ideas:

1) Start a complication at an even greater edge (Now that you know that his machine is vulnerable to water, you can start the complication: "Rerouting water pipe to surface" at a bonus due to the fact)
....
4) Plot purposes: stopping the bank robbery but letting the robbers get away may leave you helpless to stop the next phase of the plan, while getting some facts may let you interrupt it.

These "tactical" uses seem very strong ones to me: Either you can use Facts gained (i.e. knowledge is power) to start appropriate Complications you wouldn't have realized were useful before; or you can start the next action scene at an advantage -- i.e. instead of only hearing about the next bank robbery after it's started and rushing to the scene, you're there waiting for 'em.

TonyLB wrote: ....there's an important place for that sort of tradeoff. So far, though, I've seen people doing it by way of losing one Complication in order to win another. For instance, they lose the "Clobbering" Complication, while winning the "Fallen Data Disc" Complication. Which is vitally different for narrative color and Facts, but neutral vis-a-vis victory points and the pacing of the game.

I'm not entirely sure the system needs Facts any more, if it has these new elements.

Facts were meant to address several purposes: Notably, to get all the characters to share more information about themselves and their backstories, and to provide some serious sting to losing Complications.

I think that the same purposes can be addressed, more seamlessly, through information complications and by allowing some carry-over of the effects of Complications from one scene to the next.

What should the benefit be if you learn the villains plans in Combat Scene 3? Combat Scene 4 should begin with you already having some control in a Complication (maybe "Clobbering", if you used the information to launch a surprise attack, or maybe "Force Field Net Around Building" if you used it to spring a trap... players choice, really). Likewise, if you failed to gather information then the villains start out with Complications in their favor.

Suppose, for instance, the following:

• Resolving a Complication gets you VPs equal to the Control your opposition had.• It also gives you a bonus to be used later, equal to Your Control minus Their Control.• This bonus may be used (once) by adding it to the Control of any new Complication

Does that pretty well address the tactical advantages that folks were envisioning building with Facts?

Krazy krossposting kids.

TonyLB wrote: I'm not entirely sure the system needs Facts any more, if it has these new elements. Facts were meant to address several purposes: Notably, to get all the characters to share more information about themselves and their backstories, and to provide some serious sting to losing Complications.

TonyLB wrote: I'm not entirely sure the system needs Facts any more, if it has these new elements.

Facts were meant to address several purposes: Notably, to get all the characters to share more information about themselves and their backstories, and to provide some serious sting to losing Complications.

I think that the same purposes can be addressed, more seamlessly, through information complications and by allowing some carry-over of the effects of Complications from one scene to the next.

What should the benefit be if you learn the villains plans in Combat Scene 3? Combat Scene 4 should begin with you already having some control in a Complication (maybe "Clobbering", if you used the information to launch a surprise attack, or maybe "Force Field Net Around Building" if you used it to spring a trap... players choice, really). Likewise, if you failed to gather information then the villains start out with Complications in their favor.

Suppose, for instance, the following:

• Resolving a Complication gets you VPs equal to the Control your opposition had.• It also gives you a bonus to be used later, equal to Your Control minus Their Control.• This bonus may be used (once) by adding it to the Control of any new Complication

Does that pretty well address the tactical advantages that folks were envisioning building with Facts?

Sydney Freedberg wrote: Krazy krossposting kids.
The system definitely needs some kind of "weak point" mechanic a la "disadvantages" in GURPS or "flaws" in Storyteller games: In Capes mechanical terms, I'd imagine these would things about you that your opponent can call on (if he knows about them) to get dice for his Pool.

(1)

Weaknesses/flaws/disadvantages/anti-stats

statisticaltomfoolery, with a bit of editing, wrote: how about the idea of anti-stats?

Superman has: Weak to Kryptonite -4

Marty McFly has the trope: "Can't Stand To Be Called a Chicken" -2

[Bad guys] can draw on that trope/attitude/power/whatever for dice to their dice pool....Or negative dice to the afflicted person's pool

I think that what Sydney just said (always bearing in mind the danger of crossposts and of misinterpretation) is that there should be some sequence of events in the mechanic by which Bonus Points off of a resolved Complication could end up (directly or indirectly) buying Control Points on an Issue.

I'm just thinking that things like "Your girlfriend dumps you", "The city is facing an unparalleled crime wave" and "The citizens demand that so-called 'Superhero' Arachnid-Boy be arrested" are the side-effects of Editorial Control in the "Relationship with Girlfriend", "Safety of City" and "Public Reputation" Issues respectively.

Now it's easy to see (in the current mechanic) how a villain could create a new issue with the bonus. Putting the bonus into new Complications (and then making them Issues by staking on them and not letting them resolve before the end of a scene) is what the bonus is for.

I am initially leery of letting the Bonus points get siphoned directly into ongoing Issues, however. I think that would be such an attractive option that it would be hard for people to do anything else. If there were an intermediate mechanism that involved some risk, that would be cool.

Maybe the way you do it is to create a scene that involves the Issue, then introduce a new Complication to that scene with the Bonus, and sacrifice that Complication to the other side while you rack up points in the Issue.

Which would, at least, explain why the personal lives of superheroes are so complicated.

I do have to say that I'm very much liking the sort of Alchemy that this "carry over complications" thing could lend itself to. I save the innocent hostage with plenty of Control to spare, so I use that bonus to boost my Public Reputation. When the villain counters with a smear campaign, I let PR slide while I go for Information. Finding the roots of his smear campaign I parley that bonus into another bonus to finding his base, and then into a bonus on Clobbering, when I ambush him just as his evil scheme is about to be enacted.

Argh, I can't stop myself.

TonyLB wrote: I think that what Sydney just said (always bearing in mind the danger of crossposts and of misinterpretation) is that there should be some sequence of events in the mechanic by which Bonus Points off of a resolved Complication could end up (directly or indirectly) buying Control Points on an Issue. I'm just thinking that things like "Your girlfriend dumps you", "The city is facing an unparalleled crime wave" and "The citizens demand that so-called 'Superhero' Arachnid-Boy be arrested" are the side-effects of Editorial Control in the "Relationship with Girlfriend", "Safety of City" and "Public Reputation" Issues respectively.

Huh... Adding Complications in flashback.

I just caught that. My brain is aching a little as I contemplate it, but I've got a smile on my face.

Just imagine the sequence:

• Present Day - 1: Hero goes into a bank robbery, batters some thugs. Villain gets away with a young girl as a hostage.• Ten years ago - 1: Hero is assuring a mother that he will return her son to her, safe and sound. But then he can't find any leads. The issue is unresolved. It lingers.• Present Day - 2: The hero has a -1 penalty (from his "Boy Hostage Ten Years Ago" complication!) as he tries to track down the villain.• Present Day - 3: Despite the penalty, he manages to rescue the girl. This gives him a carryover bonus.• Ten years ago - 2: Using the bonus from the present day, the hero starts with control on an information complication. He finds a stool pigeon and makes him sing. He translates that into a clobbering advantage on the hostage-takers and finally rescues the boy hostage.

The unresolved nature of the past story (at that point in the telling) is a hindrance to the hero in the present day, even though the past story would clearly have been resolved by the present day. And the hero is able to resolve the story in the past only because of their success in the present.

Causality in story-telling time, not in Imagined World time... and Sydney's telling us to stop being creative!

Crosspost frenzy!

TonyLB wrote: Adding Complications in flashback.I just caught that. My brain is aching a little as I contemplate it, but I've got a smile on my face.....Causality in story-telling time, not in Imagined World time... and Sydney's telling us to stop being creative!

Sydney Freedberg wrote: Now, obviously something like a burning building doesn't go on forever

What this system is very quickly going to need is a Wonder that folds two Complications into one.

TonyLB wrote: What this system is very quickly going to need is a Wonder that folds two Complications into one.

TonyLB, in various places, wrote: The Complication doesn't have to remain the same Complication. A 10-point advantage in Clobbering can turn into a 10 point advantage in "Impossibly Fiendish Death-trap" in the flicker of a scene change. The hero gets knocked out, and they wake up dangling over a pool of nuclear laser sharks.... What this system is very quickly going to need is a Wonder that folds two Complications into one.

Hrm... maybe statistictomfoolery is right, though, actually... maybe it's not needed.

I was thinking that the proliferation of complications was going to make things hard on record-keeping. But people should still be resolving them left and right. And if by chance you do have lots of little victories (i.e. a dozen 1 or 2 point carryover complications) those shouldn't translate into a single large advantage, they should stay a lot of little (and therefore vulnerable) complications.

My mistake. No folding needed.

Now on Sydney's recommendation... should changing the nature of the complication be handled by Wonder, or should that be part of Resolving the complication?

i.e. if you Resolve the "Clobbering - 25/15" complication (beating the hero into unconsciousness) then you farm 15 VPs and you have a remaining "??? - 10/0" Complication that you get to put a name onto, whether it be "Clobbering" or "Deathtrap" or "Public Humiliation".

I think that as long as you have either index cards or someone dedicated to tracking complications, it'll be fine.

Hmm. I think the farming out and keeping complications around is a bit inelegant, and also doesn't really handle that sometimes you learn things which don't take effect immediately.

I think you almost want to treat it like an item: I clobbered the bank robbers, and got the location of the secret hideout.

If you're using index cards, you just write "Location of the Secret Hideout +4" onto the card and then the winner takes it for later use. If you're just using pencil and paper, then the player can write "Location of the Secret Hideout +4" on their character sheet, and check it off when used.

That might have neat effects where you'd slowly buildup on your sheet a list of all the things you've done in the world.

By the way, this is long down the road, but a character sheet (which might have to be two pages), which lists the wonder effects (with a few words for explanation) would be snazzy. Then again, I'm always a fan of the "Character Sheet which has all the relevant rules on it" school of design.

First, Down with Facts! I approve of the call for their elimination.

Second, i strongly support a difference between Complications and Issues. Heroes are always stretched too thin, that is one of the things that makes them so compelling. You must decide: save those people or stop Captain Gruesome. If you stop the Captain then those people will be unsaved. Can you think of many (i am sure there must be at least a few, but there can not be too many) instances where the Hero beats the villain up before moving on to rescue the hostages? In most cases the Hero must devote his first energy to the hostages and only afterwards is he able to confront the villain directly. Example from Spider Man 1, there will be spoilers: The Green Goblin attacks during the parade/party thing... Spidey goes after him and they fight for a bit. Then a Complication arises: "MJ in danger." Spidey stops beating up on the Goblin in order to save her, he does not finish with the Goblin and then save her. The compelling thing is that he has to make that choice, he can not have his cake and eat it too.

If you do seperate Complications (which resolve at the end of a scene) from Issues (which resolve only when some resolves them) then winning a combat scene can give you a bonus that applies only to Issues. Mainly because i am hesitant to give players a chance to win a Scene and plow a 15 or 20 point bonus into the next scene and win that next scene with no chance of defeat gaining another bonus, etc...

Truthfully i am not really convinced that a bonus for winning a scene is necessay, or even that it is a good idea. I do not know if it is a bad one, i am just a little leary of it.

Oh, i was thinking about Advancement (the LetCol section mentions that "it is coming") and i came up with a pretty basic system. LetCol voting (and perhaps some other means) gives you Advancement Points, one for each vote. You can do the following with these points:

1. Spend 1 point to rearrange the order of you Powers or Attitudes or Tropes however you wish. This is used to reflect a shift in focus for your character.
2. Spend a number of points equal to your highest value Power or Attitude or Trope in order to add a new Power, Trope, or Attitude to you list. The new ability has a value of 1 and all of your old abilities of that type are increased by 1.
3. Spend advancement points towards control of an Issue at some exchange rate (i am thinking 1 for 1, or perhaps 1 Advancement for 2 Control).

That is a lot of stuff, but i want to again state that i think that eliminating Facts makes things a lot smoother.

EDIT: Quardruple crosspost take two!
EDIT: If you are dead set on carrying a bonus over from Complication to Complication i definately like the last suggestion by Statisticaltomfoolery. By simple writing down somewhere that you have "Know location of Villain's Hideout +3" you can apply that +3 (and i would say you must use all or none of it, not splitting it up) if knowledge of that hideout is useful... Perhaps even use it for Dice instead of for Control...

Thomas

Can't... stop... posting....

I know Thomas has actually playtested this game and I haven't, but I'm still going to take it upon myself to disagree with both his points.

[hubris]

LordSmerf wrote: i strongly support a difference between Complications and Issues.....Mainly because i am hesitant to give players a chance to win a Scene and plow a 15 or 20 point bonus into the next scene and win that next scene with no chance of defeat gaining another bonus, etc.

LordSmerf wrote: Oh, i was thinking about Advancement (the LetCol section mentions that "it is coming")...

I like the notion of people handing around 3x5" cards with a series of complications, all crossed out except for the most recent. If you've got a card that reads like this:

• Security System• Arrest Warrant• Public Opinion• Villains Plans• Clobbering

... that encapsulates a nice little thread of narrative there. So the more I think about it, the more I like the idea that you're transforming past Complications into future ones, somehow.

But I think Thomas and Statistical have nicely pegged down two extremes on how this could be treated by the players: They could sit around with their bonusses, using them to construct story by making transitions only when thematically useful and necessary. Or they can go for the optimal strategic solution, without regard for themes and coherence.

I'd like to make it so that the mechanics of the system bring those two extremes of intent into alignment. That way people do both at the same time.

Tonight I've got nothing. But hopefully I'll sleep on it and get a lot more ideas come morning.

And on Sydney's comments:

Stories don't need to have distinct scenes that begin and end. But it's really quite useful to an Editor and Players when they do.

The benefit of closing up shop on a scene, resolving a whole bunch of complications, and moving on to the next scene is that it gives people a sense of closure. "That was then, this is now".

In the absence of that sort of closure my experience is that players will drag their heels, slowing a game to a standstill because they fear the loss of control that comes with the passage of time. It's easier just to have objective constraints that keep everyone moving forward. Players work well within objective constraints, even ones that tell them that terrible things happen in the game world.

For example: The burning building was last scene. You didn't win it. The scene ended. It's over. Therefore you do not get to set a scene in the burning building. You can set one in the smoking ruins, or in the overfilled burn ward of the local hospital, or perched on a gargoyle high over the city where your hero went to privately confront their failure. But you can't turn back the hands of time, and (what's more important) you as player don't have to spend all your energy trying to.



Now, for what it's worth, I think that this sort of "Don't catch the snitch yet" philosophy mixes well with my earlier notion that a scene's Victory Target should grow slightly higher every time somebody Stakes Debt on a Complication.

TonyLB wrote:
Now, for what it's worth, I think that this sort of "Don't catch the snitch yet" philosophy mixes well with my earlier notion that a scene's Victory Target should grow slightly higher every time somebody Stakes Debt on a Complication.

(deleted, double post)

Statistical: Real good point on how extending the Victory Target can undermine precisely the type of closure I was talking about. I'm going to have to think about it... don't want to emulate the five-hour end-game of card games like Munchkin.

On taking bonuses later: I think that in a feedback system like this, players don't face a hard choice between "Do I take an immediate bonus, or one that will help me later in the game?"

At least as I've got it currently imagined, it's "Do I delay taking Bonus X in order to get Bonus Y instead, or do I just take Bonus X, use it, and thereby earn Bonus Y as well?"

I think my long term goal is something like "Of course I take Bonus X. Now what sort of scene and story should I create using Bonus X, in order to try to build events toward the point where I will get Bonus Y?"

Ah, well I agree: the goal should be to constantly facilitate the narrative. I just think the difference is that I'm wary of bonuses flipping over immediately is right: I think there's appeal to having a scene (or issue) wind down, and then using a few spare bonuses to figure out where to go next. I don't think a system which encourages players to hold for a long time is what you want either.

Plus, having the player disincentivized from taking Bonus Y, which is the cool arc they really want, and instead trying to figure out how to get there through Bonuses X, A, D, and F means that the burden is on them: while if they take Bonus Y, it's then communicated that they want something cool to happen with the Grey Hand, and lets all players pick up and work out the intermediate steps.

Okay, but... what do you imagine the intermediate steps should be?

Or, to put it more pointedly, if everyone knows that what the player wants is to have a cool scene with the Grey Hand, why not make that the next scene?

TonyLB wrote: Okay, but... what do you imagine the intermediate steps should be?

Or, to put it more pointedly, if everyone knows that what the player wants is to have a cool scene with the Grey Hand, why not make that the next scene?

On the mechanical question: Yeah, I see what you mean. The value of complications can decrease, but their number will proliferate until the table is covered in snowdrifts of 3x5" cards. Probably not a good thing.

So what else would they be spent on, save for new Complications?

Maybe you could burn them for downtime Scenes. Spend an N-point Inspiration to have a scene that runs for N turns. The hero also gets a payment of 2N extra dice for his pool... though I can't figure out whether to distribute that as 2 dice every turn, or as a lump sum payment at the beginning.

Perhaps if i lay out my thinking on all this it will become clear why i support the idea of all Complications ending with a Scene.

The source material is Comic Books, comic books are inherently episodic. That means that it is highly desireable that "ok, glad that is all taken care of" moments occur. At the same time Comic Books also (usually) have two other things: An overal Moral story (which is present all the time, regardless of what is going on) and an Arc Story ("Danger in the Shadows" "Part 1 of 3", that type of thing). The Moral Story is a type of Issue that is either never resolved, or if it is resolved is immediately brought back up in one form or another. The Arc Story is almost always completely resolved at the end of the Arc. Perhaps you have new characters or new villains or new what-have-you, but by and large all of that stuff is taken care of.

Now since i view each Session as a single issue of whatever comic monthly/weekly the story is about the Story Arcs can have a defined length at the beginning of the first Session of that Arc so we do not need a mechanic for them.

However i believe it is important to differntiate between quick actions (Spider Man beats up Doc Oc, saves the people from the burning building, but is not able to save the school bus with the bomb in it) and long term issues (Peter Parker loves MJ, but is having problems dealing with that and being a hero).

Two reasons for this:

1. That building will burn down soon, that gives the burning building a sense of urgency. If you are allowed to carry it over until after you achieve Victory in this fight (or whatever) then there is no reason to deal with it right now other than the -1 Wonder Level penalty... This seems like a horrible thing; you do not want players to ever feel that they can just deal with it later because if they do feel that way then the tough decisions are gone... Baically i want the villain to be able to set that building on fire as a distraction...

2. I have not problem with "do not catch the snitch yet" play. It basically forces you to think somewhat ahead, you can not allow the villain to get too far ahead in any Complication you care about saving, especially if you are Staked on it. If you do then you run the risk of not being able to Resolve that Complication in your favor. I think that forcing this kind of decision making in play really drives the Premise forward.

Scene Extension: Perhaps a (very) high level Wonder that does not contribute any dice to Victory... Basicly you can extend the scene, but there is a huge cost to doing it, and it is definately not something that you would be doing anyway.

TonyLB wrote: So what else would [Inspirations] be spent on, save for new Complications?

LordSmerf wrote: Perhaps if i lay out my thinking on all this it will become clear why i support the idea of all Complications ending with a Scene. The source material is Comic Books, comic books are inherently episodic. That means that it is highly desireable that "ok, glad that is all taken care of" moments occur. At the same time Comic Books also (usually) have two other things: An overal Moral story (which is present all the time, regardless of what is going on) and an Arc Story ("Danger in the Shadows" "Part 1 of 3", that type of thing). The Moral Story is a type of Issue that is either never resolved, or if it is resolved is immediately brought back up in one form or another. The Arc Story is almost always completely resolved at the end of the Arc.

Sydney Freedberg wrote:

LordSmerf wrote: Perhaps if i lay out my thinking on all this it will become clear why i support the idea of all Complications ending with a Scene. The source material is Comic Books, comic books are inherently episodic. That means that it is highly desireable that "ok, glad that is all taken care of" moments occur. At the same time Comic Books also (usually) have two other things: An overal Moral story (which is present all the time, regardless of what is going on) and an Arc Story ("Danger in the Shadows" "Part 1 of 3", that type of thing). The Moral Story is a type of Issue that is either never resolved, or if it is resolved is immediately brought back up in one form or another. The Arc Story is almost always completely resolved at the end of the Arc.

Darn it. He's right, I'm wrong. Complications and Issues do need to be different. (Though they can still operate on essentially the same mechanics, except for one's open-endedness).

In terms of how effectively players address challenges, I think that what Statistical recommends (which I'm going to dub "Serial Complications") is roughly equivalent to Complications and Issues. There are some quibbling differences, but I think they both get the same job done. A hero who addresses purely tactical issues will find themselves hamstrung in emotional/informational ones, and vice versa.

But two things haven't been mentioned yet, and since they're two things that incline me fairly seriously toward including Issues, I figure it's worth bringing them up.

First: Victory Points and Targets. Issues bind victory points to them in a way that Serial Complications do not.

In Serial Complications, each of the small sub-complications will be resolved, and its VPs will go into the appropriate heroic or villainous total. That's irrevocable. From there you start with a largely clean VP slate (yes, the bonus for how much you beat your opponent by, but not the matched amounts that people spent against each other contesting the complication).

An Issue, on the other hand, just holds the Control values as they rise and rise and rise. I've seen one of these hot-button Complications in one scene in my playtest game attract thirty points of total Control. Over the course of a game I would imagine that Control totals of 50 or more would not be unusual.

That's easily the difference between winning and losing a session.

That encourages a build-up that I really like: Sure, you missed your date with Katie-Sue (lost control of Issue at 10-9, but prevented it from resolving), but you managed to convince her to give you a second chance (regained control at 20-22, but couldn't resolve it yourself), and now everything is riding on making it to the multiplex in time!


Second: There is a contrary effect with Debt. Issues are the "interest free credit consolidation loan" of the system. They hold your Debt, but the Debt doesn't impede you in any way as long as the Issue isn't resolved against you. So there is a lot of incentive to start an Issue (to shuck Debt) but only a little incentive to resolve the Issue in your favor (in order to reduce the risk of losing big-time).

My intuition is that this factor will encourage players to stay as close as they can to a tie in their Issues, throughout the game. Maybe lag a little bit behind, systematically, spending only as much as they have to in order to be close enough to recover with a mighty effort if the Issue is in danger of being Resolved.


And I think that, together, the two factors I cited can become a solution to the problem of making the climax of the moral story and the climax of the adventure story happen together.

Issues will become magnets for both Debt and VPs. Their resolution will likely be delayed until they are the critical "win or lose" factor remaining in the game. Therefore the Victory of the game will frequently go to the side that successfully resolves whatever has emerged through play as the major thematic Issue of the game.

And I really like that.

LordSmerf wrote: Does that make sense? By using Staked Complications only we ensure that not all Complications provide a bonus.

TonyLB wrote:

LordSmerf wrote: Does that make sense? By using Staked Complications only we ensure that not all Complications provide a bonus.

Yes, but... well, that means that if you don't Stake on a Complication then there's no way it can hurt you. You can't gain more Debt, and your opponent can't gain a bonus.

Seems to me that makes it a little hard to represent a conflict between wanting to do the practical thing and wanting to follow your heart.

How about if an opponent can only get a bonus when there isn't an opposing Stake? That way the loser either gains Debt or has a bonus used against them later, but not both.

At first blush it seems to me that this would lead to more meaningful choices for the players: Say the building is burning, and I'm staked in that. Scarlet Skiier is also about to get away, but I don't really have any moral feelings about that.

If I save the building and lose the Skiier then my conscience will be clear, but he'll have an advantage over me next time we meet.

If I snag the skiier but innocents suffer then I'll have the tactical advantage, but I'll have trouble sleeping at night.

statisticaltomfoolery wrote:

Sydney Freedberg wrote:

LordSmerf wrote: ....The source material is Comic Books, comic books are inherently episodic....

Darn it. He's right, I'm wrong. Complications and Issues do need to be different.

I'm not sure of this it all...

Okay. First things first, a disclaimer: The way this thread moves, in the time it takes me to write this post, it'll probably wind up crossposting with about 20 other posts. Some of what I'm going to say may've been stated, accepted, rejected, and restated by the time I finish saying it. Or not. If I misinterpret anything, it's probably because the actions is fast and furious on this game, and I may have missed something.

Next, a question. I'm not sure what "Issues" are supposed to represent. Are they supposed to be complications, only for the Moral, or are they intended as continuations (whether direct or otherwise) of Adventure complications? It seems to me that there's room for both, but they would need to be handled separately.

For the rest of this post, I'll assume that "Issues" are intended to be a part of the Moral, and "Serial Complications" are intended to be part of the Adventure. I think they're two separate ideas that are being confused as one.

LordSmerf wrote: The source material is Comic Books, comic books are inherently episodic. That means that it is highly desireable that "ok, glad that is all taken care of" moments occur. At the same time Comic Books also (usually) have two other things: An overal Moral story (which is present all the time, regardless of what is going on) and an Arc Story ("Danger in the Shadows" "Part 1 of 3", that type of thing). The Moral Story is a type of Issue that is either never resolved, or if it is resolved is immediately brought back up in one form or another. The Arc Story is almost always completely resolved at the end of the Arc. Perhaps you have new characters or new villains or new what-have-you, but by and large all of that stuff is taken care of.

LordSmerf wrote: One note, i do not feel that Issues should provide VPs toward your total. Reason being you run the risk of having an Issue resolved and immediately reaching your Session Target.

TonyLB wrote: That encourages a build-up that I really like: Sure, you missed your date with Katie-Sue (lost control of Issue at 10-9, but prevented it from resolving), but you managed to convince her to give you a second chance (regained control at 20-22, but couldn't resolve it yourself)

Scarlet Scarab wrote: After a big fight with the henchmen of the local crimelord, Arken, SS finds herself in need to work off some debt. She requests a scene at program headquarters, trying to help Daniel get through a pile of grant paperwork. SS and Daniel flirt, and she impresses him with her understanding of the governments grant program. She makes her exit on a high note, a mysterious comment which leaves him wanting more. Scarlet Scarab's player takes control of the Relationship with Daniel Simmons Issue (21-19).

All is not Heavenly wine and roses for Scarlet Scarab, however. The Editor frames the next scene, right after her evening with Daniel, she runs into Richie on the street. She asks him what he's doing out this late at night, worried that he may have fallen in with one of Arken's gangs. Richie acts defensive, and points out that she's not really that concerned about him, She only uses him and the rest of the neighborhood to get closer to Daniel. Richie saw her leave the project headquarters, and suspects they were having a rendezvous. "You never really cared about us, so why don't you just bug off!" Richie walks away, and rejoins the gang of young toughs he's hanging with. SS feels the people she cares about fall further into Arken's grasp. The Improve State of Neighborhood Issue falls further into the Editor's sway (44-39).

Thomas's concern (if I read it correctly) is that a love story plot could be resolved and lead to the end of the game even while a supervillainous threat to the city was still outstanding!

"Oh, sure, there's still a Phlogiston Bomb set to detonate and destroy downtown, but they kissed and made up, so the story's over."

And I agree that's a problem. If you've got multiple neat conflicts running, you shouldn't have to sacrifice the others when you solve one.

What you want, instead, is "They kissed and made up, and therefore the hero has the strength to resolve the crisis of the Phlogiston Bomb". Or, conversely, "The hero saved the city from the Phlogiston Bomb, so he has the presence of mind to make peace with his girlfriend."

That way, one thing can clearly be the Defining Moment of the story, without having to throw everything else out the window.

I don't think this is served by exempting either class of conflict from the Victory Points. What's needed instead is a more gradual and satisfying end-game. Something beyond "The Victory Target is reached, therefore the story ends".

When one side or another reaches the Victory Target then the game should shift such that Issues and Complications are more likely to resolve. But the game should continue, albeit in an altered mode.

Heck, I can even sketch out one possible way that this could be done:

• Once a Victory Target has been reached, every Complication is considered to be Resolving. If it spends a whole round without switching Control from one side to another then it is resolved in favor of the side that currently owns it.• Any team that has reached the victory target may immediately cash in any Inspirations (including the ones they just won that round) for dice, according to the carryover rules, but without waiting for another scene.• The game is over when the last Complication resolves.

The one thing this system doesn't encourage (but which I'd like) is a good way to carry over Issues from one session to the next. Not exactly sure how to address that, honestly.

Marhault wrote: Next, a question. I'm not sure what "Issues" are supposed to represent. Are they supposed to be complications, only for the Moral, or are they intended as continuations (whether direct or otherwise) of Adventure complications? It seems to me that there's room for both, but they would need to be handled separately.

If you want to carry Issues over from session to session that is easy: Issues do not resolve until someone resolves them. That means that if you do not resolve an Issue this session then that Issue is unresolved.

One way to put a limit on Issues (or at least force them to end every so often, even if they are immediately recreated) would be to generate a Victory Target for Issues (seperate from Session or Scene targets) such that they automatically begin resolving once one side or the other hits that target...

TonyLB wrote: Somewhere back in the history of this thread I recommended that at the end of a Scene all of the Complications that don't have Stakes on them should resolve, but all of the ones that do have Stakes on them (and which have not been Resolved explicitly) should stick around in some form as Issues.

I see what you mean about not wanting the story to go static just because something's an Issue, rather than a Complication. The burning building should not be forced to burn perpetually, like the olympic torch, just because someone cares about it.

Now... that having been said, I love the idea that Issues evolve from Complications. In both of the playtests I've run, the greatest strength of the system has been the way that the Complication mechanic highlights what players are actually interested in, even when they don't know it themselves until the numbers make it obvious. Expanding that to Issues is a very exciting prospect to me.

My first instinct is to polish a Complication->Issue system so that it addresses your concerns, rather than discard it in favor of something else.

So, using the Burning Building as a test case. If this Complication is made into an Issue then it clearly cannot be "Burning Building" for its entire life-cycle. Having "Burning Building" hanging about forever is silly.

I could see it being renamed into "Public Perception of Heroes", though or "Will Megalopolis ever be safe?", or something like that. Then the Burning Building proves to be just the first element in the ongoing Issue. And what it changes into (as well as the fundamental question of "Do all the innocents die horribly?") should be determined by whoever controls the Issue at the end of the Scene.

So in the situation you originally worried about: Two complications: Building Fire and Clobbering. The hero stakes on Building Fire and wins Clobbering, ending the scene. The villain controls Building Fire (which becomes an Issue), so the Editor gets to decide how that situation evolves.

"Dozens are hospitalized," he says "and little Timmy Jones, an innocent six year old boy, is in intensive care with a bleak prognosis... the Issue is now 'Will Megalopolis ever be safe?', and the overall sense right now is 'No, it will not!' A pall of misery and fear stretches over the city, sapping it of hope. Until you regain control on this Issue you will suffer a penalty in any scene where the safety of the city or its people is at stake."

This solution appeals.

TonyLB wrote: Until you regain control on this Issue you will suffer a penalty in any scene where the safety of the city or its people is at stake."

Hmm... I am not sure about this either.

I like it in that it makes Issues an outgrowth of the Complications that arise during play.

I do not like it because it will tend to make Issues more common because any time you Stake but lose a Complication it becomes an Issue. Without playtesting my guess is that that will end up being about 30% of all Complications (perhaps as few as 15%) which means that you will end up with a lot of Issues floating around which in turn will reduce the importance of any single Issue.

Oh, something i did not mention before: The current way of increasing Drives may be a little over powered. Since any single Complication can result in an increase in any Drive you will probably tend to have wildly rising Drives. My guess is that you will get an increase in at least two Drives every Scene. Now it may be that this is exactly what you are aiming at, but my impression is that it will only take about 4 or 5 Sessions for you to achieve 10 or so in multiple Drives, and that seems to be a bad thing to me. I would like to see a set number of Issues based on Drive (as i suggested above) and incrementing your Drive once you resolve all Issues tied to that Drive. Once you increment your Drive define new Issues. You are free to assign Issues that you just dealt with again at the same level or a different one.

The advantage i see in the above system is that you are indicating to everyone involved what you want to deal with from character creation. It is clear what Issues you think your character finds important. If you want to be able to change things on the fly i would suggest allowing you to exchange an Issue with a new Issue as long as you have nothing Staked on it. Once you Stake you must Resolve it...

Hopefully tonight i can get a session in. If i do i will try things this way and see how it goes. Maybe you can tell, but i really really want to play Capes again. I had a ton of fun the first time, and i feel that it has improved remarkably since then.

I agree with Sydney and Tony (i think with Tony) that Issues are treated as Complications in every way with the exception that they do not end at the end of a Scene. This means that you will be Hindered or Assisted by them and that there are limits on the Debt you can Stake on them.

I guess i see advantages and disadvantages to Complications -> Issues. I personally feel that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages...

Oh, and is my point about prematurely ending a Session due to VP accumulated from Issue Resolution make sense? Do you see what my problem is? If you still want to give VPs for Issue Resolution do you see a solution to my problem?

Thomas

Inspired Ideas... I have no idea if any of these will work, but i do believe that they will work better than what i previously posted:

1. Drives increase when you Resolve your highest rated Issue that is tied to that Drive. That still slows progress as you increase your Drives while still allowing you to focus on what you think is really important. You can basically deal with your mid/low-level Issues or not...

2. Replace Exemplars with Issues completely. Perhaps an Issue focuses on an Exemplar, perhaps not. Depends on your character.

3. Allow the use of Inspiration bonuses for increasing control of an Issue. I see this as being really cool, especially if you can somehow make this one of the primary sources of Issue control. I still think you want a non-combat type of scene which also allows you to increase control of Issues...

Thomas

LordSmerf wrote: ....my guess is that that will end up being about 30% of all Complications (perhaps as few as 15%) which means that you will end up with a lot of Issues floating around which in turn will reduce the importance of any single Issue....

LordSmerf wrote: I do not like it because it will tend to make Issues more common because any time you Stake but lose a Complication it becomes an Issue.

Oh, something i did not mention before: The current way of increasing Drives may be a little over powered.

The advantage i see in the above system is that you are indicating to everyone involved what you want to deal with from character creation.

Oh, and is my point about prematurely ending a Session due to VP accumulated from Issue Resolution make sense? Do you see what my problem is? If you still want to give VPs for Issue Resolution do you see a solution to my problem?

Sydney Freedberg wrote: Related thought: It would probably be best if a single large overarching Issue could be started by one unresolved Complication and then absorb every subsequent unresolved Complication of similar type. E.g. failing to rescue the folks in the burning building starts "Do the citizens feel protected by their superheroes?" Issue. A few scenes later, the heroes don't quite get to some hostages in time and one is shot; that defeat, rather than starting a new Issue, reinforces their problems in the existing Issue. Presumably relevant successes -- stopping your chase of the supervillain to rescue bystanders he's endangered, for example -- would help with the same overarching Issue.

The trick with this mechanic is finding a way to figure out what Complications feed into what Issues besides "the Editor thinks this makes sense."

TonyLB wrote: I don't think people know what they want to deal with at character creation, or even at the beginning of the session. It's much better, IMHO, to give them a tool that lets them discover and enshrine what they want as they go along.

TonyLB wrote:

Oh, and is my point about prematurely ending a Session due to VP accumulated from Issue Resolution make sense? Do you see what my problem is? If you still want to give VPs for Issue Resolution do you see a solution to my problem?

I'm not sure I understand. You posted two examples of things that could go "wrong".

• A player could put lots of VPs in an Issue during a single session, then use those VPs to close the story... to which I posted some initial thoughts on a solution• Presupposing that VPs translate from one session to another (which isn't necessarily the case) a hero with a sufficient imbalance of Issue VPs could close out a story in the first chapter

Which of those are you referring to?

Yes, it makes sense. I see how it could happen, and that it would be dysfunctional in terms of pacing.

But as I've mentioned, I like what having Victory Points for Issues does within a given Session. It helps to tie the resolution of Issues to the resolution of the adventure plot.

As I consider multi-story Issues, I must say that I wonder whether they really are unresolved at the end of each individual episode of a comic book. There's generally some resolution of the tensions that were built up in the course of that episode.

To switch to a related, but more blatant example: Dave and Maddie in the Moonlight Television series. Most every episode had some crisis that threatened to sour their relationship. Each of those individual crises were resolved, successfully or otherwise, by the end of the episode. The overall arc of their relationship was built from that history of tension and resolution.

I'm thinking of appropriating Statistical's earlier concept of letting things resolve, and counting on the sequence of bonusses from one story to the next to maintain a thread of continuity in the overarching story question being addressed in a series of Issues.

So something like "Marta and Jeff's relationship" would be too big to be a single Issue. That would be addressed in a sequence of Issues, perhaps like this:

• Is Marta dating Ken or Jeff? (Succeed)• Can Jeff be a good boyfriend while also saving the world as Mr. Magnificent? (Fail)• Is Jeff willing to pay the cost of keeping his secret identity secret? (Succeed)• Can Jeff win Marta back? (Succeed)• Will Marta ever be safe if she's associated with Jeff? (Fail)• Can Jeff resist the temptation to get back together with Marta, even knowing it puts her in danger? (Fail)• Will Marta survive Doctor Dementor's latest plot? (Succeed)...

And so on, and so on. Each of these individual Issues would be dealt with in the Story where they arose. And they'd transfer some kind of Inspiration into the next story, to make it more or less difficult for the hero to face the next Issue in the chain.

This would completely remove any fear of the dysfunctional pacing that you'd talked about. Of course it would do that by removing multi-session Issues, so that might be a steep price.

Now I was a supporter of multi-session Issues, until I tried to write up an iron-clad example showing how they were utterly necessary. And I tried for three hours straight last night without coming up with anything that couldn't be simulated by Serial Issues (as above). But there's still a part of me that thinks I've just missed something obvious.

Does anyone have specific things they'd like to use multi-session Issues for that this wouldn't address?

What do Issues do for us? I will generate a list:


1. Allow us to make a Complication that carries over from Scene to Scene or even Session to Session. This allows us to highlight th importance of that Issue to the Characters and Players.
2. If Issues are self assigned they provide a great point of control for the direction of the story, especially the Moral things.
3. Issues provide long term Debt sinks. Whether this is good or bad i do not know.
4. If Issues are self assigned then they take the focus of the Moral story away from the Editor. If players are assigning Issues, and Issues are the primary source for Moral story this means that the Editor must play within the bounds defined by the players. Again, i do not know if this is a good thing or not.
5. Issues provide us with a system that allows us to do away with Inspirations. Whether we want to get rid of Inspirations or not is another matter.
6. Issues provide clear support for multi-session Arcs.
7. Issues may (depending on implementation) require players to have some idea of the direction they want the story to take before they begin play.



One thing to note is that while comics are episodic (as American Television tends to be) they are tied into limited Arcs. If it helps consider comics to have plots that are constructed as a series of "To be continued..." television episodes. The Issues will tend to be resolved at the end of the Arc not at the end of the specific episode.

Now, what do "Serial Complications" do for us?


1. A unified mechanic. If Issue do not exist then there is no need to explain or remember the differences (however slight) between Issues and Complications.
2. Focus on Inspirations for Moral story. Whether this is good or bad...
3. Issues will arise directly from Complications. This will mean that the Editor has equal (if not greater) control of the Moral story in addition to near total control of the Adventure story.
4. Does not require design of Issues during character generation which allows you to get to playing faster.



I prefer Issues for the following two reasons:

First, i feel that RPGs in general and Narrativist games in particular play more smoothly with some direction derived during Chargen. I really feel that having players define some (at least) of their Issues up front will allow play to be better (or something).

Second, i like the implied dichotemy of the Editor being the primary influence on Adventure play and the Players being the primary influence on Moral play.

Thomas

Okay... I described what I was thinking poorly. What I was recommending was not Serial Complications as such, it was this:

• Any Complication with Stakes which is unresolved at the end of a Scene becomes an Issue.• Any Complication without Stakes resolves at the end of its Scene.• All Issues and Complications resolve at the end of the Session.• Any Complication or Issue that resolves grants Victory Points equal to the Control level of the loser.• Any Complication which Resolves grants an Advantage, to be used in future Scenes, equal to the winners Control minus the loser's Control.• Any Issue which Resolves gives an Inspiration, to be used in future sessions, equal to the Stakes of the Issue.• Using an N-point Advantage gives the player an extra two-dice income for N turns of a Scene. This may also be used to define the nature of the scene (between pre-scripted scenes).• Using an N-point Inspiration allows a hero to Stake N tokens of Debt on a Complication.

So this is two-method Complications, but serial-only Issues. Complications can carry over from one Scene to the next either directly in the form of Issues or indirectly by way of Advantages. But Issues can only carry over from Session to Session in the form of Inspirations.

It looks to me like this addresses items #1-4 on Thomas's list of what Issues contribute. #5 is bypassed (because Inspirations have an important place in the system) and #7 is... well, we've got an honest disagreement on what we're aiming for there.

I'm interested in #6, because I don't quite understand it, which may well mean that it's an important point I've overlooked:

6. Issues provide clear support for multi-session Arcs.

TonyLB wrote: Can I get some clarification here? How do Issues particularly support multi-session Arcs?

Thomas, I get what you're saying about putting an internal Victory Target on Issues. But that assumes, pretty much absolutely, that these Issues are going to be chosen by the players because they have A Plan for the Issue. You're saying that they know how important it is going to be, before they play it through. In short, they figure out what they want their important Issues to be, and then they play it in the game.

Which is a stylistic difference we've already discussed. I'm aiming for a game where people explore many Complications and the system makes Issues out of the ones that actually hold their interest in the game, as opposed to just having people choose the ones that look good on paper without having tried them.

Anyway, on to your questions:

#1: Inspirations count on the fact that Drives rise during a Session, and are then reset to their original levels at the beginning of the next session. So a person might have had a Stake of 8 in Love at the end of last Session, even though they only have a permanent Drive score of 4. An Inspiration would let them make one Complication at this Stake of 8... the rest would still have to be at 4 or less.

Does it upset the Debt and Drive system? I don't know yet. It might. I haven't thought about it deeply. But it certainly doesn't strike me as being exactly the same thing as Drives. I could certainly be persuaded to do it another way... I just want something that will give some sense of continuity to Issues, while avoiding the problems of actually carrying them over from one session to the next.


#2: The main reason for 2 dice for N turns was because I was enamored of the notion (earlier) that the size of the Advantage should have some bearing on how long the Scene should be. But I have this bad habit of trying to time scenes in Number of Turns. I should be timing them by Victory Point Target... I keep forgetting. So you're right, there's no real reason not to do it as lump sum, and it's much easier on the accounting.

When my head is screwed on a bit more firmly, I'll make an attempt at writing up a discussion of how all the players (Editor included) get together to frame a new scene... and how they derive a Victory Target (and therefore the length of the scene) from the following factors:

• What heroes and villains are involved• What Issues are involved (both able to be modified and applying Assist/Hindrance)• What Advantages are being applied


#3: We've had quite a few discussions about how to balance Closure of Scenes with the need to have actions and choices matter right up to the last round of the scene (or the last scene of a session). Advantages and Issues (IMHO) handle that problem: They give consequences that are more than merely story color to choices like letting a bad guy get away to save the bystanders, or choosing to fight rather than search for information.


On "Who decides what the Burning Building turns into?", let me refer you back to this post, since I still think it's my most cogent statement on the subject.

TonyLB wrote: Thomas, I get what you're saying about putting an internal Victory Target on Issues. But that assumes, pretty much absolutely, that these Issues are going to be chosen by the players because they have A Plan for the Issue. You're saying that they know how important it is going to be, before they play it through. In short, they figure out what they want their important Issues to be, and then they play it in the game.

Which is a stylistic difference we've already discussed. I'm aiming for a game where people explore many Complications and the system makes Issues out of the ones that actually hold their interest in the game, as opposed to just having people choose the ones that look good on paper without having tried them.

TonyLB wrote: There is no explicit connection between Issues and Moral, or Complications and Adventure. "Need a birthday present for Peggy Jean" could play out in a single scene and be just a Complication. "Clobbering" could easily turn into an Issue, as two titans of testosterone go through a series of battles that are connected only by their desire to prove which of them is, in the end, the strongest.

Marhault: Double-checking that I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that the more endebted a hero is, the more power they should have to deal with their personal conflicts? If so, that's an interesting concept, but I'm not quite wrapping my head around it.

The things is that I don't see what benefits the game gets from having the fight between the two "titans of testosterone" (nice Stan Lee-ism, by the way) be an Issue, that is, aside from lots of bookkeeping.

Okay, two thoughts that I wanted to contribute to the mix, both concerning the general question "Why do you want to resolve Conflicts/Issues?"

First: What happens if, as Thomas has been recommending, Issues do not feed back into the Victory Target, and they don't carry over Inspirations, but resolved Issues are the Reward Mechanic for the game?

Specifically:

• Issues are never auto-resolved. They can float around for a thousand sessions if you want.• Control points in Issues never effect the Victory Targets for a game.• If a hero successfully Resolves an Issue then they get Development Points equal to the lesser of:

• How much they staked• The Control value of the losing side, divided by ten

EDIT: Better idea, part 1: They get a Development equal to that number of points.• To increase a Drive from N to N+1 costs 2xN Development Points.
EDIT: Better idea, part 2: To increase a Drive from N to N+1 requires N+1 Developments, counting up from 1 to N+1. So to raise a Drive from 3 to 4 requires Developments of points 1, 2, 3 and 4.• Development Points might do some other stuff (though still on the Moral side of the fence).


Second: In terms of why you would resolve boring Complications, rather than just leave them lying around. What if there are a fixed number of Complications in a Scene (until the Victory Target is met)? The person who Resolves one Complication gets to define the Complication that replaces it, and that's the only way to create new Complications?

EDIT: Had a realization about the way Resolution could work, absent a Wonder to do it.

You may declare a Complication that you do not Control to be Resolved at any time. It resolves instantly for the other side. In exchange for this surrender you get to define what Complication replaces it.

You may move a Complication that you do control to be Resolving. If, at any successive Monologue Phase, that Complication is controlled by the same side that controlled it last turn then it Resolves. Note particularly the following scenario:

• A hero controls "Clobbering" in Round 7• She declares it to be Resolving• During the Wonder Phase a villain gains Control• Villain controls "Clobbering" in Round 8.• During the Wonder Phase the hero tries to get control back, and fails.• Villain controls "Clobbering" in Round 9. Therefore (since it's Resolving) it resolves.

TonyLB wrote: Which is a stylistic difference we've already discussed. I'm aiming for a game where people explore many Complications and the system makes Issues out of the ones that actually hold their interest in the game, as opposed to just having people choose the ones that look good on paper without having tried them.

{low-substance post}

Wow. My head hurts a little now. I go on deadline for a few days and the thread just continues to... err... what do threads do? "Unspool"? Not very dramatic imagery but you get the idea.

Maybe it's just me, but I wonder if we're tangling ourselves up in, well, complications about Complications (and Issues) here. Didn't Einstein say "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler"?

Lacking further substantive comment, I will now retreat, but I'd suggest to Tony it might be time to write up new rules incorporating or rejecting all these myriad suggestions so we have a new foundation (and possibly a new thread) to work from.

Sydney, that's a really terrific idea which, unfortunately, I may not prove able to do. I'm heading off on vacation for more than a week in... oh, twenty minutes.

Though I will have internet access and will also have the computer that has all my files, I will not have internet access from the computer that has all my files.

I tried to get a rewrite up in time to discuss it, but travel plans have swamped me. I'll try to figure out some jury-rigged fix at the far end, probably involving substantial ludicrous fiddling, because you're quite right that a revised set of rules would be very helpful.

TonyLB wrote: Sydney, that's a really terrific idea which, unfortunately, I may not prove able to do. I'm heading off on vacation for more than a week in... oh, twenty minutes...

This struck me as an interesting compromise type of thingy...

I think Issues should be declared up front, Tony wants them to be an outgrowth of play. Why not do both? Here is the idea as concisely as i can put it:

When you create a new hero you have to develop an Issue for each of his Drives which starts with no Stakes and no Control. You may only have one Issue tied to each Drive. At the end of each Scene a player may Resolve any of his Issues regardless of who controls them. Whenever you Resolve an Issue you must replace it.

Basically you start the game with 5 Issues, whenever you find something you think is more important to your character you Resolve an Issue, sometimes at a loss, in order to make space for the new thing. On the down side we do not get the interesting Complications -> Issues thing, and that may be a deal breaker.

Well, i think it has merit. Of course i am not totally sure that it is a good idea either... Besides, this is not my game :)

Thomas

LordSmerf wrote: I think Issues should be declared up front, Tony wants them to be an outgrowth of play. Why not do both?

Hrm... this has the benefit that it makes a clear connection between Complications that you Stake Love on (for instance) and your Love Issue. I'm not sure what, mechanically, to do with that connection, but I'll think about it.

I do like the idea that you have (at most) one Issue per Drive. That seems a useful constraint to place on a player... the type that will foster creativity.

TonyLB wrote: Hrm... this has the benefit that it makes a clear connection between Complications that you Stake Love on (for instance) and your Love Issue. I'm not sure what, mechanically, to do with that connection, but I'll think about it.

TonyLB wrote: I do like the idea that you have (at most) one Issue per Drive. That seems a useful constraint to place on a player... the type that will foster creativity.

One Issue per drive has a certain elegance to it and will force players to focus in a useful way, I agree.

But let me put a good word in for Exemplars, especially considering how important they were to Tony's first playtest run. Perhaps every Issue (regardless of whether you tie them to Drives or not) needs an Exemplar to give it a "human face" -- even if the heroes never meet them and the players only see them in "cut scenes" away from the main storyline? E.g. the harassed waitress mom who works in a dangerous neighborhood downtown for "is the city safe?" (Hope) or the impoverished family of five who live in a shabby tenement at the mercy of a cruel landlord for "who will protect the weak?" (Justice).

While i think that Exemplars are great and that people should be encouraged to tie them into at least some of their Issues, i feel that requiring an Exemplar for every Issue has the potential of taking some of the "umph" from some Issues. Some seem that they would be better as completely internal struggles... Maybe not though...

Thomas