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 existing when I wrote them had gotten to be extraneous, and have been clipped.

Now the system represents the balance of a conflict (combat or otherwise) with a set of Complications. Opposing sides roll dice, and get to add points to their own particular tally on a Complication. Whoever has the most points at the moment controls that Complication, for now.

There's some fun complexity about when a Complication Resolves, but that's not what I'm going to talk about here today. Instead, say you have a Bystander Complication which has 10 points Villain Control and 7 points Hero Control. The villains have control, so they define the Situation. They say an orphanage is burning down.

It's fairly clear what happens if a Hero spends four points in this Complication. He gains control of the Complication and can define a new situation regarding it. For instance, he can break a hole in the side of the building and start shepherding orphans out to safety.

Now what should happen if a hero spends just two points? They have not gained control of the Complication (Villains: 10, Heroes: 9). They do not get to define a new situation. But neither (IMHO) should their efforts just be ignored. What sort of suggestions and constraints should I give the players for how to narrate something that brings them closer to control, but does not actually accomplish control?



p.s. For those following particular rules questions from previous threads... I sidestepped the difficulties in defining what Issues are, with regard to Complications, by the simple expedient of making Issues a player goal, rather than a static object of the mechanics: They exist inasmuch as the players are thinking "I only need another two-point Stake in Duty to fill out the set that will make an Issue in that Drive".

TonyLB wrote:
Now what should happen if a hero spends just two points? They have not gained control of the Complication (Villains: 10, Heroes: 9). They do not get to define a new situation. But neither (IMHO) should their efforts just be ignored. What sort of suggestions and constraints should I give the players for how to narrate something that brings them closer to control, but does not actually accomplish control?

The Smoggy/Electrical-Cable example is a nice one. I agree that the person applying the Wonder could be given narration rights to change the Situation that was established by their enemy, so long as somebody also gets Narration Rights to impose a new Situation that applies a similar penalty.

But I'm not sure I agree that those narration rights naturally belong with the person who creates the Wonder. Yes, they are the ones who made the Wonder, but they are not the ones that control the Complication.

In terms of game mechanics it doesn't make any difference. But the color that attaches to the game mechanics is pretty vital.

For instance, suppose that Smoggy breaks out of the Electrical Cables, but doesn't quite control the Complication. Now the Editor changes the Situation by saying "The flying electrical cables tear apart two nearby buildings... the falling bodies of innocent bystanders are obscuring Smogzillas vision, which accounts for the continued penalty."

This has pretty clearly violated an unspoken understanding about what restraints should be placed on the narration. I just want to figure out a way to make that understanding not be "unspoken" anymore.

Hmm. So, thinking about this more carefully, there are three levels here:

<veil-of-smoke target="Ron Edwards">
1) Stakes: there are orphans trapped in a dangerous building
2) Consequences: Currently, they are likely to all be burnt to death.
3) Trappings: But Silverstar is working on routing a water pipe to put the fire out.
</veil-of-smoke>

It seems that #3 should be changable by any expenditure onto the complication, #2 can only be altered by the person in control, and #1 can't be altered much without changing or removing the complication.

Obviously, there are some grey areas between the different levels, but this seems like a pretty good split.

I have been reading the newest version of the rules... Prepare yourself:

1. Everything looks good until Complications. You state:

Capes Rules wrote: A given Scene will never have more Complications than it starts with: the only way to add a new Complication is by Resolving an old one.

Capes Rules wrote: Note particularly that the rules don't distinguish between, for instance, punching a minion and talking to him about the immorality of his actions. The end result of one may be an unconscious minion, the end result of the other a reformed man, but mechanically both of them remove the minion as an obstacle. They're handled in exactly the same way, so you can feel free to do what makes sense to you at the time.

Mmmm... delicious double posting goodness...

LordSmerf wrote: 3. I thought the old dice system was very cool. Without having played the new one i can not really say whether i like it any less though...

The Level 3 Wonder: Strength Through Adversity is mechanically dangerous. Using it does not correct the Net Wonder Penalty, thus it could be used each and every round (perhaps even more than once) so that you simply win because you have so many dice.

I still think that the game benefits from some sort of rule (or strong guideline) that every Wonder Point you spend you have to define your actions in an equal number of "frames" or "panels". This really plays to the style of comics...

Do you think that this system will focus on your Premise? Do you feel that the rules provide adequate and powerful incentive to play for the Moral story? Do you feel that the rules as-is promote non-combat play?

Statistical: I like your categories for explaining the different Scopes of Outcome. I think that they do a good job of addressing the question of how to draw boundaries between giving Narrative Freedom and maintaining the Authority of the person Controlling the Complication.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that there are fun possibilities hiding in the question "Who Narrates the outcome of a Wonder?" If it's possible to give people a framework (like the one you describe) that lets everyone agree on how to narrate both success and failure, for themselves and for other characters, then you can use the assignment of narration rights as a tool, rather than a straitjacket. At its easiest, maybe the person who does the Wonder gets to narrate their own actions, and then choose who narrates the outcome:

• If a hero gains Control of an "Information" Complication, he might reasonably ask the Editor to narrate the results of his success, assuming that the Editor is the one who has secrets to divulge about the planned story.• Alternately, if the player has a strong idea about where the story should go ("He should be plotting to release pirhanas into public swimming pools!") then they could narrate that result when they gain Control on "Information", making it into a Perception-dictates-reality result in the style of Donjon.• The Editor might well describe a mighty blow that throws the hero across the room, then ask the heroes player to narrate what happens when they reach the far side... it's then up to the hero to describe whether they fall to the ground spitting up blood, or nimbly bounce off the wall and regain their footing.

But there are, I must confess, more intriguing possibilities. Thomas has advocated before for dividing each Wonder's description into multiple frames (equal in number to the cost of the Wonder). This would be an even more useful tool if narration rights were assigned on a per-frame basis.

So a hero doing a five-frame Reversal could narrate a frame of the hero flying under the surface of a filthy river, then ask the Editor to narrate a frame of the depradations of the evil muck-monster and a frame of its terrified victims, then the hero-player could use a frame to show the hero bursting back out of the water in time to counter the muck-monsters power, and describe a frame of the muck-monster recoiling in pain and fury. Five frames, three by the hero, two by the Editor, but clearly along the arc of progression laid out by the Wonder-creating player.

This also strikes me as very empowering for non-combat applications. "Okay, my romantic speech is a four-frame Wonder ('Sequence'?). Here's my first two frames... yadda, yadda, yadda... Editor, could I have a reaction-frame from the love interest before my final frame?"

EDIT: "Final Frame" strikes me as very important. Perhaps, whoever creates the Wonder, the side that controls the Complication it's applied against gets to control who narrates the Final Frame?

Ok, let us examine Strenght through Adverstity...

With a -1 Wonder Penalty you need to spend 4 dice. Statistically these will be evenly split between 3/4s and 5/6s so 2 of those dice will be lost and 2 will go back to your dice pool. So the "profit" (which i define in the increase in the Dice Pool after the action is taken) is actually 1 die. With a -2 Wonder Level penalty you need 5 successes, we can assume that the extra success is a 3/4. So you spend 5 successes and two of them (the 5/6s) go back to your pool, in addition you gain 6 extra dice. So you rolled 5 and got 8 for 3 profit. Now, this ignores the 1 in 3 chance of a die simply being lost.

My problem is that even with a -1 Penalty using this Wonder round after round allows you to build up 4 points of control somewhere at almost no cost to your dice pool. One of the most interesting tactical situations is that as you play you lose dice. Your pool dwindles as you use it. This Wonder allows you to use pure mechanics (not the narration/description stuff of Level 1/2 Wonders) to sustain the number of dice in your Pool...

TonyLB wrote: Plus, given that people know that sort of penalty gives you those benefits, why would they let you achieve it? The Editor doesn't have to foolishly run out and take minor levels of control in every single Complication. He can plow all his points into one, Resolve it, and move on to the next.

I'm talking about the last frame of every Wonder.

Generic rules example: If you spend five dice on a Complication, and it doesn't get you control, then you get to choose who narrates the first four frames and roughly what they can do, but the controller gets to decide the last one.

Movie example: Spiderman bounces up on the Unity-Day floats, maneuvering to rescue Mary Jane. He doesn't spend enough points to control the Complication. He describes terrific acrobatics, gets to within nearly arms reach of her... then the Green Goblin comes tearing in from stage right and smacks him into a plate glass wall in the final frame of the Wonder.


On Strength through Adversity... I'll playtest it. Mechanically, it is one strategy of many. If you let somebody execute it to their hearts content it will be powerful. There are powerful counters, particularly in the early stages.

Even when its running well, I don't think it's that much more effective than (for instance) ramping up active Powers and chain-smoking Second Winds to constantly renew your Tropes and Attitudes for more dice.

But I could be wrong. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Story-wise, I agree that it would be nice for there to be some extra detail to help Strength through Adversity inspire the sort of "hanging tough, getting pummelled for the greater good" feel that I imagine for it.

Quite possibly the right way to do this is to explicitly require people using this Wonder to give away more of their narration frames (as above) than they would normally have to do.

TonyLB wrote: Generic rules example: If you spend five dice on a Complication, and it doesn't get you control, then you get to choose who narrates the first four frames and roughly what they can do, but the controller gets to decide the last one.

TonyLB wrote: Quite possibly the right way to do this is to explicitly require people using [Strength through Adversity] to give away more of their narration frames (as above) than they would normally have to do.

TonyLB wrote: What sort of suggestions and constraints should I give the players for how to narrate something that brings them closer to control, but does not actually accomplish control?

TonyLB wrote: I sidestepped the difficulties in defining what Issues are, with regard to Complications, by the simple expedient of making Issues a player goal...

Sydney Freedberg wrote: I agree with Thomas that Issues get awfully expensive awfully fast. Also, I can't find anything about what Issues actually do besides act as a character advancement mechanism. I really liked the idea of Issues acting as mega-Complications to be contested over thelong term and where effects of Control permeate everything else (e.g. Peter Parker's up-and-down relationship with Mary Jane increasing or decreasing his self-confidence, or "city terrorized by crime" increasing or decreasing the tendency of Innocent Bystanders to panic and get in the way vs. actively helping the hero); this is a simple way to preserve all the world-defining goodness that was in Facts before they were discarded (rightly, I'd agree) as over-complicated.

Well, I spent a goodly amount of time today solo-playtesting the rules while making up a new Example of Play.

Having playtested it... you guys were right. The rewards in the Wonders are currently too rich. They cause a cascading increase in dice that becomes very quickly impracticable. Twenty-eight dice is just too many for the system to feel right with.

So I'm going to have to rework the numbers on the Wonders, then give it another go. Which is painful, but not as painful as discovering these numerical problems in non-solo playtesting.

I've posted the Flawed Example of Play, because (while the numbers go crazy at the end) I think it gives a fairly good idea of how I see non-combat conflicts being resolved in the system. Plus, it's the first example I've made that has the Frame-assignment of narrative rights in action. I'm happy with how it turned out, at least in my mind.

Read the example of play. Well done, it really gets a lot of the "feeling" of play accross. I concur that there are far too many dice gained from Wonders which seem to lessen the value of Attitudes and Tropes. I think that Powers, Attitudes, and Tropes should be the primar sources of dice. In fact elminating all dice gaining Wonders other than those that reset abilities would probably contribute to the idea that Dice come through playing to your character's story instead of through good dice rolling.

One thing that i am hesitant about is the way Complication outcomes are determined. At the moment they are incredibly vague, basically "if you win make up something that makes sense." The problem is in cases where you have Clobbering and a Capture Character type Complications that get split between the two sides... How do you resolve issues when you the goals of each side are contradictory? From the example of play let us assume that Silver Star's Stealth Complication is resolved in her favor and she determines that she gets out of the building undetected... What happens with the rest of the complications then?

Thomas

Numbered topics are fun!

(1) Dice Proliferation

TonyLB wrote: ....you guys were right....

TonyLB wrote: The rewards in the Wonders are currently too rich. They cause a cascading increase in dice that becomes very quickly impracticable. Twenty-eight dice is just too many for the system to feel right with. ...

Thomas, whom I henceforth refuse to call 'LordSmerf,' wrote: ... eliminat[e] all dice gaining Wonders other than those that reset abilities ...

TonyLB wrote: I've posted the Flawed Example of Play...it gives a fairly good idea of how I see non-combat conflicts being resolved in the system.

TonyLB wrote: Plus, it's the first example I've made that has the Frame-assignment of narrative rights in action.

TonyLB, in the rules, wrote: Joe: This is sort of strange. I know he's going to screw me, but I get to give him the straight-line to do it with.

Thomas wrote: ...the way Complication outcomes are determined. At the moment they are incredibly vague...

Okay, bleary-eyed and exhausted I have posted a revised Example of Play. I changed the payback rates of some Wonders, and I changed dice-rolling so that fives must be discarded to earn Frames (just like 3s and 4s).

I haven't written these rules up yet. Mostly because I'm dead tired. The overall effect seems to be that it keeps dice pools in the 5-15 range the vast majority of the time. At least with my small dice, that's a comfortable number to roll, and one that mixes fairly well with the rules. Though I may modify things to drive that number down a little bit more.

One possibility I'm considering is saying that you can't "double up" Tropes and dice-generating Wonders. But it's too late at night for me to give that the consideration it deserves.

On the statistics of dice pools... they become statistically uninteresting much more quickly when you're adding the dice together to reach a total than when you're evaluating the distribution of numbers within the range (as this game does). Smaller numbers of dice would help with variability, but I saw plenty of freaky distributions in my completely honest rolls for the example.

Sydney wrote: In your "Stealth" example, presumably "Clobbering" or "Capture Silverstar" can't even beginuntil Stealth fails, Silverstar is detected, and the Editor can name a replacement complication.

TonyLB wrote: Okay, bleary-eyed and exhausted

TonyLB wrote: A tiger is stalking a village. It has control of both the Stealth and Clobbering Complications. A hunter goes into the forest, and when the tiger attacks him he fights it off, wounding it and showing his martial superiority. But he is unable to track the beast when it flees. He's just won the Clobbering Complication, but not the Stealth.

Sydney... I think I see your point of view. You're viewing Complications as the logical, cause-and-effect building blocks of the story, right?

I tend to think of them more as the goals that characters currently have to choose between, which is slightly different. In the tiger example, for instance, the hunter probably had a choice between winning the Clobbering (and proving he was tougher and meaner than the tiger) or winning the Stealth (and being able to track the tiger later).

Winning the Stealth but losing the Clobbering might (for instance) have meant that the tiger mauled one of the hunters bearers, but was shot in such a way that, though unhindered, he was trailing enough blood to be tracked.

I don't think that you can get the same effect by saying "Okay, you have to Resolve Complication A before you can effect Complication B". Does that make sense?

TonyLB wrote: Sydney...You're viewing Complications as the logical, cause-and-effect building blocks of the story, right?

A couple of things real quick. I will read the new example of play and add more later, but i felt that these were important:

1. The more i think on it the more i feel that the only sources of dice should be Powers, Attitudes and Tropes. If someone wants to get more dice to roll then they will have to refresh their stuff. This will focus play on Attitudes and Tropes rather than what Wonders you can handle (it will also make Massive Overkill even worse since you have no recourse for gaining dice).

2. Complications in opposition. Let us examine the Tiger example. Currently, as i understand thing, when you Resolve a Complication you control you get to declare the outcome with something close to impunity. Let us assume that the Hunter successfully Resolves the Clobbering complication with the Tiger in his own favor while the Stealth complication remains unresolved but in the Tiger's control. The hunter states that the outcome of his resolution is capturing the tiger. So, what happens with the Stealth complication? Sure we can say that the tiger is still stealthy, but it seems that you have allowed the hunter to move the game into a place where Stealth is no longer an issue to deal with. The same could be said of the example of play just before the one you just posted, if Silver Star wins Stealth and declares that this means that she escapes what recourse does that leave for the villains with their Clobbering complication?

Thomas

TonyLB wrote: Okay, bleary-eyed and exhausted I have posted a revised Example of Play...

One thing that i noticed the first time through the Example of Play (and was reminded of reading the newest version) is that the order of spending dice, checking for Complication control, calculating penalties, and declaring Wonders is confusing. I would recommend simplifying things such that Wonder level is calculated at the beginning of the action when dice are spent rather than allowing you to spend dice, gain control of a Complication which reduces your Penalty and then declare a higher level Wonder.

So, if you do not have enough dice to overcome your penalties you are going to have to rack up some Debt in order get in an action.

Another thing that i noticed is that the Level 1 and 2 Wonders seem a little stilted. Perhaps i just do not see what you are trying to get at with declaring "Important Elements", but i think that they should be replaced with something else. I do not feel that as things stand that they are truly conducive to anything. Feel free to correct me if you feel that they are important, but i just do not see how they are relevant to play or to the Premise.

Thomas

Thomas: I'm actually coming around toward (if not all the way to) your position. My concern with doing only Abilities (Powers, Attitude, Tropes) is that it reduces the strategic side of the game to Massive Overkill and Second Wind, and how to get those at the right moments in the conflict.

A compromise I thought up on my walk is that the sum total of dice that you get from a Sequence cannot exceed its Sequence Level, no matter their source. Under that rule Effects that get you dice are giving you the chance to get them instead of spending your Tropes, rather than in addition to spending your Tropes. It becomes an endurance and desperation issue, rather than a power-up technique.

In particular, it makes Strength through Adversity and Passion tremendously useful just after you get hit with Massive Overkill... they can get you back on your feet when you have nothing left to spend in terms of your abilities.


On Complications in Opposition: Is this directly Complications in Opposition, or are they the Situations that people get to create by controlling a Complication? i.e. The situation of the Tiger for Stealth was "He can't find me" and the situation of the Hunter for Clobbering is "the tiger's unconscious", and these situations cannot both be taken to their logical conclusion, right?

TonyLB wrote: The situation of the Tiger for Stealth was "He can't find me" and the situation of the Hunter for Clobbering is "the tiger's unconscious", and these situations cannot both be taken to their logical conclusion, right?

Sydney... thanks for the fanboy raving! Very energizing.

I'll be interested (as playtesting expands) to see how the Frame Narration effects get played out in games with more than one hero. Giving a Frame to one of your team-mates seems to me an inherently more social thing than giving it to the Editor.

For instance, if you make a seven frame Massive Overkill in one-hero play you basically have seven frames of brutality, either the attacker attacking or the defenders getting pulped. But the opinions the participants have on it are pretty well pre-scripted.

If you make a seven frame Massive Overkill in five-hero play then you can reasonably have a big central frame of the attacker on the rampage, four reaction shots (one from each of the other heroes), then the defenders getting pulped and a final reaction shot from the attacker. That's a much more evocative story-telling statement.

Sydney Freedberg wrote: P.S.: Everyone go buy Bendis & Oeming's Powers, right now.

Mark Millar wrote: Iron Man: No, not okay. Don't you hear what I'm saying? I'm telling you that I just can't do this.
Soldier: Well, if you can't, who will?

TonyLB wrote: A compromise I thought up on my walk is that the sum total of dice that you get from a Sequence cannot exceed its Sequence Level, no matter their source.

TonyLB wrote: On Complications in Opposition: Is this directly Complications in Opposition, or are they the Situations that people get to create by controlling a Complication? i.e. The situation of the Tiger for Stealth was "He can't find me" and the situation of the Hunter for Clobbering is "the tiger's unconscious", and these situations cannot both be taken to their logical conclusion, right?

LordSmerf wrote: Other than that i am still a little hesitant since it seems to lessen the importance ot Tropes by providing a valid alternative. It seems to set up a situation in which you will save Tropes for those times when you are not able to pull off a Wonder that gets you dice. This makes Tropes a back-up mechanic to Wonders when it comes to dice generation.

LordSmerf wrote: Imagine that Stealth goes to the Editor and he replaces it with Capture Silver Star.

Tony, i like the new Wonders. My only suggestion would be to change Strength through Adversity to one die per level. One die per level is much simpler and keeps inflation down. You might also considering some system in which you get a die for each Frame you let your oppoenent narrate, but that might rapidly spiral out of control.

As to Complications you will need to either define the exact scope of how broad or specific a Complication can be or provide a list of acceptable Complications. Clearly i was considering much narrower Complication definitions, probably because we used stuff like "Bolo" and "Hostage" as Complications in our game...

Thomas

1) Complications vs. Situation

TonyLB wrote: It is clear that, as Sydney has been repeatedly pointing out...

TonyLB, again, wrote: ... I need to do some work on creating a set of example Complications with serious description. One way to address this issue might just be to say that there aren't Situations for each Complication, there is a single Situation, and any time a Complication changes hands the new Controller can recast anything that was dependent upon that Complication.

So we played Capes again. The report is not complete, but you can take a look at our characters...

Thomas

I finished the Actual Play post up. There are a couple of notes at the bottom. I wanted to expand on things here.

1. The Frame thing was really hard to remember. By the end of the session we were able to remember by expending dice one at a time (or handing them to other players) in order to establish who got what frame and what was in it.
2. How do you handle scenes in which it is just PCs interacting? I assigned myself some dice as the Editor and just ran interference, but it seemed a little contrived. We had fun with it, but i had no way to generate additional dice.
3. I actually liked the Wonders that generated just a few dice. Especially the first two. I think that Strength through Adversity is still too complex (there is too much going on in the text for it). Passion on the other hand worked out rather well.
4. I really feel that the current mechanics do not force the Premise to the front. There is no tension generated as your Debt rises and Falls, it is just another number to keep track of. In Sorcerer you can really feel the pressure as your Humanity drops towards zero because there are some serious consequences if that happens. Because of the way Stakes work that solution does not seem to be viable for Capes. Unfortunately i can not think of another way to generate tension over Debt changes (which i think would greatly assist in driving Premise).

Thomas

Quick question before I head out to my Buffy/Pirates game for the evening: Did the heroes ever lose Complications that they had Stakes on?

Ah, should have pointed that out. There was only one complication in the first scene and the heroes one that one, everyone had Stakes on it.

In the second (last) scene only Coppertone staked anything and she won that Complication, so no, no Heroes lost staked complications.

Thomas

Thomas, in the playtest thread, wrote wrote: .... Coppertone's goal is to keep her partnership with the Red Menace. The Menace's goal is to remain oblivious to the fact that his partner is a capitalist pig....Menace burned his hand just as he was about to see what was in the oven (thereby avoiding actually having to see what was inside)...

Thomas, in the playtest thread, wrote wrote: Did we have fun? Yes. Did we address the Premise? I think not.

Sydney. I really like the basic idea (make the penalty a narrative one directly instead of indirectly), and i also like your suggested implementation. I am just not sure that it is potent enough. Now, that is not to say that it would not work, but perhaps what you suggest plus something else. Give overdrawn Drives some serious umph.

Thomas

LordSmerf wrote: ....perhaps what you suggest plus something else....

Sydney, Thomas: Are you assuming that players are supposed to avoid having their Drives overdrawn?

Frankly, I think that overdrawing at least one drive pretty seriously should be the natural outgrowth of most every story.

On a story level, you can't have a resolution of doubt without having doubt in the first place.

On a mechanics level, you can't bet debt tokens until you've acquired debt tokens. And if you don't bet debt tokens then you can't use the Passion Effect. And I have a sneaking suspicion (though I haven't verified it) that if you don't use the Passion Effect you're going to get trounced in the end-game (when Drives, villainous and heroic have risen).

Given the new changes in the rules (i.e. you can now only get debt tokens by using powers and by losing Stakes) that means that players should be actively looking for ways for their heroes to lose Complications where they have a lot of debt at stake. It's the Editor's responsibility to guarantee a sufficiently nasty challenge that they can lose those Stakes without their character "throwing the game", as it were.

EDIT: You could discourage "debt to infinity" by saying that the Passion Effect can not be used with a Drive that's overdrawn.

Sydney Freedberg wrote: Actually, the current rules are a bit vague on this -- they say a Drive that's 100% staked may "cease to be" temporarily but it's not clear if this has any mechanical effect.

TonyLB wrote: Sydney, Thomas: Are you assuming that players are supposed to avoid having their Drives overdrawn?

Frankly, I think that overdrawing at least one drive pretty seriously should be the natural outgrowth of most every story.

On a story level, you can't have a resolution of doubt without having doubt in the first place.

On a mechanics level, you can't bet debt tokens until you've acquired debt tokens. And if you don't bet debt tokens then you can't use the Passion Effect. And I have a sneaking suspicion (though I haven't verified it) that if you don't use the Passion Effect you're going to get trounced in the end-game (when Drives, villainous and heroic have risen).

Given the new changes in the rules (i.e. you can now only get debt tokens by using powers and by losing Stakes) that means that players should be actively looking for ways for their heroes to lose Complications where they have a lot of debt at stake. It's the Editor's responsibility to guarantee a sufficiently nasty challenge that they can lose those Stakes without their character "throwing the game", as it were.

TonyLB wrote: Sydney, Thomas: Are you assuming that players are supposed to avoid having their Drives overdrawn? Frankly, I think that overdrawing at least one drive pretty seriously should be the natural outgrowth of most every story.

Sydney Freedberg wrote: Where I agree with Thomas (though I've not playtested this, so what do I know?) is that the "dangerously" half of "dangerously overdrawn" is so far underdeveloped. The key to good stories and good game design both, I have come to think, is the creation of dilemmas: Problems with a clear optimal resolution are less interesting either dramatically or strategically than those which involve a painful trade-off either way you go. So far, there's a strong temptation to overdraw in a Drive (you get more juice for your powers) but not a comparably high risk to doing so. "You get what you pay for" is less true than "you value what you pay dearly for, and undervalue what you got easily." To really make it count, you gotta make it hurt.

Thanks, Thomas.

And come to think of it, the end of the first Spiderman movie (WARNING: SPOILERS though not for any frequent readers of this thread, I think) maps very tidily onto my proposed "sting in the tail" mechanic. Spidey wins his battle with the Green Goblin, and without having to kill him at that -- the bad guy's own attempted treachery does him in, a moral victory of some sort. So Spiderman's "player" gets to narrate a resolution to that situation, including bringing Osborn's body back to his house... but Spidey's badly, badly overdrawn on Truth at this point, so the Editor gets a few frames to put him in a nasty Truth-related situation: His best friend sees Spiderman standing over the dead body of his father and misreads the situation as "Spidey killed my dad."

Guys, you seem to be saying that I haven't made a system where being in Debt is a terrible, dangerous thing that the players should fear, and indulge in only out of sheer necessity.

To which I can only say... "Correct. I wasn't trying to build that system."

Capes is not Sorceror. Debt isn't about stepping inch by inch closer to the abyss. Debt is opportunity. A drag on your short-term effectiveness, yes, but a boon (indeed, a necessity) long-term, through raising Drives and the Passion Effect.

The dilemma in the game is not "Do I use my power or not use my power". Power is fun, remember? Of course you're going to use your powers at every opportunity. You're supposed to.

The dilemmas are "Do I stop the bank robbery or make it to my date on time? Do I convince the cops that I'm not part of the criminal gang, or play along to find out what they're planning?" and so on.

That's why I worry a bit when I see Thomas's Actual Play report where the heroes won all of the Complications offered in the game. The Editor should be winning about half of the Complications.

TonyLB wrote: The dilemmas are "Do I stop the bank robbery or make it to my date on time? Do I convince the cops that I'm not part of the criminal gang, or play along to find out what they're planning?" and so on.

They obviously don't do enough in that arena. I need to write up a GMing section that gives the tools for an Editor to provide a challenging balance of villains with motives to strongly contest complications where the heroes are Staked.

I do think that some of it would emerge from having numerical equivalency on two sides of a contesting fence (i.e. a roughly equal amount of dice-power between the Editor and the Heroes).

If the Editor and the heroes are spending the same amount of dice, I wouldn't expect (for instance) that the heroes would win every Complication in a conflict, right? It seems... well, possible but statistically unlikely.

TonyLB wrote: Capes is not Sorceror. Debt isn't about stepping inch by inch closer to the abyss. Debt is opportunity. A drag on your short-term effectiveness, yes, but a boon (indeed, a necessity) long-term, through raising Drives and the Passion Effect. [Emphasis mine - Thomas]

You mean that it guarantees that dice advantage if you challenge the heroes with one villain of equal numeric strength, yes?

Yes, sorry, i should have made that clearer. However, it should be noted that genre conventions hold that super-hero teams almost always outnumber their opponents, and the current system does not really provide for differing power levels...

Thomas

Oh, oh, oh! This just hit me. Depending on how you want to set thing up Tony, it might be cool to set up a definition for each of the Drives with regards to the Game as a whole instead of hero by hero. Then you could track overall Debt (the levels of the protaganists summed) for the Game and use that to somehow generate Dice/Control for the Editor...

Thomas

Yep... I've been thinking of ways to deal with team-vs-megavillain combats, but I don't have anything well crafted yet.

One fun way to handle it, that I've been toying with as a technique to put into the Editors toolkit (but not the only technique) is to make it a tag-team battle: Only one hero may be combatting the villain at a time, and they may tag out with "Second Wind" (which would let a new hero in as it refreshes the abilities of the hero going off-stage). It seems well suited for certain kinds of combat... particularly when one powerful hero mows his way through a crowd of mooks, then (Tag!) a minion-level villain, then (Tag!) the arch-villain.

My experience with solo-playtests has been that a -1 Level penalty can be very painful. Out of interest, have you had a situation where a hero was overdrawn?

EDIT: Crossposted with Thomas's second post. What do you envision the "mass debt" thing doing for the game? Can you give a fictional example?

It's a flurry of posts....

TonyLB wrote: ....One fun way to handle it...is to make it a tag-team battle: Only one hero may be combatting the villain at a time, and they may tag out with "Second Wind" (which would let a new hero in as it refreshes the abilities of the hero going off-stage). It seems well suited for certain kinds of combat... particularly when one powerful hero mows his way through a crowd of mooks, then (Tag!) a minion-level villain, then (Tag!) the arch-villain.

Thomas wrote: at the current level of focus (tactical situations) there is not enough room for you to have the Bank Robbery and the Late for a Date Complications effectively work.

Perhaps you are correct Sydney. On the other hand there are no mechanical reasons to pick one Complication over another, it is purely narrative preference. Now, that may be just fine, but it does not seem to make the choices very meaningful aside from whatever meaning each player assigns personally. So, if that is not a problem then, well, no problem. On the other hand, if that is a problem (i.e. if we want to make these choices matter mechanically) then some work needs to be done.

Oh, and the tag-team stuff is not a bad idea at all, but as (both of you) pointed out that should not be the only option.

Thomas