LordSmerf wrote:

Doug Ruff wrote: [... snip]Re: Drives and staking thereof, At the moment, the players have to place Debt against their Drives to use a power, and can then stake this Debt. Why not make this a single process? If the player starts with a counter for each point in their Drives, and they have to 'stake' a counter every time they use a power, you avoid this initial hesitancy.

This requires a complete reversal, counters are now good to have. If a character runs out of tokens for a Drive, then they have to go 'overdrawn' to use this Drive to use a power then they literally lost their sense of Hope, Justice etc. as this Drive has 'failed them' in previous conflicts.

I think this is a more natural way of approaching the issue, it feels more 'right' to me but it would have a major knock-on effect for the rest of the mechanics. What do the rest of you think?

Regards,

Doug

I wanted to revisit this. Now, mechanically this generate a small number of minor differences. Conceptually this is a big shift in ideas. Overall i think that this would be a good thing to do, but i will try to break down the pros and cons objectively.

Pros:
-Conceptually simpler: i want more of this, but i have to risk it to get more. Accumulation and then spending for effects is easier to understand for most people than a combination of accumulation (to do stuff) and then trying to dump it.

Cons:
-Staking dynamics change, significantly. Possibly for the better, but definately different.
-The "Feel" changes: you no longer feel that you are "racking up Debt" when you use Powers, instead you are just spending a resource.

Thomas

Sorry, i wanted to wait for a new thread before proceeding.

The short answer is "yes". The basic idea here is that you use your Drives for two seperate purposes:

1. Activate Powers - Powers are good because you can continually reuse them.
2. Moral Investment - Spend Drives to indicate narrative importance.

Now, first thing: This is definately a systemic and thematic departure from Capes as it has been presented. The major change is that while previously you accumulated Debt through Powers use and then worked that Debt off through Complications, you now split your resources between the two. This may in fact break the system that drives the Premise forward.

That said, i think this is an elegant solution to a number of problems that produces a single problem in return. Now that problem must be overcome, and i do not really know how to do it at the moment. Since that problem is possibly a deal-breaker the proposal may have to be shelved no matter how elegant i think it is...

Anyway, to restate my position. You can use your Drives to Stake, you can use your Drives to activate Powers. You can do both with Drives, but each point spent on one is one less point you can spend on the other. One no longer feeds into the other...

Thomas

Well cool. I think we both understand what the other one is thinking. Go Forge!

Which is to say... yeah, I got nothin' either. I'm thinking about it though!

OK, here goes.

I'd originally suggested that Staking could be a direct consequence of Power-use. When I did this I hadn't considered Tony's previous posts about wanting 'stake-free' Power use, so it wasn't a viable option.

However, the current system requires a Debt token to be placed against a Drive for each use of a Power. Too many Debt tokens virtually require a player to start Staking, the only difference is that the player has some choice over when to Stake and on which Complication.

Whichever way you look at it, the player is 'spending' a resource every time they use a power; Staking is a means of getting the resource back.

I think that the only simple way to allow 'risk-free' Power use is to remove the Debt requirement for Power use, and find another way of limiting Power use (I have one or two, if you are interested.)

Also, if there is a way to allow a player to directly use a Drive to affect play (instead of using the Drive as 'fuel' for a Power), then this also allows direct Staking of the Drives - because the player can only use a Drive by establishing a personal 'stake' in the outcome of the Complication.

Is this a way forward?

Regards,

Doug

Hard to say whether it's a way forward until I know what your destination is, but it certainly sounds like a cogent summary of where we are, and of the mathematical inter-relation between Debt and resource management.

Now personally I'll admit that I like the current Debt mechanic, because it makes the double resource management very obvious. You want Debt (so that you can reap the tactical benefits of Staking it) but you also want to get rid of Debt (so that you have more "room" in your Drives to use more Powers). It encourages people not to stand still and hoard their resources, but rather to constantly borrow and spend, borrow and spend.

But I've disarded plenty of ideas that I liked when better ones came along. I'm very much interested in your other thoughts for how to... well, limit is the wrong word, because Debt is meant to encourage power use... for how to link Power use into the Premise.

Thanks Tony, you're too kind...

I like the 'borrow and spend' cycle as well, it seems to simulate the emotional 'highs and lows' that give a Hero added character.

I think this can still be achieved by plonking it directly onto Drives, the main trick is to make players want to commit their Drives.

Giving them a mechanical bonus for using drives is one obvious method; however this doesn't have ot be the only way. In the scary cross-posting monster that was the last thread, I suggested mechanics for 'Crisis of Faith'. This would be a whole section of the rules that:

(a) offered some cool (IMHO) story opportunities, and
(b) could only be accessed if a player was willing to spend their Drives (and risk losing them.)


As for Powers: I quite like the idea that Powers should be less limited than other abilities (this goes back to making Heroes 'special'.) But there has to be a balancing factor to prevent abuse.

This got me thinking about why most comic-book heroes don't use their powers all the time. Usually, this isn't just about 'resource', it's about not attracting attention. Excessive power use attracts a lot of attention, most of it unwelcome. It can also harm the people around the hero.

So how about this: a Hero can use a Power whenever they want, and this will give them a significant advantage towards controlling a Complication (much better than it does now.) However, the Hero also gets a point of 'Heat' each time they use a power. Villains (or GM) can spend 'Heat' to do various nasty things to the Hero, such as kidnap a relation, find out about the Hero's secret ID, or introduce that Villain into a scene.

This mechanic encourages Heroes to use their Powers sparingly and appropriately; if you start chucking your powers around indiscriminately, expect to pay the Price later. If you spend a lot of time in your secret ID, and only use powers for the things that really matter, the Villains are going to have a much harder time sticking it to you.

(Note: There is some resemblance here to Scarlet Wake, but my real inspiration for this would have to be the Dungeoneer card game, where players collect 'peril points' which the other players can use to stitch them up.)

I'm not sure whether this accurately addresses the Premise that you are looking for, but it's a way of integrating Powers with some of the other game elements, like Villain Prominence.

Regards,

Doug

Is the "Crisis of Faith" mechanic likely to be attractive to people who aren't consciously playing narrativist? It seems like it might crop up against some pretty heavy resistance from people with even vestigial "my guy" syndrome.

I think the mechanical bonus could be pretty important in overcoming this. It will also encourage people to Stake their Drives and actually try to win the Stakes (a move that takes them radically further from a Crisis of Faith). Were you still thinking of dice-splitting as the mechanics?


I'm naturally concerned about how these ideas can be used to support Premise, rather than undermine it. In particular, I don't see how powers can be abused (game-mechanically). Are you worried that people will use their super-powers too much?

Personally, I don't think there's any upper limit to how much I'd like to see heroes using their powers. Power is Fun. Says so right there on the front page.

So, for my opinion, I'd say they should be using their heat-vision to get their steaks done at the last minute, and flying around the world because they can, and all that jazz. As long as they're also dealing with the "but do you deserve it" half of the Premise, life is sweet and only gets sweeter the more they use their powers.

Tony,

Crisis of Faith vs. 'my guy': Depends how you play it. In the original suggested version, winning the Crisis gets you all of your Drive back, so there's a pretty good reason for triggering it.

Bonuses: If we are OK with Powers and Drives both being 'something extra' then there needs to be a substantial reward for using them. For me the two most 'unbalanced' mechanics are extra turns, and extra dice - these are major edges to have.

So, I'd consider spending Drives to gain extra actions, and Powers to gain extra dice (this means that a superpowered individual is going to have a huge advantage against a normal - 2 dice vs 1 die is no contest in the long term - is this reasonable?)

TonyLB wrote: Personally, I don't think there's any upper limit to how much I'd like to see heroes using their powers. Power is Fun. Says so right there on the front page.

So, for my opinion, I'd say they should be using their heat-vision to get their steaks done at the last minute, and flying around the world because they can, and all that jazz. As long as they're also dealing with the "but do you deserve it" half of the Premise, life is sweet and only gets sweeter the more they use their powers.

What can the player do with Heat points? What makes them fun to have?

Gosh, I leave you guys alone for a few days while I'm without web access and you (1) take apart the mechanics and strew the parts all over the floor (2) get pulled over by Officer Edwards for driving over the post limit. I'm laughing as I write this, but of course these are the problems you WANT to have, because they show high excitement.

TonyLB wrote: I'd say they should be using their heat-vision to get their steaks done at the last minute....

TonyLB, in 'Conversation is Combat,' wrote: There's a lovely little conversation implied right there in the Attitudes for the characters, actually. Wise's low (i.e. early) attitudes are things like Smooth and Nostalgic, and his high (i.e. later) ones are Sarcastic and Cynical….

Sydney Freedberg wrote: Applause. Yes, Doug's "Heat" mechanic where flashy Power use can get you in trouble makes the most sense in terms of realistic tactical choices (Simulationism, I guess), but not in terms of dramatic moral choices (Narrativism). It's clear Tony wants this game to be about the latter not the former.

Actually, I always thought that Powers were much less painful to spend than Attitudes. When you spend an Attitude you limit your future options in the scene (often crucially).

When you spend a Power, by contrast, you get Debt Tokens, which are a resource you desperately need to earn anyway. Often I've seen Powers used where Attitudes would be more natural, simply because people had spent all their Debt and were desperate to earn more.

Doug Ruff wrote: For example, there is no concept of a 'secret identity' in the main rules. Instead of trying to introduce a mechanic for this, I should be asking first "is Capes about hiding who you are?"

TonyLB wrote: Are there things about secret identities that you feel are better treated by a more compulsory method (i.e. "Do this or else" as opposed to "Do this and benefit")?

Doug wrote: ...an example of my failure to connect with the Premise....