In the [Capes] Polishing thread,

Sydney Freedberg wrote: Frankly, since chain-reactions of "no, I trope that" was such a big part of the fun in playtest -- and such a powerful form of teamwork -- that I'd be tempted to let everything be used as a trope/reaction:

Andy: "I blast by you using my Super-Speed -- I roll a 4!"
Bob: "Well, I use my level 4 Commanding Attitude to proclaim 'You shall not pass! I get a -- uh -- damn, two. I don't accept that result..."
Claire: "No, take it, I can trope that."
Bob: "Okay..."
Claire: "I use my level 2 'Unsettling Stare' to back up your Commanding Attitude and force him to pay attention -- I get a six! Ha! I am the champion!"

Or something like that.

TonyLB wrote: Darn you Sydney! Darn you to heck!

TonyLB wrote: Tropes stick around and become Styles. They can be used actively in the same way as Powers or Attitudes. They can be powered or mundane just as with current Tropes....How are Powered Styles mechanically different from Powers? They aren't. How are mundane Styles mechanically different from Attitudes? They aren't. I think the narrative distinction is probably worthy though... Agree? Disagree?

Yeah, I could, but I'm not going to.

The Debt/Stake/Story-Token cycle is the main fuel line of the game. I want it as wide and as fast-flowing as possible. That requires a good balance of powered and non-powered abilities.

Balance. Oh. Forgot that. You do have a neat little ecological cycle running here and letting people go wildly towards powered or unpowered could break it, that's true.

I know that it has been raised before, but what do you think of all abilities being both Powered and Unpowered. That is you may use them for free, but they become blocked, or you can take Debt and use them...

I think that this idea has some merit since it futher simplifies things, but it takes the focus of of Powers...

EDIT: Crossposted with Tony below.

Thomas

Actually, I think of it more along the lines of "you cannot break the law, you can only break yourself against the law".

I certainly don't think that having somebody wildly powered or unpowered would break the fun of any other player. In fact I totally expect such characters to be played, when appropriate. But I think it might ruin the fun for the player to play that character all the time, whether or not it's a situation where they shine. So to the extent that people have "spotlight heroes", I think they ought to have a balance.

OK, how about this?

Each player still picks 3/4/5, and assigns these to Powers/Attitudes/Shticks

Shticks are, well, Shticks - they are the "trademark" ways in which a character expresses their Powers or Attitudes. Thus they can be Powered or Unpowered (Attitude-based) - they should also reflect the characters exisiting Powers and Abilities.

The entirely arbitrary "Rule of 7" states that no more than 7 abilities can be Powered.

So if a character chooses 5 Powers, no more than two of their Shticks can be Powered.

If you want, the "Rule of 7" can apply the other way - so that no more than 7 abilities can be Unpowered.

Does this help?

Having spent a month playtesting Capes with Tony and Sydney, I can tell you this about tropes:

Tropes are part of what makes the game. It keeps everyone involved and paying attention to everything at all times. When it was Sydney's turn and I had to wait for the turn order to reach me, I could still affect things with my Tropes. Without Tropes (or Schticks or rerolls or whatever they are called), then the game is just an amusing diversion with neat mechanics. Without Tropes, when its not your turn, you might as well just snooze.

I almost always exclusively GM. Thats because I hate being a player and waiting around for my turn in actions or discussions with the GM. Basically, I've got a short attention span. And I like having control.

Tropes fulfilled that need and made Capes a really fun game to be a player in. I could always try and execute a level of control on events around me. It wasn't definate, I might pay the piper later, but I always had something I could do.

Danny

Hey, Danny/Jake/Boneripper!

Eamon wrote: Tropes are part of what makes the game. It keeps everyone involved and paying attention to everything at all times. ...Without Tropes, when its not your turn, you might as well just snooze.

Some random comments, based on my own experience playtesting in Smerf's IRC game:

- I liked being able to Trope more than once on the same thing per turn. Indeed, we played it that way all the time so far, and some of the most fun moments I had were building up chains of Tropes.

- I actually didn't think you could Trope when it wasn't your turn. I'm not sure if that's just my misunderstanding, or something I remembered from an older version of the rules. In any case, though, I didn't mind it a bit -- it didn't seem any different to me than most games, where you take turns according to initiative, and you can't go during someone else's turn.

- We played with Tropes not costing Debt the whole time. I have some mixed feelings about this. Most of Zip's Tropes are Powers of some sort, so he would've gotten a lot more Debt that way, which could've been useful. (Indeed, the majority of his powers (small p) were Tropes...). On the other hand, the way we were using Tropes, there's no way he would've been able to *spend* all that Debt...

- Lastly, if the cycle is Debt -> Stake -> Story-Token, and powers are the way to get Debt... where does that leave non-powered supers, such as Batman? Do their abilities count as 'powers' for game use? And if they do, is there really a clear line between 'powers' and 'skills/equipment'?

efindel wrote: Lastly, if the cycle is Debt -> Stake -> Story-Token, and powers are the way to get Debt... where does that leave non-powered supers, such as Batman? Do their abilities count as 'powers' for game use? And if they do, is there really a clear line between 'powers' and 'skills/equipment'?

efindel wrote: Lastly, if the cycle is Debt -> Stake -> Story-Token, and powers are the way to get Debt... where does that leave non-powered supers, such as Batman? Do their abilities count as 'powers' for game use? And if they do, is there really a clear line between 'powers' and 'skills/equipment'?

A lot of these straddle the boundary between "Power" and "Character", some more than others.

The Boy Wonder is clearly a second character, played by the same player and costing a second Story Token (when relevant to the scene). He should have his own whole set of stats and Drives. If people want I can spawn off a thread with my thoughts on playing Sidekicks (and, particularly, making them an income source by getting into trouble to earn Story Tokens, so that their mentor can win all the fights and always look good).

Is the Crime Computer a third character? Could very well be, especially since it really only has an effect in certain Batcave-specific scenes.

Is the Batmobile a fourth character? Probably not in the Adam West version. The Tim Burton version? Oh heck yeah... that car gets scenes (and conflicts) when its driver is nowhere even remotely nearby.

"Amazing Gadgets", "Acrobatics" and "Fisticuffs" are pretty clearly all Powers. I recognize the question about "Is Fisticuffs a Power or a Skill?", but I think my answer is to ask the question "Does this character use Fisticuffs to engage the games Premise?" It seems clear (at least to me) that in this case the character does, which makes it a Power.

Tony,

Thanks for the clarification. I hadn't even considered using these as Characters (but at the time, we didn't have the Story Token economy, either.)

One thought on Sidekicks: Robin is such a major character in the original Batman series, I'd usually expect him to have his own player. My original design thoughts were based upon the assumtion that I'd be playing solo - in which case, I am totally happy with the idea that he costs Story Tokens to use.

Well, even "playing solo" you're going to have at least two players. So maybe one of them plays Batman and one of them plays Robin. Though that makes me think that the two would conflict more frequently than I see in the Adam West, so maybe you were right the first time.

It gets really hard (but fun) to figure out how many players a movie would naturally have, if translated into Capes. I try to figure it out based on the asusmption that when two characters are in emotionally freighted conflict they're being played by different players.

So, for example, X-Men has two players, one for Wolverine and one for Rogue. Wolvie's player usually plays: Wolvie, Storm, Mystique, Toad, Prof. X and Senator Kelly. Rogue's player usually plays: Rogue, Magneto, Cyclops, Jean and Sabretooth. (EDIT: I forgot to mention the characters "Cerebro" (played by Wolvie) and "Big Magnetic Mutating Device" and "Xavier Mansion", played by Rogue)

Spiderman, by contrast, clearly needs at least three players, one for Spidey, one for the Goblin and one specializing in Exemplars. That thanksgiving scene, for instance, makes very little sense if you don't assume a third player in the roles of MJ, Aunt May and Harry all at the same time.

I can even amuse myself wondering which of the two non-Spidey players is the genius who looked at Peter's load of Debt after the wrestling match and refused to be deterred when the first (frankly, cliched) attempt to drag him into Debt-spending behavior failed. So he's not keen to give me Story Tokens for something as boring as a criminal robbing the wrestling office? Nooooo problem.... I've got a Conflict that will get him involved, oh heck yeah....

TonyLB wrote: I recognize the question about "Is Fisticuffs a Power or a Skill?", but I think my answer is to ask the question "Does this character use Fisticuffs to engage the games Premise?" It seems clear (at least to me) that in this case the character does, which makes it a Power.

quot;efindel.... Batman's fighting skill and utility belt ... are all Debt-powered...

Okay, a lot of interlocking issues here.

There is a modelling question of "If Batman's martial arts is a Power, and SWAT Team-Guy's martial arts is a Skill, what is the game-world justification for the distinction between them?"

There is a premise question of "Is the Premise, as stated, what the game should really be about?"

There is a game-flow question of "How do game dynamics change for a character if they have a substantially lower or substantially higher proportion of Powered abilities?"

Does this just about break down what people are discussing?

TonyLB wrote: There is a modelling question of "If Batman's martial arts is a Power, and SWAT Team-Guy's martial arts is a Skill, what is the game-world justification for the distinction between them?"

TonyLB wrote: There is a premise question of "Is the Premise, as stated, what the game should really be about?"

TonyLB wrote: There is a game-flow question of "How do game dynamics change for a character if they have a substantially lower or substantially higher proportion of Powered abilities?"

Okay, I'm guessing that the questions I posted were just about right. So I'll respond to them.

On Premise: "Power is Fun" is, in fact, precisely what I was aiming for. It doesn't mean that your life is fun, or that the consequences of using your power are fun, or that the responsibilities your power implies are fun. But the power itself? Fun.

Sydney says that it isn't true for a whole genre of angsty heroes. I flatly disagree. And frankly, I'll reach right out and claim Batman for my camp. Here's the internal monologue from the first action sequence in Frank Miller's seminal Dark Knight:

This should be agony. I should be a mass of aching muscle -- broken, spent, unable to move. And were I an older man, I surely would.

But I'm a man of thirty -- of twenty again. The rain on my chest is a baptism -- I'm born again.

I smell their fear -- and it is sweet.

Tony, your question regarding Premise reminded me of something. Debt. I still do not understand how it works narratively. I fully comprehend all the cool stuff it does mechanically, and the little ecosystem, and all that fun stuff. But I am still very shaky regarding what it represents. For this reason I rarely think about Premise at all when playing Capes. Now, it is possible that I have simply internalized everything and pursue Premise without conciously deciding to, but there is this huge stumbling block between me and concious Premise stuff. What is Debt. I suggest that it will be very, very important for the print version of the game that you are able to explain what Debt means and not just what it does.

Thomas

Straight from the new rules: "Debt measures the gap between how much a character needs to prove his worth and how much he has done so."

Note that this description only makes sense in a context where using the cool powers obligates you to justify your worth proportionally. This is a law of reality in Capes (and, I would argue, in most superhero fiction).

You can represent it with any elements of Color that you want, from a strong internal moral code to karmically responsive powers to little blue aliens who granted the hero his power and constantly drag him in front of their smurf-tribunal to judge how he's used it.

EDIT: Another interesting way to phrase this is that Debt measures how many (and what type of) trials of the characters worth are already pre-destined by his actions.

TonyLB wrote: .... the internal monologue from the first action sequence in Frank Miller's seminal Dark Knight....I defy anyone to read that and tell me that he's not having fun. Is he miserable too? Of course! But misery and joy are not opposite ends of a spectrum, they are elements of a life and a character that are always admixed and intertangled.

Quick clarification request?

It seems (to my mind) that, having discussed the "is fun" part of the Premise you're now wondering whether the "power" part makes sense, or whether it should be "X is Fun, but do you deserve it?" where X is something else as yet undefined.

Is that right, or am I confused?

Oh, I'm probably confused... I actually hadn't thought about "superpowers aren't necessarily heroism" as affecting the Premise, but of course it does. I guess you could say "Heroism is fun" or something, but I'm not sure it's worth rephrasing, because "power" is a wide-open word already. "Power" doesn't have to be laser eyebeams: It can be (gettin' mushy here) the power of the human heart.....

It's a good point in terms of how carefully one needs to describe the distinction, though. I do have a tendency to say "Super-human powers" and leave it at that, even though I clearly include human(-ish) abilities like those of Batman.

Maybe if it's written along the lines of "Abilities that, through their use, set the character apart from the normal run of humanity"? That's a bit vaguer than I like, though... Hrmm... think, think, think.

I think that "Power is Fun" works fine, because it's backed up almost immediately by the question "... but do you deserve it?"

The reason I wouldn't change this to "Heroism is Fun" or anything like that, is that this overlooks the fact that being a Villain is fun, too.

The way it's presented at the moment is a very nice "setup". Insofar as it allows the reader to think something along the lines of "yeah, but that doesn't mean that power is right" - only to walk smack into the second half of the sentence.

So, please, don't change it, not unless you've got something really snappy instead.

A semi-random thought: the tagline/premise could easily be altered to:

Power can be fun... but do you deserve it?

That gets rid of the pesky "is", allowing for heroes for whom their Power is a burden, and that Power isn't necessarily always fun.

But really... as long as the mechanics support angsty heroes (and they definitely do -- they supported Zip and Grey Ghost!), it's a trivial issue, IMHO.

--Travis