Vaxalon wrote: The two elements of the game must mutually interact with each other. If you're playing DnD miniatures, and as your Aasimar Paladin moves forward, you say, "Telgar the Pure marches forward, sword in hand!" that's not a roleplaying game. Your declaration is not part of the game, it's ancillary, and as such is just a play-by-play tacked onto the miniatures game; the fact that you moved your miniature forward twelve inches is part of the game; the narration is not.

By the way: This is where I feel Capes is weak.

You're right, this did need it's own thread.

OK, I can see where you are coming from a lot better now. Before I respond to this properly, I want to ask you something:

The example you've given involve the use of a Laser Blast power. Can you see the same thing happening with Attitudes? Can you also give an example of a similarly 'unsatisfying' (where 'unsatisfying' = 'inadequately narrated') use of an Attitude?

Oh, certainly.

The conflict is, "Goal: Blue Laser (as his secret identity, Joe Benson) has a pleasant night out with the wife."

At some point, he wants to roll down a four. His only four (other than Powers, which after the last fiasco, he knows better than to call on) is "Angry." He checks it off, and rolls the die, and the rest of the group says, "Wait, hold on..."

Ironically, this thread, which I enthusiastically posted to, was the seed for my opinion on this topic.

I want to reiterate, here, that I don't think this weakness is a Bad Thing. Every game has weaknesses. You play around them, you pave over them with social contract, you go for the fun.

Right, therefore the criticism appears to be that the book doesn't support the players in working through that social contract.

This is a problem I'm having with Schrodinger's War, by the way. It's also got 'free-form' traits (as in, you don't pick from a defined list of abilities) so there's the risk that people aren't going to agree whether an ability is appropriate.

I've decided to resolve it this way for my game:

(1) If in doubt, the player who owns the trait gets to say whether or not it's an appropriate trait to use.
(2) Don't be an ass about enforcing rule (1). If everyone disagrees with you, consider that you may be wrong or you need to give an explanation (or a better explanation) why you are right.

Tony: do you think this is a valid criticism of the rules, and (if so) is the proposal above useful for guiding new players?

As it stands, I don't see a lot of merit in the criticism. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it.

The absence of a veto power is deliberate, and explicit. I did it on purpose. The game system also does not provide a mechanism for Player A to veto Player B's choice of what to wear, or who to date, or any other thing that is none of Player A's business.

If Player B decides that Joe Benson finds it pleasant to get angry at his wife then the other players should take a moment to revel in the sheer dysfunction of that, rather than acting as censors.

Artistic disputes can and should be mediated through the conflict rules. No other rules are needed or wanted.

You, as a player, feel that Benson shouldn't be able to get a pleasant evening by being angry? Fine. Put your money (and your Story Tokens) where your mouth is. One of you will care more about it than the other, just the same way that you care more about (say) saving hostages, or humiliating heroes. The one that cares more will win. Where's the weakness in that?

TonyLB wrote: If Player B decides that Joe Benson finds it pleasant to get angry at his wife...

Oh, sorry, I misread what you meant.

So you're just talking about how the group deals with someone who ignores the rule on page 38 saying "Whether the player accepts the die they rolled or not, they always narrate what happens. The Ability they used must be central." Have I got that right?

That's a good start.

Another point is if the narration is nonsensical.

For example, he rolls on Angry, shouts at his wife... and calls that pleasant.

"Dude... Blue Laser finds it pleasant to shout at his wife?"

"No... I just needed to use it to roll down that die."

That exchange boils down to:

A: I change the SIS in specified way X.
B: Wow... X? Really?
A: No, not really.

Are you saying that you fear people will do that? Or have I misunderstood you again?

What we found during the second game (the we played Easter sunday) is that people had to be reminded, again and again, to narrate... and that often, those narrations didn't make a lot of sense in retrospect. Someone has to have the authority to say, "Well, if your narration doesn't match what you're doing with your attributes, then you can't use that attribute." The rules don't provide that authority.

The next time we play, I'm going to suggest implementing Doug Ruff's Rules 1 and 2.

Vaxalon wrote: Someone has to have the authority to say, "Well, if your narration doesn't match what you're doing with your attributes, then you can't use that attribute."

Because otherwise you get dissatisfying, jarring moments, when the game side takes hold, and someone wants to WIN THAT CONFLICT, even though, when it comes right down to it, he has run out of applicable resources, and he really ought to sit back and admit defeat, and see it as a roleplaying opportunity.

Like I said, I don't think the game needs to be changed. I just think that our social contract, for OUR group, needs to strengthen certain narrative aspects.

There's no such thing as inapplicable resources. If they've got the numbers, they should win the conflict. Anything else is treating roleplaying as a privileged viewpoint, more valid than gaming. Tony's Standard Rant #1 most definitely applies.

So I've got some questions for you: How many players did you have, and who was reminding people to narrate?

We had four players. Myself, My wife (who you met), Brenna (who is familiar mostly with games like DnD) and her mother Bambi (who is mostly familiar with LARP).

Generally speaking, the reminders to narrate were coming from whoever wasn't rolling the die. I needed reminding, my wife needed reminding, we all did. And sometimes, the narration just felt... wrong... and I would just shrug, and say, "Hey, the rules say that if that's the explanation for why that attribute fits... it stands. Even if it makes no sense."

TonyLB wrote: There's no such thing as inapplicable resources. If they've got the numbers, they should win the conflict. Anything else is treating roleplaying as a privileged viewpoint, more valid than gaming. Tony's Standard Rant #1 most definitely applies.

Whether it's a weakness or not, the difficulty of adjudicating contributions smoothly in a GMless game is always going to be an issue. I don't think there's any way around it. By playing a GMless game, you give up a certain amount of efficiency in dealing with those sorts of issues.

Maybe, but the same issue is there in a 'GM-ful' game; it just gets swept under the table more often. Efficiency of authority does not, in itself, make for balance.

In the short term, I agree with you that it can be a bumpy ride, especially with a group that's used to a GM. But I think that Capes is a great game for taking these players and introducing them to a greater level of authority and responsibility over the game.

Oh, absolutely! I don't want anything I've said here to indicate that I don't think that Capes is a great game! It's fun, it's snappy, it's innovative. I can't really think of any improvements I'd make to the ruleset. Frankly, if you tried to make a list of games that have only one weak spot, you'd have a really short list. Capes is one of the best games I've ever played.

And you're right... efficiency of authority DOESN'T make for balance... because that's a tradeoff. A GMed game loses out in ways that Capes wins!

In a GMed game, there's one person who has the explicit authority to say things like, "Erm, can you explain better, how getting angry is going to make for a pleasant night out with the wife?" Capes CAN'T have one person with that explicit authority... If it did, it wouldn't be Capes. That's the price Capes pays to have all the other wonderful things it has.

For MY group, that is, Me, my wife, Bambi and Brenna, I'm going to propose that we put more emphasis on the narration than the book does. Assigning debt needs a little attention. Rolling a die needs a little narration. Winning a conflict needs a good deal of narration.

Capes isn't all things to all people.

I fully plan on playing Capes with Tony again. It's a lot of fun!

Nice post, Fred. I think that's a good note to end this particular thread with.

Doug: Actually, I had a comment to slip in, which may incite more comments, or may not. I've just been taking my time trying to express it correctly.

Doug Ruff wrote: But doesn't this stance ("if they've got the numbers, they should win the conflict") imply treating the gaming as a privileged viewpoint? Help me understand this, because I like the Rant. (And happy to take this over to the Rant thread if that's more useful.)

Some people aren't going to be happy with accepting certain contributions (examples of which posted earlier by Fred.) For those people, having some rules to mediate disputes is a good thing.

Goal: Have a Pleasant evening out with the wife
Current standings: 4 Red / 2 Blue. Joe is allied with Red. Anne is allied with Blue. It is going to resolve after this action.

Anne: Patricia snots "Typical of you to be talking only about work. Don't you care about my feelings at all?" Rolling blue with 'abrasive.' I get a five.
Joe: I react with angry. I get a two.
Anne: That's it?
Joe: What? I only get one reaction.
Anne: I'm asking how you use Angry to make for the pleasant evening.
Joe: I just want to roll the dice.
Anne: Well you can't just roll the dice. It's a roleplaying game!
Joe: Okay, whatever. I won't roll the dice. You win.
Anne: You have a miserable evening.
Joe: Yeah, and my character does too.

Goal: Have a Pleasant evening out with the wife
Current standings: 4 Red / 2 Blue. Joe is allied with Red. Anne is allied with Blue. It is going to resolve after this action.

Anne: Patricia snots "Typical of you to be talking only about work. Don't you care about my feelings at all?" Rolling blue with 'abrasive.' I get a five.
Joe: I react with angry. I get a two.
Anne: Not much narration.
Joe: Nope.
Anne: Okay, I'll fill it in then. I react with "Crying". Bob shouts "Why the hell should I care about you, you two-timing little harlot! I know what you've been up to with Rick Jensen behind my back!" The restaurant is silent after Bob's terrible outburst. Patricia sniffles, then starts weeping silently. "How... >snerk<... how can you say that? You know Rick can't even... since the war... his wound... How can you think that about your best friend?" I roll a three. You get a chance to narrate "And Then" if you want.
Joe: No, I'm good. It resolves for me. Bob has a pleasant evening.
Anne: So that thing I just narrated... That's pleasant for Bob?
Joe: Apparently so.
Anne: Well that's revealing.

Tony, there's no mechanic in the game whereby a player can provide narration for another player who fails to do so.

Beg to differ.

p. 38: The narrator may choose either to have the player of the affected character narrate (under the original narrators direction) or to momentarily take on the role of the character in question themself.

Players have complete freedom to narrate, except where the Conflict rules override that freedom.

This whole conversation is exactly why there's the Challenge rule in Universalis. Someone does something out of line that violates the group sense of propriety...there's a mechanism that handles it. Instead of "put up or shut up" its more "put your money where your mouth is". This ties in with Uni's requirement that every statement made with Coins and every die added to a Complication be "justified"...with the group consensus and the Challenge mechanic determining the boundaries for what "justified" means.

I think that mechanic is a little more obvious and intuitive than what Capes is doing. If any player in one of Vax's examples above felt the other player was pulling a narrative fast one, in Uni they'd Challenge...and the winner would be who wanted it more (who's willing to spend the most resources to get their way).

Capes takes a different approach. Not having played I can only label it very intrigueing...but it is very much intriguing, I'm eager to see it in action.

Capes, like Uni shares ownership of characters among players. But, unlike Uni, in Capes when you're controling a character...your control is absolute. In Uni the situation is more like "borrowing" a character. Even though the rules call it "Control" your role is more like a steward than an owner. Everything you do with that character is subject to the approval of (via Challenge and choice of Complication) all of the other players...because they have a vested interest in the character as well.

In Capes control of a character goes much beyond stewardship. In fact, since there is no way for another player / GM to exert any control over you at all (it would seem), in Capes you're the "absolute tyrannical despot" of the character you control for as long as you control him. No one else has the authority to stop you. They may have the POWER to stop you by simply being willing to smoke all of your attempts to Claim conflicts and thus deprive you of your "abusive" narration...but this is much more like bombing Libya to get concessions than negotiating at Yalta.

Ideally, if this set up works in practice (for a wide range of players), you should have a situation where the threat of the other players uniting to bomb you should keep the most grievious "gamey abuses" under control (to whatever level your social contract sets as grievious) but you'll have plenty of lesser violations (of the "how much Oil can I secretly sell to the French before someone cares enough to stop me" variety).

Ideally...those violations should provide creative grist for the mill as in Tony's example above where the seemingly ludicrous "gamey abuse" got interpreted as some powerful insight into the nature of the character.


I'm certainly intrigued by that possibility...it actually makes me want to play Capes more to see how well it works in practice.

I will point out that I regularly field criticism (of varying intensity) for how competitive Uni's rules are (and regularly have to demonstrate why I think they're more cooperative than competitive)...so Capes...which kind of blows past Uni on the competitive scale will likely be hit with even more of that (by those who actually can see what the purpose is and don't consider it simply broken).

Capes is unabashedly competitive, in my opinion... RPG Darwinism.

I wouldn’t call this a weakness of Capes, I see it as a feature. I think the fact that you don’t have to explain how the ability you’re using is relevant is very liberating. Since Capes is basically a well-working resource-management betting-game with the add-on of roleplayed scenes and explained outcomes, you don’t have to fear that others will use the relevance-thing as a way to stop you.

You might think that games that force people to explain why an ability is relevant before they use it would be more inspiring for the players, but I usually feel like it’s the opposite way. I was surprised to see the way Capes ignore relevance, but now I really like it. First of all the players don’t have to fear others complaining before they roll and start explaining. The player knows he’s allowed to use the ability and that any complaint is basically irrelevant. Secondly, if someone fear that the other would narrate that way, they would have to control the conflict themselves. And thirdly, using “Angry” or “Laser Eyes” for improving the pleasant dinner with the wife is just so cool.

In another game I might think twice before trying to use an ability if I feel there’s a large chance of it being vetoed. In capes I would gladly roll “Angry” at the dinner and see what happens. If I control the conflict, I get to narrate how getting angry is useful, and if someone else controls it they can use my anger to hose my character.

The rules support (at least) two different ways to handle narration, I would say. You can either play out what happens with the conflict after the roll with the controller as GM and the others playing their own characters, or you could let the controller describe what all characters are doing and thinking. When we’ve played, my group have mixed the two. Sometimes you feel that the other players have ideas of what their characters should do, and then you let them play them. If they don’t look all that interested, you can narrate what everyone is doing on your own.

I think this makes Capes a good super-hero game. You know that “Invulnerable 5” is always as powerful and relevant as “Talk to ants 5”. You don’t have to agonize over how to phrase your abilities in order to use them, all super-heroes are created equal. Also, the fact that you might need to cover up the narration of others makes the session seem very comics like. If someone narrates the goal “Goal: Capture villain” and narrates how he rips the arms off the villain, the player of the villain would need to describe how they grow back or how they are later replaced by cybernetics. This kind of discrepancies improve the super-hero comics-feel of the game, and I think it’s a feature.

Jonas Karlsson wrote: Since Capes is basically a well-working resource-management betting-game with the add-on of roleplayed scenes and explained outcomes...

Vaxalon wrote: Don't let Tony hear you say that...

I've come to a conclusion I should have come to earlier; I need more experience with this game before I can argue my point coherently. As always, it boils down to Actual Play.

Vaxalon wrote: Capes is unabashedly competitive, in my opinion... RPG Darwinism.

Yes, it pushes... not everyone is able to compete on the same level. Some succeed more than others.

Vaxalon wrote: Yes, it pushes... not everyone is able to compete on the same level. Some succeed more than others.

It's quite a kick in the teeth some times, though... especially to folks who self-identify as experienced roleplayers, and think they have nothing more to learn.

I remember the first time that the Capes system stood up and told me "You sir, are currently doing a crummy job of securing the interest of the other players." It was humbling. It was also, not coincidentally, the start of my improvement in that area.

Jonas Karlsson wrote: I think this makes Capes a good super-hero game. You know that “Invulnerable 5” is always as powerful and relevant as “Talk to ants 5”. You don’t have to agonize over how to phrase your abilities in order to use them, all super-heroes are created equal. Also, the fact that you might need to cover up the narration of others makes the session seem very comics like. If someone narrates the goal “Goal: Capture villain” and narrates how he rips the arms off the villain, the player of the villain would need to describe how they grow back or how they are later replaced by cybernetics. This kind of discrepancies improve the super-hero comics-feel of the game, and I think it’s a feature.

Vaxalon wrote: Capes is unabashedly competitive, in my opinion... RPG Darwinism.

TonyLB wrote: I built Capes to squeeze out as much of that hidden social gaming as possible, and replace it with explicit social gaming. I think it's much healthier.

Doug Ruff wrote:
Capes is Step On Up for narration*, and Joe isn't Stepping Up. This is dysfunctional play.

(*I'm going to stay short of saying that it's Step On Up Narrativism, as I'm not confident enough of my grasp of Narrativist play. But I'm confident that this is a Step On Up issue and as such it has to be addressed).

Doug Ruff wrote: Capes is Step On Up for narration*, and Joe isn't Stepping Up. This is dysfunctional play.

Hm, I forgot about story token awards.

If someone is making trouble, twisting the system around into truly pathological play, the other players can retaliate by shifting story tokens away from him whenever possible.

Pathological play... such as?

Example number one:

Joe plays a conflict. "Doctor Bane picks a daisy." Something innocuous. It gets ignored. "Pfft. What a waste," say the other players.

The player (controlling Doctor Bane) stakes a single point of debt and rolls the die up to a 5. The other players, having more interesting conflicts to play on, still ignore it. They're busy defending their lair (the Revenger building) from an attack by aliens, a conflict that reads, "steal the Barzitron from the Revenger Building."

Joe waits for the Barzitron conflict to be claimed before he claims the daisy conflict. He arranges for it to be resolved directly after that, and of course wins it. In addition to getting a 4 inspiration out of it, Joe narrates. "Doctor Bane picks a daisy. The stem of the daisy is connected to a radio-control detonator that he had buried there the day before. The basement of the Revenger building is engulfed in flame as a series of hidden explosives go off. The entire building collapses, killing everyone inside."

Joe has used the freedom to narrate that the rules give him, to entirely change the implications of his conflict.

"Damn," says Jane, "That sucks."

********************************

Example number two:

A new scene starts. Joe is the scene-setter. He is getting a little tired of some of the characters that keep showing up in scene after scene, so he says, "Meanwhile, across town, apart from the action in the previous scene, an entirely different group of heroes confronts The Thing From The Harbor, a mutant harbor seal, come to take revenge upon the "legged ones" for a century of pollution." He plays his monster as a villainous super, and encourages the other players to think up some new heroes.

Jane, who has been playing the same superheroine in every scene since the game started, wants none of this. She takes her turn after Joe, and chooses her character anyways. Rather than talking through the interpersonal conflict between her desire to play her favorite character, and Joe's desire to see a raft of new ones, she takes refuge in the rules, which allow her to choose any character that hasn't already been chosen for that scene.

"Isn't your character in the previous scene?" asks Joe.

"Yeah," says Jane, "I guess this one's a clone."

"But you've got all the same debt on your character sheet," says Joe.

"Okay," says Jane, "She travelled backwards in time to be in this scene, too."

"Our Comics Code says no time travel, Jane," says Joe, "We decided it opens up too many opportunities for retcons, which we all hate."

"It doesn't matter how she gets there... she's in this scene," says Jane, "I'm not required to explain how."

Jane has just used the rules to take away Joe's ability to frame the scene the way he wants.

************************

Example number three:

James is now the scene-setter. He begins a period of "free narration". During the course of this time, he describes his character doing any number of things that the other players would much rather see handled by means of conflicts.

"Hey, James," says Joe, "Don't you think that should be a conflict?"

"James says, "I'm in the 'first' seat for this scene, so I decide when we start taking turns. And I'm not ready yet."

************************

The awarding of story tokens is under the control of the winner of the conflict. In addition to considering the events of that particular conflict, he can also include considerations about whose play, in general (rather than just that conflict) they like better... in fact, given the subconscious component of such preferences, he can hardly do otherwise.

Dammit man! Have you yet encountered ANYTHING like these hypothetical examples in play?

I think in practice any of these will resolve themselves at the social contract level. As in, "We don't want to play with you any more, because you are delibrately trying to make the game suck."

Exactly. The awarding of story tokens definitely has an aspect of social contract to it.

If someone is playing in a way that ticks you off, but not badly enough to actually exclude the person from the group, you'll probably end up being stingy with story tokens awarded to him. That's my point.

Fred, I see zero problem with any of your examples. It's all stuff I've seen, responded to, and enjoyed in actual play.

I think that you're balking at these examples because you can't stop being a game designer. So when something happens in a game that you don't like, your first question is "How could I redesign the game system so that can't happen?" Which means that you never get to the far more productive question of "Is there something I can do within the game system to respond to this in a way that satisfies me?"

I am not going to go point by point and tell you what I would do, within the rules, to turn these to advantage. You're a smart guy. How about you flex your mental muscles and tell us what you'd do to respond and make these contributions into something interesting and productive? Answers may not take the form of "I do X, Y and Z to convince the pathological player to do something else." It must be something that you, yourself, can do within the rules to take back your fun, whether the jerk-player cooperates or not.

How am I trying to redesign the system?

I'm using something that's already a part of the system (story token awards) in a conscious way, to reward play that I like, and therefore punish play I don't like. Isn't that what story token awards are for?

Before I realized that story token awards could be used this way, the only response I could think of to deal with this kind of play (if it were habitual) was, as Larry said, to boot the offender from the group.

And just to prove that I am NOT, in fact, uncreative, there are, of course, lots of ways to work to undo the damage that was done with these tactics.

Example one: Next scene. "It is six months later. The Revenger building has been rebuilt, exactly as it was before. ..."

Example two: Next scene. Jane plays her character. "Evil Doctor Duplo has, as we saw in the last scene, begun creating exact duplicates of Our Heroes... right down to their mental states! (i.e. minds)" Play the duplicate of Jane's character, that she was playing last time. Oppose her at every turn.

Example three: During the free narration, stop talking. If the other players don't like what James is doing, they stop talking too. James's narration becomes a monologue. When he finally gets around to framing the scene, bring in throwaway characters, and never start new conflicts. I try to make the whole scene as short as possible. Resolve, win or lose, should take two pages. Get on to a FUN scene.

The thing is, though, ALL of these are no different than story token awards. They are still uses of the system as designed to reward and/or punish play I don't find fun.

I just don't get why you'd want to discourage this type of behavior, when it's so easy to make it into something fun.

Example #1:

"Goal: Find the bomb shelter with all personnel safely inside."
"Goal: Travel back in time to avert catastrophe."
"Goal: Try not to totally break down as you dig Exemplars out of horrific debris."

Example #2:

Just one counter, because it's so obvious: "Goal: Prove that Jane's character is actually an evil robotic doppleganger!"

Then you can have an in-character debate, informed by the rules structure, about whether the action was plausible.

Example #3:

"Hyperion and Blaze look in the asylum door sadly as Johnny Bullseye rants about his great victories. 'Is there... any hope, doctor?" Hyperion asks. 'Doubtful... he's retreated to a fantasy world where anything he wants to have happen happens... it takes a strong mind to break free of such a delusion. We do, however, have the experimental 'Psychotron-Projector'... it could project you into his delusion, but then you'd be at the mercy of his psychosis. If you died in his delusion, you would actually be dead. It's too risky.' 'Doctor, it's Johnny's ONLY HOPE!' "


So, yeah, I agree with you... your examples are exactly the same as punishing people by taking away their Story Tokens. It's all ways to say "No, I do not accept your right to contribute this, and I will punish you as a consequence." What I'm recommending is that you get a little bit outside of the mindset that the only thing that can be right is what you like, and figure out how to accept those contributions and make something of them.

TonyLB wrote:
What I'm recommending is that you get a little bit outside of the mindset that the only thing that can be right is what you like, and figure out how to accept those contributions and make something of them.

TonyLB wrote: So, yeah, I agree with you... your examples are exactly the same as punishing people by taking away their Story Tokens. It's all ways to say "No, I do not accept your right to contribute this, and I will punish you as a consequence." What I'm recommending is that you get a little bit outside of the mindset that the only thing that can be right is what you like, and figure out how to accept those contributions and make something of them.

Fred, what do you want from this thread? What sort of feedback will help to make you satisfied?

Specifically, do you feel that you need more information in order to understand others? Or do you feel that you need to more clearly convey your own points in order to be understood? Or something else?

Vaxalon wrote:
Since this aside was latched onto in another thread, let me elaborate.

So, how about I summarize, and we'll see whether I've correctly understood you. And then if I've misunderstood, you'll be better equipped to enlighten me.

You consider it axiomatic that people can make narrative contributions which are destructive to the game. Not necessarily that the players will do so, but that it is possible.

You therefore feel it would be helpful to have a structure in place that can prevent such contributions, in order to protect the game. You do not see an effective structure in place to do that in the rules as written.

Responses that ask for and dispute examples of destructive narrative contribution just show that people don't understand you, because it's not about the particular destructive contributions, it's about the always-present potential for them. The actual destructive contributions will occur uniquely in actual play. Therefore, knocking down an individual example is irrelevant, because those same techniques will not apply to all destructive contributions.

Your candidates for a structure to rein in destructive contributions include:

• Veto power over ability use without adequate narration
• The ability to introduce immediate preventative conflicts
• Social reinforcement through Story Token distribution
• A house rule to break narration into Frames



Have I done a reasonably good job of summing up your position?

Most of that is well summarized.

People can make contributions which spoil my fun. Whether it destroys the game, depends on how much fun it destroys, not just mine, but the other players as well.

Yes, I would consider it helpful if there were such a mechanism... but I doubt a good one, a formal part of the rules, would ever really work.

The candidates you present are things that came up late in the discussion. There was one before that, that you missed, that is actually probably the best one in my opinion.

Really, in these sorts of situations, I think the BEST thing to do, to prevent this kind of thing, is to talk to the other players ahead of time, and let them know what kind of things tick you off. Everyone has them. Then, if they do them, you know they're doing it on purpose, and can react appropriately. If I discover that a style of play is problematic, that it "snaps my suspenders," I'll mention it... whether I let that first one go or not probably would depend on how extreme it was.

It could probably be thought of as part of the house rule and comics code process.

Okay. I understand. And I disagree with you. Your logic is strong, but it all hinges on your first axiom. And that axiom is bunk.

People can not make contributions which spoil your fun. You spoil your own fun in the way you react to their contributions.

Every example you've raised, I've found an easy way to turn it into something fun. I wasn't just doing that to be annoying. I was trying to show you a different way of looking at the contributions of your fellow players. They deserve to be able to contribute to the game without being second-guessed.

If something that another player does makes you unhappy, that is your problem to deal with. Nobody psychically projected unhappiness into your mind. You came by it all on your own. You can deal with it on your own. The system gives you more than enough power.

Constraining the power of players within the system isn't going to make you any better at accepting the contributions of others. It's just going to cripple your ability to use the rules to turn those contributions into something you enjoy.

You seem to be saying, that I should be able to find fun in any sort of play that comes up.

You've given examples of how to turn the listed styles of play into fun for you.

You seem to be saying, that because something is fun for you, it should be fun for everyone.

Oh Fred.

You have made your points. They have been understood.

The first sentence of your post shows that you understand what I, in turn, am saying.

And then the last sentence of your post shows that you are willing to distort what I have said in order to continue what I will term (very charitably, I think) the "discussion."

I ask again: What is it that you hope to achieve in this thread?

The purpose of this thread has always been to answer questions that are put to me, to respond to requests for information.

Vaxalon wrote: The purpose of this thread has always been to answer questions that are put to me, to respond to requests for information.

The funny thing is, I'm pleased as punch. I love the game. I'm a huge fanboy.



Warts and all...