1. Turn order of claiming phase
During the claiming phase you go clockwise around the table from the starter, to allow players to add claims, persons and conflicts.

When it’s your turn, are you allowed to add …

1 event (free or paid by a story token)
1 person (free or paid for)
1 claim (free or paid with story token)

… once per round, or one of them on each round? Are you allowed to add as much as you like or do you have to add everything on your turn? The question is basically what you’re allowed to do when it’s your turn in the claiming phase. The order is important; it matters if you’re allowed to wait until after people have used their free claims before you introduce your conflicts.

Are you allowed to hold on to your free claim until after people have added their conflicts for free or for story token during the claiming phase?

2. Stake on non-allied conflicts
Are you allowed to stake on a side you’re not allied to? The conflict would have to be morally charged for the character to stake on it, but does the character have to be involved (allied) in the conflict?

3. Splitting non-allied conflicts
If you’re allowed to stake on a side you’re not allied to, are you allowed to split it? Can you split the opponent’s side? Also, if you claim a side and then split of to a new side, do you bring your claim to the new side or does it stay with the old side?

4. Stakes when switching side
When you change an alliance to the opposite side, do your stakes follow the character? I know you bring them if you split to a new side, so I suppose it’s the same if you switch side.

(1) The free claims must happen in the first go-round. So yes, you can wait to introduce an event until after everyone else has claimed (particularly, if you're the last in order claim, you can introduce and free-claim after everyone else has spent their free claims).

(2) No, you have to be allied (or at least the "not-allied-yet" that comes from having not yet rolled anything one way or the other).

(3) n/a

(4) If you switch sides you leave your Debt behind.

Thanks for the answers; I have some further questions, though. The session last night worked a lot more smoothly than the first, in big part due to your answers to our questions. It’s great to not have any areas of the system you avoid because you don’t fully understand them.

1. So how do you proceed after the first round of free claims? Do you go another round with each person adding all the characters, claims and conflicts when it's their turn, or do you have to add one thing at each round? Or perhaps you can do either of them? When it's my turn for the second round, can I put claims on three different conflicts, or do I need to give the other players a chance to react between each claim?

2. So far people have only staked on conflicts on the side they entered. Since we like if you explain why the conflict is relevant for the characters drive it's much easier if they ally with the same side and try to affect the outcome than if the character is not involved at all.

3. Oh, but we had some problems with the second question. What happens with the claim when you split to a new side? Do you bring the claim with you, does it stay on the old side or do you get to choose?

4. But if you split off a die to a new side you bring your staked debt point (and more points if you have them staked on the side you’re splitting from), right? It just seemed like a similar situation when switching side in the conflict.

(1) Okay, first rules, then actual practice: After first claims, it's like Reactions. You go around the circle. When it comes to your turn, you may spend a Story Token to do something. If you skip round #1 you may still jump in on round #2. If you want to do three extra claims at once, you do them in three separate rounds.

Now, actual practice, as I've always seen it: Raise hands everybody who wants to do extra claims. Nobody? Cool. One person? Do all your claims. Two people? Wow! Rarity! Okay, let's go to the explicit, round-by-round rules.

(3) The claim stays on the old side. To split a new side and win it you need to go around another full page (at least).

(4) Yeah. The alliance rules are the weak-point of the system, in my opinion. I put a lot of thought in on them, and never really did get what I wanted. I could make arguments for why it's a different thing, but you can certainly find counter-examples... situations where people are clearly more likely to switch sides when they're more morally vested on an issue. This system doesn't handle those particular situations gracefully.

Thomas Robertson (LordSmerf on these boards) had some really intriguing suggestions that dealt with things in different ways. They just weren't a good fit for what I personally wanted from Capes. Somebody (other than me, I do it already) should go pester him to publish a game based on those insights, though.