Waitwaitwait... What makes Intergalactic "all powerful"? In fact, what makes him powerful?

There are only two possible things that can give Intergalactic power compared to Kid Virtue. The first is, that his player has a bunch of story tokens. The second is that Intergalactic has a bunch of inspirations.

It doesn't matter WHAT arguments Kid Virtue brings to bear, it doesn't matter what tactics he uses, if Intergalactic is, indeed, powerful, compared to Kid Virtue, Intergalactic is more likely to win any conflicts in which they both contend.

Not only that (in the absence of a "goal in, goal out" house rule*) as soon as "Goal: Decide who is team leader" is off the table, Kid Virtue's player can narrate himself right into the leadership of the team, at no cost. So ultimately, the power that Intergalactic's player expends in order to WIN that goal is wasted. In point of fact, there is no way for Intergalactic's player to spend those resources in such a way that the end result of the goal is protected from being instantly invalidated. This makes them worthless.

If the story tokens and inspirations that are held by Intergalactic's player are worthless, then there is no difference in power between Intergalactic and Kid Virtue.

* "Goal in, goal out" : "Whatever is accomplished by means of winning a goal can only be undone by means of another goal." "Doctor Trinity escapes to fight another day" can only be invalidated by two events; Doctor Trinity fights another day, or someone wins a conflict that reads something like "Catch Doctor Trinity".

This had no bearing on the discussion in Why narrate at all?, so I split it. I hope it leads to much fruitful discussion here, where it is (by definition) on-topic for the thread.

In order to make this into its own thread, let me restate a discussion topic more succinctly:

"Does the "goal in, goal out" house rule make the game better, by giving lasting* value to achieved goals, and thereby give value to the resources (inspirations, story tokens) used to achieve them?"

*not necessarily permanent

I just realized something about this house rule...

What I'm attempting to create, by means of a library of achieved goals, is an authority to which players can appeal, that they can use to pre-empt narration that they believe contravenes that authority.

I'm not sure yet, whether that by itself is enough; you might end up with arguments whether a particular achieved goal was applicable in a subsequent play situation. This may require additional work, to make into a house rule that can actually survive use.

As it is, I think you've got some slight paradox problems. The reductio ad absurdum version is if Captain Amazing wins "Goal: Prove that I am an unstoppable force" and the Dark Destroyer wins "Goal: Prove that I am an immovable object," and then they clash.

Now I don't think that issue is ever going to come up. But my initial intuition is that similar, less clear, clashes might happen. It's hard to say though, before seeing what it does to people's patterns in actual play.

For those sorts of situations, the more recent goal wins. To some extent, Dark Destroyer's goal has been the "goal out" for Captain Amazing's "goal in". Captain Amazing is no longer an unstoppable force, because Dark Destroyer can stop him.

Does DD have to declare that he intends to override Cap's "unstoppable force" when he makes his Goal?

Like, for instance, if I have won "Best in the team at crime-fighting", and somebody aims for "Best Scientist in the world," would they have to declare whether or not that will cover science done as part of crime-fighting?

I suppose a goal could be explicitly declared as intending to completely invalidate an existing goal, or it could exist in its own right, and the hierarchy of which came last would only come into play when the two goals come into conflict.

::sigh:: This is becoming a bit more complicated than I had envisioned...

Hmm. The way we've been playing, won goals are "stuck" for the rest of the scene. This has at least once required some creativity to narrate the outcome of seemingly contradictory goals.

I've seen it played that way. Personally, I just assume that if someone creates a contadictory goal, folks will roll over their Inspirations from the previous goal, and it'll all work out.

Example: Jenny Swift is escaping. Doc Vicious wants to capture her. But she's got 5-1 on his "Capture" goal. So he lets it go. He doesn't capture her. She doesn't narrate zipping off into the distance (as would totally be within her rights). She gets a 4 Inspiration.

Next turn Doc Vicious creates "Capture Jenny Swift" again as a Goal. Jenny's player rolls his eyes and plunks down his 4 Inspiration immediately. Doc's spent an action, and Jenny has a 4-1 advantage before even doing anything else. If he wants to, Doc can keep up this cycle of getting beaten down all day.

Basically, I'm talking about extending that concept beyond just the one scene.

For example:

"Goal: Prove that Doctor Trinity is an alien simulacrum" gets played and won.

Until someone plays and wins "Goal: The real Doctor Trinity escapes from alien captivity" then any time Doctor Trinity shows up, scene after scene, he's an alien simulacrum.

As I understand it, effectively you're implementing States. A goal sets a State, and it's permanant until modified by another Conflict.

Wouldn't this rule add a fair amount of bookkeeping over time?

Also, can't somebody argue that, having won "Goal: Defeat Doctor Chaos," that Doctor Chaos can never again be victorious in anything without winning a conflict, since Doctor Chaos is now set to "defeated."

Not all goals are permanent, only those that state something about the universe, or an element of it.

"Prove that I am superior to Doctor Chaos" would mean that whoever defeated him would have that advantage until removed. "Defeat Doctor Chaos" doesn't state anything about Doctor Chaos.

I can't say without trying it out, but I think that there would be a fair amount of back-and-forth, as players work to remove onerous goals as well as give themselves new ones.

Oh yes, I'm sure there would. I could see it becoming a game of trnch warfare (though hopefully with much more back and forth), with the SiS restricted to the space between people's defensive walls ("no man's land").

Given that, I think you need to consider very seriously that establishing Facts and removing other Facts will be a strategic concern that people are going to max out. Which raises more questions:

• Can a Goal undo more than one Fact?
• Can a Goal establish a Fact and simultaneously undo another?
• Are broad Facts eliminated when another Fact establishes a small exception? (i.e. "I am the most popular hero ever," coming up against "my cousin lucy isn't a fan")

Fascinating stuff. We experimented with a Facts system in early Capes development, but it never did work out. You seem to have a whole different take on it, though, which is quite intriguing.

I think that the ultimate answers to those questions will require some playtesting to answer, but as tentative possibilities, I will offer:

1> A goal that is targeted on completely undoing a goal can only undo that goal, and no others.
2> A goal that is targeted on completely undoing a goal can do no more than undo that goal.
3> A goal that is contradicted by one small exception remains in force for any situations not covered by the exception.

In addition, there may also be a limit to how many of these goals there can be about any one character. Perhaps, one per character, plus one per drive (if the character has them). Otherwise, they might get out of hand... but maybe not. Only playtesting will tell...

I like the term "fact" for accomplished goals.

What I'm shooting for is a situation like in Star Wars. (I'm using this string of events because people will be familiar with them, not because they're particularly good comic book fodder)

Darth Vader confronts Obi-Wan. "You defeated me before, but now I am the master." Obi-wan has the fact, "I can easily defeat Darth Vader." Darth Vader's player plays a new goal, "Obi-Wan can no longer easily defeat Darth Vader." They play through... Darth Vader wins. Obi-wan loses his fact. Darth then plays "Goal: Kill Obi-Wan." He's not going for a fact, he's just trying to remove Obi-Wan from the playing field. Obi-Wan wins... but he narrates that Darth Vader wins the swordfight, but is unable to kill Obi-Wan because Obi-wan becomes a force ghost.

Later, Obi-wan's player introduces Obi-Wan during Luke's encounter with the ice monster in the second movie. "Goal: Obi-wan reveals himself as a force ghost" comes into play. Since everyone around the table likes the idea, there's little opposition, and Obi-Wan gets his fact plus a small inspiration to go with it. He uses that inspiration on a die on "Goal: Luke survives the night on Hoth" to help Luke win the conflict.

The "luke survives the night on Hoth" doesn't become a fact, because it only talks about one past event, it doesn't actually say anything about Luke or Hoth.

Now to switch movies to find another example:

Wesley and Buttercup are stuck in the Fire Swamp. "Goal: Wesley and Buttercup learn how to survive in the Fire Swamp." gets played and becomes a Fact. Until that goal is undone, anyone playing the non-person character of the Fireswamp can't narrate anything about Wesley or Buttercup that implies that there's something they don't know about surviving in the fire swamp.

TonyLB wrote:
• Can a Goal establish a Fact and simultaneously undo another?

I've revised the house rule. Here's the latest version:

Some goals or events don't say anything permanent about the game world; some do. When a conflict is resolved, if the player wants it to say something lasting about the game world, he is adding a Fact to that goal. The fact must be clearly stated. For example:

“Goal: Capture Doctor Evil." is used to establish "Fact: Doctor Evil is in Prison.”

Establishing the fact costs one inspiration. The value of the inspiration used to establish the fact retained when the fact is recorded.

If narration contradicts an established fact, a player must object to it before the next die roll. If the objection is not made, then the player has no recourse later.

When an objection is made, the narrating player may choose to either retract the narration, or create a goal to challenge the fact. If he chooses to create a goal, he may either pay a story token to play it, or if it is currently his turn, use the turn to play the goal. The die representing the defense of the fact is given the initial value of the inspiration that was used to create it, rather than 1.

Example: A player is tired of playing other characters, and wants to bring his favorite character back in. At the beginning of a new scene, he narrates Doctor Evil into the scene. Captain Liberty's player objects. “Doctor Evil is in Prison!” he says, “It's a Fact.” So Doctor Evil's player uses his turn to play the goal: “Doctor Evil escapes from prison.” If he wins that conflict, the “Doctor Evil is in Prison” Fact is removed.

If an attempt to remove a conflict fails, then the fact can be retained, but it costs another inspiration to do so. This may cause the fact to change value.

A conflict can establish more than one fact, if the winner has won more than one inspiration from the conflict, and is willing to spend them.

Oh, by the way...

This was Alexander Cherry's idea

Are there any limitations on what Fact a given Conflict can establish?

Alexander suggested (and I concur) the following:

A fact cannot (a) gainsay other existing facts unless as a result of a challenge to break them, (b) dictate the result of an existing conflict, or (c) break the comics code

Sure, that's in keeping with the way Resolution is handled already (assuming that Facts are roughly equivalent to long-term applications of the Not Yet rule). I was more wondering if I can win a 1 point Inspiration on (say) "Get a mother's day card" and use that to introduce "Fact: Doctor Evil is in Prison".

Well, in the spirit of making the least possible change to accomplish the desired goal, yes... anything that won't make your group pelt you with dice.

I would RECOMMEND that the fact be strongly related to the goal, but what that means would probably vary from group to group.

I'm not sure I see the point of having these Facts if they don't have to be related to the conflicts that spawn them.

Spend 1 Inspiration from "Get a Mother's Day card."

Introduce the Fact "The Earth is destroyed."

Sounds like you're back to square one. Might as well just play the game straight without the Goal In/Goal Out rule.

Yeah, you might get pelted with dice, but that's no different than without the rule. You're setting up a situation where the best way to create meaningful facts is to win unimportant conflicts.

It's early, and I'm probably missing something, but it seems that not linking the Facts to the conflicts that spawn them is just pushing all the work back on the SC again.

Maybe if I can put up Inspiration of my own to challenge a Fact...

-Chris

Then you start running into the problem of who decides what's related and what's not.

In the original version, I had the person who writes the goal defining what the fact would be, but that was before I linked in inspirations.

I don't think that will work Fred. As Chris points out the only thing you'll have done is push the potential for undesired outcomes from the free narration to the facts.

I think your best bet is not to have a seperate Fact structure at all...the Goal as defined IS the Fact. If the Fact is going to be Capture Dr. Evil, than the Fact is Dr. Evil has been Captured. If you want the fact to be that Dr. Evil is in prison than the Goal should be "Lock Dr. Evil behind bars" or the like.

That seems to me to be a perfect opportunity for a follow up conflict. The first Conflict is to Capture Dr. Evil. Ok...so no he's been captured, he's wrapped up in Wonder Womans Lariat, or the Hulk has bent some girders around him or Spidey's got him snared in a web or whatever.

THAT'S your fact. No one can simply narrate Dr. Evil getting up and walking away...He's captured and will remain captured until another conflict releases him. BUT if you actually want to get him into prison, that requires a new goal "Dr. Evil convicted and locked away in Attica for 20 years". If that goal is lost...then Dr. Evil never makes it to prison...he's not convicted...whatever.

But I wouldn't get cute trying to figure out then whether losing the "Convict Dr. Evil" goal automatically cancels out the "Capture Dr. Evil" goa that was won (you could come up with some rules to spend Inspriation to link Conflicts together or something but that seems unnecessarily convoluted to me).

Instead what do you have. You have a situation where the heroes had captured Dr. Evil but now the courts have failed to convict. Seems like a perfect opportunity for a follow up conflict. If the Conflcit is to undo an existing goal that should be made clear by how the goal is worded: "Dr Evil escapes and is no longer captured". "The court orders the Hero to release Dr. Evil from Captivity". Or even "After losing the case the Heros release Dr. Evil". Meaning yes, for consistancy with the very sharply defined game mechanics, even if the heroes who captured Dr. Evil WANT to let him go, they'd need to make that a goal and fight over it. In other words...no voluntarily terminating an existing goal.

What this would mean is that the hero would actually support the "releasing Dr Evil" side. Most often the player of Dr. Evil would also support that side and the Conflict would get claimed and resolved with no fuss or muss (and probably no debt or story tokens) but doing it this way would keep the rules clean. It also allows the opportunity for fun alternatives. Maybe a newly created league of normal human vigilantes take up the opposition to Dr Evil's release. Maybe Dr. Evil himself opposes his own release in order to paint the superheroes as law defying vigilantes.

Either way Dr. Evil remains captured until a goal to "uncapture" him is won, just as was captured but not imprisoned until a goal of "imprison" him is won.



I would go one step further and allow Conflicts to be created in reaction to other players narration instead of only on the players turn (perhaps charging an inspiration to do that). That would allow players the ability to turn narrated events into a conflict immediately rather than having to suffer the effect of the narrated event and then create the conflict after (as with the earlier example of lizard men slaughtering humans).

That way when the players who've captured Dr. Evil narrate transporting him to a holding cell underneath the Hall of Justice, the player of Dr. Evil can immediately say "I'm making that a Conflict...Goal: Transport Dr. Evil to the Hall of Justice". If the Dr. wins the opposing side to that, he doesn't win his freedom. But he does make it impossible for anyone to narrate taking him to the Hall of Justice without first doing another Conflict to undo that one.

Those items would pretty much turn the game into something I'd immediately recognize as fun to play...whether they are necessary or not I'm not 100% certain of since it may be that I'd also consider the current rules fun to play I just don't recognize them as such yet.

The easy creation of conflicts is probably a good fix there.

"Hey! I don't want you to do that. Make it a goal." is the essence, I think, of what's needed...

Generally speaking, the creation of conflicts (since it's a turn) costs a story token rather than an inspiration. Given that according to Tony's description of long-term play, story tokens are never really in short supply after a while, that's probably reasonable. It isn't a free veto, and it isn't a veto that can't be overridden, but it means that the conflict that comes out will be of immediate interest to everyone involved.

I think that does what Tony intended for the game; that any disagreement between the players becomes a conflict that they can play out. Since as it stands conflicts can only be played during one's own turn, they can't be used that way; by making them an 'interrupt'

I DO want to see a way of making final outcomes of conflicts semi-permanent, though, so that if the heroes accomplish something, it stays accomplished, at least for a while. Going back to the goal IS the fact may be an improvement.

Maybe call conflicts that establish something "Accomplishments", their own third type.

"Accomplishment: Put Doctor Evil behind bars." If the conflict is won, then it's true, if it's lost, then it's not necessarily true.

Vaxalon wrote:
I think that does what Tony intended for the game; that any disagreement between the players becomes a conflict that they can play out. Since as it stands conflicts can only be played during one's own turn, they can't be used that way; by making them an 'interrupt'

I DO want to see a way of making final outcomes of conflicts semi-permanent, though, so that if the heroes accomplish something, it stays accomplished, at least for a while. Going back to the goal IS the fact may be an improvement.

"Accomplishment: Put Doctor Evil behind bars." If the conflict is won, then it's true, if it's lost, then it's not necessarily true.

Well, some goals accomplish something so inherently transient or ephemeral that it makes no sense to create anything lasting out of it.

"Humiliate Doctor Evil" for example. Sure, he's humiliated... he doesn't STAY humiliated long.

"Ratman is kissed"

Vaxalon wrote: "Humiliate Doctor Evil" for example. Sure, he's humiliated... he doesn't STAY humiliated long.

Hm; perhaps you're right; anything that's too ephemeral might not deserve to be a goal in the first place.

Exactly. Once you have a goal in place that Dr Evil has been humiliated its there. Its a permanent feature of the gamescape. One can imagine newscasters bursting into laughter as they report on the story or late night talk show hosts including Dr. Evil jokes in their opening monologue.

Whats VERY cool about this system is that even if Dr. Evil's player wins a goal "Destroy New York City" or "Leave the White House a Burning Pile of Ash"...he still hasn't removed the humiliation. You'd still have radio talk show guys like Rush Limbaugh popping off on their program about this "little Dr. Evil weasel who keeps blowing things up...he's like a little child with a new toy. Someone should give him a spanking". No matter what he does...he'll get no respect for it...because he's been "Humiliated".

Until he starts a "Goal: Remove my Humiliation and win the respect of the world" Conflict he'll always be humiliated.


I suspect the above is pretty much exactly how Tony plays already and how he envisions the whole conflict system should work. Alls this does is provide the mechanical reinforcement to back it up with.

The only think missing from the rule is what to do if someone narrates something that violates a goal. The rule is now there to say that they can't do that...but who gets to stop them. Can any player point out that they're in danger of violating an established goal and suggest a change with it going to player vote?

Or, since that sort of collaboration seems against the spirit of Capes, perhaps the recourse players have is to use the new reaction / interrupt Conflict creation rule to create the overturning conflict...

i.e. "Goal: Capture Dr. Evil" has been won. Dr Evil is officially captured.
Player A narrates Dr. Evil walking away and catching a bus back to his secret headquarters. If no body says boo about it...it happens. But someone noticing that this violates the "Goal in Goal out" principle jumps in and says "wait, no Dr. Evil's been captured...I'm creating Goal: Dr. Evil Escapes" so you can't do that without winning this new Conflict.

Maybe when used that way the reaction Goal doesn't cost a Story Token (but then that gets back to who judges whether a Goal applies or not).

If you make it cost a story token, then you buy the authority to say, "No, wait, you need a goal to do that" by paying the story token.

This INCREASES the value of story tokens. I like that; this means that people will consider when they spend them, whether they want to have one or two around for this kind of conflict play.

I would also consider having new players start with one or two, just so that this play can start with the very first scene.

Vaxalon wrote: I think that does what Tony intended for the game

::hands thrown up in surrender::

I never meant to do anything but state my understanding or lack thereof.

Point taken, I shall not make that mistake again.