We just had a session that (in my opinion, anyway) hugely rocked... and yet, the thing that sticks with me is that I got to throw a tantrum in character, and have it matter exactly as it should.

My character, Zak, proposed a cool but dangerous mission for the Team and wanted team-leader Ransom (played by Eric) to support it. Kettridge (played by Sydney) wanted to keep Zak safe. We both won our respective Goals, which ended up meaning that the mission was a "go", but that Zak was removed from the roster. Oh so frustrating to the character. So I decided that, while the other two were discussing the mission details, Zak wanted to have an emotional outburst.

Now I considered making "Goal: Keep your temper," and then hoping that somebody would oppose me, and I could lose it. Which, in retrospect, would have been silly... because my character would have been staking debt against losing his temper, so that losing his temper would make him feel worse.

Instead I made "Goal: Have an emotional outburst." Which, interestingly, meant that other players could stop me from doing so: It's really just about the ultimate violation of "My Guy" syndrome on some levels... I was explicitly saying "I don't have the right to portray this emotional reaction without winning it from you guys."

But on the other hand, it's very, very right. I have had plenty of times in my life when I wanted to scream at somebody, but I couldn't. This was clearly one of those times for Zak. He wanted to show how pissed off he was, but everything about the existing relationship made that hard for him.

So there was a real sense of satisfaction in winning the Goal, and having Zak knock Ransom's office-door to flinders as he pounded out in a rage. Nobody even opposed me very hard. I think (though Eric and Sydney can confirm or deny) that they both wanted the tantrum to happen, because it was so obviously right for the way the group dynamic is evolving.

And, plus, Zak felt objectively better having vented his frustration. I staked debt and won, on many parts of that extended argument. After getting pissed off and yelling at his team-mates (on numerous issues) Zak ended up feeling better about himself than he's felt for several sessions. Which is, again, something that I recognize very much from my own life, in precisely these circumstances.


So, anyway, there were tons of other things happening. I grabbed two non-spotlight characters that Eric and Sydney had established, and I ran like crazy with them (literally, in one case... she's insane). And that was a lot of fun, as well as hugely profitable. But I'll leave it to others to talk about that. I'm just still glowing about the wish-fulfillment of playing a character who has the raw strength to slam a door exactly as hard as I really want to when a conversation just pushes all my buttons.

Okay, I lied. I'm going to talk about some of the other cool things happening.

Ransom (Eric's character, though definitely not Eric himself) has been... how to say this... a benevolent obstruction to our actually doing anything. Basically, he considers time travel "tricky" in all sorts of ways. So he had many arguments for why you shouldn't just rush out and save a billion people from extermination (because your involvement could actually make things worse).

I genuinely think (though, again, Eric would know) that Eric intended this to be an issue that Ransom worked past. But having arguments with Zak (very reckless) and Kettridge (dedicated to Ransom's authority, right or wrong) really made it impossible for him to work the issue through. He was continually drawn into defending inaction simply because everyone was arguing for action on the wrong grounds. In retrospect it's actually very neatly dysfunctional.

This session, though, Ransom came face to face with his mentor, Tempus, the guy who created the time-travel organization. And Tempus said all the things that Ransom's been saying: "Be cautious," "Don't ask questions," "If you act you might ruin the universe." With nobody spouting calls for action that he needed to contradict, Ransom was able to actually find his own voice, and make an argument for action on his own grounds. Which was cool to see.

In retrospect, I wonder how many disagreements in past roleplaying have been about precisely that: "I don't actually support this turtling position. I'd much rather be proactively pursuing fun. But you're recommending that we proactively pursue something I don't find fun, which forces me into the position of being cautious and restrained." Or am I just seeing patterns where none exist?

Hi Tony,

I think you nailed it, actually.

I'm looking forward to playing Trollbabe with you, if we get the chance, at GenCon. Anyone can call a conflict in Trollbabe, and two things are inherent to doing so: (1) the character might lose, and in many cases, the player is down with that; (2) the opposition to the character is often Director-Stanced into play by calling the conflict in the first place.

"I hunt for spies!" (1) I might not find the spies, (2) there are probably spies all over the place.

Best,
Ron

TonyLB wrote: I grabbed two non-spotlight characters that Eric and Sydney had established, and I ran like crazy with them (literally, in one case... she's insane)...

Yeah, I must admit that I'd been looking forward to playing M-32, and she didn't disappoint. She's so custom-designed to make people miserable that, honestly, I'd have felt uneasy really setting her loose fully on an undeserving fellow player. But since Sydney made the character, absolutely any way that I used the powers was just karma.

Now I'm curious - how is she custom-designed to make people miserable? What are her traits?

Steve

I'll give you the highlights: "Cause Pain - 5", "Know your secrets - 4", "Command - 3", "Remember your future - 4", "Untouched - 3." Oh, and a Despair Drive of 4, of course.

The fun thing is that, since this is a time-travel campaign, M-32 is actually a grown-up version of my spotlight character, Minerva. In fact I've got three, so in theory everyone in my gaming group could be playing the same person at the same time:

Minerva at age 11 - has Heroic drives, although ambivalent in practice, with an attitude "creepy" and a power "creep you out"; my spotlight character
Minerva at age 32 (M-32) - Villainous drives and unequivocally awful
Minerva at age 41 - Heroic drives, and originally conceived of as the "finally got it together" version of the character, but even when I was roleplaying her, the other players threw conflicts in her way that made it clear she's still struggling to connect with others.

Tony's suggested I just keep adding additional Minervas from infancy to senility in order to soak up Debt, but I think he was joking. I think.

And Tony? I have to confess, I'm tempted to frame a scene with an 11-year-old version of your villainness Vanessa Faust... but I think that'd just plain piss you off.

Oh, and Ron? Having just read the Sex & Sorcery bit about reproductive-power stories and the sheer compelling appeal of female villains... we've totally stumbled into that. We've had far more high-intensity conflicts about older characters' disfunctional attempts to nurture/parent/mentor their juniors than about "kill the bad guy" (or, for that matter, conflicting loyalties to different groups). Tony's Vanessa Faust is a Dark Seducer type; and my various Minervas seem to revolve around repressed sexuality.

The young-Vanessa would be so funny. Jim Henson's Super-Babies. Seriously, though: I don't think it would tick me off. It might depend on whether you were using her as a "dig" against Vanessa, or as a character in her own right, but even then... the system just makes it so easy for me to make my disapproval known, in whole or in part, that there's no point getting worked up about it.

If young Vanessa were just a target, with the implication that I needed to defend her or else my spotlight character would suffer... well, I'd probably just have modern-Vanessa swoop in and kill her, so as to defuse the issue.

But if you plan to make her an independently entertaining and challenging character then by all means, go for it. Entertain me and I'll accept most any level of mucking about.

Ohhhhh. I was just thinking of framing a scene where your character's childhood self appeared and then seeing how (and even if) you played her. But of course there's nothing in Capes to stop me playing an alternative version of your character.....

Now I have to do this.

And don't worry, Young Vanessa will be the coolest kid on the block. I realized one crucial thing already: No Angst.