I was reading the lightbulb thread by Uzzah and was going to respond with something about how I thought Capes was totally narrativist, but it didn't seem pertinent enough to post, so I kept thinking and it led me to this:

Capes is not a GM-free game, rather, all the players unofficially take turns being the GM (probably not revolutionary).

Capes is also totally narrativist, especially when the system is followed as intended. (has been debated...a bunch)

Assuming my group is using Spotlight characters, I show up for the session with an idea for what story I want to tell about my character. I have an open mind, though, and am more than willing to include suggestions from the other players and incorporate their ongoing stories into my own.

If I want to tell my story, I need Story Tokens. The best way to get those is to take a turn Playing Bass to the other players. If i do that, then they have more fun, and are more likely to Play Bass for me, thus letting me have more fun. And we all have to get into one anothers' heads to figure out exactly which bass riff to play. Capes will teach you to be a better Narr GM!

As a side note, I think the Gamism in Capes is something of a red herring. I want to play in a Narr style. If I help the others to do this as well, the system will reward me with the resources to make Narr decisions.

Aaron, I actually think Capes is CA independent, or that it offers support for all CAs. Take this with a grain of salt, however, because I've never been well-versed in the GNS theory. No matter what you're looking for, the system always rewards use of the rules and mechanics.

I'll jump in here and use some information I got from Tony in a PM that rang really true to me. Before I posted my lightbulb thread I asked Tony what his experiences with Capes was as it relates to CAs. Basically what he told me (and I really hope he jumps in here and elaborates more than I can) is that they started off as Gamist. However, the more they learned about each others likes and desires, not only for themselves but for their characters, it started shifting to Nar play. This for some reason immediately formed a picture in my mind...

It's analogy time! (forgive me, but I love'em.)

Imagine if you will a blank piece of posterboard. On one side of the board are magnents glue in a specific pattern. Now, you take someone and set him on the opposite side of the board, throwing magnents at the board. If he hits within the pattern he can't see, it sticks. He keeps throwing them, and slowly the pattern emerges. Now he's got the ability to make a magnet stick everytime he throws one, because he now knows the pattern.

Now in Capes, conflicts are your magnents, and the pattern is what your fellow players like/enjoy. What I got from Tony is once they figured out each other's "pattern" then they could start throwing Nar conflict magnents that would hit each and every time. My only concern though is I can still see how someone would call this Gamist play. Why? Because you get better "aim". Every conflict you throw at someone now sticks, thus ensuring the player cares about it, thus ensuring he spends his currency on said conflict and rewarding you afterwards pending his victory, thus ensuring you "won", thus ensuring me using way too many "thus-es". :)

I suppose it kinda boils down to the intentions of the player. Is he starting a conflict so his fellow players can address premise, or he is starting a conflict simply to get story tokens.

I'm sure there's a thread or 2 (million) around here discussing Gamist players/games where the goal is to address premise.

Andrew Morris wrote: Aaron, I actually think Capes is CA independent, or that it offers support for all CAs. Take this with a grain of salt, however, because I've never been well-versed in the GNS theory. No matter what you're looking for, the system always rewards use of the rules and mechanics.

I'm not sure I see what you're saying here. Can you give examples of Gamist and Narrativist Goals?

TonyLB wrote: I'm not sure I see what you're saying here. Can you give examples of Gamist and Narrativist Goals?

I think that you'll most often get conflicts that are appealing to both, or neither, equally. Can you give a specific theoretical example of a Gamist conflict and a Narrativist one?

Uzzah: Yeah, but... what is a Gamist Conflict? What is a Narrativist Conflict? You say people will do things differently, but I don't grok the specifics.

Say I notice that Fistfire has four Debt Tokens in Love (and, indeed, is overdrawn). I therefore play his Love Exemplar, Zartanna, in the next scene, and I provide "Goal: Express my feelings to Zartanna", which I then oppose as hard as I can.

Is this a Gamist Goal or a Narrativist Goal?

Andrew Morris wrote: I think that you'll most often get conflicts that are appealing to both, or neither, equally. Can you give a specific theoretical example of a Gamist conflict and a Narrativist one?

TonyLB wrote: Uzzah: Yeah, but... what is a Gamist Conflict? What is a Narrativist Conflict? You say people will do things differently, but I don't grok the specifics.

Say I notice that Fistfire has four Debt Tokens in Love (and, indeed, is overdrawn). I therefore play his Love Exemplar, Zartanna, in the next scene, and I provide "Goal: Express my feelings to Zartanna", which I then oppose as hard as I can.

Is this a Gamist Goal or a Narrativist Goal?

Tony, do you think your experience playing Capes with a certain group would help you do a better job running a sesion of Sorcerer (as an example) for the same group?

I ask (in lieue of a much longer post that somehow vanished) because it seems that the dynamics of Capes will increase player drive, GM responsiveness, and overall group trust (assuming a compatible group to begin with).

Yeah, I definitely see a differential improvement. I play with Eric and Sydney in other games, with other groups, and it's very much as if we have private channels of communications going that we don't with other members of the group.

Now I think that this would be the case with any game that really pushed us all to contribute and to honestly (i.e. brutally) evaluate each other's contributions. Whether Capes (because of its system) does more than that minimum requirement is something I'm harder pressed to give you a definite answer on. I think it does, but until there's more varied Actual Play evidence I'm honestly not sure.

Hello,

Capes is definitely an enigma when it comes to CA. Here's why it's so problematic.

1) It has been acknowledged that Gamism and Narrativism (Step On Up and Story Now) are kissing cousins. Systems that facilitate one, often facilitate the other or are at least easily driftable to do so.

2) The bigest mistake I think anyone makes, including myself once upon a time, is to think that in order to get a "story oriented" game that adversity must be a straw man. Players should never be in any REAL danger and that villains should win and lose on cue. The biggest shock of my life came when I realized that Story Now is best facilitated by REAL, unfettered, rulthless adversity. A skill I had been deliberately supressing in order to be more "story oriented." The Demons in Sorcerer are scary, sorcery is difficult and combat is rather unforgiving. The Master in My Life With Master can not be resisted with out a pretty serious odds-against-you roll. The idea that players should abide by the outcome of social conflict rolls, upto and including having their characters believe or do things they don't want them to believe or do.

My argument has always been that the strategy and tactics elements of Capes is incentive to provide adversity for your fellow players in the absense of a GM. The issue is what form does this adversity take? Is it solely about matching adversity for adversity (Step On Up) or is it about confronting meaningfull choices (Story Now).

I don't think the strategy and tactics element is the telling point of a Capes CA. I think what matters is the content of the Conflict cards played in the game because the content of the Conflict reveals the form of the adversity being pushed. Could the content of the Conflicts be solely about adversity with the absense of hard moral choices (or straw man moral choices)? Perhaps. But I consider it highly unlikely, especially among groups likely to give Capes a go in the first place.

Jesse

Jesse: Are you taking up the fallen banner of "Gamist Conflicts" vs. "Narrativist Conflicts"? It seems like you're saying (in your last paragraph) that a Gamist would want one type of conflict (without hard moral choices... which perplexes me from a game-resource point of view, but maybe we'll get back to that) and a Narrativist would want another type. If that's actually what you're saying can you give some examples?

I'm agreeing that you can't judge a Capes game's CA without looking at the content of the conflicts. I'm not so sure it's as simple as "Gamist Conflicts" vs "Narrativist Conflicts." The problem is that we're running up against Ron's "instance of play", so it's very difficult to provide a concrete example because you could only tell by looking at the Conflicts over multiple sessions. It gets watered down even further when you take into account the actual interactions of the people over what purpose the Conflict serves on a social level.

Consider this example. The scene is framed as a bank robbery. The Hero introduces the Goal: Stop the bank robbers. The Villain introduces the Event: A wall collapses.

This is where it gets all complicated. We don't know what these MEAN to the players, even if the in game consequences are roughly the same. The hero has to choose between stopping the bank robbers and saving some people from being crushed by the wall. Maybe this really is a tough choice for the player and it's out there because Villain's player really wanted to tug at the heartstrings of the hero player because from past events he knows that the hero player really HATES innocents being harmed. Or maybe the moral choice is just a bit of super-hero pastiche used by the villain's player who knows that the hero's victory over the bank robbers will be cheapened if he has to let the wall crush some innocents.

In the first case the Villain player is genuinely questioning the Hero player's character (i.e. thematic) priorities. In the second example the Villain player is leveraging the commonly accepted fact (pastiche) that heroes don't let innocents die to tactically threaten the hero player. The Hero player doesn't really have any investment in the choice as a character statement, he just knows that things, and therefore his victory, "won't look quite right" if he lets the wall collapse go in the Villain's favor.

We can't know the CA without knowing both the Conflicts and what those conflicts mean to the players...over time.

Jesse: I still don't get what you're saying. Are you saying that any conflict (or trend of conflicts over the course of an entire game) can be in service to any CA? Or are you saying that analysis of conflicts can show you what CA is in play? And is "content of conflicts" different from "conflicts"?

I'm saying that analysis of conflicts in play plus analysis of the group interaction over those conflicts can tell us what CA was involved. I don't think the strategy and tactics play of the Capes rules is sufficient. I don't think a transcript of in-game events is sufficient. I don't even think a detailed list of what conflicts were played how the mechanics were employed to resolve them is sufficient. You need the "And that's when he smiled," or "God, she seemed to take that so personally," or "He seemed really uncomfortable with that idea," on top of all the other stuff.

Jesse

Jesse is right, there is no such thing as a Gamist Conflict - there's no such thing as a gamist to start. The whole idea misses what CA is about.

I think Capes is pretty strongly supportive of narrativism. Moreso than Universalis, for instance (which is sorta narrativism by default).

The principle here is that tactical play that's used to produce theme is not gamism, but narrativism. Like Jesse says, it's false to assume that narrativism is just about everyone getting their way. Using the classic example, in Sorcerer, combat is dangerous to the player - you can lose your character in theory. And there is a "winning" tactic. Which is to describe your actions in an entertaining fashion, so as to gain dice to win in combat.

Does this make Sorcerer gamism supportive? No, what the players are doing by coming up with the creative narrations are to create theme. The system uses "winning" as an incentive to make decisions that create theme. Not to make decisions that promote your self-esteem against some challenge. You don't gloat when you win in Sorcerer beause you're a better player at defeating opponents than the other players or something, you gloat because you've created the coolest narrative.

I think the same thing happens in Capes. Yes, you compete, but you do so not to lord it over the other players, but to create theme.

That's narrativism. Think about when you're deciding what a character does? Is your choice of his action because you'll beat the other players, or some challenge from the game? Or because you get to create the theme you want by deciding that action?

Mike

I agree that there's no such thing as an inherently G or N conflict.  It's all about context and play.

But, that having been said... what if it's both?

At DEXCON, somebody handed me a conflict of "Ryu wants to get into a fight."  And I said to myself "Wow, how do I make her angry about fighting for that?  How do I make it show something about her character, one way or the other?  Oh wait, I got it!"  And then I had the little obnoxious boy-wonder sidekick I was playing say "No, Ryu!  You stay in the house!  Fighting is too dangerous for girls!"

Of course, the moment I said that TJ (playing Ryu) took this deep, hissing intake of breath and said, very low, very dangerous "Oh you didn't just say that..."  To which I responded "Hey, my character is deeply invested in the moral principle of Truth."  TJ's response?  "Oh, it's ON!"

I get really confused about Capes on this level, possibly because I don't know enough about GNS.  In one sense, I'm driving toward "What will offend TJs sensibilities most, causing her to rise to the challenge on a personal level" as a tool for creating theme (about gender identity, toughness, etc.)  On another level, I'm using theme (her character choices, what moral principles her character stands for, etc.) as a tool for more accurately forcing her to step on up.  They don't feel like they're prioritized, one over the other.  They feel like doing one will always lead to doing the other, so it's just all one thing.

I've called Capes a "post-GNS design" for these reasons. It has certainly raised issues that, to me at least, seem to exist in an area for which theory hasn't been developed.

There is certainly a level of "Step On Up" that is necessary to enjoy Capes. Something is disqualified from fulfilling a Gamist agenda just because it advances a Narrative? That doesn't seem right.

TonyLB wrote: In one sense, I'm driving toward "What will offend TJs sensibilities most, causing her to rise to the challenge on a personal level" as a tool for creating theme (about gender identity, toughness, etc.)  On another level, I'm using theme (her character choices, what moral principles her character stands for, etc.) as a tool for more accurately forcing her to step on up.  They don't feel like they're prioritized, one over the other.  They feel like doing one will always lead to doing the other, so it's just all one thing.

Sooo...

In Narrativism competition serves a purpose while in Gamism competition is the purpose?

-Eric

Mike wrote: Narrativism, narrativism, narrativism. In all cases, the question is what is a cool theme?

It's like you're saying, "It's a tree and a bush because it's got branches." I'm not analyzing your emotions, I'm analyzing your logic. I don't know how you feel. So you can say over and over that you feel that it's both, and, well, how can I convince you otherwise?

Eric, that's a simplificiation since it's about the decision-making process, not about purpose. And also competition isn't neccessarily part of narrativism. But where it does exist in narrativism, you have generally the right idea. A player employing narrativism in such a system merely sees the competition as spurring them on in the direction that they intend to go already. The gamism employing player doesn't care about the theme, just about what it takes to win.

Interestingly, such competition may accidentally create themes (sim does this, too). That is, it's not the intention, but a side effect.

I'd be willing to entertain that Capes is more like Pantheon or Primeval. Those are gamism supportive games that produce theme as a byproduct. This doesn't match what I know of Capes, but it does seem to match some of the claims made about it (by people who have actually played - I have not).

Mike

Mike, I'm just not getting what you're saying.  You say that I'm making a logical error, and I want to accept that.  What is the logical error?

Seriously, reconstruct my argument (as you see it) if that's what it takes to point out the flaw.  I won't take it amiss, and if I don't think it's what I'm saying then I can point out exactly where we're miscommunicating.

The simplest problem is that gamism and narrativism are mutually exclusive by definition. Yet you're saying that your play is both at once. So either you disagree with the definitions, or you're making a logical fallacy. Something cannot be what it is not.

I think that from your comments that your notion is that GNS modes are not mutually exclusive, or, rather, that you have your own definition for them that is not mutually exclusive. That competition alone means gamism. But since competition isn't unique to gamism, it can be narrativism as well (the tree and bush thing).

You would be far from unique in assuming that your game did something that somehow makes it the first "bi-modal" game. But you're talking about a different model then than GNS. Using GNS we might say that your game produces decisions that are highly congruent. A functional hybrid, perhaps. Or maybe it's even simply supportive of incoherence.

But to say that the play in question is both gamism and narrativism flies in the face of the definitions in question.

BTW, wasn't it you in another thread that I read saying that when you play, Capes produces narrativism? Remember that a game isn't narrativism, it can only support narrativism. Play itself is what might be narrativism. So, if the other thread is true, then what is it about you that makes you different from other gamers in how it's played?

If you're just saying that some people play it using narrativism, and some with gamism, well, that's potentially true of any game.

Mike

Mike wrote: The simplest problem is that gamism and narrativism are mutually exclusive by definition.

Well, this really has become something that should go in the GNS forum. But seeing as this is your forum here: it comes down to the fact that certain decisions occur in RPGs that are such that one must make their decision one way or another.

My outrageous killing the baby kobolds example is good for this. If in a game, you have a gamism reward for killing baby kobolds, when your character is supposed to be a hero, it becomes impossible to do the winning move and the thematically reasonable move. On killing the kobolds for their EXP, it becomes obvious what the mode of play that the decision is a tell of is.

That's not to say that this is gamism. It means that if we watch play for a while and see players doing this sort of thing regularly, that the play is gamism. Atomically there is no identification of mode per the theory. That is, you can't tell anything from just one decision in isolation. In fact, sans things like social support and the like, you can't even be sure about the mode from killing baby kobolds. Perhaps the player is authoring a theme of cold-hearted brutality...

Also, of course, this is an extreme example meant to show the reasoning. In play most decisions are not so skewed. And when made many decisions are opaque as to mode because one can see how they might be part of an agenda that satisfies more than one mode. In fact it's possible that one watching, say a game of Capes, might not be able to identify the mode because of the congruence of the decisions. That is the extent to which the tells are ambiguous because one can see the action supporting either mode.

The thing is that appearance of satisfaction is important in terms of things like incoherence becoming a problem in play. If a game results in lots of congruent play, the real mode can be hidden. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Players are using some method to make these decisions. Yes, they may alternate in terms of their atomic decisions, or not even be aware of the process by which they're deciding in terms of the congruence of the conflicts. But that doesn't equate to having more than one adenda overall.

Now, this means that it's possible that we can't tell what a particular group's agenda is. It may remain eternally obscured by this. That's unusual to say the least, however, and a determined observer with the help of the observed parties can usually figure out what the underlying mode really is.

So, at best I think you can say that Capes produces reliably congruent play. But I'm guessing that with observation we'd find that it produces narrativism most often. Because I don't think that people are really out to "win" Capes so much as they are to compete cooperatively (like Ron's basketball example) to produce the most interesting theme. But, again, that's just my armchair quarterback assessment from the rules.

Mike

Mike wrote: it comes down to the fact that certain decisions occur in RPGs that are such that one must make their decision one way or another.

TonyLB wrote:

Mike wrote: it comes down to the fact that certain decisions occur in RPGs that are such that one must make their decision one way or another.

Well, sure, in some games.  But that's not true "by definition." 

There's nothing illogical in theory about G and N co-existing.  It's theoretically possible.  It just requires a complete congruence that you think is impossible in practice.

If you posit a game where "Step On Up" and "Address Theme" are always inseparably the same thing then people aren't going to focus on one or the other, they're going to do that one gestalt thing that the game is about, for both reasons.  At which point, by definition, they are engaged simultaneously in Gamist and Narrativist agenda, yes?

What I'm saying is that Capes creates that congruence.  So, am I still making a logic error, or am I just claiming practical results that you think are impossible?

Mike wrote: The definition of GNS modes assumes that such decisions exist in all games. I'm not making that up. You may disagree, but that doesn't change the definition.

I'd like to put forth the notion that Capes is more of a synergistic game than a traditional hybrid.

A traditional hybrid (as I think of it, the actual Forge definition may vary) would be a game where one mode is dominant with a secondary mode playing a strong supporting role.  The difference between the two varies from hybrid to hybrid, but usually one mode is clearly dominant.

I believe that in playing Capes, you can approach it from either a Gamist or Narrativist perspective and end up supporting either/both in the other players.  So, if I'm playing Capes to accumulate story tokens and inspirations and get rid of debt, then I'll look at the tactics involved and focus there and that will rquire me to interest the other players enough to stake their debt so I can get tokens.  It means I have to pick my fights to give myself the best chance of winning inspirations without racking up too much debt.  If I look for ways to tell my story and make important decisions, then it's helpful to have some story tokens and some inspirations, and I can get those by really pursuing the conflicts that matter to me and by helping the rest of the group tell their own stories by giving them conflicts that they find interesting.

It's like the system is this big black box.  Whether I put in G or N input, the other players get whichever flavor interests them the most.  Oooh, kinda like those soft-serve ice cream machines, where you can get chocolate, vanilla, or swirl.  You can either play Capes looking for direct system rewards and the other player's saying stuff like "Wow, how did you figure out to split the dice up like that and finesse an inspiration out of that mess?" (chocolate) or you can shoot for "Wow, so THAT'S how your character would deal with that situation.  Awesome!" (vanilla) or a more complicated thing like "Okay, I'll be facing my arch-nemesis is a couple scenes, so I'd better grab some Story Tokens off of Bob, since he's loaded with Debt.  Oh, I can play my nemesis and set him up as a better bad guy and push Bob to really offload some Debt, maybe even Gloat myself some extra Tokens...And then I'll be able to make the statement that I want"

Sure, the last example is clearly Narrativist.  In the long run.  In the short term, it could appear strictly Gamist.  Except for its motivation.  Theory says that there are no actual Gamist games or Narrativist players, only Gamist or Narrativist decisions, which, taken as an aggregate, can help to describe a given player's tendencies or the style that a given system best supports.  I think that the Capes system does an amazingly good job of suporting both Gamist and Narrativist play and can do so even when the two types of motivations are closely interspersed.

Does all that mess make sense/conform to theory?

Okay. I was poring over some past GNS threads and I think I've got a justification for Capes "only" being Nar. In Gamism, the point of play is to, in some objective sense, "win" the game. Like you can win at bingo or chess or football or Tekken. There's a winner and there's losers.

In Capes, "winning" is essential just successfully advancing one's creative agenda. Sure, you win individual conflicts, and they can get real cutthroat, but when the session is over there's not a concrete answer to the question, "So I heard you played Capes. Who won?"

TonyLB wrote: See, that's progress!  If you can direct me to where that is in the articles then you'll have done me a great favor.  Thanks!

Much appreciated, Mike.  Welcome back!

Larry wrote:
Okay. I was poring over some past GNS threads and I think I've got a justification for Capes "only" being Nar. In Gamism, the point of play is to, in some objective sense, "win" the game. Like you can win at bingo or chess or football or Tekken. There's a winner and there's losers.

In Capes, "winning" is essential just successfully advancing one's creative agenda. Sure, you win individual conflicts, and they can get real cutthroat, but when the session is over there's not a concrete answer to the question, "So I heard you played Capes. Who won?"

I've thought about my rationalization some more, and decided it's complete bunk. My Life With Master actually does have a winner, but it's obviously not intended to support Gamist play.

Anders,

Strictly speaking, there are no Gamist games (texts), there is only Gamist play.

The "vast majority" of roleplaying rules are incoherent, and need to be drifted to be functional.

Neither of these things are directly relevant to this thread. You should probably ask Ron over in the GNS forum.

Larry wrote:
Anders,

Strictly speaking, there are no Gamist games (texts), there is only Gamist play.

The "vast majority" of roleplaying rules are incoherent, and need to be drifted to be functional.

Anders,

Mostly, I was offering a devil's advocate argument for Tony, while we were waiting for Mike. I'm personally inclined to call Capes play Narrativist-Gamist hybrid... but I think I'm missing some subtlety about the Creative Agenda definitions.

But crap, that was like a month ago. This is all pretty tangental to the original thread, so if you have a specific question about Capes and/or GNS, you should probably start a new thread in the appropriate forum.

Sorry Larry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that. I was just curious. :)

I would agree that Capes supports both Narrativist and Gamist play - quite well in both instances, in my opinion. (The only Simulationists who could be happy with it would be those who want to simulate superhero comics rather than superheroes as they appear in comics, I think. But that's even more tangential.)

Considering you always have the option of not narrating, I don't see how it could be purely Narrativist.

Anders, you need to check on your definition of narrativism, narrative, and narration. They are all only tangentially related terms (see the referenced essay below). Narrativism isn't about whether or not one narrates, but about which participant selects the direction of the narrative.

The problem that I'm having is that the discussions in which this stuff that I'm trying to cite came up is so old that some of it is even on gamingoutpost.com (prior to the existence of The Forge). Basically what I recall is saying the same thing you said, something like: "Why can't one make decisions that are two modes at once?" Ron's reply, as far as I can remember, came down to the fact that some decisions simply can't be this way, and he presented some examples. Examples I was forced to agree were such that one could not make a "hybrid" decision about.

In any case, it was shortly after this time that Ron came up with the whole "instance of play" thing. Which says that, basically, looking at individual decisions doesn't tell you about the general priority that a player has. That only by looking at substantive chunks of play could you discern what became later known as Creative Agenda. This is important, because without being able to identify CA, the theory is pointless. It's only at the point that players identify it in others or themselves, or that we can identify such patterns as produced by play, that the theory has any impact (for example, in identifying the source of incoherence in play).

Anyhow, what happens is that in the essays which came later, Ron speaks to the idea of hybrids, but you'll note that he denies that a true hybrid can happen. See the section marked "The grim epiphany: Narrativism and Simulationism" in the Narrativism essay: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html

Immediately above this section (look carefully for it as the example text headers from the Marvel game look like real headers themselves), Ron addresses the differences in Gamism and Narrativism (he points to them being mostly aesthetic). "And the key point for me is that the same game system is usable alternatively for Narrativist or Gamist (or Hard Core Gamist) play, rather than simultaneously."

This essay is a bit dated now, but I don't believe that any of these particular ideas have been altered since.

Mike

Thanks for pointing that out! I knew I'm not completely up to date on the terminology, but apparently I'm worse off than I thought.