While demonstrating Capes on Saturday, an issue came up and I wasn't completely sure we handled it correctly.  Here's how it went:

Five players: Alice, Bob, Charlie, David, and Eddie (not necessarily acting in that order).  Alice, Bob, and Charlie are playing heroes, David and Eddie are playing villains.  There's a goal on the table: Kill [Eddie's character].  At the beginning of the page, Alice claims the first side and Bob claims the second side.  Each wants to be the one to kill Eddie's guy.  Charlie looks alarmed, because his hero objects strongly to killing even the worst villain.  It is explained that he can split off a third side and roll it up and if he's in control at the end of the page, the conflict won't resolve because nobody will have claimed side 3 and he decides to do that.  Alice stakes debt and splits dice on Side 1.  Charlie stakes debt on Side 1, splits one of Alice's dice, and takes his debt and dice to Side 3, then drops an Inspiration and rolls up a die.  David and Eddie also stake debt on Side 3, splitting some of Charlie's dice and rolling them up as well.  Now Side 3 is strongly in control of the conflict at the end of the page, so it doesn't resolve.

Next page, David claims Side 3 of the conflict.  Alice and Bob recognize that there's a crapload of debt on the winning side and that neither of them has a chance of winning the conflict, so they decide to let the conflict go and to concentrate on other stuff this page.  Both Side 1 and Side 2 stay unclaimed.  Charlie realizes that at the end of the page, David is going to get to narrate  the resolution and that while it won't involve a death, it also won't be to his liking.  He takes his debt and dice and splits off to a new side, Side 4.  He rolls up his new side as much as he can, but David and Eddie roll up Side 3, each spending a Story Token for another turn to make sure that they retain control.  Side 3 wins, and David resolves the conflict at the end of the page.

Now here are my questions:
Was it legal for Charlie to split one of Alice's dice onto his debt?  I think so, but I wanted to be sure.

Could Charlie have rolled up Side 1 (which had Alice's debt still on it) or Side 2 (which had no debt staked), then moved his debt and dice from Side 3 to the side that he's now allied with rather than splitting to a new fourth side?

For inspirations, the books says you match winning and losing dice.  Does that mean that you must match each die from Sides 1, 2, and 4 with a die from Side 3?  Can you match a die from Side 1 with a die from Side 2, awarding the remaining Inspiration to Side 1 or 2, whichever appropriate?

I noticed that in the rules the act of splitting to a new side is occasionally called a Schism, but the application of that name doesn't seem to be consistent and isn't in the index.  Has that nomenclature been deprecated?

And just as a curiosity, how many pages would you consider to be average for a scene? 

Feel free to quote and respond to each of the questions individually if you like. 

By the way, that was the only time I was shaky on the rules, and everybody had a blast.  Nobody had difficulty understanding the rules or the player's roles, nobody had trouble with the narrative power available, and after an initial "No GM?[/]  How does that even work?" nobody seemed to give it a second thought.  When we were done, the three players new to Capes immediately suggested meeting at the game shop to play again on subsequent Saturdays.  At that point, I felt like I was pretty much done.  :)

Matthew wrote:
Now here are my questions:
Was it legal for Charlie to split one of Alice's dice onto his debt?  I think so, but I wanted to be sure.

Matthew wrote:
Could Charlie have rolled up Side 1 (which had Alice's debt still on it) or Side 2 (which had no debt staked), then moved his debt and dice from Side 3 to the side that he's now allied with rather than splitting to a new fourth side?

Matthew wrote:
For inspirations, the books says you match winning and losing dice.  Does that mean that you must match each die from Sides 1, 2, and 4 with a die from Side 3?  Can you match a die from Side 1 with a die from Side 2, awarding the remaining Inspiration to Side 1 or 2, whichever appropriate?

Matthew wrote:
I noticed that in the rules the act of splitting to a new side is occasionally called a Schism, but the application of that name doesn't seem to be consistent and isn't in the index.  Has that nomenclature been deprecated?

Matthew wrote:
And just as a curiosity, how many pages would you consider to be average for a scene? 

Matthew wrote:
By the way, that was the only time I was shaky on the rules, and everybody had a blast.  Nobody had difficulty understanding the rules or the player's roles, nobody had trouble with the narrative power available, and after an initial "No GM?[/]  How does that even work?" nobody seemed to give it a second thought.  When we were done, the three players new to Capes immediately suggested meeting at the game shop to play again on subsequent Saturdays.  At that point, I felt like I was pretty much done.  :)

Matthew wrote: I noticed that in the rules the act of splitting to a new side is occasionally called a Schism, but the application of that name doesn't seem to be consistent and isn't in the index.  Has that nomenclature been deprecated?