Hello,

I've been following the whole 'character control' argument and I'm a little confused.  My understanding about how conflicts break down has always been this:

Goals are things a character or group of characters are trying to achieve.
Events are things that happen to a character or group of characters but its consequences are unknown.

In the other thread people kept posting things like this:

Goal: Spider-man falls in love with Harry Osborn.

But that's not a proper Goal as I understand the rules.  Now that might very well be a player goal whose into some Spidey/Harry slash but my understanding of the rules is that Goals are things the CHARACTERS, not the players are trying to achieve.  With the above wording, who exactly is trying to achieve this goal?  If it's Spider-man:

1) It's better worded as: Spider-man awakens Harry Osborn's love for him or some such.
2) If it's proposed as Spider-man's goal by any other player than Spider-man's player then Spider-man's player has veto rights over it.  THAT'S ALREADY IN THE RULES.

For completness if it's worded as simply an Event, which the original wording I suggest implies, then anyone can veto it.  Again, already in the rules.

Now, it's true that if Spider-man's player throws down Goal: Spider-man awaken's Harry Osborn's love for him, then Harry Osborn's player is helpless if that Goal comes to pass but that is by design because this is an actual conflict between the characters.  Now theoretically someone could throw down Goal: The Green Goblin awaken's Spider-Man and Harry Osborn's love for each other and now Spider-man's player and Harry Osborn's player are BOTH helpless but again there is an active character trying to achieve something which they can fight.

Finally, the least specific, acording to my understanding, you could get would be: Goal: Awaken Spider-man and Harry Osbron's love for each other.  Which says, SOMEONE, is trying to acomplish this but we don't know who.  But we will know who as soon as someone picks up the "For" side die and rolls it in which case this reduces to the Green Goblin case above.

Does all this makes sense?  Am I right?

Jesse

You can rename any goal that reads "Such and such happens" as "Someone causes such and such to happen."

Fred,

But that to me is a WORLD of difference.  One is like two editors fighting over whether or not Harry and Peter are gay lovers and the other is, you know, plot development and story.  I mean if the Green Goblin sees underlying homosexual tension between Harry and Peter and wants leverage that to create a distracting love triangle with MJ, whoa cool.

Jesse

Jesse, two clarifications:

1)  Harry Osbourne, Spiderman, and MaryJane(MJ), and Janitor Joe are all being played by three separate players.  Spiderman's player dropped the goal, Release MJ from being tied to a chair.  MJ's player, showing a streak of independence, is actually trying to prevent this - she wants to defeat the Goal and then release herself from the chair.  On her turn she plays her Attribute "Narrow Minded" to roll up her side of the conflict, and replaces a one with a five.  She then narrates the following: "Spiderman walks toward Mary Jane, but is stopped by Harry, who grabs Spidey, pulls his mask off, seeing his true identity, and begins to kiss him slow and deep. Spidey, realizing that he is in fact a homosexual, grabs Harry right back, and the two make out, forgetting all about MJ.  MJ is disgusted by the whole affair"

What has happened? Without a goal or event pertaining to the same sex liaison between Harry and Spidey, it still has occurred.

Now, Spidey's player can narrate back, "MJ's suddenly realized that she must have been seeing things - maybe the combination of her prescription drugs is making her see things - MJ decides that must be it.  MJ says, "Spidey, please save me""

Then MJ's player on her next turn can shoot back,"As is turns out, MJ never asked Spidey to save her, what MJ really said was "Spidey, beat it.  Furthermore, a janitor passing through also sees Harry and Spidey in flagrante delicto, as does a security guard watching a monitor linked to a camera nearby - guess this ain't no pill hallucination."

Et cetera.

2)  Even if Spidey introduces a goal to head trouble off at the pass like Goal: Spidey has ANY homosexual impulses or actions at all, he know has to contend with up to three other players that may want to see Spidey get him some man lovin'.  If the players of Janitor Joe, MJ, and Harry want Spidey to do the nasty with Harry, than combines they will easily be able to defeat that preventative spidey goal.

And, even if they can't defeat the spidey goal, on of those three players can simply narrate something else equally disturbing, such as Spidey eating nearby dog poop, which is not prevented by the above Goal in play.

Finally, if Spidey resolves the homosexual goal, it goes away, freeing each player to once again put Harry and Spidey together, because a Goal is only preventative while it is unresolved.  As soon as the goal is resolved, the *opposite* of it's effect can be narrated.

IE, a goal of "Capital City is destroyed" gets resolved by the good guys and defeated, as soon as the goal comes of the table, the next player to narrate can narrate Capital City having been destroyed.

Such are the current problems I see with Capes.

To be fair, Capes is such an innovative and cool game, I believe it can and should be saved from these issues with an appropriate addition of the right house rules.

Your mileage may vary.

Hello Again,

Okay, well the, between the goals narration thing is another issue.  And much like others here, and I can only say, unless you are playing with sociopaths, it doesn't happen. 

Example From My Own Play:

We had been playing for a long while and one player had a HUGE pile of Story Tokens.  He used them all to bring an entire Super Villain assault force.  I think he had something like 10 characters in play, giant robots, corrupt military forces, six or seven other baddies.  He was out to take The City.  One of the characters I chose to play was a non-character which was The City itself.  I threw in the Goal: The Citizens Ralley Together!  I lost and my 10 character villain friend even cruely twisted by original intention with, "Oh they, ralley together alright, behind me, as they whine about how the current political base is ineffectual."

Anyway, needless to say the rest of us, four other players, all playing one or two supers a piece plus a few exemplars, were utterly defeated.  It ended with all of us being pinned down and surrounded in the local asylum where we were subsenquently imprisoned (Note: No goal stating such, our imprisonment was part of the narration of taking over The City goal).

All of the above was utterly demoralizing.  You could see it on all of our faces.  It was heartfelt defeat.  Did any of us have one iota of a problem with what happened in the game world?  Nope.  Not one complaint.

I had the next scene.  Believe me, I was tempted to say, "...and then The Raven (my spotlight) wakes up from his horrible dream of the future" or even "This scene takes place two years later after The City had been retaken."  But you know what?  I couldn't do it.  I even suggested the above things out loud and I could tell my fellow defeated players didn't want me to do it.  It would have been bad sportsmanship.  It would have been being a sore loser.  I would go so far to say, it would have been childish.

Now a couple of players DID choose to bring in characters who had technically been captured and simply narrated that they had escaped.  No one had problems with this.  And indeed the player after me, really wanted to play out the escape, so announced that his scene was taking place sometime BEFORE mine had.  I don't think escaping itself was ever a Goal.  We just understood this scene was about the heroes escaping and instead threw down goals and events about the METHOD of escape.  It was pretty cool.

Do my players have super-human levels of self-control and comeraderie?  I don't think so.  I've played Capes with total strangers and I've seen the same phenomenon.  People have a feel for what is cool and what is not-cool (at the social level, not necessarily the game level).  Nobody wants to be a perpetrator of not-cool unless they are sociopathic dickweeds out to hurt and undermine other people's contributions to the game.

Jesse

jburneko wrote:
I had the next scene.  Believe me, I was tempted to say, "...and then The Raven (my spotlight) wakes up from his horrible dream of the future" or even "This scene takes place two years later after The City had been retaken."  But you know what?  I couldn't do it.  I even suggested the above things out loud and I could tell my fellow defeated players didn't want me to do it.  It would have been bad sportsmanship.  It would have been being a sore loser.  I would go so far to say, it would have been childish.

The game poses the question "Power is fun, but do you deserve it?"

This applies to the characters, but even more so the GM's/players/authors.

A player that sacks the City, defeats the heroes, and turns the very people the heroes are trying to save into henchmen doesn't deserve admiration.  He needs help. (heh heh)

I have no problem using the very tools of Capes to completely and utterly negate the power of narration and authorship when it has been misused and trust has been abused.

If you like that sort of thing though, if it makes you happy to partake in such a story, then feel free to encourage that player.  I am sure he will be happy to give you more.

One thing that rocks about the amount of narrative power given to players of Capes is that any abuse or misused narrative power can be corrected almost immediately each and every time it happens, until the offending player or players give up and go away, or behave and use their power responsibly.

Cheers

Well, sure, if it was obvious to me the guy who took out the city was being a dickweed, then yes, I probably would have just said, "So, two years later..."  But since he WASN'T being a dickweed, *I* would have been the dickweed for pulling the "Two years later..." card.

Jesse

Then I guess by definition, if you retcon out what another player has done only when you feel he has been a dickhead, than any story which that player creates that is unnacceptable is de facto proof of his being a dickhead, and can thereofr be retconned away without becoming a dickhead onself.

Makes sense.  Perhaps this unofficial rule could be called "the Dickhead rule."

If anyone tries to do nasty and/or abusive things like
-make my chars love interest fall out of love with me and in love with someone else
-capture or defeat my char trivially
-narrate my char doing something I feel is incompatible with my vision of what the char would do
-violate basic precepts of responsible GMing/storytelling

then they qualify for the dickhead rule.

I like that.

Informal rule, the Dickhead Rule - if a player feels that the narrations and other actions of another player indicates that he is being a dickhead, than the player who feels that way may narrate away the offending players abuses and other innapropriate narrations and events without worrying about being considered a dickhead himself.

:D

The only thing I have to say to that, is that what you're calling an informal rule I call a fact of life.  The rule you propose is always in effect for all social situations whether I'm role-playing (any game), bowling, hanging out at the mall, watching movies, whatever.

It boils down to: Don't do social things with those who can't relate to and egage with your investment in said social thing.

Jesse

jburneko wrote:
But that to me is a WORLD of difference.  One is like two editors fighting over whether or not Harry and Peter are gay lovers and the other is, you know, plot development and story.  I mean if the Green Goblin sees underlying homosexual tension between Harry and Peter and wants leverage that to create a distracting love triangle with MJ, whoa cool.

Now, if I were playing Lt.Wrath I would have no problem with another player playing the goal: "The Police State wants Lieutenant Wrath to betray Rebel Sue to the Sewer Morlocks", because it doesn't make my character do anything - it just proposes dire potential consequences is the goal is achieved and I (Lt. Wrath) choose to not betray Sue.

And that's my point.  The choices for my character are mine and mine alone.

Fair enough.  "The Police State maneuvers Lt. Wrath into betraying Rebel Sue to the Sewer Morlocks."

Ah, not sure if it was by accident or intent, but you changed a word between what I agreed to and what you said:
I said:

Now, if I were playing Lt.Wrath I would have no problem with another player playing the goal: "The Police State wants Lieutenant Wrath to betray Rebel Sue to the Sewer Morlocks"

Sindyr wrote:
Ah, not sure if it was by accident or intent, but you changed a word between what I agreed to and what you said:

Sindyr wrote:
Your goal would potentially be vetoed by my (if I am playing Wrath) for taking the choice out of my charaters hands.

Ah, you made it appear you had be replying to me.  I now understand that you weren't.

Tony,

I completely see your point.  This is Ron's distinction between Furniture and Characters.  So yes, inanimate things and concepts can have an agenda.  I also have no problem with that agenda forcing my character to do stuff if it is WORDED as an agenda.  I have lost the conflict with something trying to exert influence on my character.  This is both realistic (a word I do not use lightly) and narratively interesting.

Jesse

TonyLB wrote:
Yeah, I know.  That's your ax to grind.  I'm talking to Jesse about something which doesn't really involve you.  'kay?

Your goal would potentially be vetoed by my (if I am playing Wrath) for taking the choice out of my charaters hands.

Tuxboy wrote:
I think your veto power would only be possible if the Goal read:

"The Police State maneuvers Lt. Wrath into intentionally betraying Rebel Sue to the Sewer Morlocks."

The original wording leaves the possibility of unintentionally, accidentally, or circumstantially betraying her, which does not reflect on the way you play "your" character.

Now, if you're targeting some mythical reconstruction of the rules that would make Sindyr happy, then, yes, by all he's said, that might give him some mild satisfaction.

Though I'm not sure why you'd care

jburneko wrote:
Finally, the least specific, acording to my understanding, you could get would be: Goal: Awaken Spider-man and Harry Osbron's love for each other.  Which says, SOMEONE, is trying to acomplish this but we don't know who.  But we will know who as soon as someone picks up the "For" side die and rolls it in which case this reduces to the Green Goblin case above.

One more quick point: another reason I am going to suggest the underlining thing is that the rules of narration on resolution are so broad that it seems pointless to quibble over exactly whose goal it is from the wording.  The actual wording is really just a token, a little placeholder that says "something is going to happen in this game which will matter to one of these characters, involving a particular situation".  The only rule mechanic involved, really, is the veto, and the underlining takes care of that.

I'll also point out that, in my experience, the veto is much more powerful as a way of indicating apathy than it is as a way of indicating strong objection.

If someone says "Goal:  Green Goblin begs forgiveness" and the Green Goblin's player says "Aw hell no!" then (as folks have rightly pointed out) the proposing player knows that he'll profit from the conflict, so he will just reword it to get around the veto rule.

If someone says "Goal:  Green Goblin escapes to fight another day" and the Green Goblin's player says "Eh ... I think, in this scene, it'd be equally cool if he were captured and put in prison" then the proposing player knows that he won't profit from the conflict, so he'll propose something else.

Both of those are vetoes, but for very different reasons.  One is vetoing the conflict because it leads to a bad outcome, the other is vetoing the conflict because it's not a good conflict.

Just out of curiosity, how do you think the game would change if anybody could veto any goal (just like an event)? 

Is the "popcorn" rule sufficient (at least in a well-adjusted gaming group) to control potential abuses?  "Hey Jim, you've been getting pretty heavy-handed with the veto button there lately."

I suspect you might lose a little bit of the tooth-and-nail fighting over goals, but you would wind up with a situation where all players think that the goal/event will be interesting however it turns out.

J

TonyLB wrote:
If someone says "Goal:  Green Goblin escapes to fight another day" and the Green Goblin's player says "Eh ... I think, in this scene, it'd be equally cool if he were captured and put in prison" then the proposing player knows that he won't profit from the conflict, so he'll propose something else.

drnuncheon wrote:
Just out of curiosity, how do you think the game would change if anybody could veto any goal (just like an event)?

Hans wrote:
Hmmm....another thing to bring up when we start or long series tonight; don't feel like you are showing respect to another person by letting their boring goal hit the table.

drnuncheon wrote:
I suspect you might lose a little bit of the tooth-and-nail fighting over goals, but you would wind up with a situation where all players think that the goal/event will be interesting however it turns out.

TonyLB wrote:
Now me, personally, I know better than to veto a goal that makes me feel that way.  I've already got the experience of playing through hundreds of those and enjoying them, win or lose.  But wouldn't the veto power be an awful temptation to somebody who hasn't yet learned to relish that sense of sudden, hellfire-hot outrage?

Zamiel wrote:
Now, if you're targeting some mythical reconstruction of the rules that would make Sindyr happy, then, yes, by all he's said, that might give him some mild satisfaction. Though I'm not sure why you'd care, since he's made abundantly clear on multiple levels and in myriad contexts that Capes is almost entirely not a game he'd enjoy or be interested in playing, and moreover has no idea how any of us could enjoy it, either. Which, once made so evident, pretty much gave me the freedom to disengage entirely from the threads save to follow other folks', such as yourself, contributions. I must say, its made following the forum much faster.

drnuncheon wrote:

TonyLB wrote:
Now me, personally, I know better than to veto a goal that makes me feel that way.  I've already got the experience of playing through hundreds of those and enjoying them, win or lose.  But wouldn't the veto power be an awful temptation to somebody who hasn't yet learned to relish that sense of sudden, hellfire-hot outrage?

I'll admit it came to me after reading a lot of Sindyr posts.

drnuncheon wrote:
I think it's a case of Capes being like...Thai food. Some people love authentic Thai food, but it's too spicy for other people.  They still might enjoy a nice Thai-inspired dish, though.

J