We have an upcoming (Sunday) Capes session #2 with 4 of the 5 people (I think) who were in the first one.

This is how I may introduce the session.

1) Remind people that the last session was the “first awkward rule learning” one – and that Capes play will go more smoothly and be more fun as we have to focus on learning the rules less.
2) One rule we got wrong – you *can* react to your own roll during the reaction phase of your turn.
3) Additionally, any time one is deciding whether or not to use a reaction, if every player passes in order than the opportunity for further reactions is lost.
4) The house rules we felt compelled to introduce last session will be in force this session:
        a. any conflict, even a goal, can be vetoed by anyone after page 3. (to keep scenes from going and going)
        b. insps can be combined by taking any two, bumping up the higher by one, and throwing away the lower, to a max of 5
        c. We are using an authorship rule
        d. spotlights (3 per player)
5) Remind people that Capes is a competitive game.  That any conflict introduced should have one or more of the following motivations behind it:
        a. Gaining insps, clearing debt, and narration the resolution through winning it oneself.
        b. Gaining story tokens through losing it, assuming someone stakes debt on it.
        c. Using conflict preventatively to stop something from happening.
6) Further remind people that there are two ways to get another player involved: threaten something they have or entice with something they don’t.  Examples:  LC embarrasses himself vs. LC looks GOOD.
7) Emphasize that the way to get other people to give you story tokens is to figure out what they want, and then make them work to get it.
8) Emphasize that the way to get other people creating the conflicts you want to win is to communicate with them and engage those conflicts – and that one should refuse to engage in conflicts that you don’t want to see more of.
9) That a lot of what they can get out of this game will ultimately depend on getting involved – going after what they want and dangle stuff other people want in front of them.

That’s the start… what else?

#4:  What's an authorship rule, and why 3 spotlights per player?

#5 - #9:  I appreciate that you're trying to get your players thinking strategically about the game, but since you had a problem with developing storylines and such, this kinda bugs me.  I think if I were one of your players, having this presented in this manner would strongly reinforce the impression that roleplaying is secondary to the greater goal of resource management.  I think that's counterproductive.  I think that if you focus on the resource management game to the exclusion of the roleplaying, you'll again end up with an unsatisfying experience.  Without the roleplaying aspects, the resource management stuff will be hollow. 

You mentioned lacking storyline and continuity and all that good stuff in your first game.  If you want it, you're going to have to work for it.  Have everybody come up with one Spotlight character that they like.  Have each person tell everybody else about their character.  Ask leading questions about their characters.  Pay attention!  The better you understand what they think is cool about their characters, the easier it will be for you to give them story that they like. 

Once you start play, try to have at least half of those Spotlights in each scene, rotating through them so that from one scene to the next you use the characters to reinforce continuity.  Have the folks who aren't playing their Spotlights play characters that support the story, not just random dudes.

Oh, and about your After Page 3 Universal Veto Rule, there's another houserule that may achieve the same thing a little more smoothly.  After a certain point (number of pages or time limit), during the Claiming phase of each page allow players as many Claims as they want for free.

Easter Capes? Bah, I am jealous - we have had to postpone our game because of the holiday, which means that I don't get to talk about it here for another week.

Hope it goes well!

Matthew wrote:
#4:  What's an authorship rule, and why 3 spotlights per player?

Oh, and about your After Page 3 Universal Veto Rule, there's another houserule that may achieve the same thing a little more smoothly.  After a certain point (number of pages or time limit), during the Claiming phase of each page allow players as many Claims as they want for free.

Sindyr wrote:
The authorship rule we use if any player narrates something about another player's spotlight character that's not external, the owning player can veto that part of the narration.

For example, if I win and resolve a conflict such as "Fred turns tail and runs", I could narrate "Fred shouts "you're own your own", gives his teammates the middle finger, and runs".  At this point if Fred is a spotlight character Fred's owner can veto the "you're own your own" and the middle finger.  He cannot veto the "and runs" part as that is part of the goal that was won.  Fred's player can tell me "don't narrate anything about Fred doing this voluntarily - far a I am concerned, he is under some kind of external influence."

Perhaps the above question deserves its own thread?  Because I figure it could drift significantly off topic as we debate it.

Sounds good.  Feel free to quote the question into a new thread.

Am a little hectic today and tomorrow.  If you like and want to frame it, go ahead and make a new topic.  If not I probably will once I can find the time to frame it and answer it fully and well.

Why 3 spotlights?  Well, I figure at least 2 are necessary so each player has a main and an alt, and I figure give each one a second alt.

Matthew wrote:
I should've asked my question more clearly.  What I meant[ was "Why X spotlights?"  Why do you have to put a limit on it?

Also, I'm itching to hear some details on how the game went.  What did you tell them before you got started playing?  Was it what you wrote up here verbatim, or did you change it up?  What did they think about it?  Did it have a positive affect on gameplay?  Did you get better story continuity this time?

Is there any chance that other players in your group would be willing to drop by to talk to us about their play experiences directly?  I'd love to hear their impressions.

Now that sounds like a lot more fun than what you described for your first session.  Did everybody come away happy?  Will there be a third session?

You've told us about the story created and it sounds like you guys had a blast with it, but what I'd really like to hear are the details about how the players used the system this time differently than last time.  What Spotlights did the other players play, and how were they engaged?  How were you pushing their buttons to earn Story Tokens off them? 

I've got some questions about the authorship rule as well, so I'll go ahead and split into a new thread for that.

Matthew wrote:
Now that sounds like a lot more fun than what you described for your first session.  Did everybody come away happy?  Will there be a third session?

You've told us about the story created and it sounds like you guys had a blast with it, but what I'd really like to hear are the details about how the players used the system this time differently than last time.  What Spotlights did the other players play, and how were they engaged?  How were you pushing their buttons to earn Story Tokens off them? 

I've got some questions about the authorship rule as well, so I'll go ahead and split into a new thread for that.

Sindyr wrote: We *did* have a blast.  I think everyone came away happy. ...I feel like Capes is half a game - the "what to do to resolve conflicts" half.  But equally important I think are the techniques of fostering creative, coherent, and consistant stories.  We invented a few techniques to serve as the foundation for storytelling in general - like between game discussions of what it all means and possible backstories, like having each player choose a character a the start and flat out tell the rest of us what kind of character evolution or story lines they are interested in exploring.