I'm going to paraphrase rather than quote a whole bunch.  If I get a detail or point wrong, please feel free to correct me.  In this thread a peculiar situation was addressed:

What happens when every player involved in a conflict chooses to Gloat rather than resolve it?

The answer given was that this is legal and legitimate. This will continue for exactly as long as everyone at the table is willing to allow it to continue, just like pretty much everything else in Capes.  As soon as a player is tired of Gloating going back and forth, that player is welcome to split off a new side, then take control of the conflict and resolve it.  Until that happens, everybody is getting the story they want.  As soon as somebody's unhappy with it, it gets handled.  This is a feature of the game.

The response was that this isn't good enough, that everyone at the table can get involved and rather than resolving, always chooses to take the Tokens despite wanting to move on.  What is needed, it was suggested, is a way for a player to both take the Story Tokens and get the goal off the table so that the game can continue.

I get you, but I was left with no uncertainty that my group wants a way to deal with this that doesn't require a player to choose to not get story tokens to make the goal go away.

Matthew wrote:
You don't need a rule to stop this.  You just need one person at the table to decide to say "Hey guys, this isn't fun and I'm putting a stop to it."  Every time you choose not to resolve the goal, you're choosing instead to say "Hey, this story we're making by Gloating every time is great."

I think it also reflects a mentality of Story Tokens being cool and Inspirations being wimpy.  The strategic argument for breaking the gloat-fest is very strong.  Not that the story argument isn't (it is) but even if you are going pure strategy, no story, I don't think the gloat-fest is the natural outcome.

I'm starting to wonder if a gloat-fest would also result in more and more debt being generated while fighting over the conflict, and that debt being staked on the conflict to get it off the characters, meaning that whoever finally does resolve has to hand over a zillion Story Tokens to the others.  Of course, I'd love to be the guy who gets to shove a double-zillion Debt back at the other players.

Matthew wrote:
The response was that this isn't good enough, that everyone at the table can get involved and rather than resolving, always chooses to take the Tokens despite wanting to move on.  What is needed, it was suggested, is a way for a player to both take the Story Tokens and get the goal off the table so that the game can continue.

Boredom is not necessary as a factor to stop the cycle.  The simple fact is that it is strategically poor to allow it to continue.

Story tokens are not xp.  Story tokens are an economy.  They are like money.  What your story tokens are worth are a factor of how many you have and how many everyone else has.  When everyone is a millionaire, millionaires aren't rich.

Here is a scenario I've seen more than once.  Sydney and I have large piles of tokens.  Tony has less, not because he doesn't earn a whole bunch but because he is constantly spending them.  Sydney and I are more picky.  Then, inevitably, since Sydney and I agree on virtually nothing narratively, we hit one conflict we both want to win really badly.  So Tony gets to sit back and laugh his ass off while we whittle our piles down to nothing.  (Dollar Auction!)  Note that me recognizing this pattern does absolutely nothing to help stop it.

So, with this in mind, say you've just gloated, do you want to feed gloats for all the other players in the hope that it gets back to you again?  Hell no!  If the other players are foolish enough not to claim the non-gloating side of the conflict before it gets around to you, claim it and win it.  It's pretty easy to do since you just turned all the dice you are now opposing down to ones.  Serves the suckers right for letting you gloat in first place.

Situation: A gloatable goal is on the table.

• Fact: ANYONE can gloat it.  Heroes, Villains, Mortals - any player that has claimed a side that is in control at the end of the page can elect to either gloat, or resolve it in a non gloating way to get rid of it.
• Fact: Story tokens are very good to have.
• Fact: Any resolver of this goal is faced with a choice - get one or more story tokens and leave it on the table, or resolve it, do not gain a story token, and it goes away.
• Fact: Under normal circumstances, if someone will pay me one or more tokens to leave a goal down, I will.  The rest of my gaming group seems to agree.  Apart from unique circumstances, the best gaming theory choice is to gloat the goal instead of resolving it.

Problem: Under these conditions, a gloatable goal will hang around for much too long and the game will get stagnant as people fight over who gets to milk it this page.

Answer:  No answer has yet been offered, apart from the advice of "don't play that way", which I cannot take seriously.  (Because rules and game systems exist for a reason and many excellent essays on the forge make this point far better than I can.)

Ideas:

• One has to declare when one claims a gloatable goal whether one intends to gloat or resolve if one has control at the end of page
• Once a conflict has been gloated on by one player, no other player can gloat that conflict and must instead resolve it in a non gloating way.
• One has to declare at the start of the scene whether one is narratively allied with heroes or villains.  Those narratively allied with heroes can't gloat.

While I like the idea of modal narrative alliance, and think some sort of mod like that could be useful, especially in games where one wants to promote poetic justice and four color gaming, the idea is to complex and undeveloped at present to serve as a fix.

How about fix number 2 though?  Any real problems with that?

Or, perhaps, an alternative to that:  Conflicts can only be gloated on by their creator.

Which is better?  Do either have unintended side effects?

Sindyr wrote:
Fact: Under normal circumstances, if someone will pay me one or more tokens to leave a goal down, I will.  The rest of my gaming group seems to agree.  Apart from unique circumstances, the best gaming theory choice is to gloat the goal instead of resolving it.

Sindyr wrote:
Answer:  No answer has yet been offered, apart from the advice of "don't play that way", which I cannot take seriously.

I stand by what I said as accurate.

Do you have any argument for why the gloat-fest is good strategy?  Or are you just going to ... y'know ... stand by it?

That's a valid question. ;)

If a gloatable conflict is on the table and I have claimed it and am in control of it at page's end, I can either:
>Take a story token for each die I have involved.
>Resolve it and take an inspiration of some kind.

Just for sake of argument, and because it actually happened in game play, let's assume a goal of Havok, in trying to find the Malignite, unintentionally gets one of the heroes killed.

I rolled up a side of that to 5 (i think), the other side was a one. (no one else was acting on it, they were working on other things)  I claimed it next page, and at the end of the page I had two choices:
Resolve it without gloating and receive a 4 Insp, or turn the 5 back to a 1 and get a story token.

Which is better, a 4 Insp or a Story Token?  I am sure that one can manufacture several cases where a 4 Insp is more useful than a story token, still, all in all, over the course of all possible uses, in terms of averages, it seems self-evident that a single story token is more useful than any single Insp (with the possible exception of a 6 Insp, since it can't be rolled down).

I guess that's a place to start.  Let's compare a 5 Insp to a Story Token - while we can come up with created examples in which the Insp is more helpful than the token, or vice versa, overall which is more useful more of the time, and has a greater effect?

It seems to me that gaining a Story Token is preferred over gaining a 5 Insp.

Now, if someone agrees with the above assessment, than that explains why Gloating is the preferred strategy of anyone trying to plays as tactically and strategically as possible - in general anyways.

One other point.

As I understand it, a gloat explictly leaves the conflict on the table - that is, if I gloat a conflict, it will be here next page.

If there are strategic reasons to gloat a conflict once, the same strategy applies the second time, and the third, and so on.

If on the other hand the third gloat somehow can be shown as bad strategy, than so can the second, and so can the first gloat as well.

Bottom line - if it gloating is a strategy - that is, if people are *supposed* to gloat in Capes at all, exactly the same reasoning why the should gloat once is the reason to do it again. And again. And again.

Now, one other question: Should I split off my proposed gloat mods into their own thread?  I am looking for critiques on ways to prevent unlimited gloating and end the cycle - or prevent one from starting.  I offered a couple of choices above.  Is this thread only for discussing if there should be limitations on gloating, or can we simultaneously discuss what those limitations should be *given* that my group wants one and will have one?

Sindyr wrote:
Now, one other question: Should I split off my proposed gloat mods into their own thread?  I am looking for critiques on ways to prevent unlimited gloating and end the cycle - or prevent one from starting.  I offered a couple of choices above.  Is this thread only for discussing if there should be limitations on gloating, or can we simultaneously discuss what those limitations should be *given* that my group wants one and will have one?

So ... let me get this straight.  You're pushing Gloating as the best possible strategy, and you're only gloating on one die?  Why not two or three?

Is that important?  I mean, to the fundamental issues we are discussing?

For the record, I gloated on one die because it was the first time anyone gloated in our game and I wanted to see how it worked.

But the principles are the same aren't they?

Whether we are talking about getting one token versus one 5 Insp, or multiple tokens versus multiple Insps - it all rests on whether Insps or Tokens are generally more useful, right?

So lets look at it.  Which is overall better, more effective, in more varied situations - a 5 Insp or a Story Token?

Sindyr wrote:
For the record, I gloated on one die because it was the first time anyone gloated in our game and I wanted to see how it worked.

Sindyr wrote:
So lets look at it.  Which is overall better, more effective, in more varied situations - a 5 Insp or a Story Token?

TonyLB wrote:
Huh?  You said that you had actual play of people gloating, back and forth, over and over.

Sindyr wrote:
So lets look at it.  Which is overall better, more effective, in more varied situations - a 5 Insp or a Story Token?

A story token is more useful when you have very few story tokens.  The inspirations is more useful when you have very few inspirations.  If you have neither, I'd go for the 5 inspiration.  I think it's generally the stronger thing to have, on its own.  But they work well in synergy, so you don't want to load up on just one or the other.  Hence, the more often people have gloated, the less motive they have to do it again.

Sindyr wrote:
Do you think the above is true?  Let's say you have 3 debt invested.  you have three dice.  Let's say no one has claimed the other side yet.  If you resolve now, you get, perhaps, 3 high Insps - but you also get back doubled debt, or 6 debt, correct?

Brain fart - you wouldn't - my mistake.

For some reason I have trouble remembering:
1) You give away debt as story tokens if you win
2) You gain double debt if you lose.

So the trade off is really:
1) Resolve and gain an Insp and lose a debt (potentially) per die.
2) Gloat and gain a story token and gain a debt (potentially) per die.

of course, if no one has staked debt, than its just one die versus one die, and it comes down to do you wanta token or an Insp.

I am going to have to play more to understand the comparative worth of Insps versus Tokens.

In noone stakes debt, do you get a story token for losing?  I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

Just for sake of argument, and because it actually happened in game play, let's assume a goal of Havok, in trying to find the Malignite, unintentionally gets one of the heroes killed.

Tuxboy wrote:

Just for sake of argument, and because it actually happened in game play, let's assume a goal of Havok, in trying to find the Malignite, unintentionally gets one of the heroes killed.

OK, this statement is amorphous, how can a goal get someone "unintentionally" killed?

Surely either the goal states that someone gets killed or it doesn't?

"Goal: The Malignite uncovered by Havok kills a hero" or "Goal: Havok uncovers the Malignite"

Did your goal include someone getting killed?

In my perception of Gloating, the first goal is gloatable as "resolving it will breach the Comics Code", but as the second goal is resolvable without breaking the CC how can that be eligible for gloating? I always thought that you could only gloat if the resolution of the actual wording of the conflict would break the CC. Is my perception flawed?

If narration of a conflict, which does not breach the CC, can be used to breach the CC and then gloated on then surely that would mean that any Goal could be gloatable if the player decides to narrate a CC breach during the resolution and that opens up the gloating mechanic for extreme abuse, which I don't think the mechanic was either designed or intended for.

As an example..."Event: The Tidal Wave Hits".  In and of itself, its not really clear whether this is gloatable.

Is the tidal wave a 7 foot high swell or a 500 foot hight civilization killer?  Is it targeted at uninhabited Antarctica (where it could only be gloated on if your code includes "Penguins cannot be killed") or at Southern California?

"Penguins cannot be killed"

Sindyr wrote:
Now, if someone agrees with the above assessment, than that explains why Gloating is the preferred strategy of anyone trying to plays as tactically and strategically as possible - in general anyways.

Eric wrote:
Stopping the gloating cycle is quite easy because the dice on that side reset to ones every page.  If anyone chooses to stop it, it will likely stop.

TonyLB wrote:
I believe Sindyr is proposing a situation where both sides are being gloated alternately.
.
.
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Still a stupid plan, for many reasons, but not the actual stupid plan you were rebuffing.  Make sense?

I don't understand why I am not being understood - I must not be being clear at all.  Let me try again.

The entire chain of reasoning is based on one essential assumption.  Tony has remarked that the assumption is incorrect.  If the assumption *is* incorrect, then the rest of the reasoning does not follow.  However, given the assumption, the conclusion is unavoidable.

Assumption:  In general, getting story tokens is more desirable than getting Inspirations.

Given the above assumption:
1) At the end of a page, if a gloatable conflict has been claimed and the claiming party is in control, then the player has but two choices:
-Resolve the conflict, collect Inspiration(s)
-Gloat the conflict, collect the Story Token(s), reset his dice to 1's

In general, given the above assumption, the second choice is better.

This means that *anytime* a player could choose to resolve a gloatable conflict, their best play would be to Gloat.  If all anyone does is gloat, then the conflict will never be resolved until things external to the Capes rules are brought to bear, such as weariness, social pressure, or some other factor that somehow makes a player choose Resolution over Gloating even though Gloating pays better.

Since their is no restriction on who may Gloat - *any* player is allowed to gloat equally on a gloatbale goal - then there is no escape from this loop without the aforementioned external to Capes influence.

What this means is that unless one acts to one's own detriment, gloatable conflicts will never be resolved.  But if all the players at the table always act in ways that are tactically and strategically advantageous for them, then in general Gloatable conflicts can't ever be resolved - because the resolver sacrifices his chance to get a story token while all that came before him do not - therefor he is at a disadvantage - therefor if made aware of this, he too would choose to Gloat rather than resolve.

Now if story tokens are not better than Inspriations in general, then all of the above is moot and not accurate.

But if any of you think that story tokens indeed are better than Inspriations, than the above chain of logic is flawless.

I cannot tell you if I believe that Insps are equal to story token's without a lot more play under my belt.  But I can tell you, without hesitation, that if story token's are (in general) better than Insps then the Capes rules on Gloating break Capes.

And that is all I was pointing out.

Sindyr wrote:
Assumption:  In general, getting story tokens is more desirable than getting Inspirations.

Sindyr wrote:
The entire chain of reasoning is based on one essential assumption.  Tony has remarked that the assumption is incorrect.  If the assumption *is* incorrect, then the rest of the reasoning does not follow.  However, given the assumption, the conclusion is unavoidable.

Assumption:  In general, getting story tokens is more desirable than getting Inspirations.

Matthew wrote:

In this Gloatfest, when you choose to Gloat and get tokens you allow the other players to do the same thing.  When you choose to resolve it and take the inspirations, you prevent other players from farming Tokens.  Your choice is "get Tokens and allow them all to get Tokens too" which is horrible, terrible, extra super bad strategy (for reasons other people have mentioned but which can be reiterated for clarification if necessary), or "prevent everybody else from getting all those Tokens and while you're at it, get some Inspirations" which is good strategy. 

This is completely separate from the other reasons that the Gloatfest is bad.  If the conflict never resolves, you never get to move on.  You're stuck doing the same crap on this same conflict all night long.  If I were playing with you and this came up, I would put an end to this Gloatfest just to get the damn thing off the table.  Never mind that it's strategically terrible to let this continue, it's actively preventing me from moving on with the story.

Just going to repeat once crucial bit that I thinks does sum up the issue:

Assuming that tokens > Insps

If gloating is worth doing once, it's probably worth doing repetitively.
result: looping through gloats over and over.

If gloating is not worth doing repetitively, then it's probably not worth doing once.
result:  no one gloats, and the rule is useless.

This is all in general, one can come up with certain specific and uncommon situations to be the exception to the rule.  Once in bridge, I actually tried to lose a game, because it won us the match.  These strange examples exist, which is why I say the above is true in general and of course only if tokens > Insps.

Sindyr wrote:
And if they have already gloated that conflict?  That means they get the story token but because you resolved it, you don't.  IF tokens > inspirations, then you lose by resolving the conflict. On the other hand, if preventing other people from gloating was super important, extra good tactic, than why would anyone gloat in the first place?

Game theory says that is gloating is worth doing once, it very well may be worth doing multiple times.  And if it's not worth doing multiple times, it very well may not be worth doing once.  The two facts are not independent.

Therefor if either gloating is worthwhile and people will do it endlessly, and the gloating rule is therefor broken, or gloating is not worthwhile and people will not do it, and the gloating rule is useless and should be removed. (IF tokens > Insps)

So the rule is even more broken.  IF tokens > Insps, and if I know you will want to resolve a conflict rather than gloat because even though the Insp is worth less than the token (accorinf to our IF above) you are willing to take it to get the bloody thing off the table.

In other words, I can count on you to not gloat the conflicts while I gloat them as long as I can.

So, it's broken. (IF tokens > Insps)

Tuxboy wrote:

As an example..."Event: The Tidal Wave Hits".  In and of itself, its not really clear whether this is gloatable.

Which sparks another point, is an Event gloatable? As Events are definites, they will happen, can they be phrased in a way that would break the CC? I'm not sure they could and not get vetoed straight out the box.

Lets consider "Goal: The Tidal Wave hits"

Matthew wrote:
You narrate something powerful and cool and engaging and show your character being a total badass and your opponent's character (wasn't he just gloating about his ultimate power?) being a weak and sniveling chump.

Hans wrote:
I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me, Tuxboy (btw,the name now makes much more sense in light of the penguin thing...).  Take "Event:The bomb reaches 0:01".  To my mind, this is HIGHLY gloatable.  The key is that gloating does not resolve the conflict, it postpones it.  So I narrate something like "Bad guy's bomb continues to tick away beneath the street, as little children, so close to death, play above" and grab my story tokens.  I'd be interested to know what others think about events being gloatable or not.  Even more obvious would be "Event: Hero is about to kill an innocent".  If that can't be gloated on, I don't know what could be (assuming the basic CC from the rules).

I do agree, though, that the more specific a goal is, the more obvious its gloatability will be.

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me, Tuxboy (btw,the name now makes much more sense in light of the penguin thing...).  Take "Event:The bomb reaches 0:01".  To my mind, this is HIGHLY gloatable.  The key is that gloating does not resolve the conflict, it postpones it.  So I narrate something like "Bad guy's bomb continues to tick away beneath the street, as little children, so close to death, play above" and grab my story tokens.

Even more obvious would be "Event: Hero is about to kill an innocent".  If that can't be gloated on, I don't know what could be (assuming the basic CC from the rules).

*crossed post with Tony*

Thanks Tony, that's the kind of thing I was looking for...

I just noted that the my post above is not on the original thread topic.  Therefore, I was going to withdraw the question, but four posts piled on to it before I could.  Thanks Tony, for helping.

On the original thread topic:  Sindyr's REAL question is in all of this is...are story tokens always better than inspirations? A few posts back he made it clear that if story tokens AREN'T better than inspirations (one assumes either that they are equal, or, as Matthew suggested earlier, so different in kind as resources as to be incomparable) then his concerns about a gloat-fest would evaporate.  That is the question to answer, not whether a gloat-fest is a good or bad idea.  For me, I agree with Matthew.  Story Tokens and inspirations are like peanut butter and chocolate.  Sometimes you want the one, sometimes you want the other.  Both are good in different ways, and you need both to make a Reeces. 

As evidence of the fact that story tokens are NOT better than inspirations, I suggest we take the evidence of the what by now must be hundreds of sessions that have occurred of Capes since its release on planet Earth.  Has anyone ever actually seen a "gloat-fest" occur?  If one had, I think it would have been posted by now.  Capes players are, by and large, pretty smart people; they had to figure out the rules of Capes, remember.  Therefore, if game theory made tokens better than inspirations, than that flaw in the game design would have been found long ago.  It WOULD be a flaw if it were true, I think; it would destroy the equilibrium between winning and losing. 

Therefore, I would say this is quite solid empirical evidence that for whatever reason, players of Capes do not judge Story Tokens to be universally more valuable than inspirations.  Actually, step back a bit.  Its better to say that this is convincing evidence that players do not judge gloating to be universally better than resolving, since there are non-tactical reasons (want to narrate something cool, its late and you want to go home, have a good idea for another scene) that come into play.  However, any theory of Capes must take into account this evidence.

On a side note, the fact that all claims are cancelled at the beginning of a page is the single biggest pitfall in the way of keeping a gloat-fest going, not splitting off a third side.  After the first page of a gloat-fest, there is ALWAYS at least one other player who could claim your side out from under you and prevent you from gloating again.  However, this does not counter Sindyr's concern; all it does is make it clear that a gloat-fest can only occur as a consensus activity on the part of the whole table, not just two people. 

If it helps, here.

I like Inspirations better than Story Tokens, and here's why.

First, they are tools for supporting the game continuity.  If I get inspirations from a challenge, I get to write them, and that means me saying "this was important, this is going to come up again."  I'm getting to shape the game continuity significantly.  Cool!

The other reason I like inspirations is because I like winning conflicts.  I tend to play high debt, which means that I need to to some serious staking from time-to-time.  Inspirations let me stake, split, inspire, and win, usually generating the same inspirations right back at me.

Story tokens ... give me another character.  Or maybe an extra action.  Extra actions are generally not as helpful as inspirations.  Secondary characters are fun, but not *that* fun.  One from time to time is more than enough.

yrs--
--Ben

Och, Ben stole my topic!

Which was, of course, that while I have little experience with the game, I find Inspirations SO cool. They're much cooler than Story tokens. The latter tell me nothing of where they come from, but Inspirations.. they're part of the crafted history of the game. They're there because of the story we made. As somebody said, you could just pump out Story tokens with a little collusion with the other players with nary a trouble, hardly touching the fiction. But to get a cool Inspiration, you actually have to play.

So yeah, I like Inspirations more for many situations.

But yeah, Ben pretty much said it all already. Damn him.

Matthew wrote:
Sindyr, tell me how allowing a Gloatfest is good strategy.  Tell me how it lets you manage your resources better than the other players.  Tell me how it creates an interesting story.  Tell me how it's good for the short term.  Tell me about the long-term benefits.  Tell me what possible good you get out of letting it keep rolling around rather than stopping it hard and early.

All right, now we're getting somewhere.

Sindyr wrote:
But I think one of the things you are saying, Matthew, is even if tokens are significantly more effective than Insps, and therefore more desirable, you do not see the problem that I do.

Well, the most he is likely to stake is 3 debt, because each player can only stake debt from one drive, and only as much debt as that drive's rating.  Let's say you both have three debt each staked on this.

[FYI, you can't invest millions of debt into a conflict, you are limited to usually at most 2 or 3, depending on what yoru highest rated drive is. 

If a player gloats a conflict, and gets a token, that ultimately puts you behind a token.

If people are tired of the conflict or tired of the scene, there may be added incentive to be the one that blinks, but being the one that *doesn't* blinks is more tactically rewarding in terms of resources.

There people who play tactically will tend to keep these gloatfests going.  People who just want the gloatfest over will sacrifice their tactical advantages in order to make it go away.

Therefor, for someone that wants to gain resources, playing with people that are willing to sacrifice their tactical advantage in order to stop the gloating are a gold mine - as someone who plays more tactically can simply bring a gloatable goal (or ten) into being, and then farm the non-gloating players dislike of gloatfests for a tactical advantage in tokens.

So I will tell my gaming group that the folks here on the forums believe that gloatfests are not a problem because in equally many circumstances Inspirations are more desirable than Tokens.

Perhaps even if they require some gloatfest preventing rule, like training wheels they can be removed if and when we all see that Inspirations are equally desirable as Tokens.

Matthew wrote:
This is sort of true if you're using Story Tokens as some kind of scorecard.  Don't think of them that way.  Story Tokens are a useful resource.  If the other guy gets one, you haven't lost anything.  Getting one of your own will not cancel out the one he got, either.