In the last session (the fourth) or our ongoing game, two of us (Liz and I) were playing our spotlight characters that had been in two of the three previous sessions.  In both of these sessions, we had used a lot of powers, and also lost a few conflicts that had been staked, so we were both starting the scene with one seriously overdrawn drive (7 debt on 3 strength). 

What I want to say is this...WOW is it hard to get rid of debt!  Here are the reasons why...

1) There just aren't that many conflicts on the table.  With only four players, our experience is that there are rarely more than four conflicts out at once, and you can't get involved in all of them, usually.

2) Remember you only lose debt when you WIN, losing only makes it worse.  So if you are trying to get rid of debt, you HAVE to be pretty freaking sure you are going to win.

3) Because of 1 and 2, its particularly hard to get debt off of a 1 drive strength drive, because that one debt token often does not provide enough oomph to actually win.  This is especially true if that drive is overdrawn; 3 debt on a strength 1 drive is worse than 5 debt on a strength 3 drive, because it will take two conflicts to bring it back to non-overdrawn status instead of 1.

4) In order to win, you often have to use abilities, and those abilities are GIVING YOU MORE FREAKING DEBT!  At least, they are once you have run out of check off abilities. 

5) And, remember, Capes is a role-playing game, with all this interesting story stuff going on that you want to try to control.  You are often faced with the tough decision of foregoing a cool bit of narration in your mind because you simply cannot afford to add another debt token to the sheet.  This is hard to do, very hard, because cool bits of narration are a big part of the fun.

This most recent session was fascinating, because Liz and I spent almost the whole game frantically trying to dump debt off our our characters, and not being very successful.  I ended up having 1 less total debt on my spotlight character at the end of the session (although it was now more spread out) while Liz now has her spotlight character overdrawn on about four drives.  This poor character is so overdrawn we were all talking about different "Angel to Archangel" type scenarios that could play out to allow her to coherently launder her spotlight through some experience into a new version with no debt. 

This leads me to several conclusions:

1) Play carefully with a character that gains debt, if that character is intended to be a long term cast member of the campaign.  This is not something you notice in a one shot type session, it only appears after a character has been played a few times.

2) There is a BIG advantage to having two characters in a scene, one that creates debt, and one that does not.  In the last session, I had two characters like this, and I was able to reduce my debt (although not by as much as I wanted to), while Liz did not, and her debt skyrocketed.  It was either watch her debt balance soar, or hardly participate at all in the session. 

3) The most important trait for a good Capes player is discipline.  That is, the iron strength of will to NOT do something when you can, because the long term consequences are too painful.  I am beginning to learn that just because you have an action available, that doesn't mean you should use it.

Also, one trick that we all hit upon during the course of the last session that helps somewhat in terms of gettin rid of debt (and which will be even easier now that I know that characters, not players, are allied).  I call it "Ganging up on yourself".  It requires you to have a character allied with the currently losing side of a conflict, and lets you clear out a fair amount of debt, AS LONG AS you have at least two check off abilities and the luck goes your way.

1) On your action, use your debt-laden character to roll AGAINST yourself.  Now that character is allied with the currently winning side. 

2) Stake as much debt as can on the winning side.  You can split dice if you want, although it is not a requirement.  You might want to in order to reduce the value of the inspirations the winner might get.

3) Now use your reaction to roll FOR your original side, thus allying your character with the original side again.

It is best to do this when it is obvious the goal is going to resolve, and when it is obvious that your side is going to lose.  What it does is ensure that while you are able to get rid of some of your debt, you still have a shot at getting story tokens from the other winners of the conflict.  However, don't do what I did while trying this trick; if you fail to switch back to your old side due to bad luck, just live with it.  Don't gain even more debt and/or spend story tokens to try to get back on the other side unless you are certain your net gain in resources/loss of debt will make it worth your while.

It also raises an interesting question; it seems entirely possible to have characters allied with both sides of a conflict...can you still get story tokens if this occurs?  I know you can't get your OWN debt back as story tokens, but what other peoples debt, when I have one character allied with the winners, and one with the losers?

This is particularly interesting to me since we're (*finally!*) starting our own long-term Capes game this Saturday - with three players, so I expect to be in a similar boat.

Anyway, here are my suggestions:

Hans wrote:
1) There just aren't that many conflicts on the table.  With only four players, our experience is that there are rarely more than four conflicts out at once, and you can't get involved in all of them, usually.

2) Remember you only lose debt when you WIN, losing only makes it worse.  So if you are trying to get rid of debt, you HAVE to be pretty freaking sure you are going to win.

3) Because of 1 and 2, its particularly hard to get debt off of a 1 drive strength drive, because that one debt token often does not provide enough oomph to actually win.  This is especially true if that drive is overdrawn; 3 debt on a strength 1 drive is worse than 5 debt on a strength 3 drive, because it will take two conflicts to bring it back to non-overdrawn status instead of 1.

4) In order to win, you often have to use abilities, and those abilities are GIVING YOU MORE FREAKING DEBT!  At least, they are once you have run out of check off abilities.

This most recent session was fascinating, because Liz and I spent almost the whole game frantically trying to dump debt off our our characters, and not being very successful.  I ended up having 1 less total debt on my spotlight character at the end of the session (although it was now more spread out) while Liz now has her spotlight character overdrawn on about four drives.  This poor character is so overdrawn we were all talking about different "Angel to Archangel" type scenarios that could play out to allow her to coherently launder her spotlight through some experience into a new version with no debt.

It's hard to get rid of Debt?  I've never found that to be true.  I'd love to be at the table with you and your overdrawn friend.  Someone lays down and Conflict that both of you Stake 3 debt on.  I'm then going to oppose you and LET you win.  Woohoo for me!  I get 6 story tokens!  If the other players aren't letting you win Conflicts with that much Debt staked on them, what's wrong with them?

drnuncheon wrote:
And waste all that debt?  Are you kidding?  Now is the chance for you to totally gang up on her! This is just begging for a scene with her character, a bunch of non-powered characters, and/or as many of her Exemplars as you can cram in.  With all of that Debt available to stake, she ought to be able to steamroller the non-powered characters.  She loses the Debt, you get the Story Tokens, everybody is happy.

Gaerik wrote:
It's hard to get rid of Debt?  I've never found that to be true.  I'd love to be at the table with you and your overdrawn friend.  Someone lays down and Conflict that both of you Stake 3 debt on.  I'm then going to oppose you and LET you win.  Woohoo for me!  I get 6 story tokens!  If the other players aren't letting you win Conflicts with that much Debt staked on them, what's wrong with them?

How hard it is to get out of debt depends on how the groups plays the game.  I admit when someone is desperately overdrawn, as tempting as it is to vie for those story tokens, it is also tempting to ram that debt right back at them doubled.

Hans wrote:
1) There just aren't that many conflicts on the table.  With only four players, our experience is that there are rarely more than four conflicts out at once, and you can't get involved in all of them, usually.

Hans wrote:
2) Remember you only lose debt when you WIN, losing only makes it worse.  So if you are trying to get rid of debt, you HAVE to be pretty freaking sure you are going to win.

Hans wrote:
3) Because of 1 and 2, its particularly hard to get debt off of a 1 drive strength drive, because that one debt token often does not provide enough oomph to actually win.  This is especially true if that drive is overdrawn; 3 debt on a strength 1 drive is worse than 5 debt on a strength 3 drive, because it will take two conflicts to bring it back to non-overdrawn status instead of 1.

Hans wrote:
4) In order to win, you often have to use abilities, and those abilities are GIVING YOU MORE FREAKING DEBT!  At least, they are once you have run out of check off abilities. 

Hans wrote:
5) And, remember, Capes is a role-playing game, with all this interesting story stuff going on that you want to try to control.  You are often faced with the tough decision of foregoing a cool bit of narration in your mind because you simply cannot afford to add another debt token to the sheet.  This is hard to do, very hard, because cool bits of narration are a big part of the fun.

Hans wrote:
1) Play carefully with a character that gains debt, if that character is intended to be a long term cast member of the campaign.  This is not something you notice in a one shot type session, it only appears after a character has been played a few times.

Hans wrote:
2) There is a BIG advantage to having two characters in a scene, one that creates debt, and one that does not.  In the last session, I had two characters like this, and I was able to reduce my debt (although not by as much as I wanted to), while Liz did not, and her debt skyrocketed.  It was either watch her debt balance soar, or hardly participate at all in the session. 

Hans wrote:
3) The most important trait for a good Capes player is discipline.  That is, the iron strength of will to NOT do something when you can, because the long term consequences are too painful.  I am beginning to learn that just because you have an action available, that doesn't mean you should use it.

Hans wrote:
Also, one trick that we all hit upon during the course of the last session that helps somewhat in terms of gettin rid of debt (and which will be even easier now that I know that characters, not players, are allied).  I call it "Ganging up on yourself".  It requires you to have a character allied with the currently losing side of a conflict, and lets you clear out a fair amount of debt, AS LONG AS you have at least two check off abilities and the luck goes your way.
<Snip the details>

Hans wrote:
It also raises an interesting question; it seems entirely possible to have characters allied with both sides of a conflict...can you still get story tokens if this occurs?  I know you can't get your OWN debt back as story tokens, but what other peoples debt, when I have one character allied with the winners, and one with the losers?

Hans wrote:
We shall see how it goes, because I am the scene framer next time.  However, if you gang up on her TOO much, she loses.  Remember, at the moment there is a good chance she will be rolling down as many as 3 dice at the beginning of a page.

Hans wrote:
I think this is part of the problem...everybody is pretty darn invested in the conflicts we are putting out, and are fighting for them tooth and nail to win.   However, I see what you are saying, and it could be that the imbalance takes care of itself with time. 

Eric wrote:
This seems like more evidence you need to get your conflict count up.  Not every one needs to be a world-beater.  Don't get me wrong, having plenty of conflicts that people want to win is good...very, very good.  But if those are not the only conflicts worth declaring.  When other people are slugging it out over the latest hot conflict, declare something less hot for you to dump debt onto.

Also declare conflicts you couldn't care less about but another (preferably debt-laden) player will want to win.  Instant story token farm.  Once the other players see how lucrative it can be, maybe they will start doing the same...to your benefit.

All the things Eric said, plus this:  Long scenes dump debt into the global economy.  This often (but not always) translates into more debt on your character, but it certainly translates into more debt on somebody's character.  Short scenes draw debt out of the global economy.

If everybody is drowning in debt then those characters need to participate in scenes of just two or three pages, so they don't get forced to rely on their powers as much.  If just you are drowning in debt, however, you've got a different problem.

And  you can say, "hey, guys, I wanna do a short scene with my guy talking to his family so I can dump his excess Debt, look at all the lovely Story Tokens for you," only to find the other players grin evilly and shove massive conflicts in your face and your character ends up having to shoot his wayward teenage son with a frickin' dart gun while his wife walks out on him, dammit, and it's all their fault, damn them, why couldn't they just take the damn story tokens and let me win?.

Err...

[looking around nervously to see if anyone noticed outburst]

So, yeah, getting out of overdraw = hard.

Sydney wrote:
So, yeah, getting out of overdraw = hard.

TonyLB wrote:
All the things Eric said, plus this:  Long scenes dump debt into the global economy.  This often (but not always) translates into more debt on your character, but it certainly translates into more debt on somebody's character.  Short scenes draw debt out of the global economy.

Sydney wrote:
And  you can say, "hey, guys, I wanna do a short scene with my guy talking to his family so I can dump his excess Debt, look at all the lovely Story Tokens for you," only to find the other players grin evilly and shove massive conflicts in your face and your character ends up having to shoot his wayward teenage son with a frickin' dart gun while his wife walks out on him, dammit, and it's all their fault, damn them, why couldn't they just take the damn story tokens and let me win?.

Eric wrote:
One more note.  Long-term play with the same players also helps.  You learn what sorts of things they jump on and what sorts of things they tend to ignore.