One more quick question for Tony; are story tokens, debt and inspirations carried over from one session to the next?  I hear you talking about having 15-20 story tokens at the end of a night; do you have that many next time, and if so, doesn't that disrupt the equal opportunity when new players enter the game?  Does Capes even support multiple sessions?

LemmingLord wrote:
One more quick question for Tony; are story tokens, debt and inspirations carried over from one session to the next?  I hear you talking about having 15-20 story tokens at the end of a night; do you have that many next time, and if so, doesn't that disrupt the equal opportunity when new players enter the game?  Does Capes even support multiple sessions?

Eric wrote:
Don't need Tony for this question.  The answers are:

Do resources carry over: Yes
Does this disadvantage new players: Not really

When you sit down at the table you say, "Are we starting a brand new game or are we continuing our old one?"

Hash that out and then distribute Story Tokens as appropriate.  If the guy with 25 Story Tokens isn't there that night, then you ask the same question the next time he's there.

LemmingLord wrote:
It is actually a trick question... :)

When story tokens are attached to a player and not to a character, and with continuity very sketchy in the game; how does one determine when they carry over and when the game you are playing is a "new game." 

In theory you could start a new "story" and still be playing the same "game" and include the resources from last session.

That definitely makes Capes a different kind of game..  Imagine if you got to use the monopoly money you had at the end of the last monopoly game you played!

Capes is unique.

Vaxalon wrote:
In theory you could start a new "story" and still be playing the same "game" and include the resources from last session.

I like the idea that Fred brought up, starting a new story and still keeping the same resources.  That was actually one of the core concepts for the Capes Universe idea (that I still haven't gotten to playtest). Players always keep their resources (Story Tokens, Inspirations, Characters and associated Debt), no matter whether they're playing with the same people in the same storyline, the same people in a new storyline, or new people in a new storyline. 

I would totally play Jenny Everywhere in that game.

Matthew wrote: I like the idea that Fred brought up, starting a new story and still keeping the same resources.

Yes yes yes!  You're digging into exactly the sort of stuff that excited me about the Universe idea.  It's a new story, new characters, new SIS-universe, but the audience is aware of the thematic influence that past events have in shaping  the present.  I'd love to see what would happen with about fifteen people involved in three to five weekly mix-and-match sessions in the same Universe.  I'm betting that after a couple of months you'd get half a dozen separate strong storylines with crisscrossing threads of story and theme tying them all together. 

You know, Capes may just be the perfect game for Thomas Robertson's "Chaotic Play" idea.

All the Chaotic Play stuff is hitting the same ideas that I've been kicking around.  Thanks for bringing that to my attention.  Capes + Chaotic Play sounds very much like what I was envisioning.  Rather than having separate simultaneous games at tables in the same space, with player mixing at regular intervals, I was imagining several intertwined regular gaming groups with occasional pick-up games.  Something like this:

Regular Monday night game with players A, B, C, D.
Regular Tuesday night game with players E, F, G, H.
Regular Thursday night game with players A, C, E, F, G.
Regular Saturday game with B, D, H, I.
A, B, D, G, and I work together, so sometimes some of them play quick lunchtime games.
With additional people dropping in and out, and other games happening whenever somebody decides to play.

Capes may be one of the few games for which that style of play is well supported.

It's permitted by Capes, in the same way that court intrigue is permitted by D&D.  The game (unlike many others) does not actively prevent you from playing it in that way.

When you see a game that supports that style ... for which that style works better than a single group around a table once a week ... I think it will be pretty mind-opening.

I disagree, Tony.  The fact that the resources are so portable, that the characters are so separable, that (aside from inspirations and debt) history is only as important as the players make it... that's highly supportive of chaotic play.  Those are all tools that chaotic play would use.

I forgot to mention... a game doesn't have to be BEST played in a particular mode in order to support that mode.

Heroquest is best played with character sheets around a table.  Playing via IRC with wikis is well supported, however, because of the low amount of dice-rolling and the loose scene framing.  For this reason, Heroquest supports IRC play.  It may not support it better than it supports other modes but it still supports it.

Important distinction.

Yeah, fair enough.  I've just got a lot of mechanics that actively support chaotic play, and address it deliberately, floating around in my head ... so by comparison Capes looks sorta haphazard in its support.