In many ways Conflicts are not about what you CAN accomplish, but about what you CAN'T.

Consider:  You can narrate almost anything without constraint in the processes of a Capes game.  I can offhandedly bring the second coming of Jesus, have the aliens invade the earth, and turn all irish people accross the globe into magical leprechauns while helping to narrate a scene in which 3 guys play poker.

What a conflict *really* does is say what you *CAN'T* narrate (because of the "not yet" rule), at least until the conflict is won or lost.

Also amusing is the fact that, with standard Capes, if someone throws down a goal to prevent a narration of something, I fight to control that conflict and *lose*, as soon as that conflict comes off the table I can know pretty much do the original narration I had planned to.  An extreme example:

I begin to narrate Doc Ock beating up Spiderman.  Spidey's player play's the conflict Spiderman is beaten by Doc Ock, wins it, and narrates the opposite result - that is Doc Ock beating Spiderman.

I then, if the scene continue, simply narrate the Doc picking himself off the floor beating up Spiderman as I was before he played that conflict.

So maybe conflicts are nothing more than fighting over a resolution of one moment in time, and while the conflict exists, can prevent some narration.  But before it goes down and after it gets resolved any narrative result of the conflict can be narrated away easily and without limit - until someone plays another conflict and the cycle begins again.

The only time winning a conflict actually matters (perhaps) is in the moment of the narrated victory.  Because that victory can be freely narrated out of existance the moment that Conflict's resolution is over.

Unless your narration is just so damn COOL that noone wants to invalidate it.

I disagree. Conflicts are about what you can do, but what they are doing is putting a hold on them - you can do this, but not until the Conflict is won. Basically they're turning what can be done into something that has to be fought over in order for it to be done.

One notion about Conflicts, though. Yes, they can be "narrated out of existence" after the Conflict is over in that Doc Ock can pick himself up and beat Spider-Man down, but nothing that was ever narrated can be un-narrated. If Doc Ock has never lost a fight to anyone ever, then that makes the outcome of the Conflict important because that fact is at stake, and once it's narrated it cannot be undone.

As someone in this forum said to me at one point, the key is to remember that you're not attacking characters, you're attacking ideas. If I want my character to be heroic and uncorruptible, then the sort of Conflicts you'd be laying down would be ones that would lead to my character doing corrupt things, and I will fight like hell over them.

So yes, I can be heroic and uncorruptible afterwards, but that doesn't change the fact that for a time, I wasn't.

Bret, not so; you can un-narrate that too.

"Aha!  But that wasn't the REAL superman, that was one of his robots, gone rogue!"

There's ways to deal with that, too.

"Goal: Superman proves he wasn't actually controlling the robot," or somesuch. And if you were Superman, I would keep laying those Conflicts on the table for as long as you kept trying to narrate them away because the whole time I would be mining your Debt tokens.

Oh, and you're right. So maybe you can't make things stick to a character, but you can't narrate them out of the narrative. They still happened even if they're explained away like that. Doc Ock (or his robot clone) got beaten, and Superman (or his robot clone) was corrupted.

Vaxalon wrote:
Unless your narration is just so damn COOL that noone wants to invalidate it.

Without a strong social force in play, all rules systems are weak. Like the D&D games with players who completely ignore the plot hooks, the rest of the party, and wander off to do their own thing. You're hammering Social Contract here, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the completeness or incompleteness of Capes's rules.

Conflicts aren't essentially about what happens at all.  Conflicts are about what has meaning.  Sure, I can narrate all day long about Doc Ock beating Spiderman.  He trashes him again and again and again.  None of it means anything.  Once a Conflict is plopped down, it is going to mean something.  Maybe a little because nobody is really interested and only a small Inspiration is gained.  Maybe a lot because everyone gets involved and multiple Inspirations are gained, Story Tokens are handed out, and Debt is accumulated.

It's engaging the Conflict Resolution system that provides meaning for the narration.  That's why you have to put down what the Inspiration was gained for.  That's why you have to put Debt down on Drives.  Just narrating does get you any of this.  Sure the narration is valid without engaging the system but it is also meaningless.

It simply seems to me that any game without a single assigned authority (a GM) is going to require more rules to carefully avoid the kind of broken play I described, or in their absence, the Social Contract will have to pick up the slack.

Capes *could* have more rules added in order to fix this.  Instead, we do not add any rules and simply assign the Social Contract the task of making it all work.

To me, although I am not a "Forgie" and *still* do not fully understand GNS, I would say that this is a "System Does Matter" issue - sure, the Social Contract can patch any hole.  But the game designer's choice of whether or not to add or change rules or instead to depend on the Social Contract when the spectre of broken play rears its head is a significant one.  Neither choice is *wrong*, but they have very different results, and result in very different games.

I guess processing this out, I am realising more and more how dependant Capes is on the Social Contract to make things run smoothly, in the light of a potential additional ruleset that I admit could *never* eliminate the need for the social contract, yet could likely minimize Cape's reliance on it to a great degree.

It's all very interesting to me.  Most games that are not rpg's don't have this issue because their ruleset is Complete, that is, there is no play you can make that results in broken play.  Most rpg's avoid this area but assigning to the sole GM the authority to resolve all disputes.  However, in a rpg where everyone is equal, this is not possible.  There is no way to make such a game *absolutely* Complete (apart from saying, "OK, whose turn is it to be the arbiter").  The game is going to have a degree of Incompleteness in it, and the Social COntract will have to handle it.  But there are ways to make one game more Complete than another, to minimize the need to call upon the Social Contract.

It is interesting to see that Capes does not do this, that it embraces it's fundamental Incompleteness, and challenges the players themselves to find a way to make this work.  Especially given its sometimes competititive nature.

Fascinating.

Andrew wrote:
It's engaging the Conflict Resolution system that provides meaning for the narration.  That's why you have to put down what the Inspiration was gained for.  That's why you have to put Debt down on Drives.  Just narrating does get you any of this.  Sure the narration is valid without engaging the system but it is also meaningless.

I understand what you are saying, Sindyr.  I disagree though.  The mechanics are how we, as a group of players, assign meaning to the fiction.  It's what the rules are for.  Sure, you can get cool narration outside of the system but the way you've agreed to give that narration weight is by attaching it to the system.  And yes, you have agreed to that.  You agree to it by sitting down at the table and playing the game.  If you wanted all the free narration to carry the same weight as the narration that resulted from the system, then why use the system at all?  Why not play freeform? 

If you aren't using the system to assign weight and meaning to the resulting fiction, then why have the system at all.  It isn't to stop certain narration.  We've already established that you can't keep something from being narrated via the system.  It isn't to gain the ability to narrate something.  That's trival.  You can do almost at will with the system.  If the system is designed to do either of those things, then it isn't a very well designed system. 

Andrew wrote:
I understand what you are saying, Sindyr.  I disagree though.  The mechanics are how we, as a group of players, assign meaning to the fiction.  It's what the rules are for.  Sure, you can get cool narration outside of the system but the way you've agreed to give that narration weight is by attaching it to the system.  And yes, you have agreed to that.  You agree to it by sitting down at the table and playing the game.  If you wanted all the free narration to carry the same weight as the narration that resulted from the system, then why use the system at all?  Why not play freeform? 

I'm not sure this can be proven one way or the other except, again, to do some Actual Play and maybe examine some differences between different rules systems, but I really don't see how Capes is any more or less relying on Social Contract than other games. Say we want to play a serious Burning Wheel game. If I'm having my character act like a slapstick dumbass, then that's stepping on the game. If we're playing a cooperative game and I tell everyone my PC is backstabbing another PC, then that's stepping on the game. What you're talking about is a mutual agreement amongst the table as to how things should be, and going against the mutual agreement - you cannot make that a rule. You can't make a rule against being a jerk, Sindyr, and attempts to do so are just trying to keep a bad gaming group together with spit and twine.

I believe all games depend on the Social Contract, none any more or less than others, and someone who's an asshat in Capes is either an asshat straight-up, or he's just not into the type of game Capes is. Though I should note in all of my play experience with Capes, including some that included some asshats, no one has ever done anything like you described.

Sindyr wrote:
The mechanic do not and cannot tell us how to assign meaning to the fiction.  All the mechanics can do is try to govern the methods we use to produce it.

Andrew:  Well said.  Saying "The conflicts don't matter because I can narrate the consequences away" is sort of like saying "Taking 98 of my fighter's 100 hit points in D&D doesn't matter, because I can laugh it off and say 'Tis but a flesh wound'!"  Sure, it doesn't matter ... until a goblin with a thrown twig comes along, and your guy falls down dead.  At that point those 98 points of damage turn out to have mattered very much.

Sindyr wrote:
Capes *could* have more rules added in order to fix this.  Instead, we do not add any rules and simply assign the Social Contract the task of making it all work.

Good gad that was a long freaking post!  I need to remember to preview the darn things and shut up once I have made my principle point.

Anyone that was enough of an asshat to constantly retcon conflict narration would rapidly find themselves without a gaming group.

In my experience the best way to deal with that kind of advanced asshattery is to show the offender the door...games are supposed to be fun, and conflict resolution is part of the game. Don't like the conflict result then use the mechanic to throw down another conflict to make the changes, don't use a lame-ass free narration route when you could be adding to the story and narrating some great plot.

Freeform has its place in gaming and can be lots of fun, but when you have a rule set why not use it?

That;s my point. 
1) Capes games are broken without the use of the Social Contract.  D&D for example, is not. (Although personally I hate that game)
2) Capes seems to intentionally leaves gaps where it could employ rules.  In other words, where broken play could be highly ameliorated or fixed with a simply rule addition, Capes seems to choose to be as light a framework as possible, eschewing extra rules and putting the burden on the Social Contract to make Capes work.

I am not saying the above things are wrong, they just are.

Hans wrote:
As to your original point, one purpose of conflicts is indeed that they prevent something from entering the fiction, at least for a time.

If Doc Ock's player would settle for nothing less than narrating the humiliation of Spiderman, he could simply narrate it!

Tuxboy wrote:
Anyone that was enough of an asshat to constantly retcon conflict narration would rapidly find themselves without a gaming group.

Sindyr:  You're really, really not qualified to use the word "broken" in this context.

You don't even understand, despite dozens of people explaining it to you in thousands of pages, what Capes is built to do.  I shall humbly defer, in analogy, to the great Mark Twain, in Innocents Abroad:

The coffee had been steadily growing more and more execrable for the space of three weeks, till at last it had ceased to be coffee altogether and had assumed the nature of mere discolored water--so this person said. He said it was so weak that it was transparent an inch in depth around the edge of the cup. As he approached the table one morning he saw the transparent edge--by means of his extraordinary vision long before he got to his seat. He went back and complained in a high-handed way to Capt. Duncan. He said the coffee was disgraceful. The Captain showed his. It seemed tolerably good. The incipient mutineer was more outraged than ever, then, at what he denounced as the partiality shown the captain's table over the other tables in the ship. He flourished back and got his cup and set it down triumphantly, and said:

"Just try that mixture once, Captain Duncan."

He smelt it--tasted it--smiled benignantly--then said:

"It is inferior--for coffee--but it is pretty fair tea."

Sindyr wrote:
1) Capes games are broken without the use of the Social Contract.  D&D for example, is not. (Although personally I hate that game)

Sindyr wrote:
You cannot have a meaningful non-chaotic game of Capes without the players agreeing to assign meaning to Conflict's even after they have been resolved, despite the fact that the rules do no such thing.

TonyLB wrote:
Sindyr:  You're really, really not qualified to use the word "broken" in this context.

Hans wrote:

Sindyr wrote:
1) Capes games are broken without the use of the Social Contract.  D&D for example, is not. (Although personally I hate that game)

ALL role-playing games have a social contract.  D&D MORE so than other games, since there are so many different ways to play it that are mutually incompatible.  Every time someone accuses someone else of being a rules-lawyer or a munchkin, every time there is a total party kill and the DM cackles while the players get pissed off, every time someone gets frustrated with the DM for ignoring a rule that would have helped their character at that moment just to keep the "action" going, you see the social contract in action in a D&D game. 

As part of the social contract in Capes, perhaps a higher level of trust between players is necessary than in D&D, and also perhaps a mutual agreement to not sweat details of narration and not get too worked up about specifics.  But that is not the presence vs. absence of a contract, that is simply a different type of contract for a different type of game.

Sindyr wrote:
-What makes D&D not broken ultimately is that D&D assigns ultimate authority to resolve all issues to a single individual.  This takes ANY hole in the system and patches it with that single rule.  Of course, as much as possible, D&D's authors try to avoid making you use it by trying to have fewer holes.

Hans wrote:

Sindyr wrote:
-What makes D&D not broken ultimately is that D&D assigns ultimate authority to resolve all issues to a single individual.  This takes ANY hole in the system and patches it with that single rule.  Of course, as much as possible, D&D's authors try to avoid making you use it by trying to have fewer holes.

I believe this is fundamentally flawed, but it is also off topic, so I will take it to a new topic.

-All games, in fact all social activities have a Social Contract.
-What makes D&D not broken ultimately is that D&D assigns ultimate authority to resolve all issues to a single individual.  This takes ANY hole in the system and patches it with that single rule.  Of course, as much as possible, D&D's authors try to avoid making you use it by trying to have fewer holes.
-Capes has no central authority and proposes absolutely no mechanism for what to do when things break down.  Because the Capes rules allow as valid play nigh instant retconning of any won conflict, the Capes rules alone would tend to result in continual and never ending break-downs - which is what I mean when I say it is "incomplete" as it stands and if used only as written would result in "broken play"
-Capes could "fix" this in different ways, including rules for challenging and ruling on valid play that some in the group nevertheless don't like, or rules for creating constraints on future narrations based on the conflicts that have been won in the past.
-Or Capes could simply have no fix for this problem, forcing the players to fix it themselves within the higher level of the Social Contract. (Or with house mods, which of course drifts Capes.)

Here's an analogy which I think is very accurate.
Imagine a version of basketball without any written rules concerning dribbling.  Still, a group of friends play and always dribble the ball, just like regular basketball.  A new guy moves into the area, and joins one of the teams.  He reads up on this game, reads all the written rules, and start to play.  Immediately everyone is pissed at him - he runs with the ball to the hoop and shoots, never dribbling.  "Why aren't you dribbling?" they ask him.  "Why should I? It's nowhere in the rules." he counters.  The players, angry with him and upset at how he is playing refuse to play with him.

Whereas maybe what they should do is simply add the rule about dribbling to their set of rules.

OK, tux, I don't know why, but you just are not hearing me.

I don't have the stamina for retyping the same explanation again and again over and over.

I invite you to pm me your phone number if you want to continue this coversation, or I can pm you mine.

Suffice it to say, you still aren't getting it, and not because there's nothing to get.

Unfortunately, I no longer have the patience to try to show you that through hours of typing - I don't have the energy or time when it seems that a LOT would be required - assuming that it is even possible to show you.

I apologize, and hope you take me up on the idea of a phone call, or if you are outside US/Canada/Western Europe (which my vonage covers), a skype conversation.

Cheers and good luck.

I'm getting it fine...we had this conversation in PM a while ago.

I understand that you don't think the social contract is strong enough to protect you...I think we all get that, but no amount of, frankly, spurious argument from you is going to prove the Capes needs a rule that NO other game in the history of the RPG industry has ever had, needed, or wanted.

The game is down to who you play it with and what you expect...I think you expect different things from a game than myself and many others on this forum. I suspect you wouldn't enjoy gaming with me much as I wouldn't enjoy gaming with you.

Well, I of course think you have missed it - I find your own arguments irrelevant and spurious, while we are on that topic.

Now that we have each said our piece, let's move on to something with content:
I strongly suspect, as much as we argue, that in practice we *would* have fun playing engaging games of Capes.  In practice, I suspect that 90% of the Capes players are not asshats, incluing you and I.  I believe that any actions you took that I strongly objected to at the table, you would be agreeable to modifying, and vice versa.  And when all is said and done, with the amount of intelligence and creativity we possess, I believe the game would turn out to be cool and amazingly fun.

Just my opinion.

Sindyr wrote:
OK, tux, I don't know why, but you just are not hearing me.

Sorry, that's not good enough.

Sindyr wrote:
That;s my point. 
1) Capes games are broken without the use of the Social Contract.  D&D for example, is not. (Although personally I hate that game)
2) Capes seems to intentionally leaves gaps where it could employ rules.  In other words, where broken play could be highly ameliorated or fixed with a simply rule addition, Capes seems to choose to be as light a framework as possible, eschewing extra rules and putting the burden on the Social Contract to make Capes work.

I am not saying the above things are wrong, they just are.

Glendower wrote:

Sindyr wrote:
That;s my point. 
1) Capes games are broken without the use of the Social Contract.  D&D for example, is not. (Although personally I hate that game)
2) Capes seems to intentionally leaves gaps where it could employ rules.  In other words, where broken play could be highly ameliorated or fixed with a simply rule addition, Capes seems to choose to be as light a framework as possible, eschewing extra rules and putting the burden on the Social Contract to make Capes work.

I am not saying the above things are wrong, they just are.

Here's my counter points.

1) ALL social games are broken without the use of the Social Contract. 

The social contract are a list of rules that allow us to interact with other people in a successful manner.  Social games, from Bridge to Monopoly to D&D to Capes, involve interaction with people.  Without these rules, we will not interact with people successfully.  Without these rules, we cannot play social games. 

Singling out Capes serves no purpose.  Sure, Capes won't work without a functioning Social Contract.  Neither will Monopoly.  Imagine playing Monopoly and the opposing player sets you on fire.  No where in Monopoly does it say "dont' set your opponent on fire".  But the social contract is pretty clear on this.  Setting people on fire breaks social contract, which thereby breaks the game, as you can't play while on fire.  Your money would burn at your touch, for one.

2) Capes has rules that deal directly with the social contract.

Want story tokens?  Don't piss off the other players with lame conflicts, or narrated reversals.  That actions will get you no tokens.  In addition, incredibly lame additions to the narrative will not survive contact with the other players.  If you grow annoyed that your contributions are getting tossed away, then play the game the way it's indended.  Toss a goal or event down that someone ELSE cares about. 

I have a personal philosophy about games.  You have to play games with people you like and are prepared to trust in some capacity. That establishes the social contract, as these are your friends!  These people will want you to have a good time!  And you want them to have a good time.  If you work hard to make your fellow players shine, and they do the same, it creates an exchange of energy that you can feel!

In Capes, the very best Goals and Events are those that interest and effect other people at the table.  If you can interest and engage someone with a goal, either to support it or to oppose it, and excitedly, then you succeeded.  If no one cares, you failed. 

Sindyr wrote:

To me this point is a mere extension of the idea of the social contract.  If you piss people off, not getting tokens will be the least of your worries, people more than likely won't even play with you, making not getting tokens a moot point.

I have a personal philosophy about games.  You have to play games with people you like and are prepared to trust in some capacity. That establishes the social contract, as these are your friends!  These people will want you to have a good time!  And you want them to have a good time.  If you work hard to make your fellow players shine, and they do the same, it creates an exchange of energy that you can feel!

In Capes, the very best Goals and Events are those that interest and effect other people at the table.  If you can interest and engage someone with a goal, either to support it or to oppose it, and excitedly, then you succeeded.  If no one cares, you failed. 

Yep, I agree with you there.  I would add playing with friends means playing with people who will respect what you want to explore and respect what you don't - regardless of game system.  And will actively search for ways to achieve their own success while contributing to yours.

LemmingLord wrote:
Also, I want to point out that I have been a jerk before; and by playing capes I will see when I am a jerk right away if players aren't picking up on my conflicts.  If there's no demand for the conflicts I'm manufacturing, I don't get what I'm seeking in "points" Story Tokens nor in ATTENTION...