Howdy all.

Fascinating idea this Capes game. Kudos to the creators.

I'm looking to spring this on an old gaming group. They're a pretty diverse bunch of guys, but can rarely get together often anymore (stupid real life :( ). I think Capes is a great solution because of its social features (hardly any prep...whoever shows up...etc.)

My only problem is that the group is fatally stuck on Fantasy as the only genre they can seem to grok. I figure Capes should work for Fantasy, but I've never run Capes. I thought I'd take the group through the Capes Lite experience, then try to leverage it into a Fantasy game.

Realizing that unprepped Capes has a tendancy to silliness which might offend the 'serious' fantasy sensibilities in the group, I want to prep well to help curb that. What suggestions for a comics code or other setup do you folks think might help make the fantasy experience go smoother?

Absolutely, Capes works for Fantasy. If you think in terms of Abilities rather than Powers, the whole genre clicks into place with a comfortable snuggle.

For example, your traditional fantasy warrior does his talking with his sword. Odds are, one way or another it's going to come up multiple times in a Scene, and thus probably deserves to be a Powered Ability; the character trades story debt for his ability to influence things with his sword ... or his plate armour. Or the symbol of Aventerra on his shield. Or his mighty strength. Or his Perfect Good Looks(tm). All these things are perfectly good Powers for a fantasy warrior, and then you elaborate as ever with Styles like "Dervish of death" or "Unable to talk about feelings."

The rest pretty much runs itself.

Hi, John. Capes happens to be one of my favorite games, and while I've never used it for a fantasy game, it can be done. Check out these threads on the topic:

Andrew Cooper discusses his fantasy Capes session for his D&D group.

John follows suit and runs his own Capes fantasy game.

Zamiel wrote:
Absolutely, Capes works for Fantasy. If you think in terms of Abilities rather than Powers, the whole genre clicks into place with a comfortable snuggle.

For example, your traditional fantasy warrior does his talking with his sword. Odds are, one way or another it's going to come up multiple times in a Scene, and thus probably deserves to be a Powered Ability; the character trades story debt for his ability to influence things with his sword ... or his plate armour. Or the symbol of Aventerra on his shield. Or his mighty strength. Or his Perfect Good Looks(tm). All these things are perfectly good Powers for a fantasy warrior, and then you elaborate as ever with Styles like "Dervish of death" or "Unable to talk about feelings."

The rest pretty much runs itself.

Andrew wrote:
Hi, John. Capes happens to be one of my favorite games, and while I've never used it for a fantasy game, it can be done. Check out these threads on the topic:

Andrew Cooper discusses his fantasy Capes session for his D&D group.

John follows suit and runs his own Capes fantasy game.

One thing that, I think, could lend itself to producing a more serious session would be switching how Powers and Attitudes work mechanically. As far as fantasy is concerned, it would be especially appropriate in low powered low magic warhammerish low fantasy genre.

I think a lot of silly situations are born when players take a look at their character sheets, consider the situation, and go like "oh, my character can do this and this crazy stuff, and now I could do it an even crazier way!". And this is strengthened by the fact that using Powers and powered styles most of the time pays much more than using Attitudes, non-powered Styles and Skills, so players constantly need to find new ways of stretching their Powers to fit the situational context. (And I observe a tendency to have as little non-powered abilities as possible - maybe it looks different with more experienced players, but it seems to me it's natural to stock on powered ones after playing some number of sessions.)

If Attitudes generated Debt for main characters (and worked in a non-powered way for supporting cast), and no character had Powers, only Skills, what cool stuff characters can do wouldn't matter as much as what are they like. Action would be downplayed, personality conflicts highlighted. Supernatural powers wouldn't be such a big factor as in supers game (e.g. specific spells represented by one use per scene Skills), unless taken as Styles (e.g. "Wizard" as a Skill, "Use arcane formulas from his old grimoire" as a powered Style).

John,

The key to not having an uber-silly game of Capes is clear communication up front.  And while Capes doesn't require a whole bunch of prep done by you before the group gets together, it does benefit from the group sitting down and taking the first 30 minutes to hash out the style of game they want, brainstorm some characters and develop (at least minimally) a setting.  Silly generally defaults from the game existing in a vacuum.  It's really not hard to avoid if everyone is fine with avoiding it.

Andrew wrote:
John,

The key to not having an uber-silly game of Capes is clear communication up front.  And while Capes doesn't require a whole bunch of prep done by you before the group gets together, it does benefit from the group sitting down and taking the first 30 minutes to hash out the style of game they want, brainstorm some characters and develop (at least minimally) a setting.  Silly generally defaults from the game existing in a vacuum.  It's really not hard to avoid if everyone is fine with avoiding it.

Even a short, ten minute discussion before play begins between players makes a huge difference.  It really helps to put everyone into the same general space when putting down conflicts.