As far as my experience is concerned, Shadowrun is a good example of "love the world, hate the system".  When Dave, friend and member of my Tuesday gaming night, suggested Shadowrun using Capes, I decided to give it a try!

Dave, Wes and myself have played Capes in the past, though Wil was new to the system.  Wil was a former member of the previous mentioned long running Shadowrun game, so he was clear on the setting.  Dave and Wes have also played Shadowrun in their gaming pasts.

We used a variety of click and locks for reference, replacing the odd power and style for something more appropriate to the setting.  We established a rather amusing list of comics code, like "The Corps never get beaten" and "no one lives happily ever after", as well as establishing a few social boundaries, such as "no kids get hurt" and "no rape or sexual violence".  We understand that these things might get threatened (and gloated upon), but they won't actually happen, and that's what matters. 

As soon as the characters came down, we started roleplaying.  The Drives really draw a clear picture of the characters we played in the first scene.  With the one I played, called "The Spider", I gave him Despair, Justice, Obsession, Duty and Power.  When they're written out and combined with some of my customized styles and powers, like "Trust No one" and "Drug-Induced Frenzy", it really paints a picture, you know?

The adversarial nature of the cyberpunk setting, that the runners are barely functional human beings looking for their own advantage, plays well into the Capes mechanics.  I knew Wil totally "got" the game when he put down the Event "The traitor shoots someone".  Who's the traitor? Who does he shoot?  We didn't know, which upped the tension, and that became a hotly contested piece of narrative property.  It turned out to be .... The Spider!  I was as surprised as anyone else, pleasantly so!

We made the person to our left an exemplar, and that worked REALLY well.  The free conflicts that we put in really cemented how these low-life street scum dealt with one another (which was poorly) and it gave us ample fodder to play out the eventual Reservoir Dog style doublecross and betrayal.  The Spider was actually.... An undercover cop!  Their hideout was raided! 

Poor Wes, he put down a goal "Zed escapes Unscathed" and then realized that until that resolved, he'd never escape whatever was happening around him.  We ended up deadlocking that goal for almost 4 pages as he tried method after method of getting out of the doomed warehouse before he ultimately lost, and took a bullet from Spider's wild gunfire. 

Comments around the table included "this is exactly how a Shadowrun/Cyberpunk game goes, without 3 hours worth of figuring out the gunfight penetration value range increment Bullshit."  and "That was fucking awesome!"

The game would NEVER have worked without the comics code and a clear set of outlines for what was kosher for the setting and what wasn't.  By ensuring that we stuck to the setting and color implicit in those kind of dystopian techno-punk future-type games, we were able to ensure that no one put down a conflict that didn't work.  We didn't use a Veto, but there was a lot of table chatter regarding what was legal, what worked, what would be a cool grabby conflict and what options people had in terms of using inspirations and story tokens. 

I do have a few questions that came up from the game.  Can I stake my debt onto any side of any goal/event?  Or do I have to first control or roll on the side before staking debt?  I was just curious, as one guy rolled a six on a side, and I figured I could dump some debt on it, narrate a cool reason for it, and then hand out the story tokens when it won.  Just curious if that's a legal move. 

Anyhow, thanks much to Tony for a great, and greatly flexible game!  It was agreed between me and Wil that a great experiment would be to use Capes for White Wolf's Vampire game, which really encourages competitive gaming between players, but has a rules system that is a worthless pile of garbage.  That would be a neat option for the next time we play!

Jon,

Here's what Tony said to a similar question about staking on a side.

TonyLB wrote:
... folks who have not yet participated in a conflict in any way (i.e. everybody in the instant after the conflict is created) can stake or claim most any side.  That sometimes makes for some pretty nasty tactical moves (such as momentarily supporting the winning side, only to push your own third-party agenda and screw everyone else!  Yay!)

But if there are Side A and Side B, and you are allied with Side A then you can't do much of anything to Side B.  You can't stake, you can't split, you can't claim.  It's not your side.

Jon, this sounds like an awesome experience, and I love seeing Capes get used for different settings. Are you continuing this as a campaign, or was it just a one-shot event?

There's a genuine interest in continuing the story we got so far, so I think we might play one or two more sessions.  Eventually, likely in mid-April, we're starting a Burning Empires game, so this makes for a fun transition.  If we do play this Tuesday, I'll do another writeup. 

This sounds frickin' amazing. *steals idea and runs*

Jon,

Awesome.

Do you think you could post the Comics Code you used, in its entirety?

Sure!  The Comics Code we used was as follows:

The Corps never lose.
Runners don't go to Jail.
Runners don't die.
Runners always get paid.
No one gets raped.
No kids get hurt.
No one lives happily ever after.

We understood that rape and child hurt could be threatened, or even gloated on, but never actually come to pass.

It worked really well, and the no death meant we could creatively maim each other without a care in the world.

Congrats on the excellent play!

I'm curious about the sort of actions that went into the conflict for Event: The traitor shoots someone. Was it a shouting match with accusations flying back and forth, or did you guys play it more as a gunfight? Did anybody ally themselves with a side that was indicating they were the traitor, or was everyone trying to exonerate themselves?

Was everybody happy playing their Runner in every scene, or did anybody go for more NPC-ish characters? Anybody play any non-persons (situation, plot device, etc.) for a scene? Was the game notably more centered on inter-protagonist conflict than when playing Shadowrun with its regular system?