Hi there,
first let me say that I'm a big fan of the principle behind the capes mechanics: More spotlight time for people that are entertaining to the group.
There are more aspects but I think it boils down to that.

Now in the last two years I've tried Capes with several people (roleplayers or just friends), but  though there were some fine moments, it was not as much fun as other games. Since watching the Muse of Fire forums made me clear that there is much potential to be tapped with this game, I've concluded that I'm lacking techniques or something. I'd be happy if we could take a look at the game we've played last night and analyze where our weak points are.

Who was there:
Jan, who has played several indie games with me in the last year. He knew the capes rules.
Svenja has played three sessions of In a wicked Age with Jan and myself. That's all of her roleplaying experience.
Myself

After eating supper together, I started a first scene. I went with the obvious: a bank robbery. I explained the rules as we went and was done explaining everything by the second scene.

The first three scene went fine everybode got some story tokens and a lot of dept and inspirations out of it. In short what happened is this:
A Mindreader and his henchmen start attacking a bank, but are fight off by a robot.
Then the Mindreader kidnapped the president, but was captured by a childish gadgeteer, though he got a lot of money out of it.
In the third scene the president humiliates the captured Mindreader who tries to break out of prison but gets hosed by guards and admits his dependence on his henchmen.

By now Svenja and Jan figured out the nice combinations you can do with inspirations and dept: Raise - Split & Roll was a often seen maneuver. But after this scene it got whacky.

Scene 4: Coming home late
Max Power - my character (childish gadgeteer)
His Grandma - Svenja's character
Crazy shapeshifter - Jan's character

Conflicts:
Identity is uncovered (protected by the CC) - was completely ignored by them and got resolved in the third round. I got a 1 pt out of it.
Clean your room - I ignored that and Svenja got a 3pt.
Kidnap Granny - In the second round we fought hard about that. As it was resolved Jan won a 3pt, Svenja got a 2pt and Svenja got 2 Storytokens. I must have done something wrong there.
Granny: Get home till 4 o'clock. This got opened in the beginning of the third round and was resolved at the end of it, but it totally whacked my mind. I could not possibly think about how to get involved in that. Jan won a 2pt inspiration out of it.

Scene 5: In the lair of the shapeshifter
Same characters as above

Conflicts:
Granny: Get Shapeshifter to let me watch TV. 2pt inspiration for Svenja resolved in 2nd round.
Make Granny get dissapointed by her grandson. a 4pt inspiration for Jan
Uncover informations about Shapeshifter. Resolved in 3rd round by Svenja. 5 pt inspiration.

It was very strange. I thought it would be unprobable to just appear there so I could just intervene in the second conflict by imaginations and memories of Max. So probably I chose the worng character in that scene.

The last scene worked well again and it was a hard fought battle between the mind reader, Max and the shapeshifter.

The question is: How to get rid of these lagging things in the middle?
One idea that comes to my mind is flat out saying: Your not going to win a penny from me with that conflict.
Another thing I find hard is to get rid of dept. I tried to get rid of it in the scene with granny but after spending a lot of time with fighting to protect her I didn't want to make that scene any longer.

As I said above I like the ideas in principle but have not yet found the techniques to make a wholesome enjoyable game out of it. Perhaps you can help me.

Best,
René