Mike, Robin, Eric, Thomas and I played our first session of Capes a few days ago. We started out fine, playing the first Scene with Capes Light, but near the end (our third Scene) things slowed to a crawl/halt/ohgod. That's about the time when we all had absorbed most of the surface implications of what we thought were the rules and started trying to game them some. Afterward it was clear we needed to reread the rule book + internet, since we got (or forgot) some rules wrong, and while it was fine when we were just playing without too much thought to strategy, not surprisingly missing or incorrect rules broke under pressure.

An example: if you are allowed to give Story Tokens to people who were never allied with an opposing side, then if no one opposes you on a conflict you've staked Debt on, they'll still get probabilistic Story Tokens.

So I've tried to put together a <a href="http://rpgsubsystems.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-you-can-and-cant-do-in-capes.html">"what you do when" document that summarizes all the relevant points. It doesn't include Character Creation or gaining Debt or how often you can use Abilities or lots of other things, 'cause there are parts of the game we think we got right.

I'd appreciate it if you'd look it over and point out anything false, or important enough that its absence is glaring. Specifically I came up with these questions while writing it:

1) If you roll a die and it comes up the same as the previous value, and you accept or reject it, which side(s) (if any) are you allowed to ally with? (I think "any")
2) Are Conflicts resolved in turn order? (I think "yes")
3) Under exactly what circumstances is the creator of a Conflict not given a Story Token? (I think "he is allied with the winning side and has never been allied with another side")
4) Is the part at the end about Debt and Schisming functionally equivalent to the rules, excepting perhaps some corner cases that won't come up? (I think "yes")

What's obviously missing is the Comics Code and gloating rule. Since that rule makes the villians so much cooler you should not leave it out.

Let's see:
1) You can be allied with any side.
2) It doesn't really matter. In most cases I would go around in turn order but if the situation demands otherwise I have no problems to differ from it.
3) Yeah, if he opened a conflict and is on the winning side when it resolves he gets no story tokens. (As you noted in the paper if there is no dept on the winning side he can never get any story tokens.)
4)
a) Where did this notion of "controlled dice" come from? There is nothing of that in my book. "by Staking a single point of Debt a character may choose to create an entirely new side. They split a die from the side they're leaving" and split it according to the rules. No "you can take as many dice as you control" or something like that.
b) It's not per turn. "You may Stake at most the Drive's Value in Debt per side per turn." Nope, per conflict. So you got a Love 4 Drive and "Penny falls from the tower" is on the table? You can pump up to four debt into it (if you use Love as the drive) and thats it from that character.

Ohterwise the document look pretty solid.
Best,
René

Yes! That is obvious. :D

It's a corner case, but: if the creator of a Conflict was once allied to a losing side (or has another character currently allied to a losing side), can he get a Story Token even if he's currently allied to the winning side (from someone else who staked Debt on the winning side)?

Oh, at most Drive Debt total on a conflict, ever. That's good to know.

4a) From the Capes FAQ and other places there are all sorts of wacky examples like "I schism'd with 3 dice to a new side, and someone else Claimed it, and now I can move all of those dice to a brand new side leaving the Claimant with nothing!". <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19067.msg200148#msg200148">Tony's said that whether Debt is associated with a specific die has never come up in AP, and that it's not strictly defined by the rules. It seems associating Debt with dice neatly covers almost all the possible cases and houserules the rest in a sane fashion. What I'm wondering is not whether the rules say Debt is associated with dice, but rather is this equivalent (has the same possible set of actions) to all the common cases of the rules, and does it break under stressing some corner case.