[Capes] Gamism and Narrativism
Joel P. Shempert:
I have some strong contributions for this thread, but it's outpacing me considerably. I hope to be back soon with a solid post based on my experience.
Peace,
-Joel
Joel P. Shempert:
OK--it seems to me that there are two things that are being conflated in this thread: Capes as social bullying, and Capes as functional Step on Up. I'm reading a heavy rhetorical approach, primarily in Eero and Ron's posts, that slants the language toward "not Narrativist equals social bullying," at least in the case of Capes. I'm finding this language difficult to engage with. i assert that it's quite possible to Step on Up in the arena of "story control" without playing to "dominate the story in a ruinous way in order to win," and I feel the implicit exclusion of happy and functional Step on Up is a detriment to the discussion.
So what we're looking at is really a whole spectrum of possible play, yeah? Functional Story Now, dysfunctional Story Now, Functional Step on Up, dysfunctional step on Up. And of course, the hypothetical Equally Alloyed Hybrid. In this thread we have some reports of functional Story Now, and dysfunctional Step on Up, or perhaps more like dysfunctional incoherent play, where Step on Up priorities derailed the Story Now priorities.
I've played Capes a good chunk of times, all single-session games across a variety of players. Thinking it over, I think I've had perfectly fun and functional Story Now, AND Step on Up. But not together.
I was a player in Alan's Capes game. I'm not sure we had a strong CA payoff at all in that game, though it was fun for everyone. Alan, it sounds like you feel that game had a Story Now payoff. I'd say it was either a Right to Dream payoff (reveling in the bombastic tropes of these colorful heroes and villains, without really addressing much of a Premise), or Story Now play without a payoff, or maybe a weak payoff (that is, characters aimed at Premise-addressing but without a strong Thematic "aha!" moment in that unit of play).
But that session was the most hazy (in terms of Creative Agenda) I've had, I think. I've had two sessions with some (different but overlapping) members of one friend group, that were both very Step on Up. The social esteem for winning your character's goals was something of a gambler's rush, but inasmuch as the components of play (tokens, split dice, conflict declarations, etc) could be manipulated for an edge, this was appreciated. The end result was a lot of "that's such a cool action and narration!" especially at the session's climax, but it was definitely a "you won!" kind of esteem, not just a "that's nice, what you made up" narration. I'd say esteem was focused on an even blend of mechanical victory and cool narration to accompany it.
I've also had several games amongst a different friend group that were squarely settled in Story Now territory. The most memorable took place at Gamestorm 2008, as chronicled on Story Games. In it, we had five players portraying three heroes and two villains, as the former defended their headquarters against incursion by the latter. But most of the characters were pregnant with problematic issues and hangups, ensuring something above a mere slugfest. I played Dr Calamitous, whose issues were purely Faustian, but ended up just being the agitator for the real drama: Buzzbomb, a now-aging WWII hero, is grandstanding to recapture his glory, and is confronted on it in mid-battle by his more honorable teammate; Buzzbomb saves the day but his rep is tarnished. And meanwhile, the "side villain," Solaron, is a sentient star enslaved by an alien civilization who seeks to liberate OTHER stars from those who would harness their power, but when the heroes defeat him, he is enslaved anew--as the HQ's new power source! it was pure Story Now in the focus of game actions, and in the esteem around the table.
I can isolate a couple key factors in what differentiated the Story Now sessions from the Step on Up games: first, the play group. The pool of players I've drawn from for my Story Now games are those predominantly interested in that Agenda. No surprise then, that that's what I get! The coherence hiccups I've had in those games have been precisely from players that, it turned out, didn't really value or understand Story Now play. The Step on Up sessions of Capes have come from another play group whose play is generally plagued by heavy Murk; when the haze clears enough to identify a CA it generally looks like Right To Dream, with occasional instances of Step on Up.
Second, I used different rules. The Step on Up games used the Capes Lite quickstart rules, which leave off a lot of the mechanics for driving Premise-play, and basically just say "Everyone make a hero real quick! OK, now I'm a villain, and I'm startin' some shit. Whatchagunnado?!"
On the other hand, the Story Now games have emerged when the pitch was explicitly, "Power is fun, but do you deserve it?" from the beginning of the text, and when the rules for Drives and Exemplar Relationships are front-and-center. (Capes Lite ditches Drives in favor of a generic Debt Pool, with no real attention to what Debt means narratively.) With that as the motor of play, both the heroes and villains will have ample material for confronting problematic human issues in that inimitable superhero fashion, and that's what I've seen happen, time and again.
I believe the text does indeed support this kind of play, and support it well. That motor of Drives and Exemplars that I made central to my play, is also central to the text. it's what the book tells you to do. If you play on that footing, a group that wants Story Now can easily get it. I think Jesse's nailed it on the talk about provocation and competition--total adversity-providing, all the way. the thing about Capes' competitive model is that the economy's set up so you "win' by providing what other players want and need. Which in a Story Now context is fit opposition for one's thematically-charged characters. The book's pretty clear about that.
I think the one truly problematic aspect of the text is all that talk about having YOUR story you want to tell and pushing/manipulating toward that. That may just be an unfortunate wording on Tony's part (i.e. he may just mean Protagonism or Character Advocacy), or may be a deeper issue. But even so, this fits pretty functionally into Capes' mutual back-scratching system: you get your story told by helping others tell theirs.
That's my experience with reading the text and with play. I've never once had a bullying player who tried to ruin the story to 'win." It strikes me as a strange critique to level at a game: "it doesn't work when someone tries to undermine it." There isn't a game on earth that isn't subject to some dickhead pointing to some rule and saying, 'look, it says here that I get to. . ." in defiance of the group's intent.
Peace,
-Joel
Callan S.:
Jeez, what are they thinking, bullying other peoples resources as if they were pushing other people back so they are closer to a finish line and trying to get attention for doing that? It's like they were hitting someone with a (dodge)ball and crowing about hitting someone with a ball! Wow, how does it make sense to make other people be further away from a finish line!? Not at all! So they must be jerks!
That said and sarcasm (in the pursuit of a constructive point) aside,
Quote
but it has a whiff of sadism for me when somebody crows triumphantly about how he managed to gain resource superiority in the game
I've read atleast the lite rules of capes and...it has no finish line? It just goes on and on and on? Do these players realise this?
I have to say in real life, a bunch of kids with a ball will eventually start kicking it, then one will crow about how far he kicked it and then everyone tries to kick it further, or try and aim it at another kid then everyone aims at each other. They start making a game, in other words. These capes accounts seem to be primordial gamism, probably rising up either because the person has no interest in nar (which I think is rare - everyone kind of likes soap opera) or...perhaps a hard option to look at, they detected no nar stuff going on at the table. They only detected people making stories - and stories can be part of all agendas.
Hi Joel,
Quote
There isn't a game on earth that isn't subject to some dickhead pointing to some rule and saying, 'look, it says here that I get to. . ." in defiance of the group's intent.
Perhaps if that rule is there, the groups intent is missplaced? Also, the guy reaching for the rule is part of the group - isn't his reaching for it part of the groups intent? Or are you talking about how some other people in the group decided for themselves what the rest of the groups intent will be?
Alan:
I want to respond about my experience of the game (which I felt had a very satisfactory Story Now engagement) and contrast it with a moment of Step On Up I revelled in at Wil's old school DnD game the same weekend. I don't have time to do it justice now. I hope everyone will refrain from pushing on ahead until I have a chance.
Joel P. Shempert:
Alan, I'm glad you got a satisfying payoff. I think part of my reluctance to assign a strong CA to that play experience is that you and the other players were relative strangers to me. So the social aspect of CA payoff wasn't there nearly as strongly as when I play with folks I know better. I'd love to hear more about your experience of the session.
Callan, that remark sits firmly within the context of the "bullying" folks have been talking about in this thread. I readily believe that people who have described disruptive players ruining the story for social dominance ate actively reporting malicious behavior. There;s no need to be pedantic; if you like you can substitute "the REST of the group's intent" in my statement. I'm just saying that when one wishes to disrupt, it's always possible to invoke the activity's procedures as a cover. It's "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!" for grownups.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page