[Capes] Gamism and Narrativism
C. Edwards:
I've only played Capes a couple times, but both times the game collapsed due to unbearably dull play focused on the "narrative bullying" that Eero mentions and "token whoring". We all realized we could make some adjustments (of our play and/or to the system as written) to promote the sort of play we would find non-boring, but really couldn't be bothered to do so when there are so many other games without the same incoherence.
My experience with Once Upon A Time has been hit and miss. Sometimes the competitive aspect eclipses the storytelling aspect and sometimes it doesn't. I think my main issue with Once Upon A Time and Capes is that if only one player places the competitive over the narrative then it is fairly simple for them to "win" the game. Basically, there's no allowance, no "braking" mechanism, in the rules for keeping the game challenging for a competitive minded player among narrative minded players. Unless most everybody is on the same page, it becomes a situation of a wolf among sheep.
Oddly, I've never experienced this problem with Soap which seems to have many of the same characteristics in play.
Jasper Flick:
How does the Comics Code and Gloating factor into this?
Eero, did you have an explicit Code and did Gloating get used or aimed for in your Narrativist play?
To me, Gloating appears to be the untimate goal when playing Gamist Capes. The reward is huge.
Eero Tuovinen:
Huh, that's a really interesting idea, Jasper. I think we had an explicit Code, but it was not interesting, and although there might have been a Gloat (been a while now), it didn't feel particularly rewarding. Most essential, however, is my convinction now that if we actually had had a real legitimate reason to break the Code (whatever it was, some arbitrary stuff about non-killing), we'd have done it without hesitation. In fact, I'm not absolutely certain that we didn't - the actual necessities of the story and its style were pretty powerful (this was a highly successful game, we played like maniacs for a weekend), and I don't remember anybody paying any attention to the Code in the latter parts of the game.
It is notable that Capes wants you to set down the Code before the game actually begins. This is, of course, only possible if you're prescriptivist about the content you want to appear in the game. What's worse, listing attrocities in the Code takes much of the tension out of having the potential for those attrocities to appear later in the game. Seems obvious in retrospect that it might be a better idea to only create the Code dynamically through play, by having the players hold a veto on unacceptable conflict outcomes. That way it'd have some narrativist teeth.
I definitely think that you're onto something here.
jburneko:
Hello,
I figured I'd weigh on this because one of the greatest moments of my role-playing play history happened in a Capes game. Here's the story:
At the start of play one player, Meghann, created three characters right off the bat. A man who was just a regular grease monkey. His genius gadgeteer son and the robot boy he had built. We were about three sessions in and things weren't going very well. I had finally had a light bulb moment go off about how adversity works in the game. So what I did was I picked up Meghann's grease monkey guy and had him try and set his gadgeteer son up on a date, clearly pushing that he thought his son needed a "real" family.
I lost that conflict but in the middle of it Meghann had brought out the free conflict attached to the robot which was "Show genuine human emotion." So I turned my attention to that and fought it pretty hard pushing that the gadgeteer son needed to stop playing "pretend" with that machine and start I real family. I lost again. Meghann turns to me and as an expression of "the robot shows genuine human emotion" has the robot say to the grease monkey, "I hate you." I was blown away. I almost cried.
Now here's the thing: I read the Capes text very charitably. With all it's talk about "provoking" and "competitive empathy" and the like I think Tony is talking about providing adversity. By "provoke" he's just using rather strong language to mean "confront the players with protagonist defining choices." The reason I think that is because (and here I fully admit I'm playing armchair psychologist) I don't think Tony really understand the "narrative bullying" phenomenon.
I followed the Capes forum very very closely for a very long time. And time and again I saw people raise the "narrative bullying" issue and time and again I saw Tony dismiss it. He either dismissed the behavior as a symptom of a rare kind of problem player. Or he rationalized it by reframing what was going on in terms of functional adversity that he felt the group must just not have caught on to. Each and every time this issue came up Tony demonstrated a blind spot expressing a kind of, "I don't understand why anyone would do that, so they must have been really contributing meaningfully and you missed it" attitude.
So no, I don't think the text promotes "narrative bullying" because I don't think Tony knows what "narrative bullying" is. That's my reading of things anyway. Also, Tony, if you're reading this please correct me if I'm misreading you.
Jesse
Jasper Flick:
It might be that how people treat the Code is decisive or an indicator for which way the game swings. This is from thought, not experience:
1) If you want the emergent story to be unrestrained, then the Code is like a limitation that you do not want. The concept of Gloating seems weird, as it is the moment you bump your head at a ceiling while you want to go higher.
2) If you want to be safe, then the Code is like a comforting barrier keeping all the nasty stuff out. The concept of Gloating seems bad, as it is the moment when someone deliberately bangs against that barrier.
3) If you want guts-to-the-wall creative wrestling, then the Code is like a battle line, a hot zone you want to claim. The concept of Gloating equals success, as it is the moment you are most dominating the narrative and reaping the greatest rewards.
When I initially read Capes, I understood the Code in de context of option 2. But Gloating didn't make any sense. Then I sat down, thought about it, and read it a second time, and I came to regard it in de context of option 3. This made me believe Capes primarily supports Step on Up.
Sadly, my play experience is no more than a few get-to-know-the-rules sessions, so I have no idea whether my musings are on target.
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