Capes is a superhero RPG with no GM. The rules are, in a way, really great - they do what the designer wants them to do, and do so elegantly and smoothly. However, I don’t like what they do.
Post originally by ScottM at 2005-04-29 10:34:24
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This is a good review; there's enough to let me know that this is a funky game with some tricky strategy, and that attachment to a specific character's not a big part of the experience.
You mentioned that you didn't have much fun, but suggest that you might with practice. Was the experience one that encourages you to come back and try again, or will it sit in the closet, waiting for you have an epiphany?
Post originally by Matthijs at 2005-04-29 11:17:55
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I kinda want to try again - part of me really wants to, and part of me really doesn't I don't like competitive role-playing much, but at the same time it's such a different way of playing that I'm really intrigued by it.
Seems to me that the game challenges the player: Can you make your contributions so cool that the other players will have to not only accept them, but really engage with them? Not just "Oh, so you do X, hey, that's cool", but "You do what? Wait a minute! I have something to say about that!"
What sort of play this makes for, I don't know. But I see two unfortunate possibilities: Trolling (provoking other players just to get a reaction), and detached tactical play ("I don't give a @!#$ about the characters, I just want to get Fred so engaged with my conflict set-ups that he starts feeding me story points"). This is just hypothetical, though.
Capes is like some sort of kinky stuff you're not sure if you'll like, but you're so curious you just have to check it out.
Post originally by Darrin Kelley at 2005-04-29 11:38:38
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The biggest problem with this game is that it truly is mislabeled. It isn't a roleplaying game by any definition. It's more of a superhero boardgame.
The reason I say this is because the mechanics push the player out of the role of the character. Adds even more distance by making the character in play more of a slave to mechanics. While leaving the player really being just a spectator.
Frankly, I regard this approach as ass-backwards game design that flies in the face of the defined intent of what RPGs are in the first place. They are supposed to be tools of support to help a group in creating their own stories. A significant componant of which, is allowing the player to stand in the character's shoes as much as possible.
RPG is not just a marketing label. It is a very specific definition of a catagory of games.
And I will stress this emphatically once again: Capes is not a roleplaying game.
Post originally by DannyK at 2005-04-29 12:50:54
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Darrin, where does it say that an RPG is supposed to allow the player to "stand in the character's shoes as much as possible?"
There are some RPG's which foster that kind of immersion, and others that don't. Capes is at one end of the scale, but claiming that it's not an RPG and is instead a boardgame is silly on the face of it: it's got no board, no tokens, and it *does* have characters who succeed or fail at things, telling a story along the way.
Post originally by DannyK at 2005-04-29 12:53:08
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I'm wondering, could you say something about what you didn't like about Capes. Your review says that you followed the rules and played out the game, but didn't have any fun.
That's helpful to know, but it would be much more helpful to know how your Actual Play went, and why it wasn't fun for you.
Post originally by Ralph Mazza at 2005-04-29 13:23:35
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Capes is a very cool game. As anyone whose followed recent Capes threads on the Forge knows its been a very difficult game to get my head around. When the Matthijs says "Can you make your contributions so cool that the other players will have to not only accept them, but really engage with them?" he's spot on. That's not a throw away line...that's the essential core of the game. There is literally nothing in the system that forces any other player to use anything you've said about anything as the foundation for future events...except that what you've contributed is so highly appreciated by them that the want to take your ball and run with it.
The mechanics are very very slick and very unique but going into the game understanding the mechanics but not understanding the above point is a recipie for disastor. As gamers we have a tendancy to play every new game using our experience from previous games, but that won't work with Capes (at all). You have to be willing to play Capes at its own level with its own internal sense of how THAT game should work (as opposed to how "games" in general should work).
I'm not sure I could enjoy engaging in Capes at that level either, but like Matthijs I very much want to find out. After many long discussions with Tony trying to figure out exactly what he was trying to accomplish with Capes I've concluded that he 100% accomplished the design goals he set out with. The game is definitely NOT broken. Whether you find those design goals fun or not is another question...to some extent they don't *sound* that fun to me...but I've become convinced that this can't really be determined until, like Matthjis suggests, you play the game enough to figure out how it works...because only if you're doing it right will you actually be able to get why you think its fun or not fun.
Post originally by Sporky at 2005-04-29 13:32:33
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DannyK wrote:
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Darrin, where does it say that an RPG is supposed to allow the player to "stand in the character's shoes as much as possible?"
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Could it be the part that says "Role Playing" in roleplaying game? Playing a role is being a character.
Post originally by TonyLB at 2005-04-29 13:54:43
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Hiya Darrin! Great to see you again. I owe you huge thanks for the <url=http://www.rpg.net/forums/phorum/rf08/read.php?f=3191&i=7&t=7>previous discussion</url> on precisely this issue. I scored plenty of interested players off of it.
Is this the same conversation, replayed? 'cuz, y'know, I pretty much did that discussion.
I don't like competitive role-playing much, but at the same time it's such a different way of playing that I'm really intrigued by it. 
Linear Mode
