# Character Creation Challenge 2024: Day 05 - Capes :: Mitterani Sho, Worldsmasher tags: #thoughts/CharacterCreationChallenge/2024 #game/rpg/capes > [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2024]] > > ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]] My taste in tabletop RPGs has evolved over the years, but there are a few games that I can actively blame for part of how my psyche relates to games – and Tony Lower-Basch is personally responsible for one of those games. That game? **[[Capes]]**. ![[Capes (cover).png|400]] It's a game so obscure, so niche, so unknown even in its own time (publication date 2005), that I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen anyone else ever refer to it. Yet it is so influential on me that I have been tempted on multiple occasions to hunt down Tony through the vast screaming jungle that is the Internet and attempt to buy the rights to the game off of him in order to clean it up, modernize the layout, and republish it as intentionally a more generic game than its presented. We will be creating a character in the default superhero setting. What we won't be doing is using the online [Adobe Flash](https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html) for the superfast *"Click and Lock"* where you assemble characters from what is effectively a power and a personality module, mark off the traits you don't want, add values to the remaining ones, and get playing in under 10 minutes. Mainly because almost nothing *runs* Adobe Flash anymore. But it is still up on the website! You can't buy the game anywhere anymore, but the Adobe Flash character creation system is up on the website! --- ## Chargen I'd like to open by noting how much I appreciate the fact that unlike the standard for RPG design these days, **Capes** doesn't introduce the character generation mechanics up front. It tells you how the system works up front. Only after you understand the mechanics does it say, "and here's how you make a character." You know, so that you can know what you're talking about when you're going through the mechanics, making your character, without flipping to the back of the book over and over again to know what you're talking about. Sorry, pet peeve. First page, right in your face, it outlines what you're going to need to do to create a character and has an amazing bit of mechanical description here: > [!quote] > > When you create a character, you can choose how much of this detail to create. A character without Drives or Exemplars is less detailed, but no less able. > > If you decide you'd like to elaborate on such a sketched-in character at a later point in the game you should feel free. You can add detail, clarify Drives, add Exemplars, and so on. > > In fact, any time that you want to change any character between sessions, you can do so, as long as you end up with a character that still adheres to the character creation rules. This is huge because it was the first game that I was ever exposed to in which there was not a guaranteed one-to-one ownership of Player and Character. Characters are shared by everyone and brought into Scenes as often as everyone at the table likes. Someone will take it for the duration of a Scene because they are relevant to a Conflict on the table or they want to introduce a Conflict via the mechanism of the Character. (Yes, there are a lot of capitalized words.) This means that you can just create, very quickly, bystanders, secondary characters, anyone who could just be in the world beyond what is traditionally thought of as the Player Character, throw them in the pile, and if someone – perhaps even yourself – thinks they might be really interesting later or just wants to elaborate on them, they can get fully statted up. No problem. Did I mention a Character can fit on a 3 x 5 index card? Because I have an entire box full of Capes characters that I've had with me for almost the last 20 years. The other really important part there is that it notes that if you want to change a Character – you can. As long as they continue to adhere to the character creation rules. This is vital to understand because that is the character advancement system. You don't get more points, there is no "number gets bigger," it's just that if you do something that you think should change the character or they've had experiences that you think should change them – you change them. That's all you're going to get. This is shockingly freeing. These of the mechanics that govern your character. The character may get better at doing certain things but it'll be because you shifted priorities around and reallocated points. Maybe they care less about being heroic and more about being villainous after being beat up by the world. Change their Drives, as long as they add up to the right number. I love it so much. Let's get started. ### Basics Let's throw out some very basic things so we can make some decisions. A name would be good. So would a basic concept. **Name:** Mitterani Sho **Concept:** Sho is "Worldsmasher", an alien inhabiting a human body who committed suicide. While he's generally in favor of his current world (the Earth) continuing, he tries to be aloof and distant emotionally because he knows eventually the alien force within him will grow too hungry and then split him open like a cocoon to -- well -- smash the world. As he uses his power the alien force becomes hungrier, manifested by his body becoming progressively more metallic, face more void of features, form more inhuman. (No, I will not be paying any licensing fees to the Ultraman franchise, why do you ask?)  ### Abilities Abilities are simple. "These are the ways that they can try to change the world." Is it a thing that your Character can do to mechanically interact with the world and change the state of affairs? It's an Ability. Abilities are broken down into four groups: Powers, Skills, Styles, and Attitudes.. Superheroes have only Powers and no Skills. Normal people only have Skills and no Powers. Boom, done. Attitudes are ways that the Character feels. If you're playing someone who is relentlessly upbeat and cheerful like *Jimmy Olsen*, you'll probably have Cheerful and Upbeat on your Abilities list. Grim, Gruff, and Single-minded like *Batman*? Attitudes. Do these things actively affect what's going on in the context of Conflicts and thus the world? They are Abilities. Styles are just that, the particular ways that a character uses their other Abilities. The example in the book always makes me laugh. > [!quote] > > Styles are the particular ways that a character often uses their other Abilities. So they might have "Fly" as a Power, and "High speed aerial maneuvers" as a Style. Or they might have "Confident" as an Atttiude and "Screw the rules" as a Style. All characters will have Styles. You probably don't want to know how many Characters I've had with "Screw the rules" as a Style. It's not just a methodology, it's a lifestyle. The main difference between Powers and Skills is that powers are superpowered and have a cost for using them. Skills and Attitudes are mundane and so don't have a cost (using your Drives, will get to that). Styles can be either; your discretion and creation time. Let's go back to the text for one of the most important bits in the book as far as I'm concerned and something that shall see reflected in a lot of games that I enjoy these days with modern designs as regards describing what your character can do but not what your character is limited to, to wit… > [!quote] > > Abilities do not represent objective limits on the power of the character to address individual tasks. What the characters can do is limited only by what their player chooses to narrate. And the player's narration is limited only by the Conflict rules. > > There is nothing in the game mechanics that says "Your character can or cannot do this particular thing." Characters in Capes can do anything their player wants. But that does not imply that they can achieve anything the player wants. > > So if your goal in making a character is that they be able to do certain spectacular things… rest easy. They will be, no matter what numbers you assign. If your goal is that they should have a certain style, maybe even a lower-powered style than the characters other players are making… rest easy. They'll be equally effective, no matter how you describe their Abilities. **Capes** is one of the few – very few -- superhero TTRPGs that can adequately and properly put Batman and Superman head-to-head in Conflicts in which they struggle directly against one another – and they have an equal ability to succeed. For exactly the same reasons as you find in comic books: Superman is going to use his strength and amazing powers to interact with the game setting fiction and Batman is going to use his preplanning, his insight, his peak human training to affect the world in exactly the same way with different fiction. That's before we even start talking about the fact that the players of each of those characters are going to be introducing Conflicts that they're sure that everyone else at the table are going to be interested in and thus weighing in on one side or the other, including and especially the other person they have their eye on. (This is one of the few game designs in my pocket that absolutely, positively, at no point can ever be played solo. Everything about it requires another person who themselves or a person and thus have their own interests, fascinations, distractions, and desires as regards the experience at the table. You can play it with two people – I've done that. It sings with four people. But you require at least two. Luckily there is no GM, so that's all you need.) Effectively, the numbers attached to an Ability to determine if you can win Control of Conflicts or not. If Batman wins a Conflict which, for instance, is "Superman knocks Batman flying," he gets to narrate how that happened but didn't hurt him -- or maybe it did but not meaningfully to the mechanics! Perhaps he dodged the bulk of the blow or Superman was pulling his punch at the last moment. Perhaps he pulled out a convenient piece of kryptonite. Likewise, if he happens to Control a Conflict like "Superman falls roughly in the middle of the street," he gets to narrate how that actually happened. Again, maybe he pulled out a convenient piece of kryptonite. Or maybe he maneuvered Superman underneath a chunk of building that the Man of Steel dislodged with his mighty blows. Right, Freeform character creation. > [!quote] > > - A character may have up to twelve abilities in three categories: Attitudes, Styles and either Powers (for super-beings) or Skills (for mundane characters). > - No category may have more than five or less than three abilities. > - Within each category, Abilities are numbered sequentially starting from one. You may have four abilities at levels 1, 2, 3 and 4. You may not have four abilities at levels 2, 6, -4 and 37. | Type | Name | Value | | ---- | ---- | ---: | | **Powers** | *Smasher Beam* | 5 | | | *Flight* | 2 | | | *Armor* | 3 | | | *Incredible Strength* | 4 | | | *Focused Battle Aura* | 1 | | **Styles** | *Inspire Awe* | 3 | | | *Struggle With Hunger* (P) | 4 | | | *Massive Property Damage* (P) | 1 | | | *Martial Art Mastery* | 2 | | **Attitudes** | *Doubtful* | 2 | | | *Distant* | 3 | | | *Withdrawn* | 1 | Worldsmasher can fly at incredible speeds, boasts the ability to take incredible damage, commands incredible strength, can call on his focused battle aura for offense or defense, but his most powerful ability is the Smasher Beam which can destroy enemies, buildings, and perhaps even cities. Eventually – worlds. In a Conflict, he has been known to inspire awe (and not a little terror) in others while leaving a trail of destruction even as he pursues desirable ends. There is no question that he is a master of hand-to-hand combat. Ultimately, however, he must face the fact that his greatest powers lead to his greatest hunger. Emotionally, Sho keeps himself from others in order to protect himself and them from the inevitable failure of his will to contain the alien inside him. It is difficult for him to believe in any kind of future but the bleakest. ### Drives That was intense, right? Let's lay out Worldsmasher's Drives. These are actually picked from a list, one heroic and one villainous. Drives are how a character essentially draws on their moral beliefs about the world to generate Tokens which can then be allocated to Conflicts and used to leverage Powers. Here, let me turn this over to Tony. > [!quote] > > Drives are not codes of conduct. Two characters with high values in the same Drive are, in fact, more likely to argue about it than to agree. Drives are parts of the moral universe that the character thinks seriously about. They are questions, not > answers. > > An anarchist, who has strong opinions about the role of law and order in society, is just as much invested in the Justice Drive as a by-the-book stickler for the rules. What the Drive means to a character is something that players will have to invent and, often, discover through play. Ever been frustrated that you couldn't create a character in a superhero RPG with the moral complexity of Rorschach from the Watchmen? Friend, do I have your hookup! Drives are a constant pressure in the life of a character and often that pressure is represented by another character called an Exemplar whose relationship with the first embodies their issues with the Drive. For example, Lois Lane. The easy way to think of her might be to imagine her as the Exemplar of Superman's Love Drive. But it's actually more interesting to think of her as the Exemplar of his Duty Drive, with the inherent conflict being that he can't tell her about his responsibilities and his powers for fear of her suffering, and she's constantly digging into things which might reveal his duty as Superman rather than Clark Kent, which would violate one of his core motivations as regards Duty. You could make an equally strong argument that Lois is his Exemplar of Truth, representing the fact that he can never truly be honest with the people that he cares about in his life about who he is and where he's from. (Obviously over time it's perfectly reasonable to change what Lois is connected to and why.) Let's put together Sho's Drives. - Take five Heroic or Villainous Drives - Assign each a Strength between one and five. - These five numbers must total exactly nine. | Drive | Value | | ---- | ---: | | Truth (H) | 1 | | Hope (H) | 3 | | Duty (H) | 1 | | Despair (V) | 3 | | Fear (V) | 1 | Sho is often torn between his concern and hope for the inhabitants of Earth and his despair over the perfect understanding that one day, eventually, he will be responsible for destroying the Earth and killing everyone that he knows and cares about. He works hard to hide the full truth of his destiny from those around him but his sense of duty often puts him in the midst of struggles that demand he use his power which hastens the inevitability. Should he run from conflict or should he stand brave in the face of it? Every struggle is a repetition of that question. ## Character Sheet ![[Mitterani Sho, Worldsmasher.jpg]] **Name:** Mitterani Sho **Concept:** Sho is "Worldsmasher", an alien inhabiting the body of a human who committed suicide. While he's generally in favor of his current world (the Earth) continuing, he tries to be aloof and distant emotionally because he knows eventually the alien force within him will grow too hungry and then split him open like a cocoon to -- well -- smash the world. As he uses his power the alien force becomes hungrier, manifested by his body becoming progressively more metallic, face more void of features, form more inhuman. In his everyday life he works at Amara Heavy Industries – in the mailroom. He does his best to keep his head down, attract no attention, and fly under the radar. Life has other plans. | Type | Name | Value | | ---- | ---- | ---: | | **Powers** | *Smasher Beam* | 5 | | | *Flight* | 2 | | | *Armor* | 3 | | | *Incredible Strength* | 4 | | | *Focused Battle Aura* | 1 | | **Styles** | *Inspire Awe* | 3 | | | *Struggle With Hunger* | 2 | | | *Massive Property Damage* (P) | 1 | | | *Martial Art Mastery* (P) | 4 | | **Attitudes** | *Doubtful* | 2 | | | *Distant* | 3 | | | *Withdrawn* | 1 | | Drive | Value | | ---- | ---: | | Truth (H) | 1 | | Hope (H) | 3 | | Duty (H) | 1 | | Despair (V) | 3 | | Fear (V) | 1 | ### Exemplar You know what? I'm feeling inspired. Sho needs an Exemplar for one of his Drives. It needs to be someone that has at its core a conflict, effectively unable to be resolved, with the character. I'm really feeling compelled by his Despair, so let's look at the Click and Locks and come up with an idea for an Exemplar of the struggle Sho undergoes with the inevitability of his future. The Exemplar is going to be just a normal person with Skills rather than Powers. I'm feeling very classical, so she's going to be a Scientist who is a Sycophant, going against the normal grain for heroic characters as we've already established. ![[Capes CnL Scientist.png]] ![[Capes CnL Sycophant.png]] There's five choices in each column so we remove one from one column and two from a second column, then number the remaining attributes in order of narrative importance. Straightforward! **Name:** Maya Nosis **Concept:** Maya is second in command of the R&D department at Amara Heavy Industries. For the last several years, AHI has been devoted to discovering the secret of Worldsmasher – where his powers come from, what his limitations are, and how they might take them for themselves. Maya is a good scientist but she has a hole in her soul she keeps trying to pour someone into. Sho, the withdrawn "mail boy" is her latest target of fascination. While she hasn't informed her superiors that she knows Sho is Worldsmasher, she is constantly trying to become closer to him emotionally whether at the office or – inevitably – out in the field when she is assigned to follow Worldsmasher's activity. | Type | Name | Value | | ---- | ---- | ---: | | **Skill** | *Research* | 2 | | | *Science* | 1 | | | *Analyze* | 3 | | **Style** | *"That can't be right!"* | 3 | | | *Examine sample* | 2 | | | *Apologize* | 1 | | | *Propose theory* | 4 | | | *Toady* | 5 | | **Attitude** | *Remorseful* | 3 | | | *Sly* | 2 | | | *Enthused* | 1 | | | *Nervous* | 4 | **Free Conflict:** (Goal) Maya becomes closer to Sho ## Exunt So that's that. I truly do love this system and all the insanity it does. Characters don't belong to anyone. A player may be running two Characters at the same time in any given Scene. A player may have Characters who are active on opposite sides of the same Conflict. Groups have a Comic Code which defines things that can never happen (like Exemplar characters being killed), opening up the possibility of players having Characters actively striving to accomplish just that because when you have the ability to do so and can't because of the Code, you get Story Tokens, thus incentivizing actually being villains who are villainous. There are so many cool things about it that I've only touched on. If you have the opportunity to get your hands on a copy – and it's possible – do so. Maybe it's not a game for you. It is a very specific kind of thing. But it's exactly the kind of thing best for thinking about if you're into game design, really want to see a cool superhero system, or just love games. Who knows where we'll end up next time?