RPG Design Patterns

Conflicted Gauge (“Debt”), Contest Tree, GM-less, Idiom (“Drives”), Resource (“Story Tokens,” “Debt,” “Inspirations”), Negotiated Contest, Generalized Contest, Rank, Trait, Template

Capes characters are made up of ranked traits. These traits are separated into four types: “Powers,” “Skills,” “Styles,” and “Attitudes.” Traits that are “Powers” are exclusively the domain of super-heroes. These include such things as super strength, the ability to fly, possessing the speed to dodge bullets, etc. “Skills” are abilities that ordinary people perform, such as “Painting landscapes” or “Programming computers.” “Attitudes” describes a character’s emotional tendencies, such as “Brooding,” “Optimistic,” or “I’ll believe it when I see it.” “Styles” pertain to how a character approaches a problem, such as “I always pull it out of the fire” or “Money is no object.” Characters have twelve traits chosen by the player in the categories of “Attitudes,” “Styles,” and “Powers.” The number of traits in each category must lie between 3 and 5. Once the traits are chosen, their ranks are assigned with sequential numbers (i.e., 1, 2, 3, …). The player decides which number is associated with each trait.

Important characters also have “Drives.” These are separated out into “Heroic” Drives and “Villainous” Drives. Needless to say, heroes have Heroic Drives while villains have Villainous Drives. The Heroic Drives are “Justice,” “Truth,” “Love,” “Hope,” and “Duty.” The Villainous Drives are “Obsession,” “Pride,” “Power,” “Despair,” and “Fear.” These are ranked, just like the traits. Some of these drives will be assigned an “Exemplar.” An Exemplar is a character that embodies a Drive’s concerns. For example, Lois Lane would be the Exemplar for Superman’s Heroic Love Drive.

Conflicts are comprised of goals and events in Capes. A player may introduce a new event or goal in place of an action, if desired. A goal is some action a character wants to accomplish. The conflict resolution rules determine whether the action succeeds or fails. Events are incidents that are guaranteed to happen sometime in the near future. But, when first described, the event must leave open the resulting consequences. So, “the rope snaps” might be the declaration of an event. We know the rope is going to snap as soon as the event is declared, but we don’t know what happens as a result. Players use the Capes conflict resolution rules to fight for the right to narrate what happens. This can be quite important to the story if, say, your character’s lady love happens to be dangling over a boiling volcano by a rope. As a player, you will want to obtain the right to narrate the results of the event so that you can describe your character saving the day in the nick of time.

When a goal or event is declared, a short description of it is placed at the top of a 3×5 index card, which is then placed on the table. Two d6 of different colors are placed on the card with 1’s showing. Each color represents one side of the conflict. So, each side has one starting die. Any player can declare an action for any of his characters in support of either side of a conflict. To do so, though, the character must use a trait having a rank greater than or equal to the number currently showing on the die he intends to roll. So, lower ranked abilities are used more at the beginning of conflicts while higher ranked ones are often saved for later. If a Skill is used (i.e., a non-super- power), it cannot be re-used in the same Scene. Super- powers can be re-used, but each usage saddles the character with a point of Debt.

Instead of rolling, a player can choose to spend an “Inspiration.” Inspirations are resources that are each individually ranked from 1 to 6. Spending an Inspiration allows a player to set the value of the die to the value of the Inspiration without rolling. So, they are highly desirable. Inspirations are gained at the end of conflict resolutions (as described below) to be saved for later use.

Unlike most games, a player can choose to roll any die in the conflict, whether it is one on his character’s side or not. Players can either accept a roll or reject it. If rejected, the die is restored to its previous value. So, a player will generally accept higher rolls if he is rolling a die on his side of a conflict and he will generally reject higher rolls if he is rolling a die on his opponent’s side.

If a die roll is accepted, all other players have the opportunity to “react.” A reaction is simply an action taken by a character to affect the specific die that was rolled. To be able to react, though, the character must use a trait having a rank greater than or equal to the current number on the die. If this is done, the reacting player gets to re-roll the die. Each player can only react once to a given roll.

A player may “Stake” some of his character’s Debt on a conflict by placing Debt tokens on the 3×5 card representing the conflict. This is a gamble: the Debt doubles if he loses the conflict. On the other hand, if he wins, he rids himself of the Debt. The Debt tokens that were placed on the card are converted into Story Tokens, which are distributed to the player that introduced the conflict in the first place and to the winner of the conflict.

If Debt is gambled on a conflict, the gambler can “Split” the dice on the side of the conflict he is supporting. This gives that side more dice, which gives them a distinct advantage since the side with the largest total “controls” the conflict at any given time. Control earns narration rights for each action, but the conflict’s final resolution can only happen under specific circumstances:

1. A player “claims” a side at the beginning of a round (“Page”). This is a declaration that he believes he will control the conflict at the end of the round.
2. The player controls the conflict (has the highest total on his dice) at the end of the round.

If these conditions are satisfied, the player wins the conflict and gains the right to narrate the outcome. As stated before, if the loser staked any Debt on the conflict, he gets double the amount back. The winner converts any Debt he staked into Story Tokens and gives them to the losers.

At the beginning of each scene, one player is designated the “Starter.” This player sets up the scene before play progresses. Once the scene is described, players take turns going around the table in a clockwise fashion. At the end of every scene, the person to the left of the current Starter becomes the new Starter and can set up whatever scene they like to push the story forward.

Capes rewards come in the form of “Story Tokens” and “Inspirations.” Story Tokens are earned by losing conflicts, so they are a Failure Reward. They can be spent to introduce characters into scenes (the first is always free) and to buy extra actions during conflicts.

As stated above, “Inspirations” are a resource that can be spent to set dice to specific values rather than gamble on rolls. Inspirations are each individually ranked. After a conflict is resolved, the winner matches the dice used on both sides to generate “Inspirations.” The winner determines their ranks by pairing up the dice used in the conflict. The rank of an Inspiration equals the value of one side’s die minus the value of the opposing side’s die. The side with the larger die gets the Inspiration. So, both winners and losers can earn Inspirations from a conflict, depending on how the winner decides to match the dice up. Any dice that are left over because the opposing side has no die to match it are paired against zero. That is, the Inspirations gained from unpaired dice have ratings equal to the numbers on the dice.

Debt can also be considered a reward, since staking it on conflicts allows a character to split dice and more easily win those conflicts. However, if a character accumulates too much Debt, it starts to hinder his activities. So, Debt is actually a Conflicted Gauge.