Capes is a GM-less, story-oriented superhero game in which players explore the question “Power is fun, but do you deserve it?” Mechanically, players contest control of the narration by establishing conflicts, taking opposing sides in them, then rolling and manipulating die results to see who gets to narrate the resolutions. In compensation, losing players gain resources that they can use to influence the story later on. The system encourages players to get what they want by giving the other players something of what they want—placing competition at the service of cooperation in telling a good story.
None of this tells you much about the characters in Capes, though. A Capes character has three sets of Abilities: Powers or Skills, Styles and Attitudes. Superpowered characters designed to play a major role in the story also have Drives that provide foci for how they use their powers.
Each set of Abilities is ranked in an ascending order of how central it is to the way the character influences the narrative, as opposed to any external measure of its strength or effectiveness.
Although you can freehand your Abilities by defining three to five in each category—up to twelve altogether—and ranking them, the game also supplies interlocking templates that combine a Power set and some Styles with an Attitude set and a some more Styles. Just click the two halves together, cross off three Abilities chosen from at least two columns, and rank what’s left. We’re going to use this “click and lock” method for today’s character.
I’m going to start with the Shapeshifter power set. This includes the five Powers Change Shape, Change Size, Change Physical State, Strengths of Current Form, and Resilient Body—a range that covers shapeshifters, stretchers, and heroes who do things like turn their body into steel or mist. I expect to narrow that down after I select a complementary Persona or attitude set. The three Styles that come with it are Reach Inaccessible Places, Shift Out of Danger, and Surround an Area.
For a Persona I want to play it kind of light, so I skip the “Walking Wounded” group and the “Idealists” for a look at “Action Oriented.” I’ll take Hotshot. The five Attitudes for this Persona are Joyful, Unflappable, Bored, Rebellious, and Talkative, and the two Styles are Thrill Junkie and Escape without a Scratch.
OK, now let’s get these into columns so I can cut three and rank the rest:
Powers Styles Attitudes
Change Shape Reach Inaccessible Places (P) Joyful
Change Size Thrill Junkie Unflappable
Change Physical State Shift out of Danger (P) Bored
Strengths of Current Form Escape without a Scratch Rebellious
Resilient Body Surround an Area (P) Talkative
The Styles associated with the Power set are marked with a P because when I use them they’re going to be treated as Powers for the purpose of my Drives.
By this point I have a character in mind; it’s a stretcher named Doc Pliable that I originally developed for Champions: kind of a goofy, happy-go-lucky version of Mr. Fantastic. So Rebellious gets cut, as does Change Physical State (I don’t need to become liquid or gaseous), and I just need one more to go. I think I’ll cut Bored; I don’t think it suits the character much. That reduces us to three Attitudes, four Powers, and five Styles:
Powers Styles Attitudes
Change Shape Reach Inaccessible Places (P) Joyful
Change Size Thrill Junkie Unflappable
Resilient Body Shift out of Danger (P) Talkative
Strengths of Current Form Escape without a Scratch
Surround an Area (P)
Three Attitudes should be easy to rank. We’ll give Joyful the top place at 3, put Talkative second, and Unflappable at the bottom with a 1. Powers are a little harder. Assuming that “Resilient Body” means stretching limbs out for yards on end (and snapping them back into shape at will), that seems pretty important, as does Change Shape. We’ll make those 4 and 3, putting Change Size into the 2 slot and leaving Strengths of Current Form at 1. For Styles, I think I want to emphasize Escape without a Scratch, followed by Reach Inaccessible Places. Shift out of danger in the middle slot, with Surround an Area and Thrill Junkie bringing up the rear.
Powers Styles Attitudes
Resilient Body 4 Escape without a Scratch 5 Joyful 3
Change Shape 3 Reach Inaccessible Places (P) 4 Talkative 2
Change Size 2 Shift out of Danger (P) 3 Unflappable 1
Strengths of Current Form 1 Surround an Area (P) 2
Thrill Junkie 1
OK, now we need to do Drives. These are basically themes around which the character’s stories revolve; they don’t necessarily imply a particular relationship with the concept. When Doc Pliable uses a power, he’ll put a debt marker on one of these Drives; that debt will be discharged when he stakes that debt on a Conflict and wins. I have nine points to divide among five Drives. These can be any combination of Heroic and Villainous drives, but honestly I don’t see Doc Pliable having that kind of personality, so we’re going all Heroic. The five Heroic drives are Justice, Truth, Love, Hope, and Duty.
Justice themes revolve around the character’s relationship with rules and codes of conduct.
Truth themes revolve around questions of secrets, honesty and identity.
Love themes revolve around friendship, romance, and rivalry.
Hope themes revolve around helping and protecting regular non-super folks.
Duty themes revolve around responsibilities that for whatever reason only the hero can carry.
I’m going to have at least one point in each Drive, so I just need to figure out how the other four points can be assigned to suit who Doc Pliable is. He doesn’t have a secret identity or anything in particular to hide, so I think we can keep Truth at 1. Justice has some potential, but it doesn't really grab me. I think helping people and personal relationships are strong candidates for extra attention here, so Love and Hope should be at least 2 each—in fact, let’s bring Hope up to 3. I still need to assign one more Drive point, though. Bring Love up to 3, or Duty up to 2? That “Doc” title has to come from somewhere; let’s tie it to some kind of responsibility and add a Drive point to Duty.
Drives: Justice 1, Truth 1, Love 2, Hope 3, Duty 2
Each Drive is going to be a potential source of tension in our hero’s life, and those tensions can be embodied in supporting characters called Exemplars. A Drive’s intersection with an Exemplar can be encapsulated in a “but” statement that expresses a root conflict, such as (for a Truth Exemplar) “I love my Aunt May, but she’d die of a heart attack if she ever discovered I was Spider-Man.” The key is that this conflict is basically unsolvable, so it keeps sparking lesser conflicts that the character has to deal with in-game.
Now, I can create one Exemplar that’s just connected to Doc Pliable; if I want to give him any others, I’ll have to collaborate with another player to create an Exemplar that relates to both my main character and their main character.
Let’s give him an Exemplar for Hope: a non-powered person who is a part of the hero’s life, and whose role in Doc’s story is rooted in the gulf between the danger-filled, super-powered life Doc leads and the normal lives he is determined to protect. A colleague or former colleague, perhaps, who stays focused on the path of discovery that Doc can now only dabble in. “I miss the work I accomplished with Dr. Ortega, but I can’t live in that ivory tower anymore.”
And there we have it, a fully-functioning character for Capes. Statblock, please!
Doc Pliable, Man of a Thousand Contortions
Powers: Resilient Body 4, Change Shape 3, Change Size 2, Strengths of Current Form 1
Styles: Escape without a Scratch 5, Reach Inaccessible Places (P) 4, Shift out of Danger (P) 3, Surround an Area (P) 2, Thrill Seeker 1
Attitudes: Joyful 3, Talkative 2, Unflappable 1
Drives: Hope 3, Duty 2, Love 2, Justice 1, Truth 1
Exemplars: Dr. Theresa Ortega (Hope)
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