[Dulcimer Hall] Crypto-romance Character Development

[Doug Ruff]

Bill: that's interesting, especially as it allows players to use "NPC" type characters to name Traits upon each other's PCs.

However, it also opens up another front to the discussion, so I'm going to let Tony pick up the details and run with them.

Tony: yes, there has to be a third stage. I see this as following a pattern of Suggestion-Suspicion-Revelation.

Suggestion: I bribe your player with the Suggestion that they have certain Traits (mechanically, the bribe is the dice attached to the Trait, but there's something else going on too, over whether the proposed Trait is "grabby" for that character's player.)

Suspicion: If you accept the bribe, my suspicions are confirmed but not proven. This gives me an edge over your character, and your character an edge over everyone else.

Revelation: tension builds to the point where the Suspicion has to be confirmed or proven wrong. This should be in conflict with another Trait on the character (with the aim of reducing the total number of Traits in play.) If the suspicion is confirmed, it moves to the "permanent"* Traits for that character, at the expense of another Trait. If it is proven wrong, it is removed from play. Either way, the character losing Traits gets a payoff of some kind.

So: taking the long view, the perceptions/bribes turn into a new Trait... or they don't. I think this can be done in a way that preserves balance between these two options - but I think this needs to be put into an actual mechanical framework soon.

* I'm saying "permanent" because, once a Trait becomes cemented in this way, it can only be removed as a result of sacrificing it to cement a Suspected Trait during a Revelation conflict. I hope that makes sense to you.

[TonyLB]

Bill:  First, I have to say, that whole "But... isn't he a psychopath?" "He's the best man for the job" exchange made me fall out of my seat laughing at how simultaneously funny and right it is.  That's now one of my litmus tests for the system:  It has to support that exchange.

On the rules:  You seem (to my mind) to be suggesting a Task Resolution mechanic where problems have (essentially) hit-points that need to be depleted.  Would this empower players to contest Conflicts against each other directly?


Doug:  I like your general outline.  I'm still thinking about your earlier statement that a character either is a Double Agent, or appears to be one.  What I think it's leading me toward is this rather odd concept:  There should be nothing, anywhere in the character development mechanic, that refers to what is true.  It should all refer to what various characters perceive, and how strongly they believe it.

Let's take a brief sample scenario (abstracted straight to the character-development level):  Shane adds an "Ada: Double Agent" Perception.  He boosts it to high levels.  Eventually, he and Ada enter a conflict with the revelation of that as true or false as the Stakes.  Ada wins.  Shane's suspicions are disproven, and mechanically the perception is gone.

Possibility #1:  Ada is not a double-agent.  Shane was seeing patterns where none exist.  Now she's confronted him on it and refuted his paranoia.

Possibility #2:  Ada is a double-agent.  Shane was finding quite legitimate evidence.  She has managed to pull the wool over his eyes, because she's just that good.

I think both of these possibilities are equally good.  I also think both would play out exactly the same way in terms of what Shane perceives and believes.  And, because of that, I don't think there's any purpose to tracking whether Ada is or is not a double-agent.  The truth is just narrative color.  The suspicions are what the game's about.


Do you think Traits would work as "the things everybody knows"?  Without any reference to whether they're actually true or not, of course.  So that if Ada gets a "Double Agent" Trait, all it means is that she's on the Agency hit-list, shoot-on-sight, and so on.

I think that might work quite well.  I can imagine, for instance, a conflict where Shane is rolling Ada's Double Agent trait against Michael's "Ada:  Good Woman" Perception.  That's... that's powerful stuff, that is.


Mechanics in a separate thread.  I feel firmly that there are still questions of how characters should develop long-term in this system.  But you're quite right, Doug, that we need to get some of this established into a Resolution system, or else we have no foundation for thikning about the possibilities.

[Doug Ruff]

Yes, to all of this.

Even after a Trait moves from a Suspicion to something more "permanent" and more public, it can be lost later, so it can never become an irrevocable truth. I was aiming towards that in my previous posts, but missed nailing it.

But you've got it anyway, and that's what counts. See you in the new thread.

[TonyLB]

I guess then, the question in my mind is What does taking a suspicion to a public statement do to the dynamic of (a) character power and (b) player authority?

On Perceptions, we both seem firmly in the camp that the perceptive character's player has authority, rather than the player of the character perceived.  So if Shane has "Ada:  Double-Agent?" as a Perception, that's Shane's player's call when it comes up.  But the dynamic of character power probably runs the opposite way:  Ada gains more from Shane's suspicions than Shane does while they're unsubstantiated.

That combination of character power, granted by the authority of another player, is a tool that Shane's player can use to guide Ada's player.

I'm inclined to think that the dynamic should flip-flop when the Perception turns into a Trait.  It should be Ada's player's turn to guide Shane's player in his reactions.  Which would seem to imply that Ada's player should have the authority to decide when the Trait applies, but that Shane's player (or maybe just any player that embroils themselves in the "Double-Agent" plot-line) should benefit more than Ada does from the Trait.


I have this further issue, which I'm not sure whether to bring up yet... but what the heck.  I think that letting a Perception become a Trait should be something of an act of trust for the character the Trait is on.  I can see a lot of these working out as the character admitting something, directly or indirectly.  And that should have a scary feeling of "I am putting power over me into someone elses hands".  Does that sound like a worthy goal to you guys?

[Doug Ruff]

Firstly, I need to be clear that if I'm talking about a mechanical advantage here, that doesn't (yet) mean an advantage in the Hybrid mechanics; there's still some joining of the dots to do.

On Perceptions, we both seem firmly in the camp that the perceptive character's player has authority, rather than the player of the character perceived.  So if Shane has "Ada:  Double-Agent?" as a Perception, that's Shane's player's call when it comes up.  But the dynamic of character power probably runs the opposite way:  Ada gains more from Shane's suspicions than Shane does while they're unsubstantiated.

Are we talking about overall power, or just between Ada and Shane? The way I saw it, accepting Shane's Bribe and turning it into a Perception would give Ada power over everyone else except Shane. How do you see it?

That combination of character power, granted by the authority of another player, is a tool that Shane's player can use to guide Ada's player.

I'm inclined to think that the dynamic should flip-flop when the Perception turns into a Trait.  It should be Ada's player's turn to guide Shane's player in his reactions.  Which would seem to imply that Ada's player should have the authority to decide when the Trait applies, but that Shane's player (or maybe just any player that embroils themselves in the "Double-Agent" plot-line) should benefit more than Ada does from the Trait.

Who gets the power to decide when "normal" Traits (ie Traits which are part of the self-image) apply? Because that's who should get the power once the Perception turns into a Trait. Not sure what the payoff for Shane should be in this instance though. I think that he would get his dice back, as Ada should be paying for the revealed Trait with her own pool from now on. This is why she may have to sacrifice other Traits to make room for this one.

I have this further issue, which I'm not sure whether to bring up yet... but what the heck.  I think that letting a Perception become a Trait should be something of an act of trust for the character the Trait is on.  I can see a lot of these working out as the character admitting something, directly or indirectly.  And that should have a scary feeling of "I am putting power over me into someone elses hands".  Does that sound like a worthy goal to you guys?

It does, but I've currently pegged this at the earlier stage: for me, the moment of Trust is when you accept a Bribe and turn it into a Perception.

(And I think that part of the disconnect is because you don't have any rules for Bribes in the Hybrid Mechanics, so you don't have this option to call on. The big question is, do you want them? Knowing the aswer to this will help me to keep on the same page as you.)

[TonyLB]

Well, yeah, that is the disconnect.  I don't want the moment of trust to be when you support someone's perception of you.  I want that to be something that can happen completely without the perceived character (or their player) intending it, or even knowing it's happening.

Classic (literally) example:  Emma:  Emma promotes her friend Miss Smith to the Reverend Elton.  Game-terms:  Emma adds perception "Elton:  Enamored of Smith".  Elton does everything he can to be with Emma and Smith.  Points to Elton, off the perception.  Emma paints a portrait of Smith.  Elton personally carries it to London to be framed.  Points to Elton, off the perception.  Elton then proposes marriage to Emma... WHAT?  Ah... Elton had no idea what he was getting the points for.  He thought Emma had a correct perception "Elton:  Enamored of Emma".  He further had a perception "Emma:  Enamored of Elton," which all of her actions were playing to.  Boom, perceptions destroyed.  Heart-breaking, really.

Now this scenario can be worked with players knowing the perceptions of others.  In fact, I tend to think that it's much easier to keep the confusion going when you're doing it deliberately in order to work the characters to a fever-pitch of miscommunication.

But, scandalous as the notion of "immersion" may be in this context, I think that there is something to be said for putting the players into the same state of uncertainty as the characters.  You're not going to get miscommunications that are as reliably good (in the SIS), but the ones you get will have a strong impact on the players.

So what happens in this system if, when Character A has a perception about Character B, Player B has no direct way of knowing what that perception is?

[Doug Ruff]

Short answer: damned if I know.

Longer answer: I need some time to think about this. I wouldn't normally post a message just to say this, but we've been back-and-forth over this quite frequently over the last few days. It's been a lot of fun, but I need to come up for some air!

I promise to come back and chip in again later, but it may be a while.