Just to let you all know that Kenneth Hite has now reviewed Soul, read all about it at http://www.gamersrealm.com/store1/outofthebox.php

Wow, that was fast! I am seeing something pretty interesting among reviewers of Sorcerer ... they want to review it all, and they want to review it right away. I've been getting emails about the supplements from people who reviewed the books - there seems to be a level of commitment in these messages that I appreciate very much.

For the record, I've been through all instances of "mapping" or "connection drawing" in book-published role-playing design, including GURPS Goblins, and I'll stand by my claim that my specific construction has significant elements that haven't been presented before.

Best,
Ron

Ron.

This isn't a challenge, simply a request. Goblins for me was a piece of brilliant GM advice and tool provision, what do your relationship maps do that wasn't there?

Note, I'm not saying they don't do stuff that wasn't there, I'd just like to hear you expand on it a little.

Best,

Max

Hi Max,

I took a little time to collect my thoughts and review GURPS Goblins, just to be ultra-sure. I respectfully request that the following material be read as a linked-points argument, in full. I also want to specify that for purposes of this discussion, I am talking about role-playing that is concerned with emotional intensity, passion, and themes regarding "human-ness."

The issue is precisely this: my relationship-map method is predicated on connections that mainly do not change due to actions. If Bob and Suzy had sex, they had sex. It doesn't matter (for purposes of drawing the map specifically) whether they are working together now, were working together then, are conspiring to murder Pete, or don't even remember one another's names. That line exists - anyone who knows about it will consider any and every action of Bob and Suzy in that context. Suzy's happily married to Sam? Fine - she still had sex with Bob, and knowing this makes a difference to our li'l primate minds.

Thus family kinship and sexual contact are the primary means of drawing the map. Think of these lines as indisputably existing - the social reality of the NPCs. For purposes of drawing the map, never mind what they want, what they wish would have happened, or how the people are associated in other ways (although see below for tweakings).

So Bob and Suzy had sex? If Suzy hates Bob intensely and is plotting over the years to kill him, our knowledge or revelation about the sexual contact "means things" to us, about that behavior. If she changes her mind and now sacrifices herself to save him from the ninja assassin, our knowledge or revelation about the sexual contact still "means things" to us, about that behavior.

The point is that Bob and Suzy may change their behaviors, but the new behaviors, just like the old ones, exist in the context of our knowledge of the facts of their history. And that history is defined mainly in terms of kinship and sexual contact.

Now for the tweakings ... sure, intense romantic or sexual commitment or longing that does not include actual contact might be included. Sure, "sworn liege-man" might be included. Even "chauffeur for" might be included. But as I've said many, many times, these are second-line additions to the map, and in many cases, such NPCs are little "horns" or protrusions off a mapped NPC, rather than being a major element of the map. Such NPCs may become very important in play, usually as Fifth Business, but they tend not to carry the emotional charge of one of the mapped NPCs.

What is not included on a relationship-map is highly significant as well.
- intent: "Bob plans to kill Suzy"
- organizational affiliation: "member of the Dragon Puppet Troupe"
- ideology: "Pete would lay down his life to preserve the honor of the Quincunx Clan"

In practice, such things may be seen as either supporting or straining/violating the existing lines on the map. Those existing lines (of kin and sex) provide meaning to these things (the intent, affiliations, or ideology), because they are either being reinforced or violated. Without the map, these things become ... well, just blah.

Consider. "Oh, Pete's a fanatic," as opposed to, "Oh shit! Pete is such a fanatic that he'd kill his own uncle!" or "Oh, man! Pete defied the Quincunx order to kill his wife - he couldn't bring himself to do it." Note that in each case, the "uncle" or "wife" line is a fixed social reality, and whether Pete obeys or disobeys his ideological orders is what may vary. No matter what he does, the map provides emotional weight to his actions.

People are always asking, "How do I get my players to care about my NPCs?" That's how. That is how.

That is why all of the previous "circles-and-lines" diagrams in role-playing games and supplements are not relationship-maps sensu Soul. They primarily reflect intent, organizational affiliation, and ideology.

Therefore, yes, intent, organizational affiliation, and ideology are important for role-playing. I do not suggest that they be ignored or pushed aside or otherwise left out. But they gain their importance insofar as they reinforce or violate the lines of a relationship-map.

The above paragraph is so important that I'm going to say it again, and hope it sinks into someone's head in some way. ... yes, intent, organizational affiliation, and ideology are important for role-playing. I do not suggest that they be ignored or pushed aside or otherwise left out. But they gain their importance insofar as they reinforce or violate the lines of a relationship-map.

All of this material, I'm afraid, did not gel in my mind until the final text for the printed version of Soul was already out of my hands. The fundamentals at work - because I'd derived them from literature and my emotional experience with it - were so central that I recognized the role-playing history of "circles and lines" as unrelated without having to analyze it too carefully. Thus the person who's coming from that role-playing history, seeing my circles and lines, says, "Oh, I've seen that before," and it was (until recently) very hard for me to grasp what the hell they could be thinking.

Best,
Ron

Hi,

How do you, personally, handle multiple groups of individuals that are not connected by sexual or kinship relations, but still have ties or impact on each other or the story? Do you have multiple Maps to represent each group that actually has such relationships and then relate those maps with the secondary lines, or do you simply avoid such situations entirely?

Thanks,

Lael

Lael,

I'd like you to think about the situation you propose, in terms of a story.

As I see it, by having "an impact," we have to be talking about stressing a line on the map, thus focusing (again) on the map.

Thus look at Die Hard. The map is a simple triangle: main guy, his wife, guy who is hitting on her. Add a very dangerous element - thieves (a) who threaten the wife and (b) with whom the slimy guy allies.

See? The thieves at first glance seem to be "off the map," but they're not - they matter strictly insofar as they place stressors on the line between the main character and his wife. The climax of the story is not, "How can John McClane stop these awful thieves," but "How can John McClane save his marriage?" which is exactly where it began.

If such a thing is not happening, and we don't even have some tie between characters on a map (like "best buddies since childhood" or something like that), then all the Sturm und Drang external-threat imaginable is going to yield set-pieces, but no story. This is why Pulp Fiction is brilliant and Ronin is a piece of crap.

Best,
Ron

Ok, I think I understand that point, that the thieves are not necessarily a point worhty of space on the Map, so much as a Bang (I believe I have the correct term?). Actually, the point in your example that interests me is the guy that is hitting on John's wife. As I understand the explanation of the Relationship Map, it would exclude him from the map since he has no familial kinship with either John or his wife and, to the best of my recollection, has not explicitly had sex with John's wife either. (It's been a while since I've seen Die Hard, so I could be wrong about that point, but the instance where he is just some guy that is hitting on her is still a potential setting for a story.)

I'm trying to think of a good example from literature or media that I can use as an example for the question, but I'm coming up blank (not used to thinking in these terms and looking for the relationships.)

Perhaps my misunderstanding is in the Kinship portion of the Maps, is this intended to be familial kinship (this is what I understood it to mean) or is it any intense emotional connection that does not involve sex? And here I'm speaking of my (mis)understanding of the Basic Relationship Maps. (I have not yet had the chance to purchase The Sorcerer's Soul, so my understanding of the Relationship Maps is based solely on what I've been able to glean from this forum and from the Gaming Outpost Forums.)

If it is the former, then an example would be this: Love Triangle ABC where A is married to B, and C is B's Lover. ABC have friends in Love Triangle DEF where D and E are married and F is E's lover (add incest if you want some familial kinships other than marriage.) If ABC and DEF have no direct familial kinships or sexual encounters between them, but are just friends (say A&B know E&F and think they are married, while C knows D&E and knows they are married.) If the friendships do not register on the Relationship Map, then how would you work it? Would you use two Maps, one for each triangle and then make notes to the effect of which people know each other outside of the Map?

I hope that I explained that well enough that you can see where my misuderstanding lies. Thanks for the responses, I think that I'm really getting a better handle on this.

Lael

Lael,

You're right, the thieves are a Bang (and the main one, Gruber, played by Alan Richman, is a Bang all by himself!). I suggest that Hart Bochner's character, whose name I've forgotten, is either a Bang (as a threat to the marriage) or a link (as I stated it, just because of the sexual content of his interest in Holly).

You also have it pretty much right on target for the two love triangles. I suggest two solutions for "linking" them.

1) Create a family kinship for (say) A to (say) E, and now you have one map.

2) Go ahead and use a "lesser" link to do the same, as in "friends with." Or, as you say, just note it in the notes.

One of the problems with discussing this is that people sometimes think I advocate using ONLY the links in the map for generating back-story, and this is not the case. Instead, as you've picked up on, the relationship-map is a powerful part of back-story prep, not a replacement for it.

Its other big benefit is to provide NPCs whose behavior can vary and change, yet still embedded in a meaningful matrix.

Best,
Ron

Thanks for the additional clarifications and explanations. This has proved very, very helpful and insightful.

Lael

OK, Die Hard and relationship maps - this looks like a good way to address my . . . "concern", mild though it is, is still too strong a term . . . how about my "curiosity" about the preeminence of sex and family in the relationship map?

First, in support of the familial importance in maps - aren't there a couple brothers in the criminal gang? Doesn't John kill one, and then have a big/intense confrontation(s) with the other?

Now, exploring other factors in Die Hard - the facts that a) John is a *cop* (a very good, very dedicated one), and that b) he's up against *criminals* (very clever and very ruthless ones), are MAJOR factors in the movie (note: I'm not saying Ron is denying/would deny that - he expressly states that organizational affiliations ARE important - I'm just curious about why that wouldn't be in the relationship map, or perhaps speculating about how it could be). Those affiliations, it seems to me, do provide "the context of our knowledge of the facts of their history" for situations like John's interaction with the local patrol officer he contacts via radio. It is that "copness" that gives meaning the local officers' ability to overcome his hesitation/remorse and take out the bad guy towards the end of the film. In fact, it's certainly possible to see the marital relationship as gaining its' importance insofar as it violates/supports the proposed relationship-map "line" of John's dedication to his job. Certainly, that conflict (wife vs. job, not simply "how can John save his marriage?"), and how to resolve it (a traditional Hollywood "have it all" resolution, "how does John keep both his wife and his job?"), is fundamental to the film - why pick one side rather than the other for the map?

Gordon

PS - This all seems a bit familiar, like perhaps it was discussed last time Die Hard and maps were mentioned . . . apologies if I'm covering old ground in an unhelpful way.

Gordon C. Landis wrote:
why pick one side rather than the other for the map?

james_west wrote:
It's because people doing their job, even if their job is being a cop, doesn't have the fundamental, visceral appeal to human interest that familial/sexual relationships do. Thus, the fact

makes it an action movie; the fact that the action movie is based around this love triangle is what makes it a good action movie.

Hello,

I agree with James, which is probably not surprising.

Gareth, no one said a word about removing "intellect" or social responsibilities from the picture. If I'm not mistaken, you are applying the "nothing-but" concept to the point James and I are making, without cause.

I'm familiar with this argument - or rather, this projection onto my argument - and it's out of the scope of the present discussion. Here, I'll only say that human behavior and values are not a matter of "meat vs. society," or "apish urges vs. culture," or "emotion vs. intellect." Interpreting any point of mine or James' as (1) based on a dichotomy of this sort and (2) lopping off one end of that dichotomy, is mistaken.

Even more importantly, this is not a discussion of what "feels good" or "feels right," or of what corresponds to our individual sense of social purposes. This is a discussion of the undeniable, observable, straightforward power of the relationship map in entertainment media. It really doesn't matter whether one likes it or not.

Best,
Ron

It's because people doing their job, even if their job is being a cop, doesn't have the fundamental, visceral appeal to human interest that familial/sexual relationships do.

It doesn't matter how fundamental/visceral it is to the character. What matters is how it affects the audience (or in a RPG the players). As a viewer, do I care how dedicated he is to being a cop? No, not really. However, a loved one in danger is something that everyone will relate to. The whole purpose of a relationship map is to hook the players. How dedicated people are to their job is not much of a hook.

Roger

Two points: first, I think there's a little of the following going on here.

Person A: Look at my nifty new screwdriver!

Person B: And it'd make a great prybar, too!

Person A: Um, I guess so, but that's not really ...

Person C: That screwdriver is cr*p. I tried to drive some nails in with it, and it didn't work worth a darn.

I shall stop extending my metaphor there. Relationship maps, to my understanding, accomplish (at least) two goals in scenario design:

(1) They give the -players- (not, necessarily, their characters) an immediate visceral involvement in the story.

(2) They serve as a guide to how the important characters in the story will react when their web of relationships is disturbed by interaction with the PCs.

Now, there are probably other methods of accomplishing these goals, although I believe that relationship maps, as written, are very effective at it.

As I read some of the responses, they seem to have the thesis "I can produce perfectly plausible, exciting plots which engage the players without involving these elements." While this is probably true, the plots are unlikely to be as thematically rich, or involve moral choice. For instance, if we focus on the "doing his job" aspect of Die Hard, where is the conflict?

If I think of classical literature, though, it primarily revolves around sex and death. (Look at Shakespeare). Perhaps this is because these themes are both very universal, and very relevant to every person.

(I'm a little biased in dealing with relationship maps; upon seeing them almost a year ago in Soul, I started using them to try to make sense of peoples' motivations in my investigative work, and I find them extraordinarily effective - not only to work out what's going on, but when someone is clearly 'violating' the map, you can be darned sure he's pretty close to the root of the problem.)

- James

Allright, to be clear - *I* am not trying to "attack" or invalidate sex/family based relationship maps here. But I *am* seeing an awful lot of misunderstandings and/or superficial criticisms of the issues that have been raised with the familial/sexual focus. So, just to try and be clear about where I'm failing to make the leap, here's a little quote-and-respond:

As a viewer, do I care how dedicated he is to being a cop? No, not really.

1) They give the -players- (not, necessarily, their characters) an immediate visceral involvement in the story.

For instance, if we focus on the "doing his job" aspect of Die Hard, where is the conflict?

How dedicated people are to their job is not much of a hook

james_west wrote: Relationship maps, to my understanding, accomplish (at least) two goals in scenario design:

(1) They give the -players- (not, necessarily, their characters) an immediate visceral involvement in the story.

(2) They serve as a guide to how the important characters in the story will react when their web of relationships is disturbed by interaction with the PCs.

Now, there are probably other methods of accomplishing these goals, although I believe that relationship maps, as written, are very effective at it.

james_west wrote: As I read some of the responses, they seem to have the thesis "I can produce perfectly plausible, exciting plots which engage the players without involving these elements." While this is probably true, the plots are unlikely to be as thematically rich, or involve moral choice. For instance, if we focus on the "doing his job" aspect of Die Hard, where is the conflict?

If I think of classical literature, though, it primarily revolves around sex and death. (Look at Shakespeare). Perhaps this is because these themes are both very universal, and very relevant to every person.

Hey guys,

I'll go out on a limb here, and try to write down a few things I managed to learn from what little exposure to R-maps I had so far (still waiting for Soul to arrive);

Role-playing is basically a type of social interaction between human beings, and this is central to the concept of R-maps. See, sex and family aren't merely a specific choice of potential humanity-defining factors made for Sorcerer: I think they are usable in any campaign, because of a sometimes overlooked fact: the relationships on the map grab the players on a primal level because they are human beings, and sometimes unbeknownst to them ! The player with the FBI character might be drawn into the story by a spy he spotted, but the player himself *will* go "Wow, I can't believe this guy is sleeping with Natalie, my instructor's daughter !! And, holy cow ! my son is school buddy with that mob king's !!" It's just a primal, deeply rooted proto-cultural reaction to human relationships. Even if the player doesn't consciously think of that, it'll be a nagging feeling, tingle or unease, that will propel him along the R-map lines, and into a world of conflicts - perfect for the game!

Other types of relationships (hierarchy, for instance) are, as Ron told me, stressors on the main , "sex/blood link", relationship lines. They do exist, but will realistically motivate only characters, not the players sitting around the table within minimal narrative distance of the campaign.


Just my two cents, I hoped I didn't get anything wrong.

Manu

Fang -

Good point about "Humanity" and the "for Sorceror" screwdriver - partially, that's what I was trying to get at with my "some story types that really are better served by a non-sexual/familial basis" comment. On the other hand, the "loss of Humanity" stuff is pretty versatile - you CAN look at Die Hard through that lens. Whether it's BEST to look at it that way . . . that's another question.

Manu -

I understand what you're saying, and it's pretty much what I undersatnd Ron to be saying - and I'm just not seeing the global applicability. When you say:

Other types of relationships (hierarchy, for instance) are, as Ron told me, stressors on the main , "sex/blood link", relationship lines. They do exist, but will realistically motivate only characters, not the players sitting around the table within minimal narrative distance of the campaign.

Hey Gordon,

I mean absolutely no disrespect in saying this, but I think somehow you've fogged up the glass for yourself, so you're no longer seeing the functioning of relationship maps the way I'm fairly certain you used to understand them.

The player will be motivated by meeting a spy, not by meeting a guy sleeping with someone elses' wife.

One purpose of a relationship map is definitely to motivate a player with interesting in-game stuff relevant to his character, but it's not the only purpose. The more significant purpose is to deliver significance to the character in the eyes of the other players. Are you familiar with the typical AD&D "night in the city" experience? The one where the party shacks up at an inn for the evening, with the thief sneaking out under cover of darkness to burglarize homes? The rest of the players flip idly through magazines, having conversations about music, movies, whatever, barely paying attention to the thief during his time at center stage. The thief's player might be motivated, but the game is not delivering significance to the thief in the eyes of the other players. The things that hook the thief, as a thief, just aren't enough to make the character significant to the other players. Narrativist relationship-map scenarios deliver significance to characters by exposing their struggle with issues of real human interest to the other players.

And I will say, to address your Mekton experience, that I think a lack of player interest in GM-delivered chaos among a character's kinship and sexual relationships isn't sufficient to undermine the value of relationship-maps across the spectrum of game situations. Firstly, not all kinship and sexual relationship chaos is of equal value to a character. The game has to be delivering the right stuff. If my character, as created, has an irrational belief that the woman he loves might be an alien, it's fairly irrelevant to the character's embedded conflict between love and paranoia if his brother's life is being threatened by the mob for outstanding gambling debts. The mob stuff is non-contributing relationship chaos. And also, if every character is the center of his own relationship map, a powerful aspect of relationship maps has been excised. The scenario may still be effective by virtue of exposing the struggle of characters with issues of real human interest, but it will likely be less so than a scenario with a relationship map that connects the player characters, that reverberates from the conflict outcomes and actions of the individual characters, impacting every player's character in the scenario.

Paul

Gordon -

Aha! At least for me, "violations" of the maps, and using them to get at the root of the problem, are the thing that makes them extraordinarily useful.

(I just wrote a long detailed example from reality, and realized it was a little too horrifying - so I fall back on a more abstract example.)

In the traditional Noir plot structure - which also is an amazingly common plot structure in the real world - you have a complex web of family/sexual relations, complicated by a decades-long history of infighting, in which something bad is happening. Someone's been killed, or something else so bad that 'outsiders' get involved. Everyone in the web starts reacting along the lines of loyalty established by the map, and frequently doing fairly bad things to one another on that basis. From the point of view of an outsider coming in, the whole field is in motion, because everyone's reacting along the lines of loyalty or enmity laid down by the map to some new stimulus. The key to figuring out what's really going on is to figure out who seems to be acting against the set of loyalties that you'd expect according to their set of relationships. There is always very important information there when someone's 'violating' the map like this. Sometimes, it turns out that it's because there were links in the map that had been hidden or misrepresented. Sometimes it's because you've found the person who (in Sorceror terms) has some serious loss of humanity.

In Sorceror, finding the person who has serious loss of humanity is important because they're probably demon-possessed (or something). In the real world, it's important because while everyone else may have been doing some fairly nasty/illegal stuff because the web's been reacting, they're fundamentally moral people. The guy who's willing to violate humanity is pretty f*ckin' Evil.

So - yes, relatonship maps are a particularly good way to make plots appropriate for Sorceror, and they do tend to be more than a little dark. There are certainly entire genre for which they'd be inappropriate. However, they are both very engaging and very realistic. The trick to being engaging is not to say "A slept with B", it's to say "A slept with B and had kids, because she needed them as sacrificial victims for her ritual"

As an aside - Hamlet is very much a "relationship map" style plot, almost to the exclusion of anything else.

- James

Re: nothing but

I feel I am objecting to the "Nothing But" claim, inasmuch as I feel the claims made about blood-sex relationships are much too strong, and not just here but in TV and cinema too - see previous critique of Buffy. Thus, I reject the general concept that relationship conflicts are a priori more engaging to players or characters than conflicts arising from situation; In fact I think that this is executed with such robotic frequency that I am totally, totally bored by the idea as a driver for character action and highly likely to be alienated from a character so motivated.


Re: meat vs. mind

Part of the objection is that I do feel the claim tacitly, and necessarily, poses such a dichotomy. If it is true that emotional contexts are the primary driver, then we would not be able, say, to examine the conflict that occurs inside one family during a civil war except as an emotional relationship issue. We can relate to the angst and the agony, but we are not, by implication, permitted to consider the issues intellectually. So works of this nature tend to spend much time on the agonising and none on the issue; the issue is "not relevant" to the emotional crisis. And thus it becomes anti-intellectual, insisting that those things that drive human behaviour, which motivate, arise almost totally from our mammal existence and not from our consciousness, our intelligence. To my mind, the very expectation that the audience can only be engaged by jerking their zipper or their heart-strings is a severe problem and likely to lead to bad, unsatisfying stories rather than good ones.


As for R-maps, I have little to say about them directly. Obviously, I reject the idea that emotional issues are inherently more motivating or protagonising than motives arising from situation, and so I am not personally inclined to limit them to familial or romantic issues.

Gareth may be overstating the case a bit, but he does have a point. If Ron's version of the Relationship map is superior because it explicitly does not allow the intellectual connections to be referrenced (he pointed this out as a main difference and a strength), it would seem to indicate that these sorts of relationships are able to motivate player interest with more fecundity, or on a more important level or something.

I agree with Gareth that this seems like a somewhat outlandish claim. It smacks of Freudianism. And consider the source. If I'm not mistaken, Ron adapted the concept from one that refers to literature or some other media. Somebody said that the only relationships that concern us dramatically are the sex/blood ones. Well, first, that individual could have been wrong about that as regards those media. I certainly agree with Gareth there. Moreso, applying it to RPGs may be an even further stretch.

In any case, I find it hard to believe that the other relationship mapping techniques that have been discussed here are of significantly less usefulness than Ron's. His claim that his method is different seems to be suubstantially true. That it's better seems to be mostly a case of opinion.

And that's just mine.

Or, IOW, try them all and use what works for you. OR try your own method; whatever you come up with is likely to fit your style best. That's my advice.

Mike

From a storytelling standpoint, the theory is that all stories ultimately boil down to dramatic hooks of sex and murder. That statement doesn't rule out situational modifiers, but it does focus on sex and murder as underlying hooks that motivate the movement of the story -- not necessarily positing them as character motivators (as I understand it). Personally, I'd add the hook of mystery (by which I mean unknowable issues that come up most often with regard to spirit and faith). This whole idea is probably the ultimate reduction of the There Are Only So Many Plots Theories out there. See Steal That Plot! by William Noble for a pragmatic statement of this approach that I find pretty useful for constructing RP plots.

I've always thought the idea behind the R-map is to construct a web of interactions for the players to run into. The R-map provides motivation for the NPCs more than for the player characters, who must bring their own motivation to the mix. I'd think whether the players themselves are more engaged by the sex-murder-blood relations depends on the group. I don't read any of Ron's R-map points as excluding situation-based motivations. Au contraire, the whole discussion of kicker is to establish character-focused situational plot hooks that can be knitted into the overall movement of the story. Further, the R-map is a responsive network, so its components will react dynamically as the game progresses, such that situational dramatics should unfold naturally.

No reason you can't impose an overall situation -- a state of siege, a curse on the kingdom, etc. -- over the map dynamics. Further, I think R-maps are not limited to noir. Create an R-map from a Steven Seagal movie, for example, or a Louis L'Amour western. It works, though you may find the maps far less tangled. That said, I wouldn't try it with stuff like The Endless Wheel of Time, since the relationships in that kind of work strike me as superficial and motivated almost wholly by external push-pull events. Situation-driven plots are fine, but without reflecting internal emotional states on the part of the main character(s), they're ultimately shallow. In Die Hard, our Bruce Willis character has his ex-wife (or separated from wife) in the hostages as a special internal motivator that added a deeply personalized dimension to his sense of duty. Without that, the movie would have lost a lot of its kick for me.

Ultimately, I read Ron's R-map discussion as emphasizing the foundational value of personal, internal motivations and relationships when constructing strong dramatic hooks. Maybe it ain't a sonic screwdriver, but it is a versatile and important tool.

Best,

Blake

Blake,

Remarkably coherent statement - came out rather better than my attempts.

- James

James,

Thanks for the kind words. I got a lot out of your post, actually, and it made my tack that much easier. Let me also say I've consistently enjoyed your input, and have followed it from way back last spring. Good to see you back on the boards.

I do try to boil stuff down to my level -- when Ron and Paul and Gareth and Fang get up their respective heads full of steam, I have to grab another triple espresso to crank my neurons high enough for me to keep up. Much of the time, I see my attempts to synthesize something as merely restating the obvious.

Anyway, thanks again.

/stroking session.

Best,

Blake

Ron Edwards wrote:
Thus family kinship and sexual contact are the primary means of drawing the map. Think of these lines as indisputably existing - the social reality of the NPCs.

Thank you Ms. Care.

Now that you mention it, a slew of my favorite movies have no family or sex relationships in them at all. Take the spaghetti westerns, for example. Heck other Kurasawa as well (Seven Samurai). A lot of good horror,including the original Alien. The Great Escape, and most war films now that I think of it (don't tell me; Saving Private Ryan is about Tom Hank's character's relationship with his wife, despite the fact that we never see her). Lawrence of Arabia! All the films like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels that we've been discussing here lately. I could go on.

I suppose that somebody will now claim that these are all displays of latent homoeroticism.

Mike

I have to say that initially I was extremely skeptical about Ron's Mapping Priorities for all of the reasons outlined above.

I've come to realize that I was wrong...for the same reasons as I'm seeing above. I was then, as many are now completely missing the point of the relationship map.

First no one, least of all Ron, has claimed that this is the one true way to map out a scenario. Therefor seeking examples where the map "doesn't work" is a logical fallacy (I forget which one now...that class was a good decade ago, but its common enough to have a name.

I'll say this for emphasis (90% that I have it right finally).

THE MAP IS NOT FOR THE PROTAGONISTS.

The map is for the people the protagonists will come across in the scenario. Much of the time (I suspect most) the protagonists will not even be ON the map.

What is the relationship map? It is a diagram of connecting realtionships between NPCs. NOT EVERY KIND of relationship, but a specific kind...Ron has narrowed it down primarily to family and sex, but even his own examples will stray a little into other relationships.

Why these? Because the Ron's Relationship Map is not a GMing tool shorthand for keeping track of NPCs and who knows who and what their role is. Its a diagram of those 2 most power motivating forces common to virtually all higher order earth bound life...family and sex.

It doesn't matter if you can come up with movies where the main character isn't related to the others in this way. Hell most of Ron's examples are from detective fiction where the protagonist has little to no direct involvement in the relationships. Its the relationship between the characters that the protagonists interact with that's important.

Now revisit some of Mike's movies that don't fit the mold.

Westerns? Find a John Wayne movie that doesn't involve a woman, a family of settlers, a man whose wife's been taken by indians, etc. Clint Eastwood's A Fist Full of Dollars is all about family relationships. And Alien? the entire premise of that movie is based on family. Why do you think the Mother Alien was so Pissed off?

The Relationship Map is not the only tool, in many situations it may not be the best tool for what you're trying to accomplish. But what it does is laser in on a very specific, very powerful, type of story which draws upon some very primal and fairly universal emotions.

Does it work for what its intended for...well, not having used it yet myself I have to take the word of those who have on that. But trying to come up with examples where it doesn't work seems completely pointless to me.

A brief note, having just read Soul again:

I would add to the above points that R-Maps as Ron has defined them are particularly well-suited to stories meant to address questions around gaining or losing humanity, with a somewhat implicit idea that of course you also have the idea of "what is more or less human?" in there.

Sorcerer is a game about capital-H Humanity. Some of the sources listed are really more about Community, Loyalty, Alienation, and so forth--these tie into Humanity quite strongly, but if you want to focus in on one of them, e.g. if you want to make a story about a company of Army Rangers, then ties of loyalty, as stressed by the threat of the enemy, the need for self-sacrifice, and possibly stupid orders from above, would be what you should map. I don't want to know if Sgt. Rock slept with G.I. Joe (well, I do, as that's still gonna be huge, but I mean it's optional for this kind of story), I want to know if he got Pvt. Joe's best buddy killed because of his crappy tactics in the last operation. I want to know if there's a soldier there who pretends to back up his buddies but actually is so scared that he cravenly serves only himself, and I can map that as a line of "weak loyalty" or suchlike.

These are not less powerful stories, but they are more specific to given eras and cultural values, so the author may need to work at them harder (depends on his/her experience, of course). And even a really good story may not be as grabby for an audience if they don't care about its premise--e.g., I find many of the tales of "honor" in Hagakure, a bunch of samurai stories, totally repugnant to my sensibilities. Fortunately, the GM is more likely to understand the players' mores, so this is less of a problem in RPGs.

Well, I digress. I hope I've not done too much violence to what Ron's intention with r-maps is; in any case, I think this may help people highlight for their own use how to relate an r-map to a premise.

--TQuid

Everyone,

Seems to me there's lots of good stuff in this thread, but it's pretty un-focused. Looks to me like my main thought - "There are stories for which making a map based on blood & sex is NOT the best way" - is not a 'blasphemy' to at least some of those that like blood & sex R-Maps, and certainly the claim "blood & sex R-Maps can be a good way to engage player interest" is not anathema to me. If this thread is to lead anywhere further (and there's no reason it should/has to), it seems to me we need to leave the generalities there, and stay focused on some specific issue. Just a thought.

Paul,

No disrespect taken - while I tend to be very (over?) careful when "criticizing" others, I've a got a very thick skin myself - you think I'm off-base, lay it on. You make some good points, but I mustn't have been clear in my statements, as I think those points are (mostly) entirely consistent with my issue with a major blood & sex focus . . .

When you point out the importance of delivering significance of a character in the eyes of the other players . . . if what we've got is a spy game, isn't it the spy-affliation that is going to invoke that significance? Yes, the thief-interest in your example is likely to fail to interest the other players - I would not propose a blood & sex map should replaced with a character-attributes map. Instead, I guess I propose an "Issues Map", where the thematic values of the story are exposed for use during play.

Your point (and I paraphrase) about how the WAY in which kinship and sexual relations are used/exposed being important . . . HELL YES. I intended the "exposure" of my Mekton experiences to reveal a probably UNfair bias I might have against the "use" of kinship and sexual relations, having experienced some over-use of the elements (NOT, obviously, within an R-Map) in the past. Unlike Gareth, I find Buffy uses 'em in an entirely effetive way, so (again) I'm certainly not claiming that you can't use 'em as the basis of a great story, or even that you SHOULDN'T do so for some RPG stories - as others have pointed out, given Sorceror's Humanity focus, it may be particularly appropriate there.

But (going back to the R-Map clarification post Ron made at the start of this thread), the standing claim about R-Maps seems to be wrapped up in his quote "yes, intent, organizational affiliation, and ideology are important for role-playing. I do not suggest that they be ignored or pushed aside or otherwise left out. But they gain their importance insofar as they reinforce or violate the lines of a relationship-map."

And again I repeat - it seems to me, FOR SOME STORIES, exactly the opposite is true - the "realtionships" only have meaning insofar as they reinforce or violate the lines of intent, affiliation, and/or ideaolgy.

If someone disagrees with that statement, I'd like to hear more - otherwise, I really am ready to "put it to the test" and just see how various methods work out in actual play.

And James,

Thanks for the clarification - I can certainly see GREAT ways for some stories to use that kind of "violation".

And again I repeat - it seems to me, FOR SOME STORIES, exactly the opposite is true - the "realtionships" only have meaning insofar as they reinforce or violate the lines of intent, affiliation, and/or ideaolgy.