Lines as Character Development

Lines and Veils is a concept that Ron Edwards presents in the excellent supplement to Sorcery called Sex and Sorcery. A Line is defined as something that will not be crossed in terms of story. In Breaking the Ice, Emily Care Boss compares Lines to the MPAA rating system. So a G rated game will have no sexual content and a PG will have implied sex, but nothing on screen and so on. A Veil is a device where something is happening in game, but not “on screen”. The classic "fade to black" technique when a character is experiencing something that is beyond the player’s comfort level is a type of Veil. So while the activity is definitely happening in game, the players aren’t experiencing it.

In most gaming situations the only hard Line a character faces is the “hit point Line”. If they run out of hit points they die and the character is changed and possibly unplayable. There are other systems where hit points and sanity or humanity mark this Line. What we are looking at is the fact that Narratively the players are watching for a specific Line and understand that by approaching this line they are building Narrative tension. As in “oh no, I’ve only got 3 hit points left, I’m going to DIE!”. What I’m wondering is what if we change this Line up or introduce a series of Lines representing differing degrees of change.

I think that it’s possible to also define a character’s Lines which can be different from the player’s and unique to each character. So if we have a character that has “murder most foul” as a Line the character should never directly experience such things without there being a significant shift in how they experience their world. Most of the time this is implied in the game, but if you specifically focus in on it and even write it on the character sheet we suddenly come up with a limit for the character that is more than simply running out of points of health or sanity or humanity. This could easily create scenes where the stakes and consequences are much easier to express.

It seems that the tough part about this would be that a Line isn’t absolute. It just might not work in large groups since what is happening to the character in question is driven by a single player and would leave the other players out of the loop. Also it would be easy for situations to occur where the Line was too Boolean and either the character is safely on one side of the Line or over and in the danger zone. Part of the solution is simply a function of good Storytelling and making sure that the character approaches the Line slowly or through a series of events that all draw them closer and closer to a place where they will change and Lines will be re-drawn.

Finally let’s look at some realistic sample Lines that could come into play and ways that they could surface.

Singer is a dedicated warrior of the light who has a Line defined as “Not Suffering Evil a Hold on the Innocent”. Obviously a development where Singer witnesses an innocent hopelessly twisted by forces of darkness is going to push them right over the Line. But if we slowly progress in an ebb and flow struggle versus darkness we will discover some pretty interesting things about Singer and how they define their Line. What if they are put in a position where they have to sacrifice an innocent in order to smite a greater evil? What if they have to allow evil to flourish in a small area in order to lower it’s guard to a counter strike? These grey areas might not cross the stated Line but surely push at the core of this character. One can see that with just a few more Lines drawn for the character and we’ve suddenly got some deeply intriguing stories.

Another example would be Serra who has a Line stated as “Not allowing anybody close to her”. The player states that she would have the classic “acquaintances but no friends” stance. So what happens when another player character saves her life? What about a situation where somebody is doggedly doing all that they can to become her friend? A suitor who has dastardly political motivations begins to charm Serra to secure a favored icon of the people.

While none of these things are necessarily unique to the table top experience it is interesting to start defining character limits as something to explore. As an added spice or the entire focus of a session we can start to see strong investments from the players behind the characters and story lines that focus on their desires and fears. Instead of elaborate settings and twisting plots as the focus, the focus becomes the character’s own internal process.

How I'm Bringing "What's at stake" to my game

Two postings recently got me thinking more about stakes.


Avoiding Trivial Stakes

and

Fucking Meaning…

So my current thinking is that anytime it’s even possible for a player to grab some dice and start rolling (even combat) I’ll want to ask them “what’s at stake here” or “what do you want to have happen and what could failure mean here”. If the answer is dull or mundane, we don’t roll the dice it just happens unless I can raise the stakes somehow. If a player jumps a NPC in a dark alley with the intent of delivering a dire warning to the slavers the NPC is a member of then I should ask the player in question “what happens if you fail”. The player can then honestly answer “I just want this to be a warning, if this NPC is any real threat to my character I want to wait until somebody weaker comes along”. That’s totally fair and together we’ve co-storied who this NPC is and advanced the story. Now of course I could counter with “No, this NPC is a total bad-ass who will put your life on the line and therefore jumping them raises the stakes considerably. Is this still what you want?” It’s all out in the open and we know what is at stake one way or another. The point is to make sure that the story in my head matches the story in the player’s head and that everybody knows what is at stake before a single toss of the dice is made.

Bribing players to involve characters

Bribing players to involve characters

I’ve been reading a lot of information about moving the story along with specific player input. I’ve been kicking around this idea that I think I’ll suggest to my fellow gamers this Saturday.

Each of them will get a set number of points (I’m thinking based on the people in attendance, like 3 points per person present) that they can use to influence another character to behave in some way or take some course of action. The player being influenced can refuse the bribe at any point even if the bribe is being applied to an NPC. These points are simply added or subtracted to a dice roll for an event. These points can be applied to an NPC in the scene or to a player. If negative points are given to a player character then the player being affected gets an equal amount of points back on the positive side. A player cannot spend points on their own character. The point is to encourage players who aren’t on scene to think about interesting twists and developments for characters who are on the scene. They stipulate what they want, and it has to somehow vary from what the original intent is. They reward or penalize with as many or as few points as they choose with the only stipulation being that there has to be a reason behind the points.

Example: Lilia walks into a stable to get her horse and finds a close friend dead on the ground with a warforged standing over the body. As a GM I describe that the warforged is trying to apply bandages but Jeremy suggests that Chris should have Lilia roll for alertness to actually tell what the warforged is doing and that the roll should get a -4 penalty so that there is a good chance she doesn’t notice. Jeremy proposes something along the lines of “I think it would be cool if Lilia didn’t notice the bandages before she started reacting.” Then Eric chips in with “I’ll give you 8 points to spend in combat as you see fit if you just fly into a rage and attack the warforged”. Chris can refuse either offer as he sees fit.

Links:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/jhkimrpg/17595.html
http://www.spaceanddeath.com/sin_aesthetics/2006/01/push-vs-pull.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/tigerbunny_db/1503.html

define GM

Treasure Tables has a great posting about how various systems define the role of a GM. As my understanding of the GMs role has evolved over the years (especially in the last one) so too has the industry's. The games we were playing in high school are not the same ones we are playing now.

I'm not just talking about mood or content, but objectives. My favorite definition was from Sorceror:

The hope is that playing Sorcerer should generate a good story, specifically one that you and the players are proud of. If you, the GM, don’t have a dramatic narrative goal, why play?

What a great question and yet so many GMs I've spoken with don't even really understand what a narrative goal is. They still think a narrative goal is a "plot point" or some bit of in game drama. While it can be composed of these things, it's not the entirety. Just like batting, pitching, and catching aren't the entirety of baseball.