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.