ADVOCACY NARRATIVISM 

PART THREE: MECHANICS AND ACT

So far we have four spokes in the ACT circle. Some games add more and we’ll go over these now.


PLAYER (DIS)INCENTIVES

Sometimes you’ll add another spoke from carrot and stick (incentive) mechanics. These can come from two sources.

Fictionally triggered: If you drink blood you get XP.

Player triggered: If you allow me to persuade you you get XP.

My view is that these two things are kind of different and should be treated as such.

Fictional triggers that provide incentive allow you to position/jostle your character into a position where the incentive can trigger. ACT should still be in play when you make the decision and pull the trigger though.

Sue is playing Eve, a vampire. Sue wants that sweet XP and so she arranges for a situation where she is alone with Josh.

Situation one: Josh is talking crap and Eve sneaks up behind him and (ACT) bites his throat.

Situation two: Josh is talking crap and Eve sneaks up behind him, Josh turns around, fear in his eyes (ACT), upon seeing Josh’ fear, Eve can’t go through it. Damn, Sue really wanted that sweet XP.

I don’t add fictional triggers into the ACT circle.

Player triggers act as a direct spike in the ACT circle. This is because role-playing is after all a social activity. A player trigger is a request for you to perform an action and so I think it should be given some weight.

Example: ACT CIRCLE 4



MECHANICALLY MANDATED V WEIGHTED

Mandated: So in some cases your actions are mandated and there is no ACT involved. If the results of a failed fear check say you must run screaming, then you must run screaming.

Weighted: Other times certain mechanics will change your interests. For example you might drop below 2 blood points, in which case ‘need to drink blood’ becomes a fairly high priority in your interest hierarchy. Again though, ACT is in effect, if you think the situation is such that you wouldn’t drink blood. Then don’t. Weighted mechanics don’t dictate you do a specific thing, they do demand that you add weight to certain interests.

Note that I’ve drawn a distinct line between these categories but in practice it can be quiet fuzzy, depending on the mechanic.



GAME SITUATION: MANDATED v WEIGHTED v FUNCTIONAL

Some games are explicit about certain interests. For example if a text states ‘your characters start off as friends’. Then that’s something that goes in the ACT circle. If a text states ‘your characters start as friends and must remain friends’. That it doesn’t go in the circle because no decision is made.

Sometimes the situation mandates such things implicitly. It’s up to a given group to negotiate whether certain interests are allowed. Like if you want to play a game set in a stock brokering firm, then having the interest ‘become a chef’, might be problematic. Then again it might not.

Sometimes the game requires you weight interests a certain way based on the premise. If Vampires are meant to be secret, then you’re not forbidden from revealing yourself, but the game asks you add weight to secrecy. Such that revealing yourself is a big deal.

Sometimes the game requires certain interests to function. For instance in some games it’s fine to have a callous disregard for human life, in others it might just break the game.

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