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July 03, 2004
3...2...1...Contact!
Very slowly I learn how to game better. This post describes the latest trick I've figured out well enough to articulate.
For many years, I've tried to run games and characters who are dramatically interesting, but I've never had quite enough success to please me. I'd have strong protagonists, antagonists, and a powerful conflict between them, but somehow that didn't seem to reliably translate into dramatic action. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, and about two weeks ago, I finally figured out why.
Dramatic action can only happen when the antagonists and protagonists come into contact. They have to interact, and there is no such thing as action at a distance -- the characters have to be in a position to affect and be affected by one another. However, conflict is an inherently repulsive force: when people come into conflict, their natural tendency is to pull apart. This reduces the impetus to resolve the conflict, and without a resolution the story can't reach a really satisfying finish.
In literary terms, I haven't been ensuring a crucible is present -- a device to keep the characters in contact so that they have no choice but to resolve their conflict. This can be anything, either internal drives or social constraints or even physical limitations as silly as being trapped together in an elevator, but it must exist. Otherwise the protagonist and the antagonist will drift apart and the motor of story will sputter to a halt.
Protagonist + Antagonist + Conflict ≠ Story
Protagonist + Antagonist + Conflict + Crucible = Story
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Comments
Some examples would be handy, of crucibled games and non-crucibled.
Posted by: NelC at Jul 3, 2004 5:21:02 PM
Good point! I'll try to think of some good examples. I strongly suspect that this is something other people have figured out before, and would welcome other peoples' experiences too in the comment thread (hint, hint).
Posted by: Neel Krishnaswami at Jul 3, 2004 6:56:43 PM
One crucible is family. Antagonisms are played off against the bonds of blood relationships.
Another is duty. Antagonists hate one another but are held together by common service to an external order.
Some others might be shared goals, or the need to cooperate temporarily to overcome a greater mutual threat.
Posted by: Tav_Behemoth at Jul 3, 2004 9:42:23 PM
Some folks I know (cough*Vincent*cough*Shreyas*cough), like to talk about this as The Stakes. What brings together protagonists and antagonists, or, in a more complex story, what brings together people working for very different ends? The Stakes: what either of them will lose by backing down. In Vincent's new game, "Dogs in the Vineyard," players actively work to determine and then raise The Stakes of each encounter. In "Torchbearer," what's at stake in a Crisis is Who-You-Are or Who-The-Other-Guy-Is, which is a pretty critical issue.
The Crucible is an interesting way to put it, but I would think that, most of the time, you don't really want to make it impossible for characters to avoid resolving conflicts. You just need enough pressure so that avoiding the issue creates interesting situations, as characters try to weasel out of an obvious confrontation. There should always be several ways out; it's just that none of them are without cost.
Posted by: Jonathan Walton at Jul 3, 2004 11:01:52 PM
Hm. But does it get more tense if there are no ways out? (And of course sometimes you want tension and sometimes you don't.)
Posted by: Bryant at Jul 4, 2004 9:56:35 AM
That's only one type of story. For a romance, you want just the opposite; keep the characters apart for as long as possible.
Well, I suppose, on reflection, you could reword that to fit your model so that time, space and karma are your characters' antagonists, working to keep them apart, but that's a bit of a stretch.
Ditto mystery and horror, actually.
Posted by: peaseblossom at Jul 5, 2004 9:07:06 PM
Peaseblossom, I think it makes more sense to think of the romance of the kind you are describing as two interrelated stories, one revolving around each protagonist, where their thwarted desires are the crucibles that set them crashing up against the cliffs and rocky beaches that fate sets out for them. Like, to take the recent movie Pirates of the Caribbean for an example, Orlando Bloom's character doesn't actually want to be a pirate, but his love for the girl forces him into these uncomfortable, piratical situations...while exactly the same thing is happening to her.
Posted by: Shreyas Sampat at Jul 5, 2004 11:06:56 PM
The easist (and most obvious) examples of crucibles are generally found in LARPs. Because most LARPs can't simulate anything larger than the room they're in, many of them come up with some contrived explanation as to why all these people are trapped in a room and can't go anywhere. Typically, they're on a spaceship, there's inclement weather, a magical effect imprisons them, etc.
It's also a little bit like Railroading. The GM doesn't necessarily have to direct the plot down a pre-determined path, but the Players are constrained by where they can go. Call it a stockade rather that a railroad.
Such obvious physical restraints are really irritating in LARPs and would be unbearable in an RPG (unless it was a very specific kind of RPG, I can't think of one off the top of my head where it wasn't just an obstacle to be overcome). In RPGs those crucibles are less physical and more etherial. So that's why I kinda like the "stakes" term better than "crucible".
Tom
Posted by: Tom at Jul 6, 2004 9:49:17 AM
This is why I'm fond of games where the players are members of a guard unit, a police force, some religious order, etc.
It lets me worry slightly less about contriving to keep the players plausibly motivated to "stay in the room" so to speak, they do so because it's inherently their job/calling in life to do so.
Posted by: telepresence at Jul 8, 2004 1:20:17 PM
