I wrote some ideas on Twitter about an idea in RPGS and figured I would just copy/paste and then expand here.
Had a thought about TTRPGs and mood/emotion mechanics. I think we need more games that differentiate between being placed in a mood/attitude vs. a depth where you start changing the direction of how you live your life. Because these two things are very different.
We all have up days, down days, frustration, etc. That shifts how we speak, and some decisions about what we do daily. That is not the same as stuff that has you doing career changes, breaking up relationships, etc.
Although I think there’s a pretty big field to explore mechanically, mostly, I think this difference is useful to highlight specifically in player to player communication.
When we roleplay, our dialogue and choices are distilled and not always best communicated. Other people in the group have to navigate that and try to read the difference. Is your character just angry and yelling or are you going to make serious choices? It’s not always clear.
And it’s important bc if the group is supposed to help with creating the appropriate dramatic situations, the proper reactions by the other characters? Knowing what level we’re talking is useful.
And if you want to talk about mechanics feeding drama, having your character catch a small penalty for being discouraged is not the same as “your character is about to throw out their own career” and provides a different level of threat/cost.
And this mirrors a lot in fiction; when a character is in a temporary mood, they either get over it or have something opposite come their way. It’s a turn but not a big deal. When characters are changing direction in life, or near to it, it’s a Big Deal and core conflict.
If we’re co-creating as a group, it’s really important to know what weight we’re throwing at this.
Emotional Centers
I think it’s also worth thinking about how characters in fiction and stories, have an emotional center – the personality, values and attitudes that make up who they are and are where they return to as a person. Now, yes, characters can and do change over time, which is part of what good storytelling does – the maturation and growth of a character is the journey of how they become a different person; for better or for worse.
When we’re talking about these ideas of characters expressing short term moods or being knocked completely off axis for life? That’s about how these things in play are affecting their emotional center; a mood or even a longer term arc that doesn’t threaten to change who they are, is one thing, while the sorts of experiences that might place their sense of self or values at risk, that warp or transform their emotional center, is another.
(My memory around 2013 is still pretty poor from the chemotherapy treatments at the time, but a worthwhile idea that is related to this is Emily Care Boss’ Story Capital which I briefly wrote about. As some fictional elements in play are loaded with meaning and importance to the play group, they gain “story capital” and this sort of fictional “weight” becomes strong enough to potentially change characters’ emotional centers.)
Sometimes Flags, Sometimes Not
Now, I’ve been one of the biggest proponents of Flag Mechanics, however they are not always the right tool for this, and when they are, they might work in different ways.
For one, some games use your characters’ values or beliefs as the Flags – in other words, their emotional center, but it may not be clear to the group whether you, as a player, are using those values as something that might change, or simply a target to draw conflict. To use a simple pop culture example – if you are playing a Jedi and you have a Flag “will never succumb to the Dark Side” is that designed because you MIGHT eventually toy with the Dark Side or is it just to make a lot of dramatic scenes around it? Both can be fun, but they’re actually different play goals.
The other issue is that some games do not allow you to change Flags in the moment; so if a scene or situation has occurred that you personally think is critical and might change your character forever, you might not be able to adjust a Flag to let everyone know how important it is. Or, perhaps the situation is just a subset of an existing Flag and there’s no “change” that says this is more or less important.
Tenative Labels
Unfortunately I don’t have an easy, quick tool in mind for play (I’m exhausted, it’s a pandemic) but I figured I’d share what I’ve got in mind so far. I basically see these things as having 3 levels of potential weight or importance to a character.
Mood – A mood is a short term expression or attitude for a character and they are not really in danger of changing their core values or personality. Roleplaying banter or expressions of affirmation/care are fine but it’s nothing to push hard about.
Jolt – A jolt is a situation that has knocked the character slightly off from their Emotional Center and may last an extended time, and eventually result in changes as to who they are. It’s not critical and life changing yet, but it is something that has dislodged their sense of certainty in their boundaries and views of themselves. It’s a pretty good space for character roleplaying over time.
Crash – A crash is a situation that has the character in existential crisis. They may act in extreme ways and other players should recognize this is very important and that lines have been crossed for the character.
Now, do I think everyone should be filling their RPG scenes with “Hold on, that’s a Jolt for my character”? No, that sounds awkward and weird. I’m sure something like hand signals or other mechanic procedure would probably better suit navigating these issues. I do think it’s useful to have conceptual framework first because it also helps you understand what’s happening in a game, especially when you are trying to create a story collaboratively without traditional fiction’s tools of planning and revision.
The tropes of action genres
Finally, mainstream RPG space is mostly built on genres of male-focused action adventure and often does an incredibly poor job of demonstrating protagonists actually wrestling with their emotionals and values. A lot of the stories are “emotionally safe” in the sense that the protagonists are never shown to be knocked off their emotional center; you might have the “screaming in the rain” scene but after that they are never out of control in a way that is detrimental to them. Because these stories don’t actually show character development or processing emotion, the narrative language around them can be under developed in both seeing them in play or communicating them.
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