thread: 2006-03-20 : Creating Situation: a practical example
On 2006-03-22, Vincent wrote:
Hey NS. I'm glad you're still around.
Secondly, it feels like a dynamic situation in which character interests either contain "if so" statements or are open to their development would be impossible to resolve to a static situation without imposing artificial limits, setting victory conditions, limiting time, defining an end state, etc. Is this a misread? In other words, now that I understand how to create situation, how do I stop?
Here's the handwavey magical partial answer: people crave static situations. We do as the players of the game, and our characters will as made-up people too. There's this sense of relief and satisfaction we feel when a dynamic situation resolves.
So dynamic situations resolve into static situations because, although we could introduce a new conflict of interest for every one that resolves, we don't want to.
Here's the reassuringly mathematical partial answer: figure that for every conflict of interest that resolves, 50% of the time it kicks off an "if so" followup conflict. We start with 4 conflicts; as we resolve them, on average we get 2 new conflicts, so now we have 2; as we resolve those, on average we get 1 new conflict, so now we have 1, which maybe resolves into a new conflict but eventually won't.
So dynamic situations resolve into static situations because the math is on our side.
But here's the real answer: escalation. When the resolution of one conflict of interest sparks a new conflict of interest, invariably there's more at stake than there was originally. Check it:
The order of magician-monks wants to test the priestess; she wants them to let her off the hook of her practice. What's at stake is the order's short-term power over the priestess' fate, like. We resolve that in the order's favor: they pitch her into a hole with some poisonous critters. Now the new conflict of interest is, the poisonous critters want to kill and eat the priestess; she wants them to wither before her righteousness or something. What's at stake is more serious than whether the order decides what happens to her or she does - it's her life and well-being.
So when the resolution of one conflict of interest sparks a new conflict of interest, what happens is that the situation develops upward, until nothing more can possibly be at stake. "Possibly" depends on the genre etc.: in Middle Earth, the subjugation of the whole Earth under evil can possibly be at stake; in Sideways, even people's lives can't be, only their relationships.
Anyway once that happens, once as much is at stake as can be, the final resolution has to be final. There's simply nowhere else to go - losing that conflict, a character can't any longer have the capacity to act on her interests. If she does, it wasn't the final conflict after all, there's still more she can stake.
Followup questions please! I don't figure I've fully covered it.
Oh and you should - everybody should - check out Ron Edwards' game Trollbabe. It's all about the scales of conflicts and stakes.
