thread: 2006-03-20 : Creating Situation: a practical example
On 2006-03-23, Vincent wrote:
NS: "No one's initial interest was "survive a snake pit", and survival is a very high stakes conflict. What stops the characters interests reverting to their previous lower stakes state once survival is successfully resolved, other than possibly artificially stating that the survival situation creates a new superceding conflict of interests?
So here we have the priestess. Her interests are a) to stop practicing her obscure deprivations, and b) to have wild blasphemy-sex with the junior magician-monk.
Before she can accomplish either of those things, the magician-monks grab her - she tries to reason with them but they're resolute - and pitch her into a hole. Oh no, will she survive the snakes?
She does! She climbs out of the hole unscathed and shoots the magician-monks a withering look. Until she makes eye contact with the junior magician-monk, and her look ... changes.
That's what you're asking about, NS? Because as you can see, it works just fine. They've had their chance to win what they wanted, now it's her turn - and furthermore, now her turn is even more awesome. Resolving "do they get to test her?" and "does she survive?" contributes all kinds of oomph to "does she screw the guy?" when we return to it.
It works in the other order, too. Rewind to the opening situation, and:
The priestess steals the junior magician-monk away in the night and, man, he never even imagined. But the next morning, the couple wake to find themselves surrounded by most of the order. The magician-monks look very, very serious. The chief lecturist and one other are digging the pit nearby and rounding up the venomous spiders.
Will they get to test her? It's waaaay more oomphy than it used to be.
See how that works?
