thread: 2006-05-17 : Six straightforward examples
On 2006-05-17, Charles S wrote:
If the other player has to treat your character's attack as having happened, then you have asserted authority, so there was push involved. DatE resolution of the push has very little pull (although the bribe form of DatE does have the pull of handing over tokens, which is an invitation to the other player to take control of the scene from the point where their character is thrown off the roof). DitM has more pull, since it offers the other player (or the group) the opportunity to decide what happens next.
However, although it has since dropped out of the formal definitions, Mo's original description of push and pull talked about the difference between
- Push-push back
- Push-accept
- Pull-respond
- Pull-ignore
So if your action involves a clear push along a particular axis, the fact that your push produces an opportunity for the other player to push back does not make your action also a pull, it is just that pushes do invite a response as well.
I actually think that both of these formulations are correct, although we probably need some way of more clearly distinguishing them.
There is a level at which most actions which involve a push also invite a response (and inviting a response is a pull), and most actions that involve a pull also involve a push (saying "my character doesn't notice his enemy sneaking up on him, and continues to dangle his feet over the edge of the roof" is an assertion of fact based on your authority), but actions can also be viewed as a whole as being either pushy or pully, and I think that that is related to whether the assertion involved is the important part.
Hmm, another way of saying this:
If we are already in the middle of a potentially lethal fight scene, then saying "my character tries to throw your character off the roof" may be more pully than pushy, since the assertion that your character tries to do this is not significant, we already know your character is trying to kill mine, so you are merely inviting me to say what happens next. If our character were having an argument, and you have your character escalate to attempted murder, that assertion is the important thing, and you just resolved it using DatE. Now we move on to my response (accept or push back), but a push has happened.
Actually, who narrates is probably important to whether it is pull or push. If you declare that you try to throw me off the roof, and that means that I describe what happens next (consent based RP), then you have pushed if your character attacking mine is a significant development, but you have also pulled by giving me the opportunity to narrate. However, if you declare that your character tries to do this, and that means that I either accept, and you describe what happens next, or I reject and describe what happens instead, then there isn't a pull. I have to reject your input to get to do my own input. Unless (as in some of TonyLB's Capes examples on Story-games) your intention was that I would reject your atttempt and so take narration rights, in which case your push does have a pull, since you were actually soliciting my input.
Which relates up to Ben's comment that FitMt is not pull, since FitMt gave the narration rights at the end to the pushing player, not to the pulled player.
