[Best Friends] A doubt about pushing
Gregor Hutton:
Sorry it's taken me a little time to get to this as I've been getting ready for some longer-service leave (and a long holiday it will be too). Anyway, now that I'm here in a northern Wyoming with internet I can answer it.
Ron is right in his post. So look out for three things:
(1) who hates you for whatever (since they will have to give a chip to you when they push)
(2) who you hate for whatever (since they're the ones that you'll have to push chips to)
(3) what the Petty Hatreds are rated at for those characters and for you.
Sometimes you'll hate someone for being Tougher and they are (i.e. the group agrees they're Tougher than you).
Sometime you'll hate someone for being Tougher who has the same Tough as you (and it's sometimes the case they feel the same way about you)
Sometimes you'll hate someone for being Tougher and they're not, but crucially you still think they are.
You might not agree with the group's view of other characters. That's life! It's also where the little interconnected webs of relationships live.
Even the Toughest character with Tough 5 (say you had 6 players and everyone voted Tough for one character) hates someone for being Tougher than them! Even though we all agree she is Tough-Tough-Tough, she still has a petty hang up about someone else that showed a Toughness once that she thinks she doesn't have. Does that make sense?
And your examples looked fine to me.
1. Cordelia uses her Pretty (which is higher than Willow's) to make Willow do something.
2. Willow pushes (and the chip goes somewhere, maybe to Cordelia or maybe to someone else depending on who Willow hates) and Willow now wins, saying how it happens.
3. Cordelia can push back and re-assert her winning. To do so she has to push a chip to someone else (whoever she hates for being Prettier than her, it might even be Willow!) and she says how it happens.
4. Willow and Cordelia can't push again, so that's how it is unless someone else pushes on Willow's behalf (sending a chip to whoever they think is Prettier). Why would they do that? Maybe to help Willow, making to thwart Cordelia, maybe because it's just right.
5. That's how it it unless someone now pushes back to help Cordelia. Repeating 4 and 5 until no one can push anymore or the players who haven't pushed are happy with how it is. Most times only the involved parties push their chips, but when things really bite then chips start flying from everybody.
And Buffy is a great example as the key thing is that these are Best Friends. These are characters that have deep bonds with each other but have petty little hatreds about their status in the group. Cordelia trying to peer pressure Willow into sleeping with Jason when Willow wants to save herself for Oz is great!
The example in the book is based on the film The Descent by the way (I was lucky enough to be at its premiere just before I finished writing Best Friends). It's a great horror movie about an all-female group exploring caves. I'd recommend anyone to check it out.
Ron Edwards:
I did forget to complete one of my paragraphs.
Quote
It seems to me that your second example might best be resolved by turning away from what Willow wants or feels, and more toward what happens at the prom. Who knows, maybe Willow was even momentarily convinced by Cordelia, and then Cordelia is so God damned pretty that Jason doesn't notice Willow after all. So afterwards, Willow has "won" in the sense of Cordelia not having achieved her goal.
Or more simply, and if you did want to stay with the more psychological context of the conflict, then you might say that Willow
Here is the completed second paragraph:
Or more simply, and if you did want to stay with the more psychological context of the conflict, then you might say that Willow completely accepts that Cordelia is prettier, but determines that she herself (Willow) will be as pretty as she can be, and damn Cordelia anyway ... and of course, in this moment, fueled in part by her frustration at being in the shadow of pretty-pretty Cordelia all the damned time (that's the Push), she ends up being prettier than Cordelia without even realizing it. Here, Willow has won because she is prettier just for this moment, plain and simple, and the group has to come up with some sort of reasonable explanation for why Jason doesn't go after her. Such explanations are so easy and also so diverse that specific examples might even be counter-productive. I'll risk it though: my point is that the details of the plot-outcome are not constrained by any feature of the mechanics, and can range from Jason getting stomach flu and not showing up, or Jason being unable to get through the throngs of turned-on guys who mob Cordelia at the prom, or Jason becoming bashful and shy because he thought plain little Willow would be an easy pity-fuck, and now she's this goddess. Or any one of a thousand other things.
Best, Ron
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