[PTA] Driving Towards Conflict
David Berg:
Quote from: David Kay on December 20, 2011, 12:30:19 PM
2. During stake setting, the Producer has to push players to come up with stakes that involve their character's Issue (if they haven't done it on their own). Ultimately only the player can decide what their stakes in a conflict are. The Producer's role is more along the lines of making interesting suggestions.
Are there any other techniques that the Producer should employ (before, during, or after conflicts) to help drive players towards interesting conflicts? I'm asking this on a really basic level; don't assume that something you do is so obvious that I would already know to do it. I might, but it would help me to spell it out.
My buddy Jeff applies that "push players to address their character's Issue" m.o. at all phases of play. The method varies, though:
During scene framing, it'll be a quick check-in: "Does this seem important to you, and worth playing through? If you're not sure, check your Issue."
During roleplaying a scene before identifying a conflict, it'll be a watchdog approach for when players flounder or get aimless: "Is there anything you really want out of this situation? If you're not sure, check your Issue."
These are facilitator techniques and can be employed by anyone at the table; so, depending on your group vibe, you might want to encourage others to use them too. Once everyone starts getting good at the game, then you can phase out anything that feels too hand-holdy or intrusive.
As far as techniques for using NPCs to create juicy conflict, whether it's time to create NPCs or roleplay them, I fall back on "deal with the devil" when I'm drawing a blank. That is, one of the following:
1) "I can get you something you really want! But in exchange, I need you to do something that's extreme in terms of your Issue." (E.g. "loyalty" - sell out an ally to the mob, "family" - never see your brother again, "empowerment" - trade in your Girdle of Giant Strength.)
2) "I am going to really fuck you up! The only way to stop me is to do something that's extreme in terms of your Issue."
That's Plan B. Plan A is to just do something that inspires me and that I'm confident will be cool based on gut & experience.
Hope this helps,
-David B.
Ron Edwards:
Hi David,
My goal is to stay concrete, but given limited time, I might fail a bit. Let me know if anything I write here slips away from exactly what people do.
What I'm seeing from your account is that in traditional/railroady terms, the GM had to do ... well, nothing. Which is part of the AW design or more accurately, that of the family of games it's drawing from (The Riddle of Steel, Sorcerer, others). You played Smith, you provided his motivations, you had Smith take action, you drew upon previously played material, and so on. At first glance, it looks like the AW GM is much like an interlocutor in the later works of Plato, the kind whose "argument" is generally limited to repeating, "Yes, Socrates."
But that's not true. The GM is Moving too. He's not doing so because he's secretly guiding and tracking the plot. He's doing so as something else. I could go into that "something else" at length, but that's not your question, is it? Your question is how.
OK, it's simple actually. Character actions are made of both scene framing and narrated events. Both are much more distributed across GM/player/other players that anyone likes to think about. You wrote that "Earlier Smith had the chance to use deep brain scan on Traffic," and I say, look closely. "Had the chance." How exactly, exactly did that happen. Did you have to traverse dangerous adversity to get that chance. Did you move Smith to get near Traffice at all? Did the GM place Traffic there? In fact, did the GM place Smith there?
You don't need to answer those questions for me, only for you. My point is that there are many ways to have found those two characters, doing the actions they were doing, in that location, such that in retrospect you can now say, "Earlier Smith had the chance to use deep brain scan on Traffic. Those many ways are all variations on who framed the scene(s) and how, and on what the characters were initially doing as assumed/said by whom. In that sentence, both "who" and "by whom" can include both player and GM at different times and in different ways.
PTA rules are very, very well made to get many of those ways into play ... if you use them exactly as written, which is a tragically rare phenomenon.
1. Scene framing is all done by you, the GM. I don't recommend using it to make character's decisions for them, e.g. framing right into the middle of a character's wedding when no such event had previously been involved (not a serious consideration anyway, I trust). I do recommend using three concepts.
i) What the character ordinarily does - job, habits, hobbies, necessary personal time, et cetera.
ii) What happened recently, if anything, which implies the character might be doing something different.
iii) Whom the character would really rather not deal with at this moment - unexpectedly/expectedly, likes/doesn't like, whatever, doesn't matter. For whatever reason.
Bear in mind that you are really and actually playing the character in framing the scene, however fleetingly and tacitly, but quite concretely. Be sure to validate and appreciate him or her in doing so, in such a way that the player knows you get the character. And don't ever, ever share the task of framing that scene in PTA. The rules give it only to you.
2. The best way to do conflicts in PTA is not to. Or rather, not to engineer, discuss, plan, or set them up, as a committee. That is horrible ass and it's not what the rules say, although God knows why people read them that way so often. Instead, given a scene framed according to the points above, go with these points:
i) Everyone says what their characters say and do, including you as GM
ii) You then make sure everyone at the table knows what now looks different: changes in character's locations and body language, anything in the environment which joins in, relevant bits or points of the scene's location
iii) Repeat (i), then (ii)
Now, presuming we're talking about a Conflict Scene in the first place, sooner or later some character will do or say something that another character wants to stop, subvert, or retaliate against. There, that's the conflict, and it's time for the cards.
What I'm saying is that just because it's been designated as a Conflict Scene does not, not, not ever mean anyone has to know what the conflict is at the start!! When Matt says "Drive toward Conflict," he really means "Find it in what's happening when it happens," and nothing else. Not "engineer it" - rather, "don't miss it."
Annndd, drum roll, my final point - Stakes are actually a minor subset of the bigger issue of "conflict." I'm saying that if you do #2 right (which entails #1 sometimes doing the heavy work even before then), then the Stakes for a given conflict will be so obvious and easy that you'll wonder what the big deal ever was. People fuck this up constantly, calling conflicts then debating Stakes tediously, or yelping out Stakes in the absence of interesting conflicts.
Rim-shot! And the skills for #1 and #2 are very, very much the same things you'll find listed as the GM's Moves in Apocalypse World.
So you're really all set, already. Go to it. Do not ever pre-plan or storyboard or shoehorn ... or God help us all, get into those horrible bad-PTA planning/chat/not-play muddles. Frame as stated, thinking of it as Moves. Play the NPCs as makes most sense, thinking of it as Moves.
Let me know if that helps or makes sense.
Best, Ron
David Kay:
Ron:
That all makes sense. I think I knew those things already, but had twisted myself around into believing that there had to be more to it. For now I think my questions have been answered.
Thanks to everyone who replied.
David
czipeter:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on December 26, 2011, 07:44:40 AM
1. Scene framing is all done by you, the GM.
But what about this:
Quote
Creating a Scene
Scene creation starts with a request from a player. In play, everyone takes turns requesting a scene, and the player whose turn it is to make a request must declare three things to the producer: the scene’s focus, the scene’s agenda, and its location.
I think this invalidates (i) and (ii) as well. Am I mistaken?
Ron Edwards:
Shoot. You're fight, I have to modify my point. I will follow up soon.
Best, Ron
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