I’m trying to hack something together, and I keep getting the feeling it would be useful to understand the interplay between fiction and mechanics better, but I was having trouble articulating it.
I figured I’d start with a game that I know and love, which is Monsterhearts.
Originally shared by Michael Prescott
This is going to bear some explanation. I was curious about the internal economies of the game, so I made a diagram that shows the relationships between
Ovals are moves, rectangles are tracked quantities, and dotted ovals are fictional situations.
An arrow means ‘leads to’, either because a move creates that quantity or fictional situation. Strings lead to advantages, for example.
More subtly, arrows can also mean ‘consumed or becomes’, as is the case when Conditions are removed by Share the Pain.
Double lines indicate a subject switch. So the single line between Fear and Hold Steady means your fear becomes a need to hold steady. The double-line between a String and Fear means your String turns into someone else’s fear (the need to hold steady).
What the hell?
I’m doing this just to understand the interplay between moves, quantities and fiction. I’m noodling on a hack of my own, and I wish I had a diagram like this for it, so I thought a diagram for a game that works well might help me along.
Caveats:
Forgive the arranging, I know it’s hideous right now.
This diagram obviously leaves out the enormously important role of “da fiction” which surrounds everything.
There are probably several errors.
Interesting. Any insights from doing this?
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Yes, a few. First of all, MH’s fruitful void is probably under-represented here. For one thing, I didn’t put any GM moves, which regularly prime the pump with non-mechanical situations, so there should be more dotted ovals.
Some superficial realizations, like the way the Volatile moves are all circling around Darkest Self. Dark really does feel like the weakest of the stats – only one move and it’s usually done by yourself. Once you layer in the adult moves, Hot and Cold feel much more dynamic.
Now, in terms of my hack, I did find it inspiring. I’m fresh out of a somewhat humbling playtest of my basic moves, where the conversation really wasn’t about what I hoped it would be. Move triggers are tyrannical compared to one-roll systems like BW: they jump in unbidden, seize control, and then drop you off wherever they like, your inspiration be damned. So it’s really important to have the right set. (Duh.)
Anyways, back to diagramming. What I started doing for my hack was writing down the stuff I want to be talking about, then drawing lines to represent the flows between them. Following a bit of advice from Stephen Shapiro, I squinted a bit to look at my candidate stats as alternate styles for dealing with conflict. (In contrast to the Regiment, where the stats are a little more like aptitudes for dealing with different types of conflict.)
I was reluctant to do this in the past because I dislike one-move systems where you can simply name your best stat by coloring how you approach the problem.
However, this diagram made me realize that while different approaches all be equally applicable, they can have completely different side effects in terms of the other topics I care about.
So in went my candidate stats/conflict styles, and a fresh batch of arrows.
Some of my words are things like ‘cohesion’, ‘initiative’, ‘situational awareness’. You can fight off a spider using panic; this is like an injection of hypnotic chaos into the situation – your screaming will doubtless drag in the attention of your companions (and away from the other spiders), reducing situational awareness but leveling the playing field between attacker and victim.
This is very different than fighting off a spider using planning, which involves teamwork, coordination, situational awareness and time.
So, none of this is moves and quantities yet, but what occurs to me is that once you have a diagram of concepts and the flows between them, you can make design decisions: looking at it simplistically, it’s a matter of deciding which concepts on the diagram become moves, which become quantities (like harm, stats or strings), and which become fictional – mentioned by mechanics, but not treated mechanically.
Panic, for example, could be a quantity (when you fight off an unseen foe, on a 7-9, take +1 panic); Panic could be fictional, and part of a trigger (when you panic, discard all alertness but take +1 forward to your blind struggle). Panic could be a stat! When you use blind rage to fight off, get away or push through, roll +PANIC. On a hit, you On a 7-9, choose: there’s collateral damage; you have no awareness of what went down.
(That last one is pretty awesome if I do say so myself!)
Anyways the point I’m making is that once I’ve decided that panic is a thing I want in the game, somehow, and I’ve recorded some thoughts about how it relates to other things I care about, moves just fall out of the air.
Of course, it’s all just first-draft stuff that needs endless iteration, but it’s looking like a promising design tool.
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Specifically on panic, it seems like an emergent set of behaviours, which aren’t exactly on the diagram but implied in several places. Basically there are patterns of activity that build fiction and create situations to further them. It seems like panic is that sort of circuit. You want the PCs to behave like they are in a panic regularly. Much like MH PCs behave like self centered children or horny teenagers.
“when you panic, discard all alertness but take +1 forward to your blind struggle” – I like this one myself. It mechanically states “your giving up any chance of succeeding in one means, but upping your chances in another one” in a way triggered directly by the fiction
So right.. I was just noodling on panic (though I think the results are neat), but the key thing for me here is that there are different ways to render the conversational topics into mechanics, so that’s a handy tool for brainstorming.
Functional analysis is always good. Thanks for your work.