When a person with Influence tells someone who they are / how the world works, do you GMs tell the players which labels are eligible to be moved before they decide whether or not to reject their influence? Or after?
In my sessions so far, I’ve been doing it after the fact. “The Headmaster seems to be telling you who you really are. Do you accept his verdict or reject his influence?” I don’t make the shifts explicit, so there’s a bit of tension, but it’s usually obvious in context. If the Headmaster was lecturing you on responsibility and duty, you’re probably bumping Savior or Mundane up.
But I’ve seen examples in the recent drafts, and in other people’s play, where the GM announces what the shift will be if the PC doesn’t reject the influence.
So GMs, or players who can comment on your GMs’ behavior: how have you done it?
The descriptions in the expanded material have them spelling it out before they roll, to determine if they think the shift would be a good narrative growth for the character.
Honestly, I would have it as a conversation with the player and maybe even the table. Ask them what they think the shift should be and why. But I play all my PbtA games like this. I personally don’t know that it matters doing it before vs. after. The result is the same if you’re focused on your character and the story rather than mechanics.
Considering how these labels work spelling out the shift to the player seems appropriate in most cases, because usually the reason for making this shift is due to the nature of the message being given to you by that adult. “I think your dangerous, and your not helping people” Shift Savor to Danger, ect.
But also totally “This is what this adult is saying about you and what they think you did wrong, what shift do you think that would cause? Oh yeah, well are you willing to roll with that or do you want to resist”
PbtA games are all about the conversation, so whichever way you have that conversation, it still needs to be had.
Riley Crowder’s got it! The real reason to spell it out in advance is for the conversation, especially so the player doesn’t feel like it’s a gotcha—”Oh, wait, really? He’s shifting my +3 Freak up, which means I mark a condition? Oh, I didn’t understand that, I would’ve resisted.” If that happened, then you should probably walk it back and let them reject, anyway, so you might as well have that conversation up front.
You can often flag one of the two Labels that’s changing—the most obvious one—and then hold the second in reserve for when the change actually happens. Do this not out of some desire to keep it a surprise, but to keep focus on the most important elements of the decision. If it’s very obvious exactly which two Labels will shift—”You’re not a regular person anymore, you’re a freakish monster!”—then go ahead and flag both up front.
Like the game said. 🙂
I kind of prefer it not be spelled out in advance – it makes it story question rather than a a mechanics question that way.
I ask instead of tell. Start in the fiction “You’re not like other people, blah blah blah” and say “I think he’s moving up your freak and down your mundane.”
A player might say “It actually sounds like my Superior” and if that makes sense generally, we’d do that instead.
June Garcia, I feel like it does the opposite: having it up front means you can get straight to considering what’s right for the story and the character, while keeping it hidden means you have to consider all the things they MIGHT do.
Benjamin Davis
For me, it is about accepting what they said: “you should not kill villains” or ‘”you should concentrate on being a kid” or whatever they say vs accepting what it means to your stats.
Oh, I thought you were advocating “they’re trying to influence you, decide if you accept before you hear what they’re going to say”
You can Reject Someone’s Influence without disagreeing with them. It’s the classic drama of “YOU don’t get to tell me that!”
At our table we initially tried explicitly declaring the labels up-front but found that it felt really awkward mid-conversation and usually took us out of the scene. Suddenly giving a player a mechanical summary of the dialogue and having them look over their stats to decide whether they’d be okay with that label-shift broke the natural flow of the conversation at hand, and we found the mechanical focus was taking everyone’s attention away from what had actually been said.
There’s not much chance of a “gotcha!” — because like Adam Goldberg said, it’s open to discussion anyway if there’s conflicting ideas of which labels fit best — and our table would much rather keep the focus on whether our hero feels like the words and message presented ring true to them rather than whether getting a +1/-1 to a given stat seems beneficial right now.
To summarize: The important part is to avoid Gotcha moments. Have the conversation either before or after the roleplaying, but make sure to have it.
One way will be more awkward than the other for each table. Try them both. One will probably feel consistently less awkward over time. That’s the one you’ll go with for that group.