Hi all,
While looking over the hooks, I got pretty confused by the wording of the Danger Hook Impulse for “Danger vs Mundane”, which is “To interrupt dangerous situations”. Does this mean that NPCs are barging in and meddling with the PC’s business, afraid they’ll go too far, do the wrong thing, etc.? Or is it that the PC is driven to interrupt and interfere in dangerous situations, painting them in a more dangerous light?
Likewise, the other Impulse – to mistrust and provoke – could easily apply to both the NPCs that suspect the PC and label them a Danger (perhaps provoking them to become the Danger), OR could apply to the PC, whose suspicion and provoking of enemies makes them seem dangerous…
The rest of the hook (understanding by those close, fear by others) works perfectly for a PC in my game, and I know exactly how to push them towards either Label, so I don’t particularly need this question resolved. I’m just curious, heh!
Thanks!
Sub
I think it applies to the PC, so that the GM must construct these situations for them.
So, your Dangerous Bull is going to be mistrusted and provoked by the goings on in your story.
Your Mundane Beacon is going to be walking to school and stumble upon a bank robbery or kids getting bullied or the scene of a car accident or something.
Does that make sense?
The impulses here are meant to help guide the GM in how to play NPCs, from a somewhat meta viewpoint, so you can construct situations that put the PCs into interesting positions (the way Troy Ray suggests).
So for example, if you have a Danger vs Mundane pairing for your game’s Bull, then the NPC Hook for Danger is going to have an impulse to mistrust and provoke the PC, while the NPC Hook for Mundane is going to have an impulse to interrupt dangerous situations.
Putting more fiction to it, let’s say Toro is the Bull. Toro has been taken in by Aoife Keegan, a high school guidance counselor (and Grasshopper’s mom) NPC. Aoife is trying to get Toro enrolled in school, so she’s pushing Toro to be more Mundane—she’s the Mundane Hook NPC.
Meanwhile, Rosa Rook is responsible for Toro’s creation, and she’d love to get her mitts back on Toro—which means she wants to raise public mistrust of Toro to the point that Toro is made a pariah and driven away from everyone around her, where Rook can get her back. Rook winds up being the Danger Hook NPC.
So, when you’re playing Aoife as a GM, you’re going to be “interrupting dangerous situations.” In context, that means Toro is punching a robotic dinosaur when she gets a call from Aoife, asking her if she’s turned in the necessary paperwork to enroll in high school. Or, Toro leaps out of her classroom to go attack Photovore on the school’s front lawn, but Aoife shows up to insist that Toro should let the police or other authorities handle it. Aoife will interject and interrupt dangerous situations with Mundane demands on Toro, thanks to her impulse.
Similarly, when you’re playing Rook as a GM, you’re going to be mistrusting and provoking the PC. So Rook is going to harp on Toro’s dangerous actions in after-action news reports and interviews. When Toro confronts Rook, Rook is going to provoke Toro to Danger-ous action, saying that Toro is nothing but a science experiment to force Toro to overreact. Rook is going to ensure that law enforcement is equipped with special anti-Toro defense measures while informing them that she’s a dangerous and violent person.
The point is that these impulses should help you, the GM, to think about how best to use these NPCs to really poke and prod the PC in particular directions, and push them to define themselves against these external forces. Will Toro acquiesce to Aoife’s demands to go back inside the school? Will Toro give in to Rook’s prodding and show herself to be a true danger? Play to find out!
Hope that helps!
That does help! I now see what I was missing – when the book says (for example) that “a Freak hook [drives] the the PC into isolation”, they are referring to the character or group you chose to represent the Freak hook! Got it!
Thanks so much, both of you! Especially for the extended example!