# The Uses of Terrifying Freedom and the Map to the Subtle tags: #articles/soap-opera ![[Soap vs Action.png]] So I'm going about my business, as I often do on social media the other day, and I'm surfing through Mastodon, to discover a fairly interesting question had been posted: ## The Blowing of Minds (a thread) > [!help] [**Jens Reineking** @ Mastodon](https://social.vivaldi.net/@mrgroknroll@mastodon.social/113685470712480817) > Looking for a rules-light, classless RPG system to use for Spelljammer-inspired, homebrew setting. > > It should allow for all kinds of weird and over the top events, characters and magics. > > I'm currently looking at \#RisusRPG but would like to have an alternative as well. As we all know, *this is my jam*. This is the moment I was born for. I'm ready to shine, ready to jump up and do the right thing because I have the right tool in hand. I'm ready to go. > [!info] [**LexTenebris** @ Mastodon](https://social.vivaldi.net/@lextenebris/113685827080749457) > My vote? > > **[[Wushu]]** (https://danielbayn.com/wushu/). > > Ridiculously fast, incredibly lean, and it inherently allows for as much over-the-top action (or as little) as you are inclined to have at your table, though it does lean toward the former. > > If I were going to bust out a lightweight **[[Spelljammer]]** game and I wanted a traditional GM/player dichotomy (of sorts), **Wushu** would be the game that immediately jumped to hand. It doesn't hurt that it's completely free along with all of its supplemental text. > > Character sheets can fit on a 3x5 card with room to spare, so it really is good to go. Plus, it has a little more structure than **[[Risus]]**, which I find to be a bit more satisfying. This led to a discussion, which I've had on more than one occasion, about more than one open and freeform game which focuses on action in which the assertion is made that it's not a *generic game*. That is, it's not generically applicable to all kinds of conflict resolution, but only and specifically high action conflicts. I suppose this is an easy hole to fall into when it comes to exposure because thinking about conflicts of all sorts in the more general sense is not something that people are trained much to do. Perhaps it's very particularly a writer's trick. Or perhaps understanding how narratives are essentially self-similar across genres is a lost art. I came busting out with the idea that, in fact, **Wushu** is *heavily* generic, and you can use it in situations you might not otherwise have considered and it will do extremely well. > [!help] [**AndreasDavour** @ Mastodon](https://social.vivaldi.net/@AndreasDavour@dice.camp/113686275532161673) > not very generic in feel, I meant. It has its very specific feel. But, sure it can work in many settings. Not much for progression and scaling, no. > [!info] [**LexTenebris** @ Mastodon](https://social.vivaldi.net/@lextenebris/113686301763833376) > It *is* pretty generic in feel. You just have to have a certain approach to imagining what counts as an action instead of over-the-top, killer action movie actions. What if you make pleasant, off-handed, biting social commentary actions? Suddenly you're in a comedy of manners trying to navigate the complexity of a Victorian tea party. > > Shift your focus to actions like subtle expressions of emotion and tentative give and take, and you can be having a very delicate discussion between father and son regarding their personal differences, perhaps to bury the hatchet or to make their disillusionment with one another permanent. > > The tools only specify that the players engage in a series of narratively connected gambits. They don't specify *what those gambits are*. You can use any kind of action you want to gather dice. That's where the genericism of the architecture kicks in. > > It's particularly easy to imagine that you can do any physical over-the-top action you want, and it counts to build the pool. But it's only a small step from there to realize it doesn't have to be. That's where things get interesting. > [!help] [**AndreasDavour** @ Mastodon](https://social.vivaldi.net/@AndreasDavour@dice.camp/113686822292871013) > huh! I think I've just had my mind blown. Interesting… ## Narrative Expansionism So I've been sitting on this for several days as we march through the Christmas season, and it occurs to me that there's a common thread when I run into this inability to make the next step into realizing that once you're given the tools to adjudicate conflicts, the nature of the conflict no longer matters. The same tools are applicable to hanging out of a sports car facing backwards firing a .357 Magnum in each hand while dropping one-liners, as being at your best friend's wedding and gently rebuffing the advances of his drunk sister who's trying to get you into bed because she's jealous of the bride. Notionally, these are *very* different things, but narratively, they are *very much the same* thing. You can envision this as a discussion of topology. In topology, everything with a single hole through it is roughly equivalent. Everything with two holes through it is roughly equivalent. Everything with three holes through it is roughly equivalent. As long as a thing has a countable number of penetrations, it's equivalent. It can be massaged, manipulated, twisted, turned, or warped into being any other thing that has the same countable number of penetrations. ^[This is, of course, a deep simplification and you should not use it to pass your college topology classes.] It occurred to me that I really should give some examples that are straightforward and yet reveal how these things are similar and can be similarly manifested using **Wushu** as the mechanism of resolution. Hold on to your tiny hats. ### High Action Fantasy We're going to start with the simplest example. The one that immediately comes to mind when you first read **Wushu** is the classic Asian bullet ballet setup where a group of characters have to deal with an attack from a bunch of mooks followed by the big boss. It's not necessarily a climactic scene, though it could be. You find these in every single action genre, and it's a staple for a reason — it's deeply badass. This time let's go with something simple but because it's Christmas I'm going to go outside my usual comfort zone and set up a fantasy scene for you. Imagine if you will a party of beleaguered adventurers. - The grizzled warrior leading the way torch upheld **(Veteran of a Thousand Winter Wars: 4)**. - The young, inexperienced ice mage, underdressed for the snow and looking resentful about the whole thing **(Acolyte of the Ice Sorceress: 4)**. - The hunter, seeking enough prey to feed his family and village, out in the cold with this pair because they've heard an enormous boar has been spotted in the area **(Cunning Hunter: 4)**. The GM decides that this really shouldn't be that big a deal so takes three points of Threat for each character and puts it in a pile for a total of 9 Threat. The poker chips gleam with malice. Then he throws in a separate pile of 3 Threat and tells the party that this represents the dangers of the environment that they have to deal with before they find the boar itself. The hunter figures he can knock this one out without too much trouble so offers up the following: > **Hunter:** > I leap up into a tree in order to get a better look at the surrounding forest (+). From up there I see disturbed undergrowth which generally indicates animals have been passing through (+). A cold breeze makes me shiver and snowflakes accumulate on my eyebrows before I've come back down and guide the others to where I saw the trail (+). Notice how I've marked this. Each of these (+) points represents an element which gets the character a die for their pool; you earn dice by describing details. These are the ones that *I* would give dice out for but other GMs may be more or less generous. Also notice that *there is no question that all of this stuff happens just as the player says*. That's the way **Wushu** works. If you say it, it's true. The dice don't determine what you can do, they only determine how *effective* it is. Since the threat isn't coming from a single character that makes any difference to us it's just assumed that it gets one success by default. But how about the hunter? He'll throw 2d6 in Yang dice (aggressive) and 1d6 Yin (defensive), looking to roll equal to or under 4, his Trait **Cunning Hunter**. > 3d6 - [3, 4, 1] Lucky! Three successes. If the last hadn't been a success he'd have lost a Chi point. Need to buy defense and are out of Chi? You're in trouble. But that's only two successes toward taking out the Threat of tracking the boar. One remains; the boar is not yet found. > **Ice Acolyte:** > I've had enough of this pussyfooting around with the trail fresh in front of us, I draw the power of the western wind underneath my cloak, and raise my hands in ritual incantation (+). The snow shudders and shifts before six-inch high spikes of ice claw their way up through the slightly melted prints of the boar's path (+). In two or three places throughout the undergrowth, small animals are impaled before they can escape (+), adding a bloody red cast to the trail (+). > > With a sneer, I pull my cloak back down around me and tuck my hood closer to my face before trudging off along the line my magic has forged (+). The Acolyte has clearly had enough of these shenanigans, and the player is looking for an opportunity to show off. So goes for the maximum number of dice she can have at a go, however she's not entirely self-destructive so it becomes 3 Yang, 2 Yin. > 5d6 - [1, 5, 4, 3, 4] Of the first 3, her Yang dice, she has 2 successes which is plenty enough to finish the hunting Threat. Her last two are successes so her Yin easily defends her from the single environmental attack success. Which means it's time for the big boar boy himself. > **GM:** > You make your way down through the bracken and the increasingly dense undergrowth following the spiky footprints of the boar as it drags you ever deeper into the mountain valley. Finally, you stand before an unexpected thing: an actual cave. Large enough for a tall man to stand upright as he walks into. Not a typical boar's den, you almost wish you had brought more torches as you go inside, though you are smart enough to hesitate. What do you do? The party decides that they feel confident chasing this beast into its own lair. So between them and the GM, they negotiate getting deeper into the caves. Along the way, they make tests to erode that stack of 9 Threat, but eventually, the warrior actually blows a Yin roll that he is overconfident about, taking a point of Chi damage, leaving him at 2 before the big fight. Finally, the characters corner the boar in his den, and the Big Pig is represented by what is effectively another character, but with 4 Chi. The GM will make moves just like the players, and they will be resolved in the same way. There is no static order of events because narration occurs until everyone is either done or has hit the maximum number of details they can add for this particular round (which remains 5). Players and the GM bounce off each other in order to set up what they want to accomplish. > **GM:** > The boar stands an easy two men tall at the shoulder (+), with enormous ivory tusks already stained with blood from the farmsteads that he has rampaged through (+). His little beady black eyes stare at you with clear malicious intent (+). That's the GM already banking 3 diced for the boar. (Its Trait? **Boar of Legend: 5**.) > **Hunter:** > I smile in the satisfaction of knowing we will be able to fill the larders in the village for winter (+). One simple, clear pull and I send an arrow into the beast's left eye (+), causing it to rear back and let out a cave-shaking scream (+). The hunter's readying up with 3 dice to throw. > **GM:** > The boar slams its head into a stalagmite repeatedly until it can dislodge the arrow from the socket (+). Blood is dripping everywhere (+). The GM maxes, playing off the hunter. > **Acolyte:** > With a cold laugh (+), I make the sign of the Lesser Winter Wind and turn the beast's own blood to ice needles scattered across the floor in front of it, simply waiting to be stepped on (+). The wind itself creates a buffer around me (+). The sorceress is being cagey here. She fully expects to go heavy on Yin here to try and outlast the other two because she's a bit of a glory hound. She's lining up narration to do just that. > **Hunter:** > I push my way into the buffer of wind, my unbound hair flapping (+), then take a knee to prepare another arrow (+). Since the sorceress gave a solid narrative hook for a defense, the hunter uses it to excuse his own Yin investments. > **Warrior:** Bugger this for a lark, as all that is going on, I remove my double-headed broad axe from the sheath on my back and test the edge with my thumb, smiling in grim satisfaction. > > "Today we shall feast, and tomorrow that feast may be in Paradise," I say, with fatalistic intent. > > With a scream, I charge the boar as it is scattering its blood, narrowly picking my way through the ice needles and coming at the blind side. It simply cannot see me. > > The way the axe bites makes it seem like the steel hasn't been fed in months and the pig's ear joins its eye on the floor of the cave. > > The roar it gives and the ensuing thrashing throws me back against a stalagmite, but my armor keeps it from doing any real harm. The boar can't say as much about its thick hide. The Warriors player has decided to not screw around and simply filibuster, dropping a whole pile of details far more than the limit, just to grab the dice without having to count them out individually. Needless to say, he has all five neatly in hand. The hunter also has five dice for his details. The sorceress has three. How does this particular round resolve? Let's find out. **Boar:** 1 Ya/4 Yi = [1, 3, 4, 5, 1] = 1 att (on the Warrior) / 4 def **Warrior:** 4 Ya / 1 Yi = [4, 6, 6, 6, 4] = 1 att (on Boar) / 1 def (vs Boar) **Hunter:** 3 Ya / 2 Yi = [1, 3, 6, 1, 2] = 2 att (on boar) / 2 def **Acolyte:** 1 Ya / 2 Yi = [2, 3, 4] = 1 att (on Boar) / 2 def We figure out effectiveness in the aftermath of the rolls. The GM had the boar go primarily defensive because this is an early round, and he knows that he's outnumbered. He has a secret up his sleeve. Since the warrior attacked the boar directly, that's who's getting the one point of attack he has with four points of defense. The warrior goes all in on attack, but only manages to pull off a single success. Luckily, he did put one point in defense and made that one. So the boar's attack, not very effective on him. The hunter leans into an offensive mode and manages to get two successes on the boar, as well as two defense, but there is nothing to be defended against at the moment. The acolyte, who was playing cagey, manages to roll all successes, which gets her an extra one point of damage on the boar and two points of defense that goes wasted for the moment. The boar manages to come out the other side having taken no Chi damage at all, but luckily neither do the characters. The GM knows this needs to get a little more complicated, so he introduces a new pile of Threat representing a swarm of bats which have come out of the deep cave, disturbed by all the ruckus. They don't have stats of their own, but represent a generalized threat, and so are assumed to simply do one success of attack every round. And that's how action goes. ### Your Buddy's Wedding Action was *easy*. How about we take up another genre? In this case, your best buddy's wedding where he is finally getting married to the girl of his dreams. You and the rest of your friends have come to the chapel and are trying to make their way through the maze of twisty, turny, labyrinthine social passages in order to get to the wedding proper. Along the way, there are several threats — just not ones that would show up in your average action movie. Think about your favorite rom-com or, if you don't have a favorite rom-com, go watch one real quick, have a little bit of a laugh, and come back. Nothing ever comes easy in a romantic comedy, does it? There are conflicts between characters which require individual back and forth in order to resolve and sometimes the protagonists come out on top unburdened and sometimes they don't win. And when they don't win, circumstances go against them. They usually have a social stigma or narrative burden that follows them along. Just because it is not an *injury* doesn't mean that it's not an *injury*. Just because it's not *death* doesn't mean it's not *death*^[Though death is the most boring thing you can ever do to a character. Killing a PC is dull as dishwater. Once you kill them, you can't torture them anymore.]. It's a lovely wedding, so who's coming? - The best friend (**Can Sell Ice to Eskimos: 4**) - The nerdy tag along (**Strangely Irresistible to Women Who Want to Take Care of Him: 4**) - The complete dirtbag (**Friend to All Animals: 4**) The plan is to get the best friend to his Christmas wedding on time. It's been quite a trial so far from waking up in a hotel that nobody remembers going to and having to find the car to the trip down the highway, where it seemed like every bad driver in the world decided to get in your way. Somehow you managed to get through all of that early and now you just need to get the groom into his preparation room. Arrayed against you is a crowd full of family, several maids of honor who want to score because they feel old and undesirable, plus the bride's dad who never thought the best friend was good enough for her in the first place. The GM puts out 6 Threat representing needing to get the groom in on time, which has to be dealt with in order to resolve the scene. If that threat takes out the groom, he doesn't make it. There's also 4 Threat representing the bridesmaids, who don't target anyone in particular but definitely will slow you down and get in your way (reducing your Chi with their Yang successes). Oh yes, and there's the father who has **Father of the Bride: 5** in this particular engagement, and he's just looking to tear all of you down as either the slack best friend or his bunch of goony buddies. Obviously, narrating *physical violence* isn't going to be particularly useful here. Sure, you could, but it doesn't fit the narrative nor is it how you should deal with situations that come up in this context. *Physical slapstick humor*, on the other hand, is certainly possible. > **Best friend:** > As we pull up to the church, I mess up my hair (+) and turn my jacket inside out (+), pulling one arm inside in order to look like I only have the one (+). I am going to try and sneak in around the side and through the back without anyone recognizing who I am (+). > **The nerd:** > I don't see what the real problem is here (+). When we pull up, and as he's prepping I jump out and walk straight up to the father (+). I give him my biggest grin (+) and start with the handshaking (+). > **The dirtbag:** > I love a wedding, but more than that, I love bridesmaids. As nerd boy goes over to talk to the dad I roll up to the bridesmaids (+), put on my sleaziest smile (+), and ask, *"Hey ladies, have you heard me whistle at a bird?"*^[This joke might actually only land if the sleaze is an Englishman, so go hard in on it.] before beginning to whistle at them appreciatively (+). They're going to hate it (+). > **GM:** > All right, buddy boy is trying to deal with the sneak-in threat that's fine. The nerd went straight for the dad, but he doesn't really have any traits to deal with that, so he'll be rolling versus a target of 2. And the dirtbag isn't really using his **Friend to All Animals** even though he is using bird whistles, so he will also be rolling versus a target of 2. > > The dad does his best to crane his neck around the nerd looking for the groom (+)while generally trying to palm off the nerd's approach and push him aside (+). Somehow, he just keeps being in the way every time the father tries to take a step (+). Resolving this is easy. If the dirtbag doesn't manage to pull off at least one Yin success against the bridesmaids from his 4 dice he's going to get seriously razzed and deeply rejected, probably insulted pretty hard in the next round. He *was* smart enough to say up front as a detail that they are absolutely going to hate him whistling at them. You can narrate your own failures in order to assure your own long-term success. This is an incredibly useful technique. You get to determine some of the fallout by simply accepting it. The nerd has definitely chosen the wrong target for his 4 dice of awkwardness and is probably going to lose a point of Chi as a result, maybe more than one depending on how much the father really doesn't want to be influenced by him. The best friend is playing on his strength by going straight into a con, which may let him get through the main conflict in short order — but he could discover that the others need to be dealt with first, or that he ends up leaving his buddies to deal with them if he moves on without them. What could happen next round? The GM doesn't actually have to *narrate* anything for the ongoing threat of the groom being late, which is being addressed, or the bridesmaids, because they are simply handled as a group of mooks, and only the players have to deal with them as details. The father may or may not be influenced by the nerd getting in his way and could react very much like any other rom-com father in this situation by either going on the offensive against the nerd and telling him what he thinks, or just trying to disengage and look for a success on finding the groom before the groom can resolve getting into the back on time. The nerd and the dirtbag could decide to swap threats, which would probably be a good idea because the nerd is better equipped with *his* Trait to deal with unhappy unfulfilled bridesmaids, and distracting the father would be a good moment for the dirtbag to start *narrating in* family pets, which his Trait would give him an advantage in dealing with (and also can raise a significant ruckus at an outdoor wedding). Notice that the real heavy weight is carried by the GM setting up and deciding on Threats, which don't have to be physically threatening. They are better thought of as emotional, intellectual, or physical *conflicts*, which can have various kinds of outcomes. In order to narrate what that outcome is, you have to take the Threat off the table. Whoever takes the last point of Threat for that particular challenge gets to narrate how it's taken care of. We've done action. We've done comedy. That leaves us one major narrative possibility. ### Tears in the Snow Emotional drama is the bane of almost every tabletop role player I know, in part because most of them are on the spectrum to some degree and the best they can do is a remote analytical understanding of how emotions work and why people have them. Needless to say, they don't watch a lot of Hallmark holiday movies, where people have emotionally wrenching heart-to-heart discussions about their feelings and the things in their life that they feel like they are lacking. That's okay. No one learns except by doing, and no one is willing to accept doing unless they feel a certain level of security in failure being acceptable. In a sense, this is why humanity developed dating and courtship. But outside of that, we've also developed games, which allow us to play with ideas, which are not necessarily our own, in a way which is not likely to be damaging. You can swing a sword, you can jump off a cliffside, you can tell a joke, and you can have a heart to heart in a way that makes mechanical sense. So let's dip into the idea of the classic holiday movie with a woman who comes home from the big city to their small town, deals with their emotional issues with their parents, finds an old love, rekindles romance and possibly ends up in the rom-com we were just discussing, but only as a sequel. We're also going to violate one of the basic assumptions that people have about action games and **Wushu**, and specify in this case that there is only one GM and one player. The player is of course playing the [not-quite-Christmas cake](https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/13wh24d/calling_women_christmas_cake_thing/) protagonist who is a big city lawyer and comes back to her parents' South Dakota ranch for the Christmas holidays. They're estranged because they never really wanted her to go off and become a lawyer in Chicago, and part of the reason that she resents having to come back this year is because at a certain level she believes they were right: her dissatisfaction with the city and the people that she works with have been established in previous scenes, which brings us to a confrontation with her parents. The GM could set this up as a one-on-one duel between her and her father. Obviously, there aren't swords at play^[Unless you really wanted there to be; there's plenty of room for running a scene in which the actual swordplay is secondary to the byplay and the emotional conflict is the core of the scene, but we'll leave that as an advanced technique for later.]. It's the idea that these characters are at odds and have different desires for the outcome of their interaction that's important. In most action scenes, it's fairly obvious what the stakes of the conflict are: one side wants to hurt the other enough to stop them or kill them. Generally, it goes in both directions, though it needn't in every case. In scenes in which drama takes the center, it's best to make sure that the stakes are stated up front so everyone knows what the possibilities are and can make their details play toward one or the other. More shared information is better than less in order to make drama work. So, what are the stakes of this particular scene? The protagonist wants her father to express his pride in her accomplishments in part to reassure her that she made good decisions. Her father wants the protagonist to admit that she's unhappy, so that she can start to do something about that unhappiness. Note very clearly that these stakes are not oppositional; they could both be achieved, or they could both fail. One could be successful and the other not. How do you express this within the action-initiated structure of **Wushu**? Make each set of stakes a Threat. Play both the protagonist and her father as full characters who will be narrating details back and forth in order to gain dice, which allow them to make progress on their respective Threats. They can, of course, emotionally attack one another and probably *should* because taking the other person out of the conflict means that you can't *lose* your stakes, even if it leaves things unfinished. Is this starting to feel like high drama yet? In this case, you probably want to allow the characters to split their Yang dice across different targets. That means they're going to have to make choices about what they want to get the advantage on and what might have to be left on the table. This is a lot more complicated and a lot more nuanced than most of the action that we've been talking about, but that's not because it's inherently more complicated or nuanced. Scenes of high action can be incredibly nuanced with very narrow shades of fiction differentiating the things that are in play. It's simply that we are *used* to talking and thinking about them in ways that we are *not* used to talking and thinking about emotional conflicts. It's just a matter of shifting gears. So what does this look like? > **GM:** > It's December 23rd, and you're sitting in the kitchen of the farmhouse at the table you've known since you were a little girl. Your dad still buys the same brand of coffee, and it still smells exactly the same as it ever did. It's early, and your dad is coming down the stairs to find you. > **Protagonist:** > I've been waiting years to try and get his approval, and I think it's about time I made a serious press on it. > **GM:** > All right. 4 Threat on "Get her to admit that she's unhappy" from your father. > **Protagonist:** > Put 4 Threat on "Get him to admit that he's proud of me". > **GM:** > "So I heard that Chicago was having some real snow (+). Whole city shut down. It must be nice to be out of that mess, not have to worry about it (+). I remember the last time I was there, I was dropping off your mother at a hospital (+)." He puts down his coffee on the table with a pointed look. > **Protagonist:** > I sip on my coffee, avoiding the painful reminder (+). "It was pretty bad just before I left (+). I've seen worse (+). The year I made partner was pretty cold (+) but the apartment upgrade made it no big deal (+)." For the sake of brevity, we'll just assume they both have a relevant Trait of 4. Her dad's angling to note how shit Chicago is^[Facts.] as an angle on his stake Threat, along with one jab about her mother as a shot at her. The *"nice not to worry"* is a defense. **Father:** 1d "Admit unhappiness" / 1d shot / 1d defense = [1, 5, 2], so he pops Unhappiness down to 3, misses his shot at her, but has a point in defense. For her part, she goes big. A die in defense in acknowledging the reminder, another defense in acknowledging it being bad, strengthening herself with 1d attack on "Proud", another with her partnership, and a third on the upgrade. No shots at her father. **Protag:** 3d "Proud" / 2d defense = [5, 6, 3, 1, 1], only one success on Proud, taking it to 3, and no need for defenses.^[Yes technically each of these threats could be interpreted to be doing one point of attack against each of them, every round that needs to be defended against. But in this case, it's probably more sensible to treat the threats as a race condition. Whoever gets there first gets what they want, but they need to take the other person out of the conflict. directly before they get what they want] That was a tough set of dice. On to the next round: > **Protagonist:** > "Look, Dad, I know that I haven't made every choice that you wanted me to (+), but don't you think you can be at least a little glad about what I've managed to do? Just a little (+)? You know mom would have. (+)" Opening with a little defense since it's clear the GM's going for the throat, but follows it up with a shot to "Proud" and one straight at her father. I have no idea what's going on with her mom and neither necessarily do either of these players. The mom is just a concept floating around out there waiting to be narrated into position. It's a huge [Chekhov's gun](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chekhovs-gun), and both players know that they don't have to take it down from over the mantelpiece yet. But someone might at any time, which increases the scene's tension. > **GM:** > You take too much after your mother (+). She never wanted you to go off to Chicago (+). She wanted you to settle down with that nice Jake (+). You never had to leave. He was here the whole time (+). The GM's decided the dad's going all-in on offense here. The mother seems a sore point with both of them, so attack on our protag, followed by projective criticism, then two at "Unhappiness". No defense yet but he still has a detail in the bank to play. > **Protagonist:** > Jake's still around here? He never left? I'm sorry to hear that (+). He should have got out while he could. Now I'm sure he's stuck with some bitch wife and screaming kids (+). The protagonist had two details left for this round and put them both in defense. She's on the back foot and she knows it. > **GM:** > He never settled down after you (+). Finally, the father puts up a little bit of a block countering that last jab. Maybe it'll be enough and maybe it won't. Let's see what the dice say. **Protag:** 3d def / 1d att Father / 1d "Proud" = [3, 1, 4, 5, 6] = 3 def / 1 att Father **Father:** 2d att Protag / 2d att Unhappiness / 1d def = [2, 6, 5, 5, 2] = 2 att Protag / 1 def It's another round in which neither side seems to be able to get a foothold. The protagonist is largely immune to her father's barbs, but for his part, he's shrugging hers off as well. Neither one seems to be able to get the other to concede ground on the stakes either. This is a knockdown, drag-out, emotional ringer, and things will probably escalate until someone starts making some telling points. All the time, the question of who's going to bring the mom in is hanging overhead. *And what of Jake?* ## Exunt I think you get the idea conflict from a narrative and fictive point of view doesn't care if it is action-oriented and grounded in the physical or emotional. All that matters is that there are two sides who are committed to getting what they want. As long as you can figure out what those things are and communicate them clearly, you can use them as mechanical signposts for building game mechanics around and it doesn't matter ultimately the underlying nature of those conflicts. In fact, being able to sensibly and reasonably resolve all kinds of conflicts using the same mechanical harness is a mark of good design. While it's not often considered when games that aren't about high-flying over-the-top action are brought up, **Wushu** is an excellent example of a game which absolutely delivers the goods on every level. And if you're willing to work with it and think about what you're doing, you can go well outside of the expected bounds and do things no one first have considered. After all, who would have expected **Wushu** to seamlessly do **[[Pasion de las Pasiones|Pasión de las Pasiones]]** or the Hallmark Channel? And yet here we are.