T13 is a Narrative Engine, which means you can use it to create narratives, whether a short-story or a twenty-volume epic fantasy novel series (theoretically, the most I have actually used it for is single Trilogy, with some associated short-stories, so far). Narratives in this sense can be created by a single Author, who can control and tweak every aspect of the narrative, Characters and conflicts from every side, or they can be created by a group of players, improvising a game together. Narratives work best when Characters are not just involved in the events that are occurring around them, but when their motivations and goals are linked to the Narrative that is being created. We call these huge lists of different types of potential motivations, Character Catalysts.
Catalyst Types
Characters have a number of baked in goals, motivations, drives, desires, wishes, urges, dreams, tensions and pressures upon them that all blend together. Some are internal to a Character, others are external forces created by Pacts, Plots or Events that belong to the Tapestry, but these are not the only types. Each type of Catalyst is a little different and enourages certain behaviours from the Character in different ways.
| Name | Description | Rules |
|---|---|---|
| Chaos Cause | Some Characters are just chaotic-neutral, they embrace the chaos of life over everything else, and often laugh the entire time. Sometimes they are anarchic pranksters, lawless jerks, illogical artificial intelligences, deranged lunatics, whimsically insane faeries, or young children, who don’t actually know what is going on. They do things impulsively and without pre-meditation, or for reasons that make no sense to anyone else. | Chaos Causes are events set in motion by random, whimsical, or nonsensical choices and decision-making. They may include pranks, misunderstandings and confusions that have nothing to do with the current Plot or Conflict. They can often include Vague, Unstable, Irrational and Odd Hitches, for example. Typically a Chaos Cause is an odd or strange event, without rational reasons, that may have repercussions or consequences, or may not. Typically, Chaos Causes are not a factor within a Plot, but a Character factor that affects the Plot’s eventual resolution. |
| Conflict Incitements | Narratives in T13 are Conflict driven, creating and inciting Plots and Sub-Plots. Plots in turn must incite Embodiments to act for them. So a Conflict can have a profound and direct affect upon a Character’s goals, wants and needs, both in the immediate and long-term periods. | Plots Hook Characters to become Embodiments within the Plot’s Conflict, this can include a direct Incitement, offering rewards and gains, as well as completing Quests and Ordeals as part of that Plot. Conflict Incitements also include Dramatic Prods, intended to push the Embodiment Characters deeper into the Conflict, and all the Tensions and Pressures that the Plot exerts upon its Embodiment Characters. |
| Dark Impulses | Within some Characters there are Dark Impulses, that can drive Characters to perform heinous and hideous crimes. Often this represents some “Evil” within the Character, but for some Characters these Dark Impulses are a fleeting thought, easily ignored, usually — if a little alarming at times. | Dark Impulses can be used by Yarn-Tellers and Authors to explore a Character’s inner Darkness and the secrets they are keeping. A Yarn-Teller may reveal during narration that a Character feels a Dark Impulse, however that Character’s Author or Player are the only ones who can say how the Character responds and reacts to the Dark Impulse. Most Dark Impulses for most Characters are fleeting thoughts, easily ignored and repressed, but for some they can become defining, especially if the Character acts upon them, even once. Dark Impulses can be dangerous to use in play without a Player being aware of the Dark Impulse before hand, and Players should always select their own Character’s Dark Impulses, never having them imposed by a Yarn-Teller or Author without discussion. Authors may suggest a numberof Dark Impulses and allow choice between them. It is worth noting that Dark Impulses not the same as Shadow Impulses, although they are related. |
| Economic Stimulus | Governments and Businesses encourage certain economic behaviours within society as a whole. People are paid to do certain tasks that society, or an individual with money, finds useful. Wages, taxes, dividends, profits and losses are all economic forces that pull on a Character’s time and efforts, but give them greater opportunities and access to more tools and expertise. | Everything has its price, and if society encourages someone to do a job for the benefit of everyone, you can bet they are getting paid (although probably not enough). Some apprenticeships, past-times, hobbies, internships and vocations, and most jobs, careers and professions pay a Character to do that job. Sometimes this may be tied to a Duty Hitch, but usually is not. Characters need money to pay rent, buy food, pay for medicines or taxes, so they will invest their time in making that money, usually through a steady job, or scraping by taking whatever is available in a gig economy. |
| Environmental Encouragements | If a building catches fire, you should want to leave, the same holds true if the roof cracks like it might be collapsing, dark muddy waters burst into the doors, or any one of a number of other reasons. Bad weather will keep the streets, beaches and parks empty, hot weather will drive people out to those same places. | Weather and environmental effects can enourage certain behaviour in the population. Typically the environment will have Dice suitable to generate Scores, draw cards and so on to encourage specific actions (usually via a Psychosocial Action Space). Characters are encouraged to dress appropriately for the weather, as heat stroke, frost-bite and hypothermia are swift and deadly kilers for those who are dressed too inappropriately. |
| Hitch Desires | The Desire Hitches are things that a Character wants, and feels they need. These can behave a lot like other sorts of motivation, encouraging a Character to perform certain actions and acquire certain objects. | Desire Hitches (and in fact all other Hitches) reward a Character with Chi when they are Triggered, this is to encourage the Triggering of the otherwise negative Hitch. Certain Hitches such as Dooms, Devotions, Duties and Desires can be quite effective at creating motivations in Characters, whether it is to get their fix, do their duty, fulfil their destiny, provide for their dependants, break their curse, or overcome their addictions. |
| Immediate Incentives | Sometimes Characters offer another Character a particular incentive to do something. This may be a promise, “If you return tomorrow, at dawn, I will train you”, or a (perhaps veiled) threat, “Drop the case, and you are free to leave.” | Immediate Incentives are often the consequences of roleplaying, a reward or punishment offered because it makes narrative and logical sense, but has no direct connection to the plot (usually). Typically Immediate Incentives are of the form of a condition that should be satisfied immediately and “reward”, which is sometimes just that the Stakes will not escalate. Immediate Incentives should be accepted or rejected and “paid” immediately (although the consequences of the Incentive may take a while to be achieved in hte case of training etc). |
| Oracular Encouragement | The Hexagrams of the I-Ching have been used as an oracle in China for a very long time. In T13, this oracular nature may be used to create situations that occur to the Character, and typically extracting oneself from the situation becomes an immediate Goal, or offers some incentive for a Character to act a certain way, where they Gain Chi or Stress for behaving in a certain preferred manner. | Each Character has an I-Ching that is defined by their Facets, each Hexagram has a way that the Character can make Gains of both Chi and Stress, and each changing line of the Hexagram defines a potential way the Character may Gain Yin or Yang. Quests and Situations are also defined by cards creating a Trigram or Hexagram that defines aspects of the Quest or Situation, this can include an immediate Goal that Embodiment Characters may achieve. Changing Lines typically further complicate the Quest and approaching that Goal. |
| Personal Proclivities | Each Character Persona suggests a Motivation, Avoid, and Shadow. These Persona Motivations drive that Character, encouraging them to seek certain situations and company and to behave a certain way. The Persona Avoid indicates what the Character wishes to avoid (which can be a more powerful drive than their actual Motivation). Finally the Persona Shadow defines the dark-side of the Persona, which can involve separate, darker goals, that a hero or heroine would want to avoid, but a villain might revel in. Persona Shadows may tie to or reveal a Character’s Dark Impulses. | Each Facet defines a Persona for a Character that has a Motivation, Avoid and Shadow. This is mostly expressed as a Chi Gain that the Character can always access, but additional Goals may become apparent. |
| Psychosocial Pushes and Pulls. | Within Psychosocial Spaces you will find areas that contain Drives for a Character, as well as Wishes, Urges, Passions, Secrets and Principles that all have ways of influencing and affecting the Character making them act certain ways. These represents meta-motivations that may activate or reprioritise the Character’s other goals and motivations. | Within Psychosocial Action Spaces Characters can be moved by both Pushes and Pulls. Pulls are attractive, drawing the Character closer to a certain Psychosocial Space or Location, Pushes are repulsive and move a Character away from a certain State or Location (Characters may be Pulled to their memories by a smell for example, or pushed away from memories by some fear). Typically Throw and Psych attacks are used to move a Character around their Psychosocial Spaces, and there is some similarity to Plot Suspense and Conflict Incitements. |
| Quest Spurs | When a Quest needs doing there is usually some reason the ardous adventure must be taken, often this is either some reward that will be granted to the Quester, or some threat that hangs over them until it is completed. Either are a Quest Spur, encouraging the Questor to push on into the dangerous, or demanding task required. | Quests usually have a threat and a potential reward for the Quester. Threats include potential disasters the Quest will avert, villainous masterplans that can be thwarted, dangerous monsters that haunt the area, personal revenges, unresolved enmities, the list is almost endless. Rewards are equally diverse, with accolades, prizes, bounties, treasures, as well as skills, knowledge, rank and even powers being bestowed upon those Questers who succeed. |
| Shadow Impulses | Sometimes the Dark Impulses of one Character can be experienced by another. This is commonly a result of psychic abilities, and is therefore heavily restricted by genre and seting, as well as Player discretion.The exact nature of the Shadow Impulses can vary greatly, from a sudden intrusive thought, through the shadowlands of self-destructive urges, into more violent and even darker places. Characters might feel a nearby vampire’s thirst, as though it were their own, or the shambling undead’s hunger for fresh meat, or still darker impulses from demons and Increated. | Shadow Impulses can be used to make horrible things happen to Characters and should be used with care only when applicable to the Plot, Genre and Setting, and with general agreement from the Players. Character’s should be encouraged to believe these Shadow Impulses are their own Dark Impulses, but Player’s should be aware of this difference, even though their Character will not be. This can allow them a greater depth of reaction from this intrusive thought that is not truly their own. Because of this a Yarn-Teller shoud only consider using Shadow Impulses on an experienced Player who can balance this ludo-narrative complexity, if you cannot trust the Player to not have the Character state “I am feeling a nearby Vampire’s thirst!” then perhaps you shouldn’t use Shadow Impulses on their Character. |
| Social Pressures | Easily understood as peer pressure, where because all your friends are doing something, you join in too. Society is always applying some subtle and some blatant pressures on Characters to conform, and behave in certain ways. Differing Social movements can have different pressures within them, although most are benign a few can be completely abhorrent, especially to one from a different social group. | Social Pressures are a feature of Pacts, encouraging a Member of that Pact to behave and promote specific behaviours and beliefs. Typically failure to comply will create Stress for the Member, although ostricization, or even removal from the Pact is possible for extreme transgressions. This occurs in our own society with the use of prisons to remove criminals from society at large. This is usually a result of an Earth type Plot as well. |
| Self-Preservation | The default for any living being (and a lot of artificial ones too) is that they wish to continue living, they will naturally be driven to breathe, drink, eat, seek shelter and sleep, roughly in that order of preference. Their nature will compell them to survive, however this may be possible, under normal circumstances this is usually similar to an Economic pressure, but under extreme circumstances every decision can become life or death, and by default Characters choose life. | All Characters should act to keep themselves alive. They should act to defend themselves, keep themselves alive, breathing, fed, warm, free from pain, thirst and fear. Starving people do not focus on the sauce the meat is served with, or even what animal provided the meat. This is especially true of animals, of course, but most people remember a dog may bite if its is hungry enough, they may forget a person will too. Other Catalysts can override a Character’s self-preservation, if they create risk-taking or self-destructive behaviours, however these effects will have to be very powerful to completely override the Character’s natural self-preservation Score (which is typically equal to the Character’s Formation Facet Value). |
| Name | Description | Rules |
These Types of Catalysts have limited ways that can affect a Character, limited largely to Carrot and/or Stick. They might offer a Gain of something, for some preferred behaviour, or they add additional Obstacles, Hazards, Turms or similar, if a Character does not behave as they want, ideally every Catalyst can be summarised for a Yarn-Teller or Referee as follows:
- Catalyst Factor — What is the situation the Catalyst is referring to? What is required of the Character, what must they do or not do?
- Catalyst Carrot — What incentives are being offered the Character to conform to the Catalyst Factor? What are they being offered to comply? Typically a Gain is offered as a Carrot, this might be a few points of Yin, a bucket of Chi, an additional Success on an Action, or a powerful new Descendant.
- Catalyst Stick — What will happen if the Character doesn’t? What will go wrong if they do? What are the consequences of the Factor? Often a Stick will include creating additional Hazards, Turns, Failure Levels and Wounds for the Character or may even affect entire Nations (depending upon the Catalyst).
- Catalyst Bluff — What is no one telling the Character about this Factor? What lies are people telling here? Sometimes the Catalyst Bluff is simply that the Factor, Carrot, or Stick is not actually what it seems. Bluffs should be kept secret from the Character, and only revealed when appropriate to the narrative (if the Factor involves walking into a minefield, then a Bluff may keep that secret until someone steps on a mine, if no one spots it earlier).
Catalysts can have a lot different effects and purposes depending upon not just the type, but the Factors, Carrots, Sticks and Bluffs in play. While every Catalyst must have a Factor specified, not every Catalyst will have a Carrot, Bluff or Stick, although usually it will have at least one. If a Catalyst does not have a Carrot for example, then there is almost always a Stick involved. If a Catalyst has no Stick, then the Carrot must be specified. Bluffs are strictly optional, although Yarn-Tellers are encouraged to consider what Bluff might be appropriate for any Catalyst, as not only will thinking about the potential Bluffs create a better Catalyst, it may also reveal potential Turns and even Twists in the tale.
Characters can have a number of potential Catalysts open to them at any time. A Player, or an Author, could randomly determine which Catalyst a Character is currently most concerned about, although most Players will bear in mind the relative Carrots and Perils and usually do their best to keep themselves healthy, wealthy and happy as much as possible.
Psychosocial Character Catalysis
The way that you use Psychosocial Action Spaces in the game has a profound effect upon the way that Character Catalysts can work within the Narrative and game. Private Psychosocial Spaces are effectively a complex board game that can model the internal psychic landscape of a Character. Within this space various Psychosocial Characters can wander, most importantly, the Character’s internal selves. Depending upon the exact Psychosocial model being used, there may be a single internal self, or a number (for example an Id, Ego and Super-Ego representation, or a Self, Shadow and other Jungian Archetypes). Typically moving these Characters around will expose different parts of the Self to each other. This can be roleplayed out, or it can be treated as a board game, where the interactions define the surface Catalysts that are roleplayed. For writers this internalised activity can create internal monologues, intrusive thoughts, as well as complex interacting motivations and characterisation.
Within the Psychosocial Space all the internal Characters move, some Characters are inherent to the space (acting as Guards, or Entertainers, and so on within that space). Encountering these internal Characters can reveal aspects of the Character. If the inner Self is meeting a guard, then perhaps their outer-self will unexpectedly act in a defensive or suspicious manner, if they are chatting to an entertainer, perhaps they might begin to whistle, hum or sing under their breath, or suddenly tell a joke that “occurs” to them.
If you are using a Jungian model, then there will be Archetypes, who may blend aspects of external Characters, as they represent the Archetype for the Character. If a Character thinks of another Character in a mentor-like way, then they may become a robed wizard, or school teacher in the Psychosocial space. When an internal Character encounters an Archetype like this their external Character usually begins to take on aspects of the Archetype themselves.
Additionally memories of other people will exist as Characters within the Psychosocial space, these Characters are internal representations of how the Character believes these people might be and react, so they often have imagined goals and motives that are not truly those of the real Character, often distorted by a lack of true understanding. Meeting these Characters can create emotional responses in the Character, that they often cannot explain easily away, until they realise the reason they exploded at their boss is because they reminded them of their school bully, or whatever.
Interactions between the internal Characters, particularly with the Inner Self can make the Character think about those external people, reprioritize or even create new Catalysts so that they try to get in touch with them.
If the Inner Self is present in a Psychosocial Location that is connected to a particular motivation, Drive, Wish, Desire, etc, this motivation will be particularly important to the Character at that time.
Catalyst Collisions
Sometimes a Character may have two Catalysts that oppose each other. If, for example, a Character wishes to become the richest Billionaire, but also want to explore space, then they might find that the cost of exploring space endangers their ability to be the richest Billionaire (at least if they are doing it right). When this occurs, two Catalysts coming into conflict, we call it a Catalyst Collision.
During a Catalyst Collision a Character can ignore all other Catalysts, except the two that are colliding. They should then assess the two Catalysts directly against each other. Catalysts can be scored by the Character as follows:
- Compare Sticks — The Sticks of the two Catalysts should be compared. The Catalyst that has the worst Stick (in the Character’s or Player’s opinion) is scored with a 5, the other Catalyst scores 3 if it has a Stick and 0 if it has none.
- Compare Carrots — The Carrots of the two Catalysts should be compared. The Catalyst that has the best Carrot (in the Character’s opinion) is scored with a 3, the other Catalyst scores 2 if it has a Carrot, or 0 if it doesn’t.
- Compare Bluffs This is more tricky as the Character cannot know the Bluffs until they have been revealed, so each revealed Bluff on a Catalyst typically adds +1 to that Catalyst, regardless of how it changed the Catalyst (better the devil you know).
- Compare Factors — The Factors of the two Catalysts should be compared. The Catalyst that has the more simply accomplished Factor will score 2 the other will score 1.
- Compare Scores — Both Catalysts now have a numerical Score that can be compared. The Catalyst with the higher Score is considered the more important for the Character and should receive the focus.
- A Catalyst that Scores 5 less than another is either completely removed, or a Bluff must be revealed that causes a second round of comparisons. Think of a truck hitting a little car, that little car better be surprisingly made of Orichalcum or enchanted against crashes, or it is toast.
- A Catalyst that Scores 1-4 points less is going to be ignored for now, but is not removed. Think of two similar-but different sized cars crashing, the larger car will still travel forwards, but the smaller car will be forced back.
- If the two Catalysts are exactly balanced, and both have more than 3 points, then they will create a new Internalised Plot for the Character that will attempt to resolve this Collision with a Conflict. This is a head-on collision between trucks. Chances are, both are going to be wiped out, along with a lot of collateral damage.
- If the two Catalysts are exactly balanced with less than 3 points, then the Catalysts will be merged. This is like two cars hitting each other head on. The cars are likely to be both wrecked, twisted together by the forces. This creates a new Catalyst that encompasses both former Catalysts as best it can, although it often becomes more a hinderance to the Character than a real goal.
- If two Catalysts are exactly balanced and have more than 7 points each then both Catalysts will be removed. This represents a Character moving past these Goals or Desires. This may cause a Hitch to resolve, or a Character to change the name they use (change Geometry), change their Facet Boons (swapping Yin and Yang Boons to change I-Ching), change Persona, or Core. It can even unhook a Character Embodiment (although Plots typically hate that, and will immediately try to Hook a replacement, however they rarely try to rehook the same Character).