Re: (TFT) more Scale

["Jay Carlisle" <selfinflicted_wounds@boardermail.com>]

Downtime.
Seems like a bloody catchall doesn't it?
Let's see; Item Creation, Jobs, Study, Ageing, Investment, Building...

(compleat but pertinent aside: D.M.G. I am really curious about the concepts behind your Character Lab.  http://www.branya.com/index.html  Particularly the costs for burial and revival spell. Also "Sorry! The wizard's guild is exhausted. They have already tried to revive him once this day." Is this to prevent overuse of the spell by rich characters or does it speak to the size of this specific guild? Sorry but I find the burial stuff particularly elegant.)

Well they've all got at least one thing in common.
Time.
If this holds then I think Downtime can be viewed in one of two ways, generally speaking.
Either the Players have the tempo and are spending their Downtime expanding and consolidating their positions while the rest of the environment reacts to them, or, the story (via the Timeline) forces the players to react to events. 
The simplest examples of the story possessing the tempo I know are the Hero Quest.

Lord of the Rings, must destroy ring before found by dark lord
Harry Potter, must destroy dark lord
Glory Road, must retrieve the greatest sword in the Universe(s) to save Universe
The Bridge of Birds, must retrieve the greatest ginseng plant in the world to save the poisoned children of Number Ten Ox's humble village. (Of course the Gods in their wisdom decide to kill two birds with one stone... or is that the Story of the Stone? Am I mixing puns now as well as metaphors?)

Oh well, y'all get the idea.

So, the simplest of these stories are diadatic.
"There can only be one." Pretty much sums it up for those involved.
Anyone who's ever played with flowcharts knows that's just the tip of the iceberg as far as what can be done with a plot line. Triadic or ternary stories allow the Imortals to also persue the option of co-existence (syntheses), etc.

Anyway, when I'm trying to "push" an event on players I'm not above having the nominal 'good guys' resorting to methods like placing a Geas on the party, etc. Of course this assumes the 'good guys' have access to the spell.

More later.

Jay

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