A Resolution Mechanic Looking for a Premise

Hey, this is the game designer’s Other Vice. (The first being Abstract Theory.) I was listening to a piece on NPR, and the story is building around this budding romance, and the plotter in me is seeing that what we want most is for this American-born Iraqi POW to get together with the cute truck driving corporel. Which means, says the plotter, that they cannot get together yet.

From whence was born this mechanic. Granted some kind of actual conflict, with real stakes and all that, the table votes on how they as players, as audience members and story writers, want the thing to go. There’s some gears-and-axles to encourage splits and tricksy voting – off the cuff, I’d say that winning voters get a point for each loser. Better still: the conflict initiator gets the product of winners times losers, so you’re pressed to chose conflicts that will split the table.

So the winning side of the conflict becomes Comedy, and the losing side is Tragedy. If Comedy is a unanimous vote, then Tragedy happens. Otherwise, magic? Roll for it, or spend the points you’ve been getting to force Comedy, or Comedy always happens unless it’s unanimous.

Honestly, I think the concept needs to be explored a little better, and that the answer to what happens probably follows pretty clearly from a combination of the concept and whatever premise the system is serving.