Conversational Rules as Mechanics
I’ve been really interested recently in essentially “mechanics as rules for guiding the conversation.” This is not a new topic but there’s a specific subset of these style of rules I’ve been interested in.
This interest is something that’s been percolating in my brain for a while as a storygame mechanic but when I read Princess of Algens by Jay Dragon something clicked a little bit:
This is a really simple mechanic and it shaped so much of my conversational play during a playtest I ran. I ended up using it to seduce a boar-headed goblin king, bringing my PC from a lowly scullery maid to a slightly-less lowly goblin maiden with monstrous husband. It was dope.
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Here’s a few other examples of what I consider to be conversational mechanics.
And a few that I wrote while considering this:
These kind of mechanics sit in my brain in a really fun way.
The link for me between storygames and OSR has always been how I think both subcultures prioritize the conversation. We might argue over where the “other rules” sit in relation to the conversation, prioritizing adjusting or ignoring or making rulings when it makes sense, or prioritizing adherence to the mechanics, or somewhere in-between, but I think there’s a heavy similarity there.
Occasionally in OSR I’ve seen the idea of “mechanics only exist to resolve ambiguities within the fiction.” To me these conversational rules are simple, direct methods of resolving ambiguities in play. They can tell you “here is a capability this character has. This is True” and then you can play through the conversation making use of that.
There’s no great thesis here. I think there are arguments to be made that this is just describing all rules when you get abstract enough. I don’t disagree with those arguments necessarily, I just wanted to highlight a specific kind of mechanic I find interesting, and hope you will as well :D.
