Motivations: Second Pass

Mörk Borg is on my mind lately, in part thanks to Dukk Börg finally shipping out!

Skimming the Dukk Börg pdf, and it's got the same basic setup as Mörk Borg, with Attributes (Abilities) divided into:

• Agility
• Presence
• Strength
• Toughness (or "Tuffness" in Dukk Börg)

Agility is used to "Defend, balance, swim, flee".

Presence is used to "Perceive, aim, charm, wield Powers".

Strength is used to "Crush, lift, strike, grapple".

And Toughness is used to "Resist poison/cold/heat, survive falling".

Nice and simple! This is the level of ease of use I want to aim for in Nobody Poops on TV, and I'm not hitting that mark yet.

A piece of advice I see time and time again about designing RPGs is that your Attributes should tell players what your game is about, and what players can expect to do in the game. Agility, Presence, etc tell players that Mörk Borg is a game about adventuring. Per the marketing materials, it's "a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls and fools seeking redemption, forgiveness or the last remaining riches in a bleak and dying world".

Which, in practice, means delving into dungeons, killing monsters, and taking their stuff.

So, what's Nobody Poops on TV about? It's about creating and starring in your own sitcoms in a Truman Show-inspired world.

And how do sitcom plots work?

Every character on television, in film, in games, in literature, wherever, is flawed. Flaws make for believable characters, and relatable ones. But sitcoms ratchet those flaws up to 11, because it's these character flaws that invariably drive the plot. Failure is funny, so we want to see people who deserve to fail, fail.

In Seinfeld, what is the driving force behind most of Jerry and George's misery? Their own selfishness, yes, but ultimately it's because they're trying to avoid social obligations that would be over in five minutes if only they acted like normal people for once.

In It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, what causes the Gang's problems? One or more characters act selfishly, and their inflated egos directly lead to their own downfall. Often, somebody else--usually Dennis--will try to make them see reason, only to also fail. Or, rather, he tries to make them see an incredibly warped sense of reason that makes sense only to him because he has an extremely high opinion of himself, but reason nonetheless.

In Frasier, Frasier and Niles get caught in a tangled web of lies because, above all else, they want to save face, because being momentarily embarrassed would (in their minds) see their social status torn down for all the world to see. So, they spin ever-more complicated lies to stay on top. Until they get caught, and they always do.

This desire to attain and maintain status is also par the course for the classic British sitcom, Keeping up Appearances. Hyacinth Bucket ("it's pronounced bouquet!") wants to sit in her rightful place in the rigid British class system, which to her, is just below the Queen and just above Margaret Thatcher. However, her working-class husband, sisters, father, and brother-in-law make this an extremely difficult task, and episodes revolve around her going to frankly insane lengths to be percieved as upper-class.

In Community (and really, every sitcom ever), Abed has two dates on the same night for the Sadie Hawkins dance, and hilarity ensues. He's playing into the popular sitcom trope, but he's doing it because he wants, above all else, to experience the full breadth of college experiences--and everything he knows about college, he knows from TV and movies. He wants to have it all.

In 30 Rock, Liz makes no secret that she also wants it all; she wants her career, and she wants love. And she wants a sandwich.

In Bewitched, all of Darren's problems would go away if he didn't care so much about what his neighbours thought of him--if he just loved Samantha for who she is, and learned to appreciate the magical world. But no, he wants to seek and maintain his (perceived) status.

That's four potential flaws right there that could act as a character motivation--and more importantly--as challenges that must be overcome in order to succeed.

• Avoid Obligation
• Be Correct
• Seek Status
• Have it All

You use Avoid Obligation to: avoid awkward conversations, keep your hands clean, be the centre of the universe.

You use Be Correct to: defy authority figures, have all the answers, feel morally superior.

You use Seek Status to: rise above your peers, befriend your betters, fill the void in your heart with material goods.

You use Have it All to: climb the corporate ladder, have your cake and eat it too, exploit loopholes.

The first thing players are probably going to realise about these stats is that they're (nearly) all negative. They're intended as character flaws--all good characters are flawed, but sitcom characters in particular have these flaws heightened to drive the plot. So, we need to encourage players to take these flaws.

This is why I think the Pendragon system is still the way to go. We can balance these flaws ("Foibles", perhaps? Those sound endearing rather than wholly unappealing) with more positive stats; a high number in one means a low number in another, which means that a low Foible will result in a higher other stat, and therefore players will more frequently roll their Foibles over their more positive Attributes in order to more easily beat their target number.

So, these quote-unquote "positive" stats should be encouraged to be high--this is intended as deceptively appealing, because TTRPG players have been trained to associate "big number" with "good". So, players will see the high number, use them, fail, and then more and more they'll start using their lower Foibles.

However, they need to still be mechanically useful. I don't want to prevent players from using them, but doing so shouldn't be the goal of the game. You should be able to do things with these stats, but they should be things that don't really drive the plot.

• Do the Right Thing
• Admit Fault
• Be Charitable
• Find Contentment

You use Do the Right Thing to: do what society expects of you.

You use Admit Fault to: be okay with not having all the answers.

You use Be Charitable to: uplift others at your own expense.

You use Find Contentment to: settle for second-best.

Short, sweet, to the point, and open to interpretation.