LOOK AT ME, SEE ME - handling mental impact

So, this is a long post.

An axe bites flesh.
Harm is done.

A kiss meets lips.
Love is made.

Both are actions with consequences. One is generally always negative (the harm).
Falling in love, on the other hand, is immensely impactful, no matter how we cut it.

Iliothermia

For some players, the idea that being kissed would lead to “falling in love” falls into “my character would never do that.”

I think that's become a natural reaction because we’ve made very few tools for dealing with non-quantitative things that don’t necessarily result in a lost game state, or a numerically worse-or-better game state. We can only accept the measurable difference. Affect is harder.

I think we have to look at the emotional and mental through a different lens:

As play. Something malleable, constantly renegotiable, fragile, and immediate.
Precarious play. But still play.

I think it starts here:
With making consequences determined not after rolling, but as part of the decision-making process.
By making the consequences not numerical, but an affect that depends on the situation, first and foremost.

Then, dare to impact someone with a mental or emotional state. See how they play.
Be open to their response.

But we need more definite tools to navigate affect. Let us take that hardest, most impactful thing to handle. LOVE

Love becomes Hate. Masaaki Sasamoto 

Love is limerence.
It’s the immediate affect—the way the character feels.
How they act? That’s up to them.

Now they have the smitten condition.
Will it grow into love? Or into resentment? Or will it simply fade?

And also. Give them a way out.
A left-hand path. A route most sinister to many GMs (who dom hard): a free refute. Allow the player to declare: No it is not Love.

If it’s not love, then what is it? Demand an equal response. A feeling of equal force: hate, disgust, fear.
But it still must be felt. It still demands action.

It’s not denial. It’s transmutation.
If I do not feel love, WHAT do I feel then?
(The What new word wedged between Why and How.)

• Maybe it’s fear.

• Maybe it’s rage.

• Maybe it’s disgust, or longing, or grief.

But it is something. A difference from before. A change.

 

Okay-okay. Here’s a hitch. Say the character has Stoic as a trait. The classical brooding thousand-year elf. Oh bore, oh chore!
NO ! I say. It makes sense for the player to invoke it.
And all traits are real, all the time. Just like the world. They are written representations of the real character in that real fictional world.
If a player feeels it right to submit to their trait instead of to emotion, the world responds in kind to acknowledge that trait:

In this case, the fay queen is now very angry that her feelings aren’t reciprocated. (do you want to fake love?)
You’ve earned her ire. If you don't change, the world does.

Consequences come in many forms. Most players, in my experience - though they often don’t realize it at first—respond well to this approach. Many only do so after the conversation where I reveal my hand:

You can choose how you are affected - but not if, if you choose to test instead of compromise or slip.*
If you accept the consequence, you can suggest another affect.

 The players suggestion will, in my experience, almost always contain an affect.

So I am happy nonetheless. The world is acknowledged. 

*Resolution methods in my system. Inspired by the beloved Pyrrhic Weaselry.

Going out my skin with love. Alex Kuno

Because of how traits and conditions work in my system, players can invoke being in love for good or for ill.

Same with hate.
Same with a wound, though that's probably only for sympathy.

(So go ahead. Turn that sword upon the heathen fay, hero!)

If a player sees that their character being in love makes the situation worse, they gain effort from it.
They’re rewarded for internal tension.

If they choose the right-hand path - that is, to accept “being in love” - it will be written on the sheet as a Condition.
This is just a trait with a definite trigger, a condition if you will, a requirement for removing it.
The player can seek that condition.

In the end, they may even choose to say:

This love is true.
It is not just limerence, a condition.
It is a statement: “I am in deep love with the fay queen, and bear her mark.”

They invest in it.
They spend effort.
And the condition becomes a trait.
Part of them—more securely so.

If so, then, for gods’ sake:
Ask Why. Ask How.
Ask those glorious players who let themselves be affected.

They gave you their emotion
Now you give them the world.

If they are to be subject to the world,
Then the world must also be subject to them.

Sympathetic armor. MON_2501

Quite practically and independently of my system, here’s how I handle mental affect and impact in play.

Firstly: In my worlds, people remember what they did under any external or internal influence, characters or not. I think it makes for much stronger moral quandaries - especially when followed by a good How or Why.

Secondly, i treat mental affect like physical harm (they can leave lasting marks) and i treat them uniquely by category:

• Mental Magical Effects - the catch-all
  Test or compromise to resist charm and mind control.
  Extraordinary circumstances or named items may allow resistance without testing.
  

• Allegiance Changes
  Describe the character’s doubts and how they affect loyalty.
  Frame this as potential inner conflict - not immediate betrayal.

• Emotional Affect
  Describe the immediate emotion the character feels (e.g., limerence—not love).
  Let the player accept or reject it.
  If they reject it, they must name an affect of equal intensity - unless compromising along another axis.

• Compulsions
  Specify the compulsion and what triggers it.
  Be clear about its boundaries and where player interpretation begins.
  Let the player utilize them - or rail against them. Let them find utility and be creative.

• Commands
  Keep commands broad - don’t dictate discrete actions.
  Let players interpret the intent through their character’s lens.

Thirdly

I always ask:

Do you want to play through this?
Or would you rather I speak and act for your character for now?

(Being stunned in any digital game is no fun. It’s the only non-interactive state.)
I say FUCK THAT to being stunned. 

I can punish, affect, or reward characters—sure.
But I won’t punish players.

Letting players not play is not good design. Its bad game design, and even worse play design.
We are equals around the table.

If I start punishing players, I elevate myself into a position I am not.
You are a lover, first and foremost. 
ok, now...

It's like this. Anastasia Rydlevskaya

...LOOK AT ME, SEE ME

From a subversive BDSM-themed larp I once heard about.
It will be relevant, just you wait.

Are you all lubed up?
(You should be. This is going somewhere tender.)

A player could say, “LOOK AT ME”—hands stretched out—when they wanted to project dom energy.
The responding player, if they wanted to be seen as a submissive, could say: “SEE ME.”
Hand outstretched.
Or they could ignore it. A “no thank you.”

In this way, submission was deeply subjective in its objectification.
And the "dom" was also the object of the sub’s attention.

To be seen is to be appreciated and acknowledged.
To be looked at is also to be appreciated and acknowledged.

 Touching is seeing is saying in a fictional world. Dory Whynot

Now imagine an even more playful version:

If you could respond to “LOOK AT ME” with:

“NO, LOOK AT ME”
or
“LOOK AT ME TOO.”

 

 

And the first asker could reply:

“SEE ME,”
or
“AND LOOK AT ME.”

The negotiation is always two-fold.
Offerings and acceptance.
And a left-hand path: not a total denial, but a transformation.

Could there be two doms, playfully one-upping each other?

Could there be switching? See me too.

Could there be two subs, kneeling deeper and deeper without service-topping?

For some, no.
For others yes.

Reveal your insides, Takato Yamamoto.

But here’s the point - My playstyle is like this, and not for everyone. 

The mechanics above make this style possible:
They allow (to me) positive subjectification and (to me) positive objectification.
They do not state a right or wrong.
They’re not for everyone—precarious in some circles—and should be paired with whatever safety your table needs.

There’s a powerful subjectivity in being told what to do, think, or feel—and choosing to go with it. I love it!
Especially when it doesn’t close down play, but reframes the possibility space.

It offers new ways for the player to explore…

• Their character’s interiority:
  How do I feel about the witch-king’s dire command, as i am forced to turn blade upon friend?

• How their character acts on impulses:
  How do I act on this love I didn’t ask for?

• What their character does feel:
  If I don’t feel love—what strong emotion do I feel then?

That’s why it feels precarious: it is inherently unsafe. Hypnotic. You are not ensconsed. The character is not a car, the world not a racetrack. But you can drive it like you stole it - because its a toy. Because thou art it.
Tat Tvam Asi. Ok Alan Watts, go home.

It is a form of subjectivity that still bends to the shared fiction.

It is not “whatever I want.”

It is:

“What do I feel in response to what just happened?”

 Hypnotic. Iliothermia