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Actual Play Vignettes: Clear and Concise Actual Play Examples of Push/Pull

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    • CommentAuthorJudd
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 1
    I still don't know what Push and Pull are.

    Actual Play examples only, please. No metaphors about food or books or whatever.

    Examples from the table that clearly define it.

    Thanks!
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 2
    Vote of "Me too" on this one. I know that people think the distinction exists and is very clear, but I'd like to see specimens.
    • CommentAuthorJudd
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 3
    Links are awesome too.

    The RPG blog-o-sphere's waters run pretty fast.
    • CommentAuthorEmily Care
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006 edited
     # 4
    Yay! Let's nail it down.

    I'm only guessing but here are mine:

    Pull: OK, your half-elf ranger opens the door and sees her long-lost daughter. What is she doing?

    Push: OK, your half-elf ranger opens the door and finds her long-lost daughter being tortured by orcs on the other side. what do you do?
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 5
    Uh ... are those actual play? Like, with real people?
    • CommentAuthorEmily Care
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006 edited
     # 6
    Sorry. No, not actual play. I am lame. I focused on the "no metaphors" part.
  7.  # 7
    In our recent Primetime Adventures game, we often scene-framed for other peoples' characters by saying what that character was feeling or did. Later in the game we scaled back to simply saying who was present & whether it was plot or character oriented.

    I see the earlier way we were doing it as "push". We made statements about what other people's characters did or felt, directing how the other player would then play.

    The second way I see as "pull". We suggested the characters present and left it open what their activities were and what their actions & reactions might be. We created an opening for the other players to step in and bring their own ideas.
    •  
      CommentAuthorkleenestar
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 8
    I'm still not ten thousand percent sure I really understand push/pull, but let me see if I can provide something concrete from Gloria Mundi last week.

    The context: Marcus Antius Idir had gotten himself into a fight with a relative stranger, Titus Marcellinus Honorus, the adopted son of a woman he was trying to murder.

    It started out as a Push conflict. Idir sets up traps in the hallways leading to the room he's trying to defend. Honorus pulls out the magic and starts to come in through the ceiling, dripping stone everywhere as it melts around his pet witch. Idir goes invisible and heads upstairs to sow chaos among Honorus's people, taking out the witch in the process. Honorus pulls out the pickaxe and starts going through the floor by hand. As Idir's player and I went back and forth, we were trying to top each other, come up with a situation that the other couldn't respond to.

    Then we realized that we could go back and forth with this all night. Richard and I looked at each other, and Richard said, "Maybe Idir could challenge Honorus to a duel." Hmm, I thought, this is interesting. "Sure," I said, "That would be cool. But you should be playing for time and he's playing to win, since you've got reinforcements coming." "Ooh," said Richard, "I love it. Let's play that out. Can I make a fool of Honorus?" "Why don't you start by cutting the straps on his sandals? But he's going to be able to hurt you pretty badly if you're just trying to be flashy." "That's no problem," said Richard. "I want to end this fight just barely on my feet, if I win it." And things went on from there.

    Both kinds of play were really fun, but they were quite clearly different to me. Is that push/pull?
  9.  # 9
    Jess,

    Sounds close enough for hand-gernades to me.
  10.  # 10
    I'm in between exams at the moment, and figured I'd chime in with something that might be helpful. Note that this is based on the thinking I'm doing for my blog article for next week, so I happen to think I've been somewhat thorough about it.

    Pushing is trying to get someone to do something by threatening something they want to keep safe. Pulling is about trying to get someone to do something by offering them something they desire to have.

    A couple of hypotheticals, and then some actual play (as requested).

    "You open the door, you can tell me what you see, but if you don't I'll make up something really bad for you." (Without surrounding context, I'm going to pretend this is a push. I'm threatening you with Dire Consequences if you do not provide a description).
    "You open the door, what do you see?" (Pull. I am offering something I think you want: input into the game's fiction).
    "You open the door, if you don't tell me what you see, then I will and you won't get to say next time." (Push. I am threatening something you want to keep: input into the game's fiction).

    Okay, on to actual play. Capes is my goto game for Push and Pull. I set a Goal on the table "Big Business shakes the Red Menace's faith in his economic philosophy". Now, given no more context than that, it is literally impossible to classify this goal as a push or a pull. So, I'll provide you with some context.

    I'm playing Big Business, my friend is playing the Red Menace. I happen to know that he's been itching for a chance to shake Red Meanace's faith in his economic philosophy. What I am doing is offering him something he wants. I am pulling him into the conflict.

    If the context had been different. If, for instance, he really, really wanted the Red Menace to maintain strong faith in his economic philosophy, then that would have been different. In that case I would have been threatening something he valued. Definitely a push.

    All of this is to say, when talking about push and pull, context is king. No statement that is purely about the game fiction can possibly be evaluated as one or the other. Push and pull happen at a social level, and thus we must always consider the actual people playing the actual game.

    Quick aside about Capes. Note how any conflict in Capes also pulls every player mechanically. The default desire is to win every conflict because doing so will gain you something of value: Inspirations. But on the big conflicts, the ones with debt being thrown around like crazy, there's a strong desire to lose. You are being offered delicious Story Tokens.

    I may have stolen my own thunder there, but is that helpful to the confused?

    Thomas
    •  
      CommentAuthorBrand_Robins
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006 edited
     # 11
    Thomas,

    Context is always key. This is true. (Yay! Someone heard me!)

    For the threaten/offer issue... that is certainly one way to define it. I don't think you inherently have to threaten something to push, but it certainly is easier to see it when something is threatened. So... hey, sounds once enough like you're in handgernade range.

    Of course, I'm not clear if that was from an actual play example, or was a hypothetical actual play example....
  12.  # 12
    So am I Pushing when I ask my TSOY player to (as I did last week) describe the ambush their character was about to walk into?
  13.  # 13
    Jason,

    Context, context, context. I have no idea. Why don't you tell me a bit about it? I mean, it could have been a push, it could have been a pull. Did your player want to describe it? Was there a preference for your description? I can imagine places where "threatening" my character with terrible consequences is no threat at all! Bring on those consequences, this guy needs to suffer more! (As Jess Hammer would say) HARDCORE!!!

    Thomas
  14.  # 14
    OK, context: summer-and-autumn China. PC is in love with this lady way out of his league, rank-wise. Her father has put a bounty on PC's head because he's "interfered with her" and ruined her upcoming arranged marriage to some dude. PC sends her a note through servants, she replies, promising an assignation at an inn. Everyone at the table is like "Oh yeah, that's not a trap". But the lover PC is a foolish guy and really wants to meet up with his lady and hit some keys hardcore, so I ask him about the ambush - who, how many, where are they. He tells me, and we're off to the races.
    • CommentAuthorEmily Care
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006 edited
     # 15
    Is threat necessary for push? Thomas, I very much like your definition of push/pull, but they do seem to be used in a broader fashion than just what you describe. In Jess' example, it was pull because the players were openly negotiating what happened rather than asserting it.
  16.  # 16
    Jason,

    Doh. That'll teach me to ask ambiguous questions. The actual fictional context is mostly irrelevant (even if it is cool). What matters is: did the player actually want to describe things? If so, then you're pulling. You're offering him something he wants (to describe the trouble he's gotten his character into). Is there some sort of implicit agreement at the table that if you don't describe stuff when the GM asks you to then you're creatively weak? Could this have been a threat to his social standing in the group? Was it both working together?

    Is that any clearer on my part? Whether something is pushing or pulling is dependent upon social, rather than fictional, context.

    Thomas
  17.  # 17
    OK, he would have been happy either way, but he didn't break stride when I asked him to provide the set-up. I think we all enjoy authoring bits, so I try to toss the ball to them as often as I can. Push?
    •  
      CommentAuthorkleenestar
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 18
    Emily, I'm not sure that the open negotiation had much to do with it being pull vs. push play. Our style of discussion didn't change much from the first half of the conflict, where Richard was saying things like, "I want to take out the witch; how long will it take me?" I think the real difference was that instead of Richard taking Idir's part, and me taking the opposing part, we were both playing on both teams. I wanted to make things dramatic and help Idir look cool; Richard wanted to draw out the conflict as long as possible and risk losing it. Our mutual goal became, "Let's make this neat for both of us," not "Let's win this OUR way!"

    I guess this is why it's good we're talking actual examples, huh? :)

    --Jess
  19.  # 19
    Jason,

    Thomas may disagree, but it actually sounds like a pull to me.

    The player knew he was going to get ambushed when he had his character go to meet her, yes? THe players seems to have wanted the ambush, because he was doing this amidst the whole table going "oh, that's not a trap," yes? You then stepped back and let him describe his own doom, yes?
  20.  # 20
    Emily,

    Actually I think pushes may always be threats (I'm not sure yet). And as cool as I though Jess' example was, I really couldn't tell if it was push or pull. At least the way I think of the two, it's about player negotiation. I don't think that there's anything inherently pull-y in questions, or push-y in statements. And open negotiations can definitely be push-heavy.

    Let's go back to Capes, but into hypothetical land. Let's say that my Goal in my earlier example was a push. I'm threatening the other player with something that he would prefer (maybe it's just a mild preference, maybe it's super important, I don't know). I up the tension by dumping debt on the conflict forcing him to reciprocate in order to have a chance of victory. He does so, and doing so might be a push. He's implicitly saying "If you'll lose this one for me, you can have all these story tokens!"

    That's offering me something I want. Of course he might also be pushing me, if I'm invested in the outcome of the conflict (rather than just using it to gain all those story tokens).

    Oh, here's a good example of pushing in negotiation! Polaris. Sometimes you'll use a "But only if..." in order to threaten the other player with something that makes them back down. They might in turn escalate, pushing back. Does that make sense?

    Thomas
  21.  # 21
    Jason,

    I'm tending toward Brand here. With the caveat that I'm still short on context, it looks an awful lot like a pull to me too. You're basically saying to the player, "Hey, I know you like being creative, and maybe you like screwing your guy and watching him squirm (I don't know about this second par), I'll let you do that if you'll do something for me..." Of course, in this case the "something" he is doing for you is doing the description.

    Thomas
  22.  # 22
    Jess,

    Hrm. You've now made me unsure about your example. Because, among other things, "Let's make this neat for both of us," and "Let's win this OUR way!" aren't inherently opposites. It's very possible to make the whole game more fun by pushing back and forth to create and constantly heightening sense of tension.

    To go to an actual play example: the Nine Worlds Skype game. The conflict in the first session is pretty clearly push, I'm thinking. Fred says he wants something (to escape) and Matt says he wants something opposite that (to have the character get arrested). They both then go to the mechanics in order to try to make the game go the way they most want it to. Matt wins and not only does he get what he wanted, he gets to say how it happened.

    Now, this doesn't mean that Matt has shut down Fred's fun. Quite the opposite, really, as now Fred is in this big ball of tension and there is this story preasure of the very cool "How do I escape! What will happen next?" Fred was already invested, and so his investment keeps him in despite things not going the way he most wanted them to.
    •  
      CommentAuthorkleenestar
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 23
    Brand:

    Okay, good point. I'm not sure that's exactly what I meant, but I'm also not really sure I understand push/pull that well.

    Instead of each trying to please ourselves, and working as hard as possible to do that (and also at the same time make cool stuff happen in the game), we started trying to please the other. We were offering instead of forcing the other player.

    I'm kind of working this out as I go, so stop me when I stop making sense.

    I also think Thomas has a really hot way of framing it. I have to ponder and see if that makes sense for my own understanding and for the things that I thought were examples of this.

    --Jess
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 24
    Doesn't the presence of applicable Keys make Jason's example a Pull? If the player is trying to hit Keys in doing this, isn't handing him narration rights allowing him to hit Keys better?
  25.  # 25
    Josh,

    Quite probably.
  26.  # 26
    Jess,

    Makes sense. Did you read the example I did way back when about push and pull? Because there is a large elment of "threat" vs "promise" that I hadn't thought about conciously when writing that.
  27.  # 27
    Yeah, you guys are right - he was OK with his guy getting hammered, and knew going in what was going on. So that's pull. I guess I do it quite a bit.
    •  
      CommentAuthorkleenestar
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 28
    Yes, that example cleared a lot of things up, though I think we may still be confusing push/pull with force/negotiation. I think you can have forced pull and negotiated push . . . it's just a little less clear how to do it.

    --Jess
  29.  # 29
    Jess,

    I agree.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 30
    Jason, I can't decide if I switch between the two constantly and unconsciously, or if I do both at the same time (pullsh?). This is a topic where other people talk a lot and I just sort of numbly nod my head.
    • CommentAuthorJudd
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 31
    So, let me see if I get this:

    Pull: The characters are entering their first fantasy city and they come to a sign laying out the city's major points of interest. I ask each player, including myself, for a point of interest on the sign, thus creating the city.

    Push: Bret's character, Red, a 13 year old girl who, back in the real world, was physically abused by her father, is going to see who the Overlord of the Rock Knights is and *dun dun dun* it is in fact her father, who she hasn't seen in years.

    So, essentially, Pull is asking the players to directly contribute to the narration at hand. Push is throwing something in the scene that causes the character discomfort or throws them into direct conflict.

    Right on?
  32.  # 32
    I don't know. I think part of push is giving only one out, whereas pull would be letting the player choose where out is. By this, your second example is still pull, because you haven't told the player how to react, you've merely set up the scene.

    --Nancy
    •  
      CommentAuthorkleenestar
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006 edited
     # 33
    Bret's character, Red, a 13 year old girl who, back in the real world, was physically abused by her father, is going to see who the Overlord of the Rock Knights is and . . . . .

    Judd, I'm going to try to take this example and play with negotiation/force and push/pull. Ready? 'Cause I'm not. :)

    Here's my thoughts.

    Force push: "and . . . holy crap, man, it's your father! You'd better cope! GO!"

    Force pull: "and . . . you wanted a chance to play out family conflict, and you wanted your father back in the game. Well, guess who the Overlord is? It's YOUR FATHER!"

    Negotiated push: "and . . . I want it to be her father. Is there any reason that can't happen?"

    Negotiated pull: "and . . . who do you think it should be? Can it be her father?"

    Does that make sense?

    I don't even know if it makes sense to me. I think the only way that I'm going to work this out is by repeatedly saying things that are incrementally less wrong every time.

    --Jess
    •  
      CommentAuthorVaxalon
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 34
    None of this jives with the sense I got from Mo's original article on Pull.

    But I'm notorious for Not Getting Shit.
    •  
      CommentAuthorkleenestar
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 35
    Push/pull is leaving me with the distinct sense that I'm Not Getting Shit, too. Sigh.

    --Jess
    • CommentAuthorJudd
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 36
    Could someone link any and all original articles so I could try to get a grip on what is going on and make find another AP example and comment on what is being said.
    • CommentAuthorJ. Walton
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 37
    Mo's original Push/Pull article is notorious for trying to do about 12 things at once:
    http://www.spaceanddeath.com/sin_aesthetics/2006/01/push-vs-pull.html
  38.  # 38
    First, Judd, here's my list of blog posts by Mo and Brand on the topic:

    http://www.spaceanddeath.com/sin_aesthetics/2006/01/push-vs-pull.html
    http://yudhishthirasdice.blogspot.com/2006/01/brand-pushes-and-pulls-and-blows.html
    http://www.spaceanddeath.com/sin_aesthetics/2006/01/pull-clarification-and-promises.html
    http://yudhishthirasdice.blogspot.com/2006/01/push-and-pull-example.html
    http://www.spaceanddeath.com/sin_aesthetics/2006/04/syncronicity-moment-pushpull.html

    I feel like I'm being terribly unclear. You can not, literally can not, evaluate whether an action is push or pull based purely on A) Purely fictional (in character) context, or B) Simple structure of the statements.

    I think that both Judd's examples, and Jess' restatement of them, both miss that. Neither of them are taking into account how incredibly important the specific context of the specific people involved is.

    I'm having trouble making myself clear about all this, so I'm going to step back and study for my finals. I will, however, have a blog post Thursday, maybe that'll be a bit more coherent...

    Thomas
    •  
      CommentAuthorkleenestar
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 39
    I was trying to get at the social context with my tone in the fictional examples, but I guess that didn't come across. :P

    --Jess
  40.  # 40
    Jess,

    I figured, but...

    "and . . . holy crap, man, it's your father! You'd better cope! GO!" is not obviously push or pull. I mean, do I know that you love "It's your father" story lines?

    I keep going back to my own definition: look for what's being threatened or offered. There's not enough context in that statement to know what's at stake at the social level.

    Thomas
    •  
      CommentAuthorBrand_Robins
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006 edited
     # 41
    What Thomas is saying is all true.

    In a recent email conversation with Ben about this (I think Ben finally decided he didn't find the terms useful, though I'm not sure) the thing I found myself saying to him over and over and over was:

    "I don't know. There isn't enough context there for me to say."

    Push and Pull are about the ways you align yourself towards another player in order to bring/force something into the SIS. They aren't about the fictional content (which as we know from a million sources can end up looking like anything) nor are they about the order of things. They are about the dymanic between the players at the table in the moment when things are being decided.

    Which is probably why they're so hard to follow, and why I've (historically) probably been less than clear about what they are.

    Look at the Skype Nine Worlds example (God, that is such a lovely resource). Look at the way, when the cards finally come down on the table, the negotiated stance of both Matt and Fred is, "I want this, and I am going to use the system to take this using the mechanics if I can. If I cannot I will accept your thing and go with it, because you will have won the right to have it and I trust you enough to beleive it will be cool too."

    That's push. One wanted something that threatened the other, and both dove in to try and take the thing they wanted. There was lots of negotiation leading into it, it was perfectly functional and good play. But in the end it is based on the "you want X and I want Y, they contradict each other, and now I am going to win the right to have my X." What X and Y are is settled by negotiations (which could, I think, contain both pushes and pulls of their own -- which is the other problem people run into, they want each seperate element to be a distinct thing, where they are no more so than stances are, they move into each other and out of each other constantly), and the way the conflict will be handled is "pre negotiated" by the fact they're using Nine Worlds and know how its resolution system works.

    Now, if you just up and asked me, "Matt says to Fred: You get captured by Hercules" I couldn't tell if it was push or pull, because I can't see what Matt is doing or why, or how it effects Fred. It could well be after Fred has just pulled him into saying that, and now Matt is just stepping in.

    So, let us now imagine an alternate Skype Nine Worlds game in which Fred tells Matt, "Hey, you know what, it'd be cool if I got captured and had to escape with a hot chick." Matt then says, "Okay, so we start with the scene of you in the house and you get arrested and Hercules is there with his golden gun, and they drag you down to the station and toss you in a cell." Fred just pulled, Matt resonded, and the push will probably come when Matt and Fred disagree about how is going to escape, or at what cost he is going to escape.

    You could, in a write up of either of those games say, "And then Matt tells Fred he gets tossed in jail" and ask me which is push and which is pull, and I wouldn't be able to tell you without all the information behind it. Unless you have a picture of the larger way that people are interacting with each other you can't tell which is which in most simple cases. But in a voice recording of the whole conflict, it becomes possible to tell which is which.

    This, BTW, is why I so rarely post AP reports these days -- because writing down enough material to get at the power dynamics behind what is happening at the table is a bloody draining long process. I also find that when I look at most people's AP reports I don't have any idea of who is pushing and who is pulling (except in unusual circumstances in which someone has crossed a group line and done something to hard or to far) because mext to no one includes the kind of information needed to figure it out.

    Judd,

    With all that said, I feel almost (not) ready to address your points. Your first example: Pull: The characters are entering their first fantasy city and they come to a sign laying out the city's major points of interest. I ask each player, including myself, for a point of interest on the sign, thus creating the city.This seems to be a pull. I mean, there could be some stuff going on in the background where the GM will reject the things the players say, or where this or that -- but given a functional group that isn't playing head games, an invitation to create a part of the world that you find interesting seems pretty pull to me.

    Also, it doesn't matter if you tell them to do it or ask them if they want to do it. That, I think is where Jess's issue starts coming in. You can force someone to do something with pull -- it isn't passive.

    This seems like pull because, as far as I can tell, it shows you aligning youself with the players in a mode that gets them to come to you. It gets everyone to step forward and contribute to the world to form something. You have a need, and rather than filling it with an idea of your own and making them accept it (threat?), you get them to fill it for/with you.

    Now, the second statementBret's character, Red, a 13 year old girl who, back in the real world, was physically abused by her father, is going to see who the Overlord of the Rock Knights is and *dun dun dun* it is in fact her father, who she hasn't seen in years.I can't answer. This is like the "Matt says Fred is thrown in jail" above. Unless I know who started the idea, what flags the player has, and how the GM got to this point... I just can't say if this is push or pull.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 42
    Brand, is a pull always associated with a flag? Can you give a quick example of a flagless pull?

    Alternately, is it possible to push associated with a flag? Can you give a quick example of a flagged push?
    •  
      CommentAuthorVaxalon
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 43
    When I first put "Resists Mind Control 15" on Okhfels character sheet, I didn't realize that it was a flag, and I didn't realize that some people would take it as a "Go ahead, try and mind control Okhfels... I dare you" push.

    Flagged (unintentional) push.
  44.  # 44
    Josh,

    I would say:

    1. No. But flags sure fucking make it easier.

    2. A quick example? I'm coming to think there are no quick examples.

    Okay, a try: Mo, as a player, pulled me, as GM, when she did the whole Kika/Jerzom thing. We were playing Exalted, so didn't really have flags, and she certainly wouldn't have seen the character sheet even if they were written down.

    So... the Jerzom/Kika thing for those that missed it before goes like this: So in the final scene, in which the character is going to face her rapist, murderer, and the would be soul-destroyer of the universe, Mo has her character put aside all of those things. She puts her gear in a pile, cuts herself off from essence so that she can use no charm, no spell, no hearthstone. She refuses to use her manipulation skills to dance around the subject, and brings herself vulnerable and alone to face the thing she has feared most for her whole life. Then she knelt down in front of him and bowed her head and said, "You can kill me if you want, I have put aside everything that could stop you. But if you do so you must face the fact, without any chance of hiding, that you have freely chosen to become what you claim to hate the gods for having made you."

    Mo then stopped, cocked her head to one side, and says, "I don't need to roll anything. If he kills her or doesn't, it doesn't matter. Her choice is made, and I'm happy with the story either way." Everyone at the table just sat there for a long moment, with me as GM not having a fucking clue what I was going to do, and just stared. It was a deliberate rejection of everything the character had been about for the first 2/3rds of a two year long story, it was a deliberate rejection of the way Exalted handles task resolution, it was a deliberate rejection of the "we must kill everyone and be ultimate badasses to save the universe" ideology that fills the halls of RPG history. It was the player saying, "This is the story I am telling, this is the story I believe in, this is how I want this game to be, and I want you to finish it in the parameters I've set for you."

    She set me up so that she brought the two characters together, set up a crazy dynamic situation in which she was happy and secure, and then basically said to me, "Now you tell me what you think about this, you finish it because I've already finished my part." Because of the momentum of the game I could not stop and let it there, and because she stepped back and left the space there, I had to step in. Otherwise the game would have sucked.

    No flags, pull.

    3. Yes. In fact, making responsible pushes is probably easier with a flag. I think the key to the difference between pull and push in regards to a flag has to do with, as Thomas indicates, which part of the flag you are threatening. I think the all too familiar situation where the player makes a character with a beloved whom the GM they murders in the first scene in order to force the PC to go into a revenge story is probably a dysfunctional push where the player was hoping for more of a pull.... But, because I want to avoid the "push=bad" idea like the plauge, let me try one that works.

    4. As #2. This time, let me see here....

    Actually, I don't think I need to try hard. Didn't Fred's character in the Nine Worlds game have a flag that had to do with Aegis? If he did (lets just assume so) it meant he wanted Aegis in the situation. But, that doesn't mean he wanted to be arrested and put in prison in the first scene with them. So Matt goes in, takes the flag, and pushes on it to get the arrest. I suppose you could say that Fred had pulled in Aegis, Matt responded to it, and then turned it into a push by taking it in a direction Fred wasn't thinking about.
  45.  # 45
    Fred,

    Huh, yea, that's another thing I see a lot of -- when flags get misread. Because there are two reasons I hear players talking about for taking "Best Swordsman Ever" as a trait. The first is because they want to be challanged on their combat skill hard, the second is because they don't want to be challanged to a sword fight at all.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 46
    Okay.

    ...

    I still don't get it.
  47.  # 47
    Josh,

    It might not be an issue for you. It may not be useful to you.

    Heck, I know people who have the same response to GNS. Like Tony's (very slick) statement about how in a game that properly supports address of premise there isn't a difference in his eyes between G and N.

    For some its a useful distinction, for others it isn't.

    Of course, and here is a big secret for all of you, this could because Push and Pull weren't supposed to be a big deal. Mo's orriginal essay was just supposed to be a short little preface to the immersion essay she was going to do. Just a little bit of background about how she sees power interactions at the table before the real meat. Then that bit of background became the point.

    Maybe if I can convince her to finish the damn immersion essay it'll make more sense.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 48
    ...or introduce a boatload of more things to discuss ad nauseum.

    (Write, Mo, write!)
  49.  # 49
    Like how when people got to GNS and Ron did Big Model, that made all the discussion stop because everything made perfect sense now.

    Right?
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 50
    Exactly. I mean, if it wasn't for that sort of thing, I'd have to like, work all day.
    • CommentAuthorJudd
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 51
    This is before I sort through the links, mind you.

    Pull is encouraging everyone at the table to contribute to the story together, welcoming all input.

    Push is using the system to get what you want onto the table, even if it means forcing it down the throat of another player.

    How am I doing?
    • CommentAuthorJudd
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 52
    For example:

    Yeah, I think that in context, the asking players to author some details into the city was pull. It was all love and support and all of the ideas rocked.

    Dogs in the Vineyard is all Push all the time, ain't it? I mean, as a GM, I am pushing the NPC's agendas with the dice through the whole town, begging players to take fall-out and/or escalate.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 53
    Pull isn't all hippy all-embracing, and Push is not so aggressive my-way-highway. At least, I think they aren't.

    I can totally Push stuff at you that I'm not terribly invested in; I can, in fact, Push stuff at you that I know you want Pushed at you. So too, I can totally Pull you in very manipulative ways to get you to introduce exactly what I want you to introduce.
    • CommentAuthorJudd
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 54
    I can totally Push stuff at you that I'm not terribly invested in; I can, in fact, Push stuff at you that I know you want Pushed at you. So too, I can totally Pull you in very manipulative ways to get you to introduce exactly what I want you to introduce.

    Examples, please.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 55
    Full Light, Full Steam: you've got the Thematic Battery "Lady Officer." I tell you that a woman doesn't belong on the ship (I pass a scrip and score points for this). Now you have to react.
    • CommentAuthorJudd
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 56
    <i>I can totally Push stuff at you that I'm not terribly invested in; I can, in fact, Push stuff at you that I know you want Pushed at you. So too, I can totally Pull you in very manipulative ways to get you to introduce exactly what I want you to introduce.</i>

    I'm not terribly invested in my Dogs NPC's. I am pushing their agendas because in doing so, I make for a better challenge for the PC's. I might like an NPC or secretly in my heart of hearts think they are an okay person and the dogs are giving them a rough go, but that's cool, I dig that kind of conflicted loss in DitV.

    I'm invested in pushing the PC's to pull their guns and take a stand in the name of the King of Life.

    So your Full Light, Full Steam is a non-invested Push?
  57.  # 57
    Two things.

    First, Brand, I wanted to point out this really fascinating thing...
    She set me up so that she brought the two characters together, set up a crazy dynamic situation in which she was happy and secure, and then basically said to me, "Now you tell me what you think about this, you finish it because I've already finished my part." Because of the momentum of the game I could not stop and let it there, and because she stepped back and left the space there, I had to step in. Otherwise the game would have sucked.

    This looks like a push to me... Of course I don't have all the context, but... doesn't it look like Mo's action has threatened your sense of a good story?

    I mean, that's how it looks from here, and that's totally cool. See, it looks to me like Mo isn't offering you anything at all here. Now, that may mean you have to reevaluate your agreement with my threaten/offer thing, or you may just need to provide more context (or just say there's more there, context is a lot of work to present).

    Judd,

    I think you're where I was about three months ago with this. Now I think that Push/Pull isn't about getting your way instead of drawing other people in. It's just a method of getting what you want. Consider my above note to Brand, it looks (to me) like Mo is using a Push technique to draw input from Brand.

    That's where I think things stand anyway.

    Thomas
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 58
    Yes, Judd.
    •  
      CommentAuthorVaxalon
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 59
    Maybe push is "I want to decide what happens in this situation, because I find the result more interesting" and pull is "I want you to decide what happens in this situation; I find the situation more interesting."

    Or else I am, as usual, Not Getting It.
    •  
      CommentAuthorBrand_Robins
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006 edited
     # 60
    Damnit, you noisy monkeys, I go away for like 30 minutes to prep for game and come back to 9 new posts.

    Judd,

    Minus "forcing it down their throat" and "all input" that's at least a big chunk of it. Pull is getting people to bring things, Push is getting others to accept the things you bring, in a lose fashion. You can guide people with pull (after all the very way you staged your question in the "make up five cool things about the city" guides the possible range of responses at least a little), and you can do push in a way that isn't "down the throat" (like the Fred and Matt example -- they were both going for what they wanted, but there wasn't a "down your throat" aspect either).

    Thomas,

    No. Because the only way that my story would have been threatened was if I had done nothing at all. Or if no one else at the table had. And anytime you do that you'll have something that sucks. If "the game won't be fun unless you contribute to it" is a threat, then everything we do is because of that threat.

    What Mo did is pull me into a place where I could do anything I wanted, within the scope of the situation she'd set up. I had to react, yes, but I wasn't reacting to a threat -- I was reacting to a bribe, or a setup.

    Fred,

    Yea, that is a big part of what Mo was talking about in the first place. Sometimes you can author your story by chosing to let someone else author a part of it.
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2006
     # 61

    Okay, so ... this happens endlessly in actual play of Capes. I can go into any con and make this scenario happen inside of five minutes.

    TONY: ... in these troubled times we need a living symbol to remind us all that America stands for Justice, and Justice will always lead ... to VICTORY!
    ANYONE: God. Major Victory is just ... so ... aaagggh!
    TONY: Oh, you know you like it! Come! You will be my new sidekick, and I will teach you the ways of heroism!
    ANYONE: Oh, dude ... stay the hell away from me!
    TONY: You can have tights and tight shorts! All the sidekicks wear them! Here, I will add "Goal: Make Spark-Boy into Major Victory's new sidekick!" ANYONE: Okay, that's it! I'm slapping down "Goal: File restraining order against Major Victory" ... I want a five hundred yard radius, guaranteed, you freaky-ass stalker!
    TONY: It's not me that's stalking you ... you, my young friend, are being stalked ... by DESTINY!

    Now this looks, to my eyes, like what's been defined so far as both Push (I'm strongly contributing my own material and forcing people to accept it) and Pull (I'm leaving a great big horking load of opportunities for them to respond and drawing them into doing so). Indeed, the harder I push Major Victory the more it Pulls a response.

    Are these things supposed to be opposite ends of a spectrum, or are Push and Pull two independent issues? Can something be neither Push nor Pull, or both Push and Pull?

  62.  # 62
    So, in my understanding, push and pull are both ways of getting people to respond. Therefore, you're pushing to make them react to Major Victory, not just pushing the concept. They're different ways of eliciting a response. I kindof like to think of it as pushing someone to respond when they don't want to vs. pulling them to respond of their own volition. An example:

    "hey do you want to come over and hang out or something?"
    "hey do you want to come over and hang out or something? come on, you know you want to!"

    The latter is pushing, the former isn't. The difference isn't always an additional sentence, sometimes it's just the way you state something.

    "Do you want to come over tonight?"
    "Hey! Why don't you come over tonight?"

    The latter is -- if not pushing -- very close to it. It forces someone to come up with a reason/excuse not to come over if they don't want to, whereas the first doesn't.

    Hope this helps,

    --Nancy
  63.  # 63
    Tony,

    My take is that you've been confused by the different views of what push and pull are. I'm going to jump up and down and point to mine again, since I think it's the only one that is both coherent and useful. (In fact, I find the "I'm contributing" vs "I'm getting you to contribute" divide to be a complete red herring.)

    So, ask yourself, what are you doing? You are, at least as far as I can tell, threatening the player with having their character look ridiculous. In that sense you are pushing. Whenever you drop goals to make their character's wear hot pants, you're pushing them to fight you.

    At the same time, you're pulling players. Specifically, you are using your characterization to make people want something. What do they want? They want to see Major Victory get what's coming to him. He's such a self-righteous prick that everyone actively wants him to get slapped down.

    I'll also note that this is a great way to teach Capes. You're generating a desire, and then you tell people how to fulfill it ("Oh, all you have to do is spend an action to create a Goal"). You push people to fight you, and then you pull people to create new arenas to fight you in.

    They appear to be the same thing, but I don't think they are. In the one case, you are threatening their characters with looking dumb. In the other case you are offering them the chance to put Major Victory in his place. It is, of course, really dang interesting that these are so tightly linked, but I think that they're still distinct things.

    Does that match up with your experience?

    Thomas
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2006
     # 64

    Thomas: Nope. I don't see the distinction that you're drawing ... like, at all.

    Pushing is trying to get someone to do something by threatening something they want to keep safe. Pulling is about trying to get someone to do something by offering them something they desire to have.

    So what happens when, in a single moment, I clearly convey the following: "If I win then you have to be Major Victory's sidekick, but if you win then you get to tell him off and leave him sobbing in the gutter"?

    Your two categories are not distinct. Single actions can be both Push and Pull by your definition. Almost every time you're setting hard Stakes, you're offering both an opportunity and a threat.

    So if you're cool with Push and Pull happening at the same time then let's discuss it in that context. But if you want to argue that a Push can't be a Pull abd a Pull can't be a Push then I'm still not convinced.

    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2006
     # 65

    Faerieloch wrote:
    The difference isn't always an additional sentence, sometimes it's just the way you state something.

    Uh ... doesn't that put Push and Pull into the eye of the beholder? Like, if I ask you "Hey, you wanna come over tonight? We're watching movies," and I'm trying to be deadpan, but you hear it as "Hey! You WANNA come over tonight! We're watching moooOOOooovies!" in a cajoling tone then I'm Pulling but you're being Pushed?

    •  
      CommentAuthorBen Lehman
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2006
     # 66
    I agree with Thomas that the whole "inviting player input" is a red herring. ALL good play invites player input. That's just good play.

    The difference is in technique -- how do we invite input?

    When I play Polaris and I go "And so it was that Sir Arcturus returned from the war to find his wife and children slaughtered by the demon One Thousand Dawns Each Alike," that's a push. Am I inviting player input? Damned straight I am.

    When I play Polaris and I go "hey, dude, why don't you frame the scene for your Sir Arcturus this time," that's a pull. It's a different means of inviting player input.

    yrs--
    --Ben
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2006
     # 67

    Did you know that, in physics, there's no such thing as suction? It's true. You cannot apply force by creating a vacuum. The only thing you can do is remove one of a pair of balanced forces, in this case air pressure on one side of an object that is normally the exact balance to the air pressure on the other side of the object.

    Now that looks like applying force through suction, until you get right down to it and examine things closely ... and then you find out that you were wrong the whole time.

    I'm seriously considering the possibility that Push and Pull don't exist, and that the reason I don't get it but other people do is that the other people are wrong. I'm not dead-set on that yet, but I will say that this thread is pushing (or perhaps pulling) me very strongly in that direction. The more people explain, the less it all seems to make sense. Just FYI.

  68.  # 68
    Tony,

    This may seem pedantic, but I promise I don't intend it to be:
    So what happens when, in a single moment, I clearly convey the following: "If I win then you have to be Major Victory's sidekick, but if you win then you get to tell him off and leave him sobbing in the gutter"?

    Notice the "if... but if..." there? That makes the sentence disjunctive. You're actually making two different statements. You're doing them in the same breath, and possibly even in the same game-action, but they're not a unified thing.

    So, yeah, you can push and pull someone at the same time. In fact, I was trying to point that out in the context of Capes earlier. Think about it like this: you want to win any given conflict because it will give you an Inspiration. You want to lose many (but not all) conflicts because that will earn you Story Tokens. You want to win or lose specific conflicts based on which fictional outcome you prefer. All of that is pulling you in all sorts of directions at once.

    Then at the same time you want to win conflicts to get rid of debt. And you want to win conflicts to prevent other people from doing stuff you don't want to the fiction. That's pushing.

    Can you be under pressure from both at the same time? Sure! But any single thing can only do one or the other. Is that clearer?

    EDIT: Crossposted with Tony above.

    Thomas
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2006
     # 69

    Thomas, it's clearer, but I think it is (though very much well-intentioned) mistaken.

    I'm making a disjunctive statement to you people to make clear what's happening. In Capes, I would just throw down a 3x5 card on which is written "Goal: Major Victory convinces Spark-boy to join on as his sidekick!" and that would communicate the same thing.

    And, in fact, even that would be the elaborated version of the dynamic ... the very first iteration, which spends extra time (to the tune of two seconds reading the card) in establishing the stakes. When I later pick up a debt token and place it on the card, am I pushing or pulling? I am, in that physical movement, both threatening to contest the goal more powerfully and setting up several types of possible reward for the other players to pursue.

    It sounds to me like that is both Push (threatening to take away something they value) and Pull (offering a reward they can pursue). What do you think?

  70.  # 70
    Tony,

    I meant phraseology, not intonation.

    --Nancy
  71.  # 71
    Tony,

    Sure, dumping debt on a conflict is pushing and pulling, or at least it can be. In fact, it's always pulling (offering story tokens, which are defaulted as valuable) in the context of the game, but I'm sure you can imagine some players who don't care about them, maybe because they have too many already, or maybe just because they don't care. In that case the debt isn't a pull.

    At the same time, Major Victory making Spark-boy his side-kick might not be a push either. I mean, maybe as Spark-boy's player I think that's a totally awesome way to take the story.

    All that's just me saying "context matters" again, so let's just assume this is a typical situation in which the action is a push and a pull. That's fine. I think part of the confusion may be coming from thinking of push and pull as physical actions, they're not, they're social actions. You can convey multiple social meanings in a single physical action. Heck, consider the words "I love you", they do more than express love.

    I guess I'm saying "Yeah, you can push and pull at the same time, but recognize that you're not doing one thing." You may still think that that's crazy, but hey...

    Also! One thing about my conception of the push/pull distinction that I think might not be in sync with everyone else's is that I think you can make statements that are neither. Sometimes when you say "My guy opens the door" you aren't pushing or pulling, you're just making a statement. I think there's been some confusion because people are trying to classify statements that are not intended to generate a response as pushing or pulling, while I think some statements are just statements.

    Thomas
    •  
      CommentAuthorHoho
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2006
     # 72

    I feel like we're going in weird places with all this talk about threat and input and so forth; it's a social dynamic so we should think of it at that level.

    My suspicion is (oversimplified): Pushing invites opposition, while pulling invites collusion. Crucially, they both draw in another player's input, but they differ with respect to how it interacts with what has gone before.

  73.  # 73
    I usually think of it as pushing=forcing input while pulling=eliciting input.

    --Nancy
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2006
     # 74

    Okay, I've got a follow-up question.

    Three different, actual, instances of play: They both begin the same way, with me adding "Goal: Convince X to become Major Victory's sidekick," and playing it for all its obnoxious worth.

    • Sarah reviles Major Victory, inventing a sordid past wherein he has repeatedly been accused of abusing his sidekicks.
    • Becca says "Uh ... no, I don't think I want to do that," but does not step up to oppose it.
    • Rob says "Okay. What sort of pay and benefits does being your sidekick offer?" and opens negotiations.

    Was I doing different things, as regards Push and Pull, when I ran my standard Major Victory script for these different people? In short, is it only possible to evaluate Push or Pull after you know how the other player responds?

    •  
      CommentAuthorHoho
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2006
     # 75

    How are we to know, without knowing the initial conditions? Response is only half of the information.

  76.  # 76
    Tony,

    Was I doing different things, as regards Push and Pull, when I ran my standard Major Victory script for these different people? In short, is it only possible to evaluate Push or Pull after you know how the other player responds?

    I think you've got the essence of something imoprtant, but your missing a key bit. It's not how they respond, but how they perceive your action. That is, you may try to push, but it falls flat, or maybe it's a pull, you can't know without the extremely specific context of the players at the table.

    But, like I said, it's not about how they respond. You may threaten (push), but they hide that. It's not all that functional in the types of play I perceive you (and me) to like, but it is a response.

    So, in short, yeah, you were doing different things. In the exact same way that me saying to my mother "I love you" means something different from me saying to my (hypothetical) girlfriend "I love you". Context is king.

    Thomas
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2006
     # 77

    So ... I know nothing about any of these people. You get that, right? I'm running a demo script for people who walk up to the table. We have zero pre-existing relationship.

    Given that, do you see how it is hard for me to answer questions about how the initial conditions differed from my point of view? From my point of view the initial conditions were absolutely identical.

    Now, Thomas: You said something I find very interesting. You said that whether I am Pushing or Pulling is defined by how others perceive my action ... even if I'm doing exactly the same thing. Is that right?

  78.  # 78
    Tony,
    So ... I know nothing about any of these people. You get that, right? I'm running a demo script for people who walk up to the table. We have zero pre-existing relationship.

    Now, this is an exaggeration. Of course you know something about these people. First, they're people, More usefully, they're Americans, they're the sort of people who attend conventions, etc. There are all sorts of visual cues that you can automatically process to pick out things like sub-culture and shared values. Still, you're right that you do not know these people, which just means that your attempts to push may fail.
    Given that, do you see how it is hard for me to answer questions about how the initial conditions differed from my point of view? From my point of view the initial conditions were absolutely identical.

    Well, one thing that you're ignoring (and to be fair, I've been ignoring it for silly rhetorical reasons) is that you know how to read people. It's a pretty basic social skill. You can watch as your annoying Major Victory voice and physical posing grate on nerves and generate dislike. You can watch people's reactions to Major Victory and guage just the right player to hit with the sidekick goal.

    On top of that, you have this wonderful set of shared cultural markers. The players you've got are (likely) Americans and (again, likely) gamers, and (again, likely) somewhat familiar with comic books. So, while you may not know anything about these people, you can make some highly accurate assumptions about how they will react in general. Then you can use your social skills to fine-tune your assessment of reactions, and adjust your plans accordingly.

    Basically, context matters, but it turns out that we (as humans) tend to be pretty good at picking context up out of social situations. It's something we do all the time. Sure, you'll make mistakes, but that can happen even if you really know someone well.
    Now, Thomas: You said something I find very interesting. You said that whether I am Pushing or Pulling is defined by how others perceive my action ... even if I'm doing exactly the same thing. Is that right?

    Tony, yep. I'm aware that it seems a bit odd, but it turns out to be more linguistically intuitive than the reverse. See, as (I think) I've shown upthread, using my definition of the distinction sometimes you think you're pulling, but you're not. You say to yourself, "Aha! I have just the thing to draw them out!" and then it flops. So, pretty clearly, it's possible, maybe even common, for one party to think that they're executing a push or pull, and the other party to perceive the action differently.

    If that's the case, then we need to be able to talk about what's happening when you try to push (or pull) but it's perceived as either nothing of interest or the opposite action. The two options I see us having there are "I tried to push/pull him, but instead I pulled/pushed him." or "I pushed/pulled him, but he thought I was pulling/pushing him." Or, using the more defined threatened/bribed dichotemy: "I tried to bribe him, but he felt threatened instead" vs "I bribed him, but he felt like I was threatening and reacted as if I was."

    It seems to be just plain odd to me to talk as if the person reacting is wrong about what prompted the reaction. "Dude, you may have felt threatened, but I was totally bribing you" seems like something of a nonsensical response. It makes more sense to me to talk about things as a failure to properly assess what is a threat and what is a bribe.

    All that aside, I still think the push/pull distinction is useful. There are some socio-cultural reasons for this (about how we tend to communicate, and the sorts of settings we use each mode in outside of gaming, and stuff like that), but I don't think anything I've said above makes it any harder to do, really. It's just as easy to talk about trying to push, and the sorts of things that tend to push. In many cases we'll be right too. I mean, as you pointed out above, (almost?) every time you toss the "Make Spark-boy into Major Victory's sidekick" on the table people react as if threatened.

    That side-kick thing? That strongly tends to be a push, but you see how in some contexts it's not, right? I mean, you can see how someone might be at the table and they get this glow in their eyes, and they just can't wait to start acting sanctimonious and self-righteous too!

    So, after spending an entire thread repeating "context matters" over and over under my breath (and aloud, when I felt like it), I'm also saying "But remember, when we're playing actual games, we have context to draw from, and more than that, we can anticipate the sort of people who will play our games, so there's some context, and even more than that, we know what sorts of interactions often produce either push or pull."

    Man, that's rambly...

    Thomas
  79.  # 79
    There’s some interesting discussion going on here, which I don’t want to derail by adding my own example, but here’s some actual play.

    It’s from an email game. In the history of the game world, a massively important event involved one character using a form of magical communication and transportation to contact another and bring them into his presence. And then he stabbed this character in the gut and broke the universe with his spilt blood. He’s considered a bad guy and is now dead. The entire game is about the consequences of that.

    A while ago, my character was learning how to use the same magical communication, under the instruction of the protégée and ward of the original stabber. This teacher is now considered reasonably trustworthy and innocent of the bad guy’s plans. My character doesn’t know him from Adam and doesn’t trust him either, since he just kidnapped her and claimed it was really a rescue. She’s very scared, but going along with things in the meantime. She cooperates with the lesson, but as she does so, she subtly mimes stabbing her teacher in the guts, to work out the feasibility of protecting herself that way should she ever be attacked through this crazy magic stuff. She doesn’t know the history or the people involved.

    The player of the teacher has previously set up his character’s loyalty as a bit ambiguous, and also enjoyed giving the character attitudes that make people question how much he really denounces what his former patron did.

    I threw out the resonance with a past significant event to see if anyone wanted to make something of it. Nobody has yet, but because it’s an email game, things move slowly, and it may still happen. Maybe she’ll end up on the side of the bad guys because someone saw this and decided it would be interesting to tempt her that way? Maybe something else? It felt like Pull to me.

    And now I’ll try for a Push example from character creation in the same game. The game is run using modified Everway rules, and characters have a Fate card. In this game I decided I was interested in the tension between power derived from bloodlines, the desire to belong, and the desire to be self-made. I picked The Fool as my character’s Fate card. Now that issue has to show up in the game.

    Claire
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2006
     # 80

    Thomas: This whole "Context matters" thing? I think it's a circular argument that basically turns your entire definition of Push/Pull into meaningless pedantry. Here's why.

    People (you included, I do believe) are offering me Push/Pull as a tool for understanding my own behavior and how it effects others. "See, Tony, when you Pull it entices people with the offer of something they want, and so they pursue it, but when you Push it engages people with the threat of something they don't want, and so they resist. So if you want them to pursue then you should pull, but if you want them to resist then you should push."

    So I say "Okay, so how do I Pull? How do I know when I'm doing it? How do I get better at doing it?" Reasonable questions, yes?

    And I get the response "Well, you can't really choose to do it ... it's up to the people on the other end. If they perceive you as offering something they want, and they pursue it, then you're Pulling. If they perceive you as threatening something they don't want and they resist then you're Pushing."

    Which means that your argument, when expanded is:

    • If the other players perceive you as offering something they want, and pursue it, that's a good way to entice people with the offer of something they want, so they'll pursue it, and...
    • If the other players perceive you as threatening them with something they don't want, and resist it, that's a good way to engage them with the threat of something they don't want, so they'll resist it.

    Which is a meaningless circular definition.

    I could do meaningless circular definitions too, if I were so inclined ... I could say things like:

    There's an important distinction between entertaining your players and distracting them. Entertaining will help your players have happy lives outside of the game by filling them with joy, while distracting them will make them miserable by giving them a way to avoid solving their own problems. Oh ... you want to know how to tell the difference between entertaining and distracting? Well, context is king. If the players are happy outside of the game then you've been entertaining them, but if they're miserable then you've been distracting them. If so, you better stop that right away, you jerk!

    Now, Thomas ... you're being a tremendous sport about discussing this, and I respect you greatly as a person because of that. I want to make absolutely clear that it's your ideas I object to, not you personally. People get confused about that very easily, so I wanted to make it infinitely clear. I disagree with you as respecting, friendly peers can and will disagree on points they hold passionately. Are we cool?

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