Game (4) -- Breaking point

[radiantfracture]

Again, just if you feel a spark of interest or think of a story that did this in a good way for you -- what about when a character experiences personality collapse, more or less?

The fourth character quality in Ten Candles is the Brink, which is a little harder to explain, but is something like the character's breaking point, or rather what they do when they break -- the nastiest version of themselves that they collapse into, often, though I've seen it played for beautiful irony.

It's framed as a statement, "I have seen you..." and then what your character does at the brink -"lie to a friend," "accidentally shoot someone," "run away in fear," "steal from the helpless," etc.

The reward for using this in 10C is to get to re-roll your dice. You're rewarded for story juice by a mechanical payoff.

So, I guess -- what's an interesting state of collapse for you to play?

* * * * * *

Just answer if it's fun, okay? No expectations.

I want a little project to occupy myself in case I need to be away more often in the winter, which I suspect I might.

{rf}

Comments

[sabotabby]

Stab others while attempting to cut out your own heart?

[radiantfracture]

So real! Love the idea of "meant to hurt myself, mostly hurt you instead" because hi that's a real thing

Conversely, there was a great one where a character's brink was "lie to a friend" but they lied about being about to blow themselves up to save everyone

good times

jasmine_r_s once had "shoot someone accidentally" and made it herself, subsumed in alien ooblick, very nice

[yhlee]

This. This is like my character collapse trope of all time, which is probably visible from outer space. XD

[sabotabby]

hard same

[radiantfracture]

Okay, definitely taking that onboard then. Thank you!

[asakiyume]

I love reading these questions, even though I have no idea what I might want to play. Just as questions they're interesting to think about. But for this one, I realize I'm not sure what personality collapse really is. It feels like when in mid-last-century lit people would talk about nervous breakdowns. Is that the sort of thing? Or is it different?

[radiantfracture]

In this context -- loosely drawn from Ten Candles -- my favorite version is that it's what your character does when their nerve completely fails them. When fear or despair or rage breaks their usual habits and undermines the coherence of their personality, and they act on impulse or reflex.

The Brink is more loosely defined than that in the game -- it could be a grim secret or just a core fault -- but I like that one.

So a nervous breakdown would fit for a given character, but so would a berserk rage, depending on the person. Or just running away and hiding.

[asakiyume]

I'm nodding at "breaks their usual habits"--I understand that.

I think (I'm very chagrinned to admit) that maybe what I have trouble grasping is what "personality" actually is. Which may seem like a trolling remark, but really it's just that it's one of those words that we use all the time, and it's only when I stop to think about what it would mean for that to collapse, or lose coherence, that I realize I'm not really sure what we mean when we use it. I think that I think of it as being kind of synonymous with what I imagine people mean when they say "disposition" (as in, "they have a sunny disposition" or "they have a melancholy disposition"), but what you say here makes me realize it can also mean something like a person's set of typical responses, their routine behavior.

[radiantfracture]

Well, I think here what I might be working with is something like an ego-image, or self-image, and the moment at which you can no longer think of yourself as that sort of person, whatever that sort of person is, because of what you have just done or felt.

[asakiyume]

*nodding*

That makes good sense.