What If?

I had a discussion with a friend and game designer about a new mechanic for Constellation Cards, which replaces the vague and nebulous “challenge” concept. It’s intended to be a very simple framing for how to handle success vs. failure in any RPG, but the discussion brought up other topics I want to hash out as well.

The Essential What If?

The rule goes like this:

When a player narrates an action, such as “I attack the ogre”, any other player can ask “What If…?”
What If? is any alternative outcome, such as “What If the ogre smashes you across the room with its club?”
If the alternative is interesting to the group, the player has to pass a check for their narrative to prevail.
If the player accepts the What If, or if they don’t pass the check, the What If narrative prevails.

The intent is clear: when there’s doubt, the most interesting narrative outcome should prevail.

Using the rule

What may not be clear is how to apply this under some circumstances. Let’s ask and answer some questions.

How many What Ifs can anyone propose?

Let’s get the obvious question out of the way. “What if someone tries to use this rule in bad faith?” Alice dislikes Bob, so any time Bob narrates something, Alice jumps in with a malicious “What If?” What if Bob’s character fails and humiliates himself? What if Bob’s character just dies? And so on. Alice just spams What Ifs because there’s no limit on them.

There’s no rule for correcting bad faith in play. I think it’s futile to try. You don’t need the blessing of the rules to tell a player to knock it off. But aside from that, everyone’s creativity ebbs and flows in play. Some night, Carol might have a ton of ideas, while other nights it’ll be Dave.

How many What Ifs per action?

If Alice narrates an action, and Bob and Carol both have a What If, the better one should prevail. I’m saving the discussion of “which is the better one” for later, because I have more to say. See below.

Why would I want a character to fail their action?

This is more specific to Constellation Cards. The short version is that you pass checks by flipping a character card to the bottom side. Once that’s been done, you can’t get it back until a relevant complication happens in play. So What Ifs are a way to provoke those kinds of complications.

In other games, you might simply use What If? to judge when to roll dice for an action. If nobody can propose a more interesting What If, don’t roll the dice, just move on.

How do you know an alternative is interesting to the group?

Here’s the contentious question.

I’ll give a simple answer that formalizes the process. But I want to talk about the phenomenon of ritualizing social interactions in general, because I think it’s interesting.

The simple answer is: any other players can say “cosigned” or “seconded”, or otherwise express agreement. Players can also say “not feeling it” or “pass”. If anyone cosigns or seconds it, and nobody passes on it, it’s interesting. In Constellation Cards, anyone with the Facilitator Agenda can rule the What If is acceptable or not.

Several indie games I’ve been exposed to have mechanisms to build player consensus, or have specific rules for how players interact to build the story. For example, Archipelago has actual “ritual phrase” cards (e.g. “Try a Different Way!”) and cards like “Yes, and…” that guide play.

To me, it’s intuitive and easy to say “people should just talk through how to handle stuff”. But I know I’m an edge case when it comes to what gamers like. So let’s look at some reasons why a group might want more structure to its interactions.

Emotional permission

Recently I’ve been trying the phrase “emotional permission”. The idea is that you feel doubt about your right to make a choice, so you look to someone or something outside of you to justify doing it. This is different from weighing objective pros and cons about doing something. It’s all about asking, “is it okay if I do this?”

Not everyone in the group will have the same levels of confidence, especially as time passes or the group composition shifts.

For example, if Alice is constantly leading the discussion and seems to have stellar ideas, Bob may not feel like he can speak up without violating some unspoken group norm. Or, Bob might worry that he’s interrupting people if he says something, and it feels like others are constantly talking.

In these cases, the rules - an external, objective thing - can provide the emotional permission Bob needs to speak up.

This is different from energy level. You might have ideas, but be reluctant to voice them.

Uncertainty about play

“What am I supposed to be doing right now?”

This is a common question for new players to ask. Nobody wants to be doing the wrong thing, or disrupt the flow of the game. The easy answer is to just stay quiet and speak up when you’re called on.

For games like Constellation Cards that ask for ongoing player engagement, having a ritual helps prime the player. While emotional permission says “it’s okay for you to speak up”, a formal rule like What If and seconding/cosigning or passing says “this is when you should speak up”.

Gelling genre in play

What is this game about? How do we want to feel while we play?

Anything you narrate characters doing in the game contributes to the mood in some way. You may or may not intend it, but it can happen anyway. How much violence do you think there should be? How much romance? How much danger? The things you emphasize or elide all contribute to how the game will feel.

Many indie games have a specific setting and tone. But others, like Constellation Cards, are built to be playable at a moment’s notice, as one-shots. If you don’t spend extra time talking about it beforehand, it can be hard to gel around a particular mood for the game.

Here’s an example. Let’s say someone offers a What If like “your character loses a hand”. Some players would X-Card this entirely - great, there’s an established system for that, and that system operates for some of the same reasons I’ve already given.

But assuming it’s not something you’d use the X-Card to negate, is it appropriate now, here? In most games, probably not. In gritty war movies, maybe. But what if you’re a Skywalker in the middle of a lightsaber duel?

Even when the group thinks they’ve set expectations, differences of opinion can emerge. If you tell me “we’re playing Star Wars”, do you mean rollicking adventure Original Trilogy Star Wars, hard-bitten World War Two-esque Clone Wars Star Wars, gritty Rogue One/Andor Star Wars, or something else? How soon will I find that out, if I don’t ask? What if I assume I know the answer, and I’m wrong?

In all these cases, having a framework to say “this is when we talk about stuff” as well as “this is when we’re done talking” can help keep conversations productive and avoid derailing the action.

Conclusion

What If gives players a way to develop more interesting narratives, avoid “roll to avoid sucking” in games with dice, and drive the essential game loop of Constellation Cards (for which it was designed).

The benefits of ritualizing the flow of What If are to combat social uncertainty and give players the confidence to engage with the narrative as equals. There’s no substitute for just talking things out with your fellow players, but there are tools to make the process work better.