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Triggers

Theory/Triggers

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+# TRIGGERS AND ATTRACTORS
+#### By Sirio Sesenra
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+“I want Character X to reach Scene Y.” This phrase sums up one of the most important phases of adventure design and also points to a common trend in GMing style. So how do you get a character to end up in the scene you’ve planned for them? In my previous article, I talked about liquid narrative and one of its key traits: uncertainty. Uncertainty means you don’t know what the player will do with their character. So, how can you design an adventure that has scenes and objectives?
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+We’ll call the reason a character heads towards a specific scene an “impulse.” Accepting that term, what drives a character to enter a particular scene?
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+Often, a single clue pointing in a clear direction is enough for players to follow. Something like, “This kind of tar-like mud can only be found in the Helterbridge Swamp,” and the characters will head to the swamp, hoping to find another thread to follow. Clues leading to locations, where they find more clues—this design works well in simple scenarios, where there aren’t too many red herrings or side plots.
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+It’s a design I like to call the “fishbone structure.”
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+The storyline is the spine of the fish, and the bones represent the illusion of progress and movement created by travelling from one location to the next. Players move around, linking clues until they reach the final confrontation with the antagonist. Each bone is a simple clue that guides them along the yellow brick road. To keep this linear structure from becoming boring, each clue is enriched with something unique: an encounter with a memorable NPC, a small dilemma requiring a choice, or an action scene against the antagonist’s minions.
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+In this design, the impulse of the characters isn’t particularly important. Why? Because it’s such a simple structure that it relies on the baseline impulse of every RPG session: we’re here to play, we’re cooperative, and we’re in the mood to follow the plot. It doesn’t matter if the characters have a deep, personal reason to reach the antagonist – there’s enough basic motivation to keep moving.
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+I call this the “basal impulse”: the minimal impulse needed to keep the game going.
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+Things change when you play adventures with a bubble structure. Here, one location doesn’t lead to the next in a straight line – it might lead to three others. This multiplies the players’ options, creating an economy of motivations that’s far more interesting.
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+In these scenarios, the impulse that drives a character to a scene becomes crucial, and uncertainty grows as the climax approaches. That’s why you need something to reinforce the characters’ impulses to visit certain key scenes – these are the catalyst scenes that bridge the middle and the end. They’re the scenes that push the characters towards the final showdown, as shown in this diagram:
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+The introduction is an opening scene (or several) that sets the stage, giving players freedom to choose how they’ll explore. The middle is the big messy circle: a cluster of interconnected scenes that players explore as they see fit. Key scenes within that cluster lead to the resolution.
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+So we have a baseline impulse to start with, but we also want to add more impulse to guide players to these crucial scenes. But if these scenes feel too obvious or forced, it strips away the players’ freedom—it becomes a heavy-handed nudge from the GM, not a real choice. We want the players to choose to go there, not feel compelled.
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+From my perspective, there are two major forces that pull a character to a location: an emotional trigger and an effective attractor.
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+An emotional trigger awakens a player’s desire to achieve something: vengeance, justice, dreams. “You killed my father. Prepare to die.” This is a powerful trigger. It gives the character a driving force, but once that’s resolved, the impulse vanishes. “I want to be King of the Pirates.” Less intense, but broader and more long-term. “They hanged my mother for a crime she didn’t commit.” That’s a fantastic trigger. And it doesn’t need to be tied to the character’s life goal – triggers can create emotional bonds between the player and the character, propelling them in a certain direction.
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+Triggers aren’t story hooks themselves, but they create a probability. You, as the designer, play with that probability, making sure a character’s trigger points toward the scene you want them to visit. When the player weighs their four open options, they’re most likely to go where that trigger’s arrow is pointing.
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+An attractor is an emotional pull that draws the character in. It says, “Come here, or this will happen,” and the player moves to stop it. Attractors work especially well when you create countdowns or establish clear stakes. When you combine a trigger and an attractor in a scene, you massively increase the chance that the player will bring their character there. So the trigger, “They hanged my mother for a crime she didn’t commit,” fits beautifully with an NPC who says, “They’re about to hang my mother in the Sillares Square! She’s innocent!”
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+Triggers and attractors don’t push characters directly to the final showdown. They’re currents that guide them to scenes along the way. They’re like a flowing river, inviting players to surf the story without stealing the players’ freedom.
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+So the big question is: How do you apply this in your own adventure design?
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+Do you consciously decide what will push the players towards a particular scene?
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