A Little More On Motivations

So Typepad is supposed to let me integrate Facebook comments and blog comments, but it doesn't work and I've had a support ticket about it open for months and they said they'll look into it (I've even given them the password to my Facebook account so they can figure it out!) but that was months ago.

Anyhow, Christopher Kubasik asked on Facebook:

Could you unwrap what you mean by the word "Goal"?
And "Motivation"?
And "Best Interest"?"

Or do all three terms mean the same thing for you?

And I said -

Goal / Motivation / Best Interest mean subtly different things to me but they all accomplish pretty much the same thing: for the game, they help give the player ideas for something to do "Hmm, I want to sleep with Daphne, so I'm going to go ask her out", and for the story, the character has to start out wanting something which will then be opposed/resisted.

 

But, to be more precise, in my mind:

A motivation would be something you want but you might not be sure when you're done. "I want to be famous."

A goal would have a pretty obvious 'win' condition - you'd know when you're done. "I want to kill my son's killer."

A best interest would be something that's truly good for your character - but they might not be actively pursuing it or even know what it is. "I should forgive my son's killer."

 

Comments

[Jamie Fristrom]

And Christopher then pointed out that my example best interest here is not a good best interest as far as IaWA is concerned.

Which is true - I really want forgiveness to be a possibility in That's Drama, but if I made that a motivation, there'd be no game there. You'd just say, "I forgive you. There, I resolved my motivation." So I turned it around - "You want *their* forgiveness" - but a couple of playtesters had a problem with that; they thought that was too much in the other guy's court. So I'm stuck, there, for now.