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Deals, Decoys, and Dirty Tricks

Here's an interesting thing people might be able to help me with:

I'm working on a blog post on an organized way to find ways characters can influence and manipulate each other. I've got a basic structure for it that can apply to everything from finding common ground and negotiating to threats, bribes, and military deceptions.

But the key is the contrast between what a person normally does (search the hold, attack the enemy, compete with a rival, etc) and the other behavior (take the bribe, attack the decoy, form a partnership). And I'm slightly balked on what to CALL these two actions. Right now I'm leaning toward "the Standard" and "the Offer" or maybe just A and B, but there has to be something better than that.

Thoughts?
 

Spider

Sage
To me, it seems a bit like the two sides are Action vs. Reaction. Action includes what the character decides to do on his/her own accord, and Reaction includes what a character does as a direct result of another character? For example, taking a bribe would require someone to offer a bribe in the first place. Searching the hold, on the other hand, is a decision the character can make without any direct influence.
 

soggymuse

Dreamer
I'd personally call Offer "The Bribe" instead. Alternately, A & B could be "Action" & "Persuasion", or "Attack" & "Persuasion".
 
Could be. The trouble is, they're meant to be a bit more general than that. The "offer" isn't the bribe itself, it's the new course of action one character's trying to bring another into-- I want a name for that, so I can define that you could try to nudge someone into that with bribes (or above-the-board offers), threats, or even decoying them with bait or fake dangers, the principle's the same.

It's just hard to describe the pieces so they allow for all these different ways they can twist.
 

soggymuse

Dreamer
"Influence"?

Because you're essentially influencing the outcome, or someone else's reaction, by taking action of your own, be that diplomacy or bribery or blackmail or whatever.
 
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