Setting-wise status quo is the current situation of the setting. Any change to it is a change to the setting status quo.

Needless to say, there's no way to keep a dynamic setting frozen, not even in the Sleeping Beauty's world. I've already mentioned that this is not a useful concept of setting status quo from a RPG perspecive. I also advanced the idea that what is important is the status quo as perceived by the character(s): in other words, what they value defines what is relevant in the status quo and needs to be considered in the game.

Each rpg setting defines a profile of playable characters, a profile that precisely must focus on their core values and fields of action, otherwise there's no scope for roleplaying. Our first question has then to be what are the aspects of the setting status quo that drive character's action (either to change the status quo or to keep it as it is). Next we need to consider the nature of those changes and finally we need to define their magnitude and granularity. These are the three issues for the present column.

Status Quo Domains

In daily life what we want to know is how much we have in our bank account, how much we have in our pocket, how much food is there in the fridge and wheter the car as petrol or not
--From The Last Column

Yes, these may the the core concerns for us here in the good old real world. But what are the concerns for a character in a pre-modern fantasy setting, the core drivers for his perception of the status quo? I’ll break those up into four categories:

Personal status quo. Fantasy words are dangerous, the life and physical integrity of the character is at risk. There is fighting, there are sicknesses, and there are magical or mundane threads of all kinds. The personal status quo of the character is a necessary concern. But how to handle it? Is it a concern only in terms of physical integrity or should mental integrity be taken into account? Should the game cover only the "pathological" (wounds, sickness, poison) or should it also consider the normal oscilations of daily life (fatigue)? This does not need to be decided at this stage, all we need to settle now is that there must be a concern with the personal status quo.

Social status quo. Fantasy words are also places for a lot of social interaction. The characters have enemies and friends, followers and masters, a stake in society or a marginal position. The opportunities offered to them and the threads they may have to face are to a great extent shaped by their social relations.

Material status quo. Whatever the characters may do, more often than not it will be assisted by stuff of all kinds, and getting more stuff is one of the main drivers for their action.

Values, goals and interests. Each person is driven in his action by a certain way of looking at the world around him, a vision that is shaped by his personal values and interests, and by the goals the person sets into himself.

Is there anything missing? Just tell me, but keep in mind that it must fit the genre and type of settings for which Rough Quests is being designed.

Nature of the status quo changes

It's good to know what boxes will be there for the things that change often in the life of a character, the things the player will be looking for most often. Still, how will the content of those boxes change? There are several different ways of looking at status quo changes:

Quantitative vs. qualitative. Consider personal status. A character may be wounded, he may suffer a sickness, or he may be poisoned. As a consequence he may be reduced in his abilities. Or he may die. In the first case the change is mostly quantitative (the character has less of something), in the second case it is qualitative (the character stops being a character).

Narrow vs. broad. The character is stung by a venomous animal. Does the poison affect only the body zone or does it spread to the whole body? In the first case maybe the character is no longer able to use is arm while in the second case he may collapse, waiting for death if not administered the proper antidote.

Short term vs. medium/long term. Does the change last for the scene? Does it last for the whole game session? Or is it something that will last for several sessions?

Reversible vs. permanentat. This is mostly self explanatory, I suppose. A character may lose the favour of the king today and get it back tomorrow. But in some societies a loss of social status cannot be reversed (once an outcast, always an outcast).

Status quo scales

For quantitative status quo changes we need to define a scale that graduates those changes. What's the range of values in the status quo fields?

I don't like a detailed and minute definition of status quo because that's not the way we deal with things in real life. We are hurt often, be it physically or emotionally. We suffer all type of minor ailments. Good things also happen to us all the time, be it a couple of € we gain in the Lotto or a nice word by a family member, friend or boss. In our life we enjoy those small pleasures or endure those small pains and move on. They are soon forgotten, our span of attention diverted to other small things or to larger matters.

From my perspective these things don't need to be taken into consideration when deciding what changes in the status quo should be handled by the game, be it at the setting level or at the game system level. What we need to account for are the big changes, those that have a sizable impact in the life of the character (either in the long run or for the fraction of second that will decide his destiny), and all we need to consider is a range of options with two or three levels.

Let's go back to RuneQuest since it provides my favorite example for the present purposes, Damage. In RuneQuest there are two superimposed systems to handle damage, a hit points system and a qualitative damage system (ok, this has more to do with game system status quo than setting status quo but it serves my purposes).

The impact of a loss of HPs in the action of the character is mostly binary: no matter how much damage the character sustains each time he is wounded, it has no impact in his action until he is down to 1 or 2 HPs, but when this happens the character simply colapses. This system means that in setting terms the character is able to sustain damage, wound after wound, until the last overflowing drop in the bowl.

But that's not all. RuneQuest has rules for discriminating the damage done to different body parts, including HPs per location. These rules add a system that defines the impact that the damage may have depending on its magnitude by breaking it into minimal, serious and critical. Minimal means the damage does not influence the ability to act; serious diminishes the ability to act; and critical stops the character from acting.

I like this. I like the idea that damage impacts the ability to act, and that there is a limited range of levels of increasing impact. Three is ok for me. I plan to keep this in Rough Quests.

Next time we will look at status quo in terms of game system.