Blame Avoidance is the desire to be percieved as innocent. If there is a problem, it wasn’t your fault. If fault can be denied, it will be. If someone else can be framed, they will take the fall. Personal responsibility is a foreign concept. The perception of your innocence by your peers is of incredible importance. You will go to extreme lengths to avoid appearing to be incompetent. You once thought you made a mistake, but you were wrong. Characters with high Blame Avoidance values never accept responsibility for anything. When they fail, it was the sun in their eyes, a sweaty grip, or an impossible task in the first place. Characters with low Blame Avoidance values will admit to lack of skill or lapses in judgement.
Construction:
Construction is the desire to build things. You like to work with your hands and make things. The long hard work for a big project is worth the payoff of completing it. You like to see the fruits of your labor, whether they are buildings, gizmos, tools, toys, or a whole business. Some might call you a creative genius. You just believe that hard work pays off. Self-sufficiency is a virtue, after all.
Characters with high Construction values are always seeking to make long term, permanent gains. That could mean a safe haven for the party, powerful gadgets and items, or just a palisade wall around your makeshift camp. Characters with low Construction values prefer to buy things rather than make them.
Deference:
Deference is the desire to follow rather than lead. Some tasks are too big for you to handle on your own. You recognize your limitations. It is important to get help from people you know to solve problems. You might be overlooking something. You always remember that two heads are better than one.
Characters with high Deference values will seek out help as a first response to problems. They are eager to accumulate allies and friends. Characters with low Deference values rarely ask for help and never under any circumstances asks for directions.
Dominance:
Dominance is the desire to control other people. You have a vision, purpose, and plan. Other people just need to accept that and follow your orders. You have the best solution available. It is important that your vision of the future be realized. Other people exist to serve you.
Characters with high Dominance values are domineering and controlling. They boss other people around and have trouble cooperating with similarly motivated companions. Characters with low Dominance values are reluctant to take charge and tends to simply follow the leadership of others.
Exhibition:
Exhibition is the desire to be entertaining. You like to tell thrilling stories, perform in front of others, and make people laugh. You are the life of the party. When there is a lull in conversation, you feel the need to jump in and fill the vacuum. Wearing ostentatious clothes and acting in an unusual way is fun and exciting to you.
Characters with high Exhibition values tend to attract
attention to the party whenever there are people around to be impressed by their skills. Bards and other entertainers tend to have high Exhibition values. Characters with low Exhibition values are easily embarassed and does not like attention.
Exposition:
Exposition is the desire to appear knowledgable. You like to know obscure information, trivia, and secrets. You don’t want that information for its own sake, but rather so that you can tell others. You have a very hard time keeping secrets and can’t stand it when other people keep secrets from you. You like to read books so that you can tell other people what you learned.
Characters with high Exposition values tend to read everything, constantly brings up tangential information, and should not be trusted to keep secrets. Characters with low Exposition values are not that interested in knowing much of anything.
Nurturance:
Nurturance is the desire to care for others. You can’t stand to see someone suffering without jumping in to help. You are highly sensitive to other people’s pain and do your best to alleviate it. Sometimes people accuse you of mothering them or being overbearing. You don’t want to upset anyone, you just want to help.
Characters with high Nurturance values make excellent healers. They tend to be more selfless than most and work to alleviate suffering. Characters with low Nurturance values are callous and uncaring.
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Order:
Order is the desire for structure. You need a plan. Everything must be placed in the right location. Efficiency and cleanliness are very important to you. You can’t stand for things to be out of sequence. People occasionally accuse you of being obsessive-compulsive. Sloppiness is a vice.
Characters with high Order values need a good plan before they attempt almost any substantial task. They really hate being lost or unclean. They have a detailed inventory of all their equipment and make excellent improvised maps. Characters with low Order values are sloppy and unclean. They often only realize they are low on money when they spend the last coin.
Play:
Play is the desire to have fun. Study, hard work, and boredom are intolerable. You need to laugh and have a good time. You are always finding ways to enjoy yourself. Keeping track of time is difficult and you don’t mind being late. There is always time to stop and smell the roses.
Characters with high Play values are rarely serious and usually quite loud and outgoing. They tend to act like children at inappropriate times. Characters with low Play values are dour and taciturn.
Recognition:
Recognition is the desire to be admired. Your walls are covered in trophies, medals, and other memorabilia of your own success. You need other people to recognize you for the awesome person that you are. Whatever you do, it is important that people know you are the best at doing it. Good deeds are worth doing so that people will recognize you for being so great.
Characters with high Recognition values are always taking credit for their successes and making sure that everyone knows about it. Characters with low Recognition values does not feel the need to brag about their victories.
Rejection:
Rejection is the fear of being perceived negatively and the desire to disassociate yourself from anything or anyone that might lower your standing. You are highly sensitive to social status distinctions, particularly gender and ethnic variations. If someone has become disgraced socially, you will walk away from them, no matter how close you were before. There is nothing that scares you more than being associated with someone that you consider below you.
Characters with high Rejection values have a very hard time interacting with people of a lower social order than them, especially criminals and members of other races. Characters with low Rejection values tend to overlook social distinctions and see the people as people, not as social standings.
Retention:
Retention is the desire to hoard objects. You never know when it might come in handy in the future. It always helps to have a reserve to draw upon. You hoard objects because it makes you feel safe. If you dont have anything to fall back on, you feel exposed and vulnerable.
Characters with high Retention values rarely, if ever, sell anything. Anything they find, they keep. They agonize over unnecessary spending. Characters with low Retention values have a tendency to accidentally leave items behind and needlessly waste supplies.
Revenge:
Revenge is the desire to retaliate. People need to know that you are not someone to be messed with. Nobody angers you and gets away with it. An eye for an eye is insufficient -- you want the whole head. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and you are an excellent cook.
Characters with high Revenge values cannot accept defeat. Defeat only makes them angier. Characters with low Revenge values will turn the other cheek and move on.
Sensuality:
Sensuality is the desire to experience pleasure. You are drawn to attractive people like a fly to honey. You enjoy a soft bed, a warm fire, and the gentle (or not-so-gentle) touch of your mate. Wine is the greatest creation of mankind. You always wear the finest and most flattering clothes possible. Luxuries are necessities to you.
Characters with high Sensuality values are very flirtatious and forward with potential mates while characters with low Sensuality values are generally oblivious to their presence.
Succorance:
Succorance is the desire to be taken care of. You need to feel that there is someone else out there looking out for your interests. You like to be mothered, doted on, and succored. When you are sick, you break down and need someone to care for you. You are needy. This may be a higher religious concept instead of a person, if you need that belief system to function in your daily life.
Characters with high Succorance values are whiny and needy. They can barely accomplish anything without asking for help. Characters with low Succorance values do not like to be helped and views offers of help as borderline insulting. Of course, they can handle it on their own. Was that in doubt?
Understanding:
Understanding is the desire to know. This is different from Exposition -- the desire to know so that you can impress others. You want to know these things for yourself. You need to know what is on the other side of that mountain, under that rock, and behind that tree. You are a natural explorer and you can spend hours figuring out math problems and reading books.
Characters with high Understanding values are intrepid explorers who will push the party to keep going. They always want to camp on the other side of the next hill, keep reading into the night, and searching for that lost tome of secret knowledge. Characters with low Understanding values are not interested in those runes on the wall and wants to just go home because it is getting dark.
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Morality:
Morality is difficult to define, and Synapse leaves a lot up to the player. It would be impossible to define even a majority of moral systems in a comprehensive way because of their incredible complexity, so instead we look at general guidelines and leave a lot of the heavy lifting to you and your game group.
One of the most important factors in how you treat others is how you conceive of them in your mind. One of the choices you need to make for your character’s morality is how they categorize others. There are three categories into which your character places all living beings: persons, animals, and objects. If you view another being as a person, then you view them as a legitimate moral entity. They have access to whatever legal protections and human rights your society determines should be applied to everyone. However, if you view another being as an animal or an object, they do not have access to those legal protections or human rights unless covered under the protection of another being who is a legitimate moral life.
For example, let’s assume your character is walking through a farm and comes across a pig. Is the pig viewed as a person, animal, or object? How you conceive of the pig has a powerful impact on your decisions regarding how to treat it. It may mean the difference between life and death.
Persons:
If pigs are viewed as persons, then your character would treat them with the same respect and dignity that would be afforded to another person (which might be none at all). She would not consider killing, eating, abusing, or otherwise harming a pig. She may even help a pig if it was in trouble, viewing the pig as if it were any other person in their society.
Animals:
If pigs are viewed as animals, however, then your character will only respect the pig so long as it is owned by another person. If it was a wild pig or if the character owned the pig, there would be no prohibition on killing or eating the pig. However, there would be prohibitions against unnecessarily abusing or harming the pig. Torturing animals is, in most cultures, not acceptable behavior. Eating them for sustenance, however, is usually permitted.
Objects:
If pigs are viewed as objects, they also have no rights except those that extend from being owned by a person. However, there would be no prohibitions of any kind on treating a pig which you owned or found in the wild, just as there are no prohibitions on how you should treat rocks or dirt. However, if you injured someone else’s pig, it might be a property rights violation, just as if you had broken a door or chair that belonged to someone.
These are not trivial distinctions. If you view another species, race, culture, or other group as objects, then you have no problem killing them, beating them, torturing them, or otherwise harming them. You would treat that group with less concern than you would treat your own domesticated animals. If another character viewed that same group as Persons, you would have a big conflict over how to treat that group. Just like conflicts over motivations, these will provide interesting gameplay experiences. You need not attempt to comprehensively define what categories you place all life into. What is important is that when you encounter enemies, you discuss how you view them within this system. However, you are free to pre-define certain forms of life in these categories before the game even starts, if that is what you want to do.
Categories Persons Animals
In addition to the question of personhood, your character has a conception of morality based on social dynamics. There are six types of morality in Synapse, one of which you should choose as your dominant type. They are listed in order of complexity and prevalence over time. Futuristic game worlds are going to have many more people making moral decisions based on reasoning than medieval ones. Each type defines what standard you hold an action up against to determine whether it is right or wrong.
You may have situations where multiple characters agree on the same course of action, but for different reasons. For example, let’s say that the party has captured an enemy and that everyone agrees the enemy is a person. Everyone might be in favor of bringing the enemy to local law enforcement. One character might want to do this because there may be a reward for doing so (self-interest). Another might want to do this because it is the proper thing to do according to the law (legal). Another might want to do it because the enemy has a right to a fair trial. The last party member might agree simply they feel that it is expected of them (conformity).
However, you might have disagreement just as easily. One character might be in favor of ransoming the enemy back to his companions (self-interest). Another may be in favor of killing them on the spot because nobody will be able to punish them (reactionary). A third may be in favor of killing them because of a complex argument, e.g., that it is too far to the local law enforcement location and that there is not enough time to bring them to justice and still accomplish other, more important goals (rationality).
What is important here is how the characters are making their decisions, not what the ultimate decision might be. The world is too complex for us to define how you should act in every circumstance. Instead, you should define what method your character uses to approach these issues.
Types Reactionary Self-Interest Conformity Legal Rights Rationality
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