Modular Gaming Component 2 - The Switch

 If the clock is a visible meter of tension rising, a switch is a less visible indicator.

A switch works off a binary of yes or no... is something happening, is it not happening. There's no gradually turning up of the heat and then watching things flip from one state to the other, instead it's a single roll, a single randomising factor. The switch might activate after a single roll, or it might not activate after a dozen rolls. 

(Ten years ago it was easier to do a search for roleplaying games that incorporated switches, now a quick search tends to give me console RPGs on the Nintendo Switch)  

I basically first ran the idea of a switch without realizing it back in high school. The premise was a mysterious carnival, with a mysterious vendor who may or may not have been the devil. It was a game of Rifts, so over-the-top shenanigans was a typical part of play. Rune swords had just been introduced in one of the most recent sourcebooks at the time, and I thought they'd be cool to possibly add into the game. One of my regular players had a character he'd been playing for years in various campaigns, he really liked that character so I figured it would be a fun risk for the player, and a critical risk for the character. So I went with a fifty-fifty chance, flip of a coin. If the character won he'd get a rune sword, capable of dealing massive damage and granting other magical benefits. If the character lost, he'd be whisked away to a nether-world prison to be a servitor to the mysterious vendor for the rest of eternity. I remember the player agonising for days over the decision of whether or not to flip that coin. If the character got the weapon, it wouldn't be a game changer, but it would have given them quite an advantage in the world and the they would have gained notoriety, status, and a fun anecdote to tell. If the character didn't get the weapon, their story would be instantly ended. So we're not talking apocalyptic stakes for the world, but certainly massive personal stakes. 

The player eventually came to me, and we flipped the coin. The character failed, and the character sheet was passed to me, to be put in a folder of deceased characters never to be seen again. The running joke for the past thirty years has been that the character is doing "menial chores for Satan". So the active protagonism of the character was brought to an instant conclusion, but his tale reached epic proportions and has been mentioned in a number of games since then.

This version of the switch was a one-and-done affair. There was nothing in the game rules to say that this sort of thing could be done, but it was an instant explosion of dramatic consequence.

There are just as easily other versions of the switch, and it can be modified in different ways. The outcome is always binary..."does dramatic event X happen?/does it not happen?"... but there could be ways of modifying the chances of it happening, or changing the stakes if it does happen.

In the example I provided, maybe the merchant would have allowed the player to acquire a less potent weapon in exchange for their soul, but allow the player higher odds of success. Or allow them a less potent weapon in exchange for a less notable sacrifice in the case of a failure.

The switch basically works best when thinking about it like a lever.

The distance from the fulcrum is the chance of it happening... the size of the force is the equivalent narrative impact of that result if it happens.

• If the positive impact of a success is equivalent to the negative impact of a failure then, all things being even, the chances should roughly be equal that either of them will occur. (There's a 50/50 chance of gaining a follower or losing a follower)
• If the potential positive impact is roughly twice as powerful as the potential negative impact, there should be roughly twice as much chance that the negative impact will occur. (Roll a die: on a 1-4 the town is destroyed, on a 5-6 the town receives riches that make it a thriving city for generations, it triples in size).

Make it generally proportional from a narrative sense. If the positive effect is that one character ascends to godhood, while the negative effect is that everyone in the party dies... which is more significant to the story. Will is cause tensions within the group... can you keep playing after the switch has been flipped. 

Like the diminished potency of running multiple clocks at the same time, switches lose their impact if they come up too often. The first time an apocalypse is threatened, it's dramatic...the seventh time n apocalypse is threatened, it starts turning into a farce.

I'd stick with no more than one switch in a standalone game, and maybe a switch every two or three games in a campaign. You don't really know how it's going to play out, but the pivot point after the switch should always be dramatic.