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They asked what would've happened if they hadn't trusted her, so I read the results on the card: “It slinks off and you follow it to its hoard of stolen goods. You gain 1 gold piece.”
They responded, "We made the right decision. She needs it more than we do."
I said, “It’s a board game. She doesn’t need anything.”
But they insisted, “We don’t have enough to buy an item before the end, so we might as well give it to someone who needs it.”
“She doesn’t need it. She has a stash of stolen goods.”
“But we don’t either, so why not help someone else?”
It was an argument I didn’t want to win.
We talked about it this morning as they got ready for school.
12-y-o: She needed it. I’m glad we did that.
Me: She had a stash. She didn’t need it.
12-y-o: I wish I’d given her 2 gold.
Needs motivate every action. When designing a villain or considering the role of a monster in its space, it has needs. Even a mindless automaton is motivated by the needs of its controller, and hunger is a common need (consider Maslow’s hierarchy, regardless whether you agree with the order). And while a creature’s needs motivate it (and this includes sentient ones), it may not know why. Instinctive actions don’t require introspection, and even humans (myself included) often need therapy to recognize the needs behind our actions.
But just because an action is motivated by a perceived need (which is not always an actual need), motivation doesn't justify harm. And sometimes, the perceived need, like Sally's, is rooted in fear of losing what one already has.
When they arrived at the BBEG*, a fire giant who was bringing up magma to forge a sword to fight against dragons, the 12-y-o said, “Can I befriend him?”
“He’s trying to bury the surrounding area in lava and kill all the people and animals just to make a sword. Do you want to help him do that?”
“No, but maybe he just needs friends.”
“It’s a board game. There’s no mechanic for that. Choose your attack.”
They really need the flexibility of an actual TTRPG, so we’re going to use Sly Flourish’s Lightning 5e (Mike gave me permission to share it with you, but note that it's still 🚧 Under Construction 🚧) next time.
In so many social structures (politics, workplace, etc.), we can feel like, “This is how the game is played. Roll to attack.” But if we instead try to figure out what’s motivating the hostility, which is usually fear motivated by a perceived need, the victory might just be found in giving hope instead of returning the hostility. (But there are definitely times when diplomacy fails.
I’ll never forget a conversation I had when I was in college with an older adult who said, “You’re young and idealistic. When you get older, you’ll get jaded.”
Maybe I’ve read too many comics or played too much D&D (Is that a thing?), but I’ve never stopped believing that we can make the world better a little at a time. My kids reinforce that hope, and I hope their compassion can help us all act with heroic hope.
*BBEG: Big Bad Evil Guy |
