Authority as story mechanic

I’ve been thinking about how “authority” could be used as a mechanic for a role-playing game but also as a way to understand narrative in general. How do you define a conflict between two players? Maybe we can see it as a struggle for one player to increase their authority, or decrease someone else’s authority.

• A thief is trying to steal an object.
• The warden is trying to catch the thief in the act so he can blackmail him.
• A woman is working as a scullery maid in the count’s estate and wants to win his heart.
• The count is trying to increase the influence of his estate (and marrying a scullery maid will cause him to lose authority.)

This might explain why romance stories need to have pain and consequences. An easy romance doesn’t really prove how much each person has ceded authority to the other.

ChatGPT suggested there might be three main types of authority.

1. Relational Authority – Who has influence over whom?

• Love stories, parent/child arcs, teacher/student
• “I want you to see me, trust me, submit to me, or love me.”
• Gain: Emotional leverage, loyalty, social power
• Loss: Betrayal, rejection, domination

2. Material Authority – Who has access to what resources?

• Heists, wars, class struggles, succession crises
• “I want the throne, the sword, the spellbook, the deed.”
• Gain: Weapons, wealth, institutional control
• Loss: Dispossession, exile, imprisonment

3. Ontological Authority – Who gets to define the truth of the world?

• Coming-of-age, religious conversion, revolution stories
• “What is right? Who am I? What’s real?”
• Gain: Confidence, enlightenment, moral control
• Loss: Doubt, madness, ideological defeat

For example, at the start of Anne of Green Gables, Anne only has a bit of ontological authority–everywhere she goes she names things and creates stories around them. As the story progresses she gains relational authority with the characters. And at the end of the story she gets material authority in the form of a scholarship, which she gives up in order to take responsibility for Green Gables. We can analyze the story as the main character’s struggle to gain more and more authority over the world around her.