🗂️ Designer Diary #23 – Make Them Blink First

Provocative Behavior and the Reverse Surveillance System

Provocative Behavior started as a simple tactical concept. Nearly 14 hours later, it became a fully developed narrative device — with 23 distinct outcomes, scalable effects, and permanent impact across the Covert Ops ecosystem.

It’s now 10:11 PM, and the system breathes on its own.

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✅ Narrative Table – Current Status

The action 🟨 Manipulative – Provocative Behavior now includes 23 fully structured results, categorized by symbol type (Advantages, Triumphs, Threats, Despairs), each with:

• A distinct name

• Narrative aligned with the world setting

• Specific, balanced mechanical effect

✔️ Positive rules (completed):
• 1, 2, 3 Advantages
• 1 Triumph
• (2 Triumphs still under refinement)

✔️ Negative rules (completed):
• 1, 2, 3 Threats
• 1 Despair
• 2 Despairs

🟦 Testing Phase Ongoing: the first DROP is forming — internal playtests are already surfacing adjustment points and feedback loops.

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⚙️ Next Steps

Modifiers & Tactical Pressure System

• Create initial circumstantial modifiers (Boost/Setback)

• Implement difficulty upgrade/downgrade conditions

• Formalize an operational context panel to reflect local resistance pressure

Early examples:

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CopyEdit

+3 Extra Agents involved → +⬛ (Setback) Team fragmentation or isolation → +🟦 (Boost) Local Surveillance Profile (Cameras, Droids, Civilian Density) → triggers upgrade/downgrade

These will feed into a broader Pressure & Maneuver Margin System, integrating ambient tension into the covert narrative loop.

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📚 Suggested Reading

If you haven’t yet read the core piece that grounds this system, start here:

This article introduces the conceptual structure of narrative surveillance, operational disjunction, and how characters like Nellis Var use behavioral manipulation to test and exploit system latency.

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🎓 Academic Life vs. Tactical Design

While all this was in motion, I received four academic texts to read by tomorrow — assigned today:

Tuesday night, I’m running a session with Diogo Nogueira (Old Skull).

Tuesday Night 🎲 — Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells Playtest (little parentesis)

Tuesday night, I’m running a session with Diogo Nogueira (Old Skull) —
Here’s a shot from our last table, playtesting his game Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells:

This group brought the chaos, the laughter, and the sword-swinging weirdness. Always a joy.

📣 Follow Diogo:

His work blends classic sword & sorcery aesthetics with modern narrative sensibilities — and deserves every spotlight it gets.

Wednesday? Seminar presentation.

And the legal work?
It’s piling up like cargo containers at a port strike.

“Today I woke up at 8 AM, worked straight through until 1:17 PM — and got half a spreadsheet done.”

But now, at 10:27 PM, the picture is different. The entire subsystem is alive. And it was worth every minute.

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📍 Closing Thoughts

Provocative Behavior isn’t just a mechanical option.
It’s a narrative radar. A living scanner of institutional response.
A rehearsal of rupture — subtle, embedded, and precise.

Designing it with this level of coherence took a full day — but this work is foundational.

Dramatic actions light up the scene.
Foundational ones shape the world.

🙏Special Thanks for my players🙏:

This subsystem wouldn’t exist without the living energy of the table.
Thank you for your patience — and for bringing these characters to life during a week where game design consumed every waking hour.

• Marshall Jaseb — played by Thomas Chadwick
  

  Marshall Jaseb Chevalier [Player]

• ThePhantomMenaceWasAlwaysGood — currently concepting his character

• and Bel Dren — played by Carol Pavese

  Bel Drenn — ISB Specialist 🟥🟨🟨[Player]

Your presence at the table makes every mechanic worth refining.

The delay was real — but so was the design depth it required. Thank you for holding the line.