GM note re: signifiers

[yhlee]

POLICY CHANGE, effective immediately: If you need an additional signifier for game purposes, please run them by me first. Otherwise please stick to the ones that are already in use (list here).

In general, signifiers are stable/global indications of gestalt personality. They shouldn't usually be changing mid-scene unless the character is in crisis; they're not mood rings, they're closer to your Myers-Brigg type. Variable signifiers are a partial exception and even then, characters should be cycling between a small number of known signifiers.

EDIT: A signifier equivalence chart used to be on the page with the list, incorporating signifiers invented by people from outside the game without my knowledge or approval. I have deleted the list; please don't add it back. Only signifiers invented by players and approved for play should be considered eligible for use.

Comments

[sageling]

To clarify, since there's only one Vidona signifier left on the page and it's not really applicable to Hana: should I create a signifier for her now? Would this be the place to do it?

[yhlee]

Yes, please do it here.

Sorry my availability has been spotty; I’ve been sick and thinking is hard.

[sageling]

No worries! Hope you're on the mend soon.

My initial idea for Hana is that her signifier changed after the Mwennin genocide (and her subsequent capture/torture) and that her current signifier represents a sort of 'fail-state' for the faction. Stingray in Shallows: here the stingray has been forced away from its hunting and brooding grounds and struggles to survive in an unfriendly environment. This signifier represents someone who tends to react from past struggles instead of thinking things through first.

If this doesn't work, then her original signifier as a teacher and protector of youngins was something like Stingray Tending Young.

[yhlee]

Both of those work for me (as past and present signifiers). We'll get them added to the wiki sometime soon.