Cheat Sheets for Relationships in the Dramatica Table of Story Elements

[actingpower]

Here are my cheat sheets to help you calculate the Benchmark or Unique Ability in case you’re out and about and don’t have the program handy. Benchmark Keys.pdf (8.0 KB) Unique Ability Critical Flaw Keys.pdf (8.0 KB) If you need, I can explain them, since they’re pretty confusing.

First, the Benchmark Key. To figure out the Benchmarks, we need to know the following things: the Resolve, the Problem-Solving Style, the Driver, the Outcome, the Judgment, and the Overall Concern. My key uses the Situation Concerns, so we’ll do the same. Let’s say my story has a Changing Concern and is Change, Intuitive, Action, Success, Good. If we look at the chart, we get… Changing. Well, the Benchmark can’t be the same as the Concern, so we go to the little table beneath it. The table says that if you get the same thing as the Concern, it can be either the Companion or the Complement. The Companion must be Intuitive, and the Complement must be Logical. My story is Intuitive, so the Benchmark is the Companion of Changing, or Past. Ta-da! This works the same for every Domain, so if you had a Concern of Doing, then the Benchmark would be Understanding.

The Unique Ability one works the same way. I used the Past Issues, but let’s do it with the Becoming ones instead. To determine the Overall Catalyst, we need to know the Growth, the Problem-Solving Style again, the Overall Issue, and either the Outcome or the Judgment, depending on the Problem-Solving Style. Suppose we have an Overall Issue of Responsibility (bottom-left), and the story is Start, Logical, Success, and Bad. Since the PSS is Logical, we need to look at the column marked Left. We go to the table and find that the result is Prediction. That corresponds to Commitment in the Becoming block. It’s hard but not impossible to have the same Catalyst or Unique Ability as the Issue, but luckily, that isn’t the case here.

Now that we have that, we can figure out the Inhibitor. The only thing we need now is the Resolve. Let’s say my story is Steadfast. When the story is Steadfast, the Inhibitor is the Companion Variation in the same Type in the Companion Domain. I know that’s kind of confusing, so I’ve simplified with the charts below. With those charts, simply find the Companion Variation to the one you’ve selected. Commitment is in the third chart, and it is companion to Closure. That means Closure is our Inhibitor. If we had chosen Change, then you would pick the Dynamic Pair (Morality for Commitment).

Once you’ve found the Benchmark or Unique Ability/Catalyst for one Throughline, the other ones are exactly the same. So if Commitment is my Overall Catalyst, then my Main Character UA is Delay, my Impact Character UA is Hope, and the Relationship Catalyst is Self-Interest. For the Steadfast version, all of the Throughlines do those same movements (so the Inhibitors/Critical Flaws are Closure, Attitude, Rationalization, and Openness, respectively.) If the Benchmark for the Changing Throughline is Past, then the Doing Throughline’s is Understanding, the Being Throughline’s is Planning, and the Impulsive Response Throughline’s is Memories.

I promise, it’s way easier than it may seem!

[Jerome]

Wow. That’s VERY impressive and I salute you for being able to understand / figure that out, but again way too brainiac for me. I should point out I was the school dunce who got the lowest score on pretty much everything, except detentions, I aced that sucker real good.

[actingpower]

All it took was a lot of work on the Dramatica program parsing everything out, seeing what collapsed the choices and what didn’t. Unfortunately, the system by which the program decides the order of the Acts is way too complex for me to figure out. It’s a nightmare.

[keypayton]

Dear @actingpower, I do believe your two PDF charts could be of great value to Dramatica users!

But could you please explain more clearly how to use your two PDFs?

I printed them both out, then read your instructions, but quickly realized I couldn’t figure out how your brain was darting about the page to pick up information and form conclusions.

Could you possibly number the different big blocks (e.g., the seven separate “tables” on the “Benchmark Keys” chart)? Then maybe go in and number (perhaps even sub-number?) your instruction steps as your logic flow moves from one table or column to the next?

I think we all (I know I) would benefit from you “unpacking” your usage assumptions a bit more.

And I certainly would greatly appreciate more keys to unlock the “secrets” you have in these two charts, and thanks in advance!

[jassnip]

Me three. Reading raptly. I too 2nd Key’s request for “a little more explanation.”

[actingpower]

All right, I’ll see if I can explain more clearly. The Benchmark one is more difficult than the Unique Ability one, so let’s start with that.

Table 1: This is the most important table. Simply determine your Resolve, Driver, Outcome, and Judgment, and you will get one of the four Types. However, this Type is not the Type of your Benchmark. Let’s call it the Result instead. So for example, if I am in the Fixed Attitude Domain and I’ve chosen Steadfast, Actions, Success, Good, then my Result is Innermost Desires. (In the Situation Domain, it would be Future.)

Table 2: Compare the Result with your Concern. If your Result is the same as your Concern, you use the first row. Otherwise, the relationship between the Result and your Concern should be one of the other three. Your options for the Benchmark depend on this relationship. So for example, if your Concern is Memories and your Result is Innermost Desires, then your two options for Benchmark are the Complement (Desires) or the Dynamic (Contemplations).

Table 3: All this does is tell you that the Complement must always have Logical as the Problem-Solving Style, and the Companion must always have Intuitive. For my previous example, choosing Logical as my Problem-Solving Style will give me a Benchmark of Innermost Desires. Choosing Intuitive, however, will lock me out of Innermost Desires, forcing me to choose Contemplations instead.

Tables 4-7: These are four separate tables based on your Overall Concern. Basically, I’ve taken the hard work out of the past three tables. The part that’s probably most confusing is the C/A//S/D thing. What that means is, if you choose Change and Action, you look at the same set of results as if you’d chosen Steadfast and Decision. Let’s look at the previous example again using these sets of tables. My Overall Concern was Memories, so we look at the table marked “Past” in the top-left corner. I said my story was Steadfast/Actions, so we want to look at the right-hand side marked “C/D//S/A.” (The S/A meaning “Steadfast/Action.”) I chose Success and Good, which leaves me with the two cells in the top-right corner. If you choose Logical, you get Innermost Desires, while if you choose Intuitive, you get Contemplations. Just like I said in the previous example.

When I come back, I’ll do the Unique Ability table.

[actingpower]

All right, so Unique Ability table walkthrough time!

Table 1: Again, most important table. Choose your Growth, Problem-Solving Style, Outcome/Judgment, and Issue, and you’ll go straight to the cell you need. If you choose Logical for your Problem-Solving Style, then you care about the Judgment and whether or not the Issue is to the left or the right. If you choose Intuitive, then you care about the Outcome and whether or not the Issue is on the top or bottom. So if I choose Stop, Intuitive, Failure, and Experience (bottom-left), then my Unique Ability is also Experience.

Tables 2-5: Here’s what I did to construct these tables. When Fate is the Unique Ability and the Resolve is Steadfast, the Critical Flaw is Senses. These two are placed onto the table as a Companion Pair. When the Resolve is Change, the Critical Flaw is Falsehood. Falsehood is placed onto the table so that it makes a Dynamic Pair with Fate. If Falsehood is the Unique Ability and the Resolve is Steadfast, the Critical Flaw is Circumstances. This is placed as a Companion Pair to Falsehood. Incidentally, this also puts it in a Dynamic Pair with Senses, meaning that when one of them is the Unique Ability and the Resolve is Change, the other one will be the Critical Flaw. Okay, so that one was one set. I did the exact same thing for the other 15 sets that interrelate like this and formed them into a giant grid like the Dramatica Table of Elements. That grid, however, was too big, so I broke it up into the four groups of Past, Changing, Future, and Present. The first table has all of the Variations for the top-left Concerns (Past, Understanding, Planning, Memories), the second the top-right Concerns, the third the bottom-left Concerns, and the fourth the bottom-right Concerns. So for my example, my Unique Ability is Experience, which is in Doing, a top-right Concern. I go to the second table and find Experience. If my Resolve is Change, the Critical Flaw would be the Dynamic Pair: Ability. If my Resolve is Steadfast, then the Critical Flaw is the Companion Pair: Fantasy.

Tables 6 & 7: These are just some examples to help you understand how to read the table. C. Pairs means Change Pairs, so Fate is paired with Falsehood, Instinct is paired with Sense of Self, and so on. S. Pairs means Steadfast Pairs, so Fate is paired with Senses, Instinct with Prediction, and so on.

One of the neat things about Tables 2-5 is that wherever your Unique Ability and Critical Flaw are for one Throughline, they’ll be in a similar location for the other three. So for my Experience/Fantasy example, the other three throughlines will be Desire/Worth, Worry/Thought, and Threat/Enlightenment.